Category Archives: Jess Jarman

Apr3

Flash Fiction Mondays

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 Walking into Nick’s apartment I let out a little scream. “What the hell is that?”

“What? My painting?” he asked. “It’s my term project.”

“That’s your self portrait for Turner’s class?

“Yeah, what’s wrong with it?”

Nick sounded hurt, or maybe offended that I didn’t seem to love his work.

“It’s, just, a little disturbing. Especially, considering that its supposed to be a SELF portrait. Also, its a little…well…clockwork-y.”

“That’s the point, Darla.”

“I know what it makes me think of! Oh my gosh, that’s why it’s so disturbing. You’ve been watching too much Doctor Who again!”

Nick let out an offended huff. “Okay, first of all, there is no such thing as too much Doctor Who.”

“True, my apologies,” I said.

“Second, don’t know what you’re talking about.” He looked a little too innocent though. Like he was trying to pretend he didn’t know every episode of the show by heart.

“It reminds me of those creepy-ass clockwork people from that stupid episode with fireplace.”

“How dare you insult The Girl in the Fireplace!”

“Ha! I knew it! That WAS your inspiration. Some self portrait.” I turned back to look at the picture again, the gears on the face, the gold paint, the various pipes and pieces of metal. “I don’t get what its supposed to say about you, though.”

Nick looked at the picture with me for a minute, pondering. “I guess its supposed to say, ‘I’m more than just a man, I’m not merely human.'” He seemed very pleased with himself at that deduction.

“Hmmmm, all I get is creepy-ass clockwork. But I’m sure Turner will love it. A+ my friend. A+.”

| Bronwyn Green | Jess Jarman | Kris Norris | Deelylah Mullin |

Feb6

Flash Fiction Mondays

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The cape only added to the heat, the heavy velvet trapped the humidity and made it even harder to breathe. But is was part of the mystery, no one was allowed to wear “normal” clothing or bring any sort of technology to the gatherings. 

I made my way down the colonnade, hurrying so I wouldn’t miss the beginning and be locked out. I didn’t see anyone else but that didn’t necessarily mean I was the last to arrive. There were so many ways to approach the gathering place that it was almost as if the others appeared as if from nowhere.

As I got closer, I could hear voices, low and musical. Just talking at this point, so I wasn’t late. I slipped through the door and joined the first group I saw. 

“Are we starting, soon?” I asked.

“Soon,” one of the others said. “We’re just waiting for the signal.”

Just a couple of minutes later, the signal came. The lights went out and silence fell immediately. There was shuffling as everyone got into position, at this point we all knew our places and didn’t need illumination to know where to go.

The silence endured as we waited for it to begin, our whole reason for being here.

Suddenly, the quiet was broken by a loud, single beat. Then another. On the third beat, the movements began. Synchronized and swirling, we moved, forgetting about the oppressive heat. It went on for minutes, the choreographed chaos.

The music stopped and we all froze.

“Alright, everyone,” came the voice from the balacony. “That was better. But this flash mob is happening in just a couple of weeks. We need to be on point. Again!”
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Jess Jarman | Deelylah Mullin | Bronwyn Green | Kris Norris

Aug24

Wednesday Randomness – Behind the scenes of my current project

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This week’s random Wednesday topic is a peek behind the scenes of my current project. I haven’t been super productive lately, or productive at all, but I’m going to give you a sneak peek of the project I WANT to be working on.

This story came about from a photo flash fiction prompt last year. If you’re interested and want to read the story that started it all, click here. I think this is going to end up being the prologue, or maybe some sort of flashback. I definitely want it in the story somewhere.

The main location of the story is a bed and breakfast in New England, I see a house in my mind kind of like this:

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I also have a pictures in my head for a few key characters. The main character is Abigail, a widow who moves out East to start over. For her, I picture someone very girl-next-door, wholesome, sweet.

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For her deceased husband (who I realize isn’t actually in the book but still plays a large part), I didn’t have a specific person in mind. Not someone famous anyway, but a certain look for sure. This character is based on someone I knew in high school, but we’ll need to add some curly hair.

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For the dashing doctor, Kyle, non other than the beautiful Chris Pine. Let’s all just take a minute to appreciate those eyes.

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And finally, for Abigail’s new friend Maya, who brings a wonderful group of people into Abby’s life:

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This is basically just the most beautiful town ever, obviously.

I’m not sure what else I can say about the story at this point. I guess it would be categorized as a contemporary romance, my first foray into that area. Up until now I’ve focused mainly on YA. I’m probably a third of way through the first draft and I’d really like to finish it by the end of the year. That’s my goal.

See what the other bloggers are working on, and say hello to our newest blogger, Torrance!

