Playing Adult Games by Betsy Ashton

Do you remember the cheesy games we used to have to play? Those ice breakers at camp, corporate retreats, training sessions? Those adult questions that were little more than "what I did on my summer vacation" but which were meant to share something most people wouldn't know about you? Well, I have a secret most of you don't know.

I LOVE SNAKES.

Always have. When I was five, I drifted away from Mom at the San Diego Zoo. The gibbons were over-gibboning. I didn't like it. I wandered off. When Mom discovered I was missing, she knew where to find me. The snake house. Yup, there I was, staring at an emerald-green boa, the prettiest snake I'd ever seen.

So, when I began writing, I knew I'd have to write about snakes. I haven't found a place for them in the Mad Max series, except to explain, in Max 3, why so many doctors and nurses at a New Mexico hospital carried guns. Rattlesnakes. The serial killer didn't use deadly toxins. Couldn't have a snake suddenly slither in. When I started writing about a family living on the high desert of Southern California, the setting was ripe for a rattler.

Here's the setup. Toad is around ten or eleven; his younger brother, Cricket, is about seven. Killing a rattler is a rite of passage, one Toad had experienced but one that Cricket desperately wanted. He had to kill a snake to keep up with his brother.

“I gotta pee before I do anything else.” Cricket jumped off the platform and tripped on an untied shoelace. He landed hard. Momentarily winded, he rolled over in the sand before sitting up to check the damage he’d done to an elbow. He heard buzzing before he saw the snake.

“Toad! There’s a big rattler about six feet off the deck.”

“Don’t move.”

“I won’t.” Cricket froze, eyes on the rattler, which had coiled in warning. He didn’t blink for fear the snake would strike. Ranger ran down the three steps to the sand and barked. The snake raised its rattles, head following the dog’s movement, tongue tasting the air.

“Ranger! Sit!” Toad jumped down, machete in one hand, forked stick in the other. “Want me to kill it?”

“Uh-uh. I wanna do it.”

“Are you sure you remember what Pops said?”

“Yeah. Give me the stick.”

“I think I should do it.”

“It’s my snake. I have to kill it.”

While the boys were arguing, the snake left off sunning itself and rattled a final warning, before it uncoiled and slithered off.

“It’s getting away” Cricket shouted.

“Kill it.” Toad yelled.

Cricket pinned the snake with the fork right behind the triangular head, exactly like Pops had taught him. Toad handed him the machete. His brother swung the sharp knife and severed the head with a single chop. It flew a few feet away from the body, poison dripping from its fangs.

Ranger retreated to the safety of the platform and barked encouragement. Both boys watched the snake’s body whip back and forth before the convulsions slowed to a stop. Toad walked around Cricket and kicked the head aside.

Cricket ran toward the outhouse. “Now, I really gotta pee. Don’t you do anything with the snake. I get to cut the rattles off.” When he was back, he collected his trophy. The boys skinned the snake before burying it, head and all. They nailed the skin next to a dozen others on the back of Shorty’s run-in shed.

When the boys' parents got home a couple of hours later, Cricket crowed about what he'd done.

“Daddy, I killed my first snake today. See. I have a rattle of my own.”

“Did you really kill the snake?” Dad looked skeptical. “Are you sure Toad didn’t kill it?”

“I did it myself.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Toad said.

And so Cricket takes one step toward adulthood. Not much of a step, but movement nonetheless. BTW, I killed my first rattler when I was little older than the fictional Cricket. I kept my rattles for decades in my treasure box. One day, it vanished. I don't miss it, but if I saw another rattler, I'd have no problem dispatching it.

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Betsy Ashton is the author of the Mad Max mystery series, Unintended Consequences, Uncharted Territory, and Unsafe Haven. She also wrote a dark psychological suspense novel, Eyes Without A Face, about a female serial killer, who unpacks her life and career in first person.

Keepers of the Box by Betsy Ashton

Every family has a keeper of the box. It's often the eldest child, or the only girl, or the one interested in genealogy. The box can be literal or figurative, but there is always a box.

