My Cardboard Balcony

Up In The Sky by Belinda Roddie I stole Wonder Woman's lasso so I could make you tell the truth for once in your goddamn life. You spilled out your guts like confetti on the carpet, and the stain is never coming out. But the tales you told, oh, Lord, I'm saving them in my back pocket in case you wrong me again. Tell me, how did you manage two other wives without breaking a sweat? You're no Superman, that much is obvious. Now the discomfort's turning your face a whole different color. I always questioned if I needed a hero, but I guess you're the joker here, and I'm sure as Hell the fool. That's no bird or plane up in the sky. No, those are the floating hearts you broke with your half-assed lies. You collected them like comic books. They were vintage, but now they're worth less than the "I love you" you snuck past me. I'd like to turn the page on this little saga, please. I'll buy my own Batmobile and take off a...

The movie was less suspenseful than the date was. I simply could not figure out if she was into me or not. One minute, she was squeezing my hand for dear life; the next, she kept her body closed off, scrunched off in the theater chair, eating the last of her popcorn. It wasn't until the film ended and we were walking to her car that I got a peck on the cheek.

I listened to the man's words and felt my own blood freeze in my veins, as if I had been forced inside a massive ice cooler and left to die in an artificial mini-ice age. I hoped, quietly, that his message was one of satire, not of a true agenda. That he did not take his own expressed beliefs seriously. But were it a parody, in all honesty, I don't think it would have been any less frightening.

Hi, guys, So, this year's attempt at a NaNoWriMo was a complete and abysmal failure. This may sound harsh, but it's the truth. I was unable to write anything during most of November. Zero words. Zip. Nada. "But Belinda!" you may cry in my imagination. "You still have four days! Just write about 13,000 words a day!" No dice, champ. I simply cannot do it. I do not have the stamina or mental confidence to do so. Not this time. I'm not saying I don't have ideas. Oh, no, I have plenty of those. All floating in my brain, taking up cargo space, chatting wildly among themselves and making a ruckus. I have ideas. I simply do not have the energy to put them on paper. They're simply blobs of scenes and premises and characters with no real structure to draw from. They just can't make a novel/ So, that's that. I could've spent time working on Storytellers. Instead, I floundered aimlessly trying to write a novel that just wasn't in me. ...

The constellation room, as I entered it, practically lit up as soon as my shoes hit the carpet. It was beyond a miraculous spectacle. As I was escorted to a chair, I felt as if I were bathing in the vacuum of space itself. The temperature in the room was fitting as well: Chilly, lending itself to an aura of mystery and wonder as you stared up at the simulation of an ever expanding galaxy.

Tonight, more than any other time since I first saw the results of the presidential election, I seriously considered leaving the United States. I contemplated going somewhere else - anywhere else. Maybe it'd be an adventure. Maybe it'd involve backpacking. Absolutely, it would include storytelling. But with just an Irish song in my head and a pain in my gut dictating my brain at that moment, I was more than half-tempted to call up a friend, tell him to pack his bags, and have him join me and my wife (were I able to convince her to accompany me) on the next flight out. I talked about how I felt with my wife when she came home from a performance. It was an emotional conversation: We both agreed that we fight a mental tug-of-war between being adventurous and being homebodies, and we both want a place to return to after traveling. My wife does not like traveling for prolonged periods of time, but I could feel my throat tighten when she told me that if I felt like I had to go some...

Beyond Limits by Belinda Roddie If I left this world, would you come with me?