Bronwyn
Jess
Gwen
Jessica
Kris
Paige
Torrance

Jul20

Wordless Wednesday – Anger/Rage

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Mrs. White 5

Mrs. White 3

Mrs. White 4

 

Check out the other bloggers to experience their rage:

Bronwyn
Kris
Jess
Paige
Gwen

 

Jun20

Flash Fiction Mondays

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This week’s flash fiction is inspired by “Little Heaven” by Toad the Wet Sprocket. If you’re interested, you can read the lyrics or give it a listen.

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“So, this is it, huh?”

“Seems like it.”

Daniel reached over and took my hand as we watched the scene unfold below us. People were running every direction, panic clear in the way they rushed about with seemingly no purpose other than to get as far away as possible. We could hear crying and screams, although from this distance no actual words made it through.

“Is this really the right way, Daniel? Are we supposed to just watch this happen?”

We both looked at the sky as the clouds visibly gathered and darkened, almost as though we were watching a time lapse film of a storm moving.

“You know the rules, Hannah. We are simply here to observe. That has always been our job. We do not interfere. We watch.”

He was right, I knew the rules. We’d been following them for long enough, but this was, I don’t know if heartbreaking was the right word. Senseless, maybe. Pointless. And still, we watched.

As one we turned to the east at the sound of an explosion. Daniel watched dispassionately as a large warehouse exploded, for no reason I could see, sending large pieces of flaming roof pouring down over the people trying to flee.

We could so easily help, get people to safety. Even stop the gathering storms if we were so inclined. But those weren’t the rules. With a crack of thunder the clouds burst open and a torrential rain fell, flooding streets. We saw people and cars washed away like so much debris and still, we did nothing.

Abruptly I realized Daniel was no longer by my side, but standing in front of me, blocking my way. “I can feel your indecision, Hannah. And if I can, so can the others. Do you want Raphael to come down here? Or Michael? It will be so much worse for these people if our brothers decide to become personally involved.”

He was right, Daniel was always right.

“Why create something like this only to destroy it?” I asked. The age old question, one we’ve asked time and again. Looking into the distance, far beyond what the people below could see, there was more smoke, more rain, more destruction. It was a never ending hellscape.

“It’s time to leave. We’ve seen all we need to,” Daniel said, gesturing toward the scene behind him. “Nothing is going to stop this now, that’s all we had to see to.”

I wanted to cry for these people, cry and scream about the unfairness of what happening to them. But I couldn’t, crying was impossible for me. And screaming would no good, in fact it would only make things worse. The kindest thing to do for them was to leave them on their own.

As one, we turned, our wings effortlessly lifting us into the sky. It was time to leave. Daniel was right, there was nothing more to watch. The apocalypse had come, those that were meant to survive would. And so would we. After all, angels were forever.

Check out the links to below to see what the other bloggers came up with:

Brownyn

Kris

Jess

Jan27

Wednesday Randomness – Writing Pet Peeves

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Writing pet peeves is the topic for this week. What annoys us? What makes us want to tear our hair out?

Where do I start?

There are so many things, big and small.

This is a weirdly specific one, but I absolutely hate it when people use the phrase, “It’s like deja vu all over again.” That phrase just doesn’t even make sense to me. What is the point of it?

Difficult to pronounce names for places, or people. There’s a series I really like and in it is a prep school with a name that I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to pronounce. I stumble over it in my head every time I come across it and it instantly pulls me out of the story. Someone has even told me how to say it a couple of times and I still can’t get it right. I get wanting to use things that are unique and different, but you can do that and still make them something that a reader can pronounce.

I have another pet peeves with names, certain names in general just annoy the ever-living hell out of me. As soon as I see them, I just want to stop reading. Names like Cash, or Tristan. For some reason, all bad boys are named Tristan. And on the subject of bad boys, why do authors  (often YA) always put bad boys in black jeans? I don’t ever actually see anyone in real life wearing black jeans, but in books, all the bad boys wear them. I’m sure they all shop at the only store that sells them, too.

“There are simply too many notes!” In other words, trying to stuff everything imaginable into one story. Let’s put in werewolves, vampires, witches, ghosts, psychics, and time travel all into one book! There is such a thing as too many elements in one story.

Insta-love. I know sometimes it’s the norm for certain genres, but unless it’s done REALLY well, just no.

And on the subject of love, love triangles. Are they ever necessary? There are so many more interesting ways to create conflict, either within the romance or not.

I could go on and on, but I think those are the important ones.

