Scratch Contest

I totally just submitted 'The Mortgage' to www.scratchcontest.net. I think I might have done it wrong, though, because they were really unclear about the submission dates and their different contests...So I either applied for the monthly one...or the quarterly one...We'll see...I paid $10 for the entry, so whichever entry is worth ten bucks, that's the contest I applied to. Here's a short excerpt from 'The Mortgage':

The intoxication is as heavy as the flowers sitting in our kitchen and as the air outside. That’s what it’s like. You pour yourself another glass of wine and I watch you, waiting for you to return to my side. This is what it’s like. This is what it’s always been like, Ellen. You know that.

Submission!

Well, I offically submitted to another contest, and I just did that...good thing I did, considering the contest is over at midnight XD. It's through New Millenium Writings (www.writingawards.com), in case you're curious about that. I submitted my new short story--this time titled 'The Mortgage.' I would have loved to submit 'Red,' but they said short-shorts had to be a certain amount, and it's a little bit longer than that. Oh, well. Perhaps I should see what happens if I cut my short-shorts, although they already seem short enough. Anyway, I've got to finish the Appiah book, because I'm having a book discussion on The Unbearable Lightness of Being on Sunday. So. That's that.

Love to all!

The Mortgage/ The Dead Pledge

So, I've finished the short story! It was just like any other story I write, but by forcing myself to extend it to 2000 words or more (it's still pretty short, but not a short-short), I was able to have it go in directions I only thought possible if you were writing something of, say, the length of a novel. But it was an inbetween of the two, and I loved doing it. Editing is still in line and all that, but, I'm just very happy to have finished my first good real short story (in my college career, anyway--there are plenty I've written in the past). It's titled 'The Mortgage,' although it was originally titled, 'The Dead Pledge.' I'll switch back and forth between the two, but truth be told, 'The Dead Pledge' was far too hard to figure out unless you were thinking of mortgages. Maybe I'll be a jerk and title it 'The Mortgage and/or The Dead Pledge,' but I think I'd only do that for a comedic piece, which this certainly is not. Here's a tiny bit from the beginning:

It all begins around the time my cup’s half empty. It must be a trick of the midday light, but I swear on this house I’m sitting in, that I see those slender legs, ankles crossed, sitting at the window. Your hair changes color every week, and today it’s some sort of auburn, with little wisps of blonde in the front. A couple strands hit your smile. Oh, good, you’re smiling today. It lights up your entire face, did you know that? You look down and nod slowly—of course you know, I’ve told you a thousand times before. When you look up, you aren’t smiling.

I'm starting up a new short story today. Two goals: (1) make it good and (2) make it long enough to be an actual short story, as opposed to a short-short (which is what all my short stories are right now).

Sneak Peek: Wiki says, 'The term [mortgage] comes from the Old French, dead pledge.'