My Cardboard Balcony

Welp, Thanksgiving has come and gone. I've eaten my fair share of turkey and pie, drunk too much cider for my own good, helped sell a plethora of books despite some rookie mistakes, and spent lots of quality time with family, friends, and mo chuisle . I have discovered, as an adult, that it is far, far too easy to cling to the negative aspects of life because they are so blatant and intrusive in your day to day routine. For instance, I still need more hours at my current job. My budget is still very small, which means money is tight. I'm not exactly doing much to lose weight and become healthier. I don't have a huge circle of friends. I miss the people I adore in Southern California. I don't know how I'm going to manage getting into a teaching credential program, timewise or moneywise. I'm uninspired in a lot of my writing lately, especially music-wise. And of course, my anxiety does wonders for making me worry about the most insignificant, or most unproductiv...

"Caramel Kisses" is an unfinished novel I began to write back in 2009 and stopped working on in 2010. The two main characters - Adriana Maguire Reynard and Emma Burking - would ultimately be revised for my later completed novella, "The Liffey Is Half-Asleep," in 2011. Several elements of "Liffey" can be found in their original forms in "Caramel Kisses," such as the characters' names, the haiku scene, and Adriana's penchant for writing.  Because of its influence on my later writing, I figured that this story, though incomplete, was worth sharing. Caramel Kisses: Chapter Two by Belinda Roddie With most of my attempts to get into some sort of anthology, I was advised to add a little blurb about myself, whether in the form of a list or a paragraph with a maximum amount of words, which was in itself rather ironic considering writers were normally not expected to keep things mathematical or their thoughts to a sharp and finite point. Howe...

Across the entire school hallway was a plethora of stencil portraits, and it wasn't until I reached the last dozen or so of them that I stopped and perused them, ignoring the consequences of being late to my very stressful physics class. The last of the drawings, tucked into the tightest bottom corner of the cork board, was hardly a face at all from close up. But if I took a step or two away, the lines and swirls became a smile that I could never compare to anyone else's liveliness.