What pet peeves do the other bloggers have? Click the links below to find out:

Bronwyn
Jessica
Kris
Kellie
Gwen
Jess

 

Jan13

Promptly Penned #1

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Promplty Penned

This year we’ve added a new flash fiction type entry to our blogging activities, it’s called Promptly Penned and it happens once a month on a Wednesday. The idea is that we all start with a phrase or a couple of lines of dialogue. These lines can serve as inspiration or can be worked into the flash fiction piece, it all depends on where it takes each of us. Here’s the prompt for this month:

“Some choices are easy, like fudge ripple or butter pecan, some choices aren’t. Can you guess which one this was?”

***

Butter pecan? Fudge ripple? Butter pecan? Fudge ripple? I’d been standing in the open door of the grocery store freezer case for so long that my face had gone numb and I still couldn’t pick an ice cream flavor. Screw it, I thought. After the week I’ve had I deserve both. I grabbed a pint of each and headed toward the check out.

 As I waited in line, watching each incompetent person ahead of my try to figure out how to use the self-checkout machine, I went through every horrible thing that had happened this week.

First there was the lady at work who insisted on butting into every meeting and project I was a part of, even if she wasn’t invited. Nothing like making me feel completely incompetent. Then there were the redneck neighbors and their blaring country music until all hours of the night. And the neighbors on the other side with the ugly, yappy dog that had tried to take my foot off. Thank goodness for winter boots. The flat tire in twenty degree weather. And finally, the surprise visit from my parents that had left me feeling like a failure, as always.

By the time I got to the checkout, I was about ready to swap out the two pints of ice cream for a fifth of rum.

 Three hours later I was passed out on the couch in an ice cream coma, blissfully ignoring the world. Around midnight, I sat up suddenly, not sure what had woken me. Getting up off the couch, I stepped in a pool of melted ice cream. Great, I thought, a mess to clean up. As I tried to orient myself I realized what had woken me. I could hear the sound of breaking glass coming from the back door. It must have been the initial crash that woke me and now someone was clearing out the rest to get to the locks.

As silently as I could, I made my way to the kitchen where I had left my phone, taking care to avoid all of the squeaky spots in the wood floor. Once in the kitchen, I looked around for my phone and realized I had, in fact, taken it upstairs to charge it.  Damn! Now what?

I heard the back door open and realized I had to make a decision. I grabbed the chef’s knife out of the dish drainer and tip toed over the kitchen door that led out to the back entryway and hid behind it. Could I do this? Could I defend myself against someone breaking into my house and maybe kill them? Absolutely.

Choosing an ice cream flavor was almost impossible but deciding I could kill someone to protect myself was the easiest decision I’d ever made.

I saw a shadow cross the threshold of the kitchen door and took a deep breath.

See what stories the other ladies came up with this week:

Kris
Bronwyn
Jess
Paige
Jessica
Kellie

Jan6

Wednesday Randomness – Best Memories of 2015

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This week we’re talking about our best memories from 2015.

Winter is pretty lame around here, mostly because I work non-stop through January and February, so I’m going to blow right past those and start with March.

Puppy Thor turned one (and yes I’m a huge dork).

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In June, B and I went to a wedding in Traverse City. It was awesome. The wedding was small, maybe 30-40 people, and was at Mission Table on the Old Mission Peninsula. The place was absolutely gorgeous, I’d never even heard of it before. The ceremony was outside with the lake as a backdrop and the dinner was in a private dining room with a cut stone fireplace.

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The day after the wedding, the bride and groom paid for the guests to go on a wine tasting tour to three of their favorite places, which is how I discovered my new favorite place, Tandem Ciders.

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Me and B

A couple of weeks after the wedding, I headed farther north for my annual writer’s retreat with some of my friends. We stay at a cabin/house on Lake Superior for a week and write, eat, talk, laugh (a ton), and have basically an amazing time.

On the way up, we had a major tire blow out. That was not awesome, but Bronwyn’s driving was so we survived the horror.

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Later on during the drive we saw a rainbow, so that helped cheer us up. And then Jenny Trout found a newspaper with an article about a festival for her people.

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We got to spend a little bit of time at the Lake (it’s always super cold in June still). All in all, we had a great time.

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This September, I went to my first ever Renaissance Fair. I have Bronwyn to thank for this experience. I didn’t even know this thing existed in Holly, MI (because I’m so out of the loop in the world) but she goes every year with her family, so this year B and I tagged along. There was jousting, actual jousting.

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There was also a dog wearing a knight.

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I will definitely be going back to the fair next year, we had a great time. I might even be in costume next time.

In October, B and I went to another wedding. This one took me to UP again, but I was happy to make the trip for one of my very closest friends. It was an amazing party, she married the man of her dreams, and looked beautiful the whole time.

Since a lot of us had to travel for the wedding, we had the shower and bachelorette party the night before.

