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.

A Hot Mess by Belinda Roddie A hot mess of a wedding had taken place at the country club, where the bride and groom had their clothing stained with cake frosting but busted moves that made even the stiff uncle feel sexy just to witness it. Enough champagne to fill the Panama Canal was drunk, and "open bar" became "always bar," as the father of the bride belched out a speech and made out with his wife. Any good Christian family would shriek and stare in horror at the whole display, but any fragments of the night that were remembered were happy and crazy shards of the ceremony that rocked so hard.

There was nothing on the paper was a red, splotchy dot, which reminded Helen of the Black Spot from Treasure Island only it was the wrong color. She thought perhaps there would be hidden ink, but no amount of vinegar or lemon juice could reveal a secret message. So she simply placed the paper in the recycling and went on her way. That was, of course, before the dot got bigger and looked like a stain, and the recycling bin grew very, very hot to the touch.

Half-Eaten by Belinda Roddie Two pocket watches with one-sided faces, gooey globs of undigested surrealist art on a sun-scorched canvas, and everything steaming all around the room as runny green leaks from the walls and the lamps turn to metallic molten stubs.

"Why are these papers stapled together?" "Memo, sir. Every underwriter's supposed to get it." "No, but why are they stapled together." "Sir, I just said - " "No, I mean like this ." Alan stared as his boss threw the papers at him, realizing only now that they were stapled together, but with the insides facing each other. Meaning you had to rip the papers apart to read anything.