My husband and I are both only children. The boxes handed down to us from our mothers have no other home. My mother-in-law didn't believe in keeping what she called "old stuff," things like family documents, photos, etc. She kept a few, but not enough to reconstruct the history of his family.

My mother kept tons on documents, photos, report cards. I found information on land I didn't know the family owned, land lost to unpaid taxes. Photo albums with lots of pictures of people who have gone ahead and have not left their names behind. Legal papers. Ticket stubs. She kept so much of my childhood that I haven't taken time to unpack it.

As writers, we are all keeps of our characters' boxes. To create a complete character, we need to know ever so much more that we will ever use. We need to know what each character, main and minor, looks like. That means small details like the shape of ears, small scars and other marks. We should know what a female carries in her handbag, a man in his pockets. Where do they put their keys? Do they empty handbags or pockets every night? What is on their dressers, in their medicine cabinets? Do they floss?

You'll never use these details, because in real life they are both automatic and boring. But, if you know these things, you know your characters. And then you can throw these minutiae away and get on with the story.

At times, however, one or more of these details demands to be unpacked and imagined. When did the item, if it is literal, enter the character's life? What's its importance to the plot? Can you avoid writing about it, or will you miss an opportunity to enrich the story with just the right detail at just the right moment.

Take for example, a concert ticket stub. Did the character attend the concert alone? With a best friend? With a long-lost love? What emotions go through the character's mind when she holds that stub in her hand? How can you exploit the moment to illustrate something bigger?

Yes, families are the keepers of the box. Writers are as well, because our characters constitute our other families. What boxes do you have packed away? And how many of them have you unpacked?

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Betsy Ashton is the author of the Mad Max mystery series, Unintended Consequences, Uncharted Territory, and Unsafe Haven. She also wrote a dark psychological suspense novel, Eyes Without A Face, about a female serial killer, who unpacks her life and career in first person.

#Nurturing weeds

Pink Evening Primrose

milkweed

Daisy Fleabane

Black-Eyed Susan

Oxeye Daisy

Blue Cornflower

Loostrife or Lythrum

Flowers or weeds? I guess it is in the eye of the beholder. I admit that I let these untamable wildflowers grow in my garden despite the fact some gardeners consider them obnoxious, invasive, and undesirable weeds. 

I've been warned to dig them out by the root before they have a chance to, horror upon horror, take 'hold' and edge out more desirable specimens like roses and hydrangeas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not, of course, that there is anything wrong with roses and hydrangeas. Indeed, if you were to ask my favorite flower, I would say it is whatever is in bloom. 

 

Now, stick with me here as I go through a rather convoluted theory about how gardening can relate to writing. It came to me yesterday as I was working outside.

 

Imagine each flower as a person in your story. That each bloom is a character both unique or stereotypical. It's undeniable that plants possess their own strengths and weaknesses much as we do. Some are aggressive and try to take over the bed. Some are delicate and temperamental. Some are bold and some dainty. 

 

Others, like the hybridized rose, might create a gorgeous and showy splash of color but they've lost that original, deeply haunting, and sweet scent in the process. They put me in mind of the handsome or lovely character that is all surface charm with no inner substance.

 

Can't you see children or childish characters in the tiny daisy fleabane? Milkweed is maternal. Attracting butterflies like a magnet and essential to the Monarch's diet, milkweed is the comfortable, older woman. Sweetly pink or butter yellow Primrose is the secondary female lead. This character is usually the heroine's best friend. On the other hand, you have to see that purple lythrum is the male best friend. 

 

Or do plants radiate gender to you as they do me?

 

That's why I see the Black-eyed Susan or Oxeyed daisies as great heroines. They're plucky, fun, cute, and bright all at the same time. While the masculine blue cornflower is perfect as the hunky, strong, and brave hero.

 

Now, every grower knows they must nurture each plant to their individual needs of water and fertilizer. So must the author nourish the story. But beware. Suspenseful drum roll. No matter how well tended a garden, black-spot, spider mites, or root rot might invade at any moment. 

