My Cardboard Balcony

Okay. Let me give you the rundown: I am six chapters into my newest novel/novella/whatever length it turns out to be, and it's been quite a process thus far. Now, you may think writing six chapters in a matter of a week is impressive, but please remember that I cranked out The Sequined Door in eight days, and the chapters in that story averaged about ten to twenty pages each. So far, this new book's chapters are very short (five to six pages maximum currently), so really, I've only written about seven thousand words so far, so about 1,160 words per chapter. Which is a small amount of work from me since, let's face it, I'm a very prolific writer. Remember-that-prolific-does-not-equal-high-quality! Ahem. Moving on. Why is this new project perhaps harder to take on than The Sequined Door,  which record I don't think I'll ever be able to replicate; and [Insert Self-Discovery Here], which took exactly a month to write and was significantly shorter than The

Morning Shadows by Belinda Roddie Five thirty in the morning, and my eyes are open. Time for you to put on your face for the day, draw the stiff, starched collar around your throat. Time to brush your teeth until your gums bleed, dip your fingers into the sink’s still waters and wipe the shadows from your eyes. You’re getting older, dear. The wrinkles say so, and you don’t hide your traumas well. A mask wouldn’t suit you any better. Smooth out the creases. Let there be the illusion that each day, you are reborn. Six thirty in the morning, and my eyes shut tight. The work you see here was written in the fall of 2009. It was last edited in December of the same year.

She refused to take the plaster mask off, for fear that her husband would realize that she was not beautiful. She denied every request to strip away the cover, blocking her husband’s curious fingers with flailing hands, shaking her head wildly from side to side but the string holding firm against the back of her temples. Even when she slept, he could not take it off. It was as if, after all these years, the disguise had become a second layer of skin.