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Tag: Valentine’s Day

Short Story on the Run: Thoughts on Beauteous Intentions

Published by Jessica on October 16, 2015

Short stories have always been my bane. With my mind leaning toward epic fantasies and tales that span the years, the shorter forms often elude me. Which is part of the reason I pursue them.

But here’s a surprising reality: the short stories can be just as shocking and have as many twists for the writer as novels.

The WattVampires announced their competition at the start of October. Competitors needed to write a short story between 1000 and 5000 words. It had to involve vampires, candy, and Halloween. Pretty open ended?

Well, I had just recently had a bit of a story dream that I decided to base this story on. Initially, I thought it would have to be a novel to adequately deal with one of the themes: living ethically and fully even at great cost and how far should one go with that cost and is it ever too much? And can it be dangerous?

The shorter length forced me to condense it. I decided to have three sections, each one focusing on the last couple hours of a Halloween night. What surprised me was how the most crucial scenes came into focus. And I finished the rough draft with 612 words to spare.

After a short break, I then edited it, polished it, summarized it, and shipped it off. A complete short story within eight hours more or less. Beauteous Intent is off to the contest!

This story will take place in a world where I’ve been developing a number of short stories. Don’t have an official name for it yet. But I’ll come up with something.

I can’t stop laughing though because Beauteous Intent is not at all what I intended. It was supposed to be spooky, chilling, much darker. But Aestan turned out to be a far more passive and gentle character than I expected and that changed everything. Despite the danger underlying his and Summer’s relationship, there was an idealism and romance that insisted on pressing through.

During the writing process, I did feel cold though. Sometimes I just don’t write with a lot of feeling, and I know that that shows through. It becomes far too intellectual (what a shock coming from the lawyer). I know what I want to feel just as I know what I should feel. And though I put myself in the character’s shoes and imagine myself in his position, there are times when it still doesn’t hold up.

However, instead of stepping away from this story and digging in later (after the deadline passed), I pushed through. And it represents one of the core questions I find myself mulling over more and more while always addressing the perpetual question of balance and too much.

I won’t win with this story (and that’s not a problem). Even though it meets the guidelines, I’m all but certain this isn’t what the judges are looking for. After all, who reads vampire stories for a story on ethical living, sacrifice, hard choices, and bad decisions? Not many. It’s more of the romantic sort of story that fits a darker Valentine theme, and it’s lacking the sensuality of most vampire romances. The other stories in this competition are spectacular and precisely what I imagine the judges are looking for without being cliché.

But there is one thing I remind myself of: let each story be what it is. There are so many stories to write. Struggling to force one story into something it is not will often just weaken it.

While I started off writing The Celebrity in the hopes of writing a story my mother could enjoy, Beauteous Intent turned out to be the better option for her. It’s funny that at a time when I feel in the most turmoil and the most frustrated something so sweet (and dangerous) would come out. But ah, such is writing. Such is storytelling.

 

Cheesecake Baking Day

Published by Jessica on February 5, 2015

Really, I should be taking pictures of all this. After all, pictures make stories more interesting, and there’s been some funny situations today. It’s time like this when I am most grateful James and I run our own law firm. It allows me to stay in our home office and handle the paperwork, phone calls, legal writing, and so forth as well as the copywriting business, the tutoring, and fiction writing. But more importantly, it lets me make cheesecakes for the WCCC Valentine’s Day Dinner.

Last year, I made 16 cheesecakes for the event (a few more when you add in the ones that didn’t make it). We’re doing the same four flavors (white chocolate, chocolate truffle, salted caramel, and Lindy) this year, and I’ve got a few more cheesecakes to make because we’ve added a third seating. (And if you’re in the area, sign up! It’s going to be an amazing night. Tiffany is making lasagna, and I’m making cheesecake. Both are from scratch.) This year I’m making at least 20 cheesecakes, maybe 24 if there’s enough ingredients. When the Valentine’s Day dinner weekend completes, we sell the cheesecakes off by the slice.

The wonderful thing though is that I have not had one cheesecake turn out badly this round through. Last year, about five cheesecakes were ruined. Two just didn’t turn out right. One was disfigured, and so we shared it with the youth staff as a sample. And two others turned out to be kitty snacks as all four cats broke into the back porch and chowed down on salted caramel and Lindy cheesecakes. Obviously, I was not a happy pet owner.

But this year the back porch is more secure. The temperature and the atmosphere are perfect for creamy cheesecakes. Plus using the name brand ingredients actually makes a difference. I have always used generic cream cheese because that’s what was most affordable. But this time we went to Sam’s Club to pick up our ingredients. They only sold Philadelphia cream cheese in bulk, and the bulk per pound price was significantly cheaper than the generic brand. I can’t remember how much exactly, but it was at least 40 cents cheaper a pack. Now, of course, I have to measure out and cut off how much cream cheese I need. It isn’t quite as convenient as the ready sealed packets. But it’s worth it for the savings. And oh! The batter is so much smoother. The cheesecakes set up better, and I taste the difference. I did a blind sample with James, and he was able to tell the difference as well.

I suspect that the Lindy cheesecake may have the clearest distinction in flavor because it has such a clean and crisp flavor to begin with. There’s no white chocolate. No caramel. No milk chocolate. No dark chocolate. Just cream cheese, sugar, and some lemon juice. Now, for clarification’s sake, it’s not that cheesecakes made with the generic cream cheese aren’t tasty. But I do think that the name brand has the edge.

So today has been good. Four cheesecakes are done. A fifth is in the oven. I also came up with a solution for the extra batter in the bowl. I learned the hard way that mixing two batter sets really doesn’t blend as well. Flavors work just fine, but it creates a gumpier batter. And for a nice romantic dinner, we want to avoid that look. But I can’t bring myself to waste it. So what I decided to do was make mini cheesecakes in muffin tins. I made about a dozen from the leftovers from today alone. They aren’t as pretty as the full cheesecakes, and I need to tweak the baking time. They’re more of a pain to make too, but it’s worth it to avoid wasting the delicious batter.

I’m debating staying up later tonight to finish off a few more cheesecakes. The weather changes again tomorrow, and I have no idea how well it’s going to work tomorrow. Still…I’ll need to sleep sometime. As far as writing going, I haven’t gotten as much done today as I would like. I’m still working on the tax paperwork, invoicing, and a couple legal briefs. Fortunately, there was no copywriting today and only one essay to grade. As far as the fiction writing, I’m wrapping up another chapter for Ragnarok Undone. I also finished putting together some more sections for Little Scapegoat. Slain Expectations got a little more. So it’s a bit shy from what I would like, coming in just over 6,000 new words for my fiction platform projects. And I probably should clean the kitchen again before I go to bed. If only sleep wasn’t necessary.