 

The thought makes me shiver just as much as when suspense drives the plot. 

 

Even among the flora, there are few bad flowers. Queen Anne's lace tops my list as an undesirable. I didn't realize I was allergic to the intricately woven bloom until the summer of snot. That was the year it grew along the fence line and my little sweeties lovingly brought me a stem or two each day. I, in turn, dutifully placed them in vases around the house. And sneezed my head off as my nose ran and ran and ran. 

 

It's embarrassing to say how long it took me to figure out the cause of my 'summer cold'. It goes to show that Queen Anne's lace is the epitome of a complex character. Pleasant and interesting to look at but hiding a sinister motive.

See? Everything you need for writing inspiration can be found in your garden. There are blooms that are lovely, sweet, spicy, pungent, bold, pastel, or shyly hidden among the foliage. I bet you can find an annual or perennial that uncannily resembles someone you know.

 

Nature even comes with bad guy-flowers - like Queen Anne's lace and goldenrod. These nasty little buggers sprout each spring looking like every other tiny green speck. It's how they hide out and go unnoticed as they shove their roots deep into the soil.

 

It's the same when you write. Hidden threats provide conflict and suspense. Fear and worry keeps the main characters moving along. 

 

To get back to these sinus inflaming plants that burst from the soil, a shoot of innocent green in a green sea. They are the evildoer hiding in plain sight. It isn't until the leaves uncurl or sets a bud that it becomes identifiable. Only then is the gardener able to spot and weed them out. Much as a writer grooms the plot, elaborating on a character's internal and external struggles. The main characters must recognize and accept the problem before it can be defeated.

 

And so it goes. A story line forms like a garden reveal. Characters struggle to find and keep their place in the world much as shade and sun seeking plants. They must guard against others that try to crowd or overtake them. Defend against rivals that would kill them by hogging the soil's nutrients. 

 

But, sometimes, even two vastly different plants manage to harmoniously exist side-by-side. These are the lovers coming together in an explosion of colors and complementing hues.

And this is the road my mind traveled as I dug and planted in the dirt. You might say, I spent too much time in the sun. I don't know.

Either way, I'll leave my thoughts on seeds for another time.

 

R.E.Mullins

author of paranormal romance

 

AMAZON 

THE WILD ROSE PRESS 

BARNES & NOBLE 

 

 

My latest work is a novella bridging the gap between the original Blautsaugers of Amber Heights series and my new Vampires of Amber Heights series. 

 During the Civil War, Union soldier, John Alden took a musket ball to the gut. As he gasped his final breath, he was turned into a vampire and started life anew in Amber Heights, Missouri. For over one hundred and fifty years, he's lived a rather solitary life as a vampire Enforcer.

Young single mother, Joann Clarkson, needs a job and fast. Hoping to be rehired, she returns to Dr. Michaela Blautsauger's lab prepared to eat a hefty helping of humble pie. She comes to regret that decision when she's taken hostage. Things look grim but she'll never stop fighting to escape. Her son needs his mama.
As an Enforcer, John must hunt down the vampire who kidnapped Joann. In his search, John winds up babysitting her toddler Cody. Changing diapers might be worse than getting staked, but nothing compares to how he feels when both mother and child fall into danger again.

 

The Blautsaugers of Amber Heights series. Each novel features a member of this vampire family as they deal with loving interference from family members, wacky members of the human community, danger, and their own personal hangups to find their soulmates.

Kindle Worlds novella, Vampire Girl: Back to Hell was a lot of fun to write. I hope you enjoy it.

 

Eli Grayheart, vampire demon, lesser Lord of Inferna was banished to the mortal realm. For a decade, he has been reduced to working the night shift for human employers and little pay. As he desperately seeks a way back to his homeland, he has plotted his revenge. The pink Fae, known as Keeda Weranseer is going to regret the part she played in his exile. Ever more graphic plans for revenge fuel his life, and, he swears, if it takes forever and a night he will find his way back to Hell.

 

Contact me, read a free Christmas short story, or see what I'm working on at:  remullins  

Or find me on: FACEBOOK