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(All wedding photos by Elizabeth Dahlstrom and Captured Blessings Photography)

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Also in October was the celebration for B’s Uncle Jim and his husband Al. They married in June after the Supreme Court passed the ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. They have been together since 1978 so it was great that there finally able to marry.

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The end of the year consisted of holidays and normal family get togethers. Not that they weren’t a great time, but there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary that happened this year. Except I actually made it to midnight on New Year’s Eve. That’s unusual. There were a lot of great things that happened in 2015, obviously. But at the same time, I’m happy to move into 2016. There are a few things I want to a make a new start on. So, I guess the last thing I have to say about 2015 is…

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Check out the other blogs to see what good times everyone had in 2015:
Jess
Bronwyn
Jessica
Paige
Kellie
Gwen
Kris

 

 

Jan4

Flash Fiction Mondays

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photoprompt

01-2016 LightinForest

CW: Assault

“Go into the light,” she had said. “You have to go into the light.”

Apparently I died three months ago, but I just found out yesterday. I’d been wandering around the woods trying to find the way back to my car when I met a woman. She explained it all. I had fallen and hit my head and no one had found my body. But she had sensed my lost spirit and she was here to help me move on.

“What the hell,” I said. “It’s got to be better than walking around here,” I told her.

So, when the light appeared on the path between the trees, I took a completely unnecessary deep breath, closed my eyes, and stepped into it.

And man, I was not prepared for what I found.

I opened my eyes and found myself in my college dorm room. It was exactly as I remembered, down to the hole in the blanket on my roommate’s bed and the magnets on the mini-fridge. Turning around I caught my reflection in the mirror and groaned. Shaggy brown hair that looked like I had just rolled out of bed, a Weezer t-shirt, ripped jeans, and yup, Doc Martins. Apparently I was also back in college.

The door flew open and Rob, my roommate, came thundering in.

“Kyle, finally. Where you been man? We got to go, the party’s already under way. Ben’s waiting on us.”

Not knowing what else to do, not knowing what was going on, I followed Rob out the door. This was not what I had expected when I had decided to go into the light. Was this heaven? Had I somehow gone back in time? Was I actually here in the flesh? I pinched myself, it hurt but what did that really mean.

I continued to follow Rob across campus not paying attention to where we were going, trying to figure out what was happening. I looked up when I heard someone yell my name and found that we were standing in front of the Sigma Chi house. In that moment I knew exactly what was going on. I knew what day it was and why I was here.

This night had followed me for years, and I regretted almost every minute of it.

Not waiting for my friends I dashed up the steps of the house and through the front doors. I started looking everywhere for Amy, a friend that I had known since sophomore year. She was here somewhere, in the process of drinking too much. I had to find her and get her to leave as soon as possible.

Two hours later and I still hadn’t found her. The clock in the kitchen said 12:45, so I knew it was almost the right time. The time when I had made the worst decision of my life. It was clear to me now that it wasn’t an option for me to stop this before the fact. I had to change my actions this time, not the actions of others.

Heading up to the second floor I made my way to the last bedroom on the left, and pushed the door open. There I found Amy, passed out on the bed with three frat guys and Rob standing around her. Two of the guys were holding her arms and the other two, including my roommate, were discussing what they should do.

The first time I witnessed this I had tried to tell Rob he should leave her alone but after they threatened me, I had left. Four against one after all, right? Not this time. Without a word, I launched myself at Rob catching him by surprise and knocking him into the wall. I got in two good punches before the other three were on me. But I didn’t care. Before I blacked out, I saw other people running into the room at the commotion, helping Amy off the bed and getting her to safety. Maybe this is how I was supposed to die all along, but if so, then this was the right way.

When I opened my eyes, I was on the beach. The sun was shining, the water was a clear turquoise, and the sound of the waves was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. This was heaven, this was my heaven. I had finally made it. I corrected the biggest mistake in my life and I was rewarded.

Click below to see what the others came up:

Jess
Bronwyn
Kris
Jessica
Paige
Gwen

 

Dec30

Wednesday Randomness – Goals for 2016

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It’s that time of the year, to set goals for the next year. Here they are in no particular order:

  • Finish the first draft of the novel I started this year.
  • Blog at least twice a month (which will beat my average for this year).
  • Craft more. This one is kind of generic because I’m still searching for my perfect craft. I keep trying different things but I haven’t found something that totally fits yet…I’m going to keep looking though.
  • Read 52 books. This one is completely overly-ambitious. There are times during the year when I’m too busy at work to read much, but I’m going to give it hell.
  • Stick to the at-home exercise plan I’ve developed.

 

Check out the blogs below to see what all the goals set for 2016:

Bronwyn
Jessica
Paige
Kris
Jess