  Short Stories
This week: Managing Time Edited by: Legerdemain  
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Stuck in the Sticky Situation
It's that time of year again, when I'm making time for everything but writing. Even as I sit at my desk right now, I see my holiday cards waiting to be mailed and know I'll be up late finishing the notes and envelopes so everyone can have a little smile in their day sometime next week. Is it worth it? I don't know, I enjoy receiving them, so I imagine everyone does too.
The trouble is, I'm at a really productive phase in my story writing and I just hate letting go of the time. I harbor time like a precious pearl in a velvet bag, I try to find time to jot even a few words each day. I'm sure you are all nodding your head reading this, we all know how life can interrupt even a harbored fifteen minutes of writing time.
So I try to get up early or stay up late and write. The trouble is, I read it the next day and I wonder if my doppelganger slipped in while I was sleeping and jotted down this terrible stuff on my computer. I end up erasing half of it and the other half I need an interpreter to tell me what I meant to write. As I hammer on the backspace button and silently mouth the words "who wrote this stuff?", I already have new ideas poking and prodding to get my fingers to type the words on the keyboard.
Then the phone rings, or the cat jumps up or my tea gets cold. And it starts again. So I'm asking you my friends, how do you focus? How do you lock in on those ideas and get them on the computer? How do you keep some freaky chick from hacking your documents and typing some kind of kooky thing into your story? And finally, how are you managing to find time over the holidays for writing?
Write on! And happy holidays!
This month's question: How do you manage your time during busy parts of the year? Send in your answer below!  Editors love feedback!
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Excerpt: Simon Kanner glanced at the tablet strapped to his arm, but it was still blank. He knew it would be blank, but the habit of looking at it was difficult to resist. He hated to waste time, to sit and do nothing, but even though he had only worked at Forge-Mendel for two weeks, he already knew he should not let Michael Forge come in and see him doing anything else. Forge had little tolerance for anyone who implied they had something better to do than meet with him.
He was the only one in the conference room. His seat faced a large window which gave him a clear view of the Golden Gate Bridge. The traffic crossing the bridge was quite sparse, mainly buses and an occasional truck. The number of cars on the road had dropped drastically in the last few years. Under the new government, getting the necessary permits to drive a car was too much of a hassle for most people. He noted construction teams were once again raising the barriers around the piers, a somber reminder that the sea level was still rising. Even with the multitude of restrictions and regulations the government had enacted recently, he wondered if they were doing enough, if it might be already too late to avoid disaster.
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Excerpt: Jason's eyes flew open as he was jolted forward, the planes wheels bumping loudly on the tarmac. The engines howled and the air brakes bumped loudly as the plane slowed quickly along the runway.
Must have fallen asleep, he thought, rubbing his eyes, and pulling out his phone. A quick tap on the screen showed, 9:30 PM. God damn it, already 30 minutes late and we're not even to the jet bridge yet.
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Excerpt: She's soft and she's warm. She's wearing my undershirt because she'd had a little nosebleed earlier, and it's all rolled up and wrinkled; it looks adorable on her. I picked out a pair of pajama bottoms for her that she had packed and they're perfect. The waistband of her pants is rolled over on itself once because otherwise they would be too long and she might be walking on them when I take her to use the bathroom. I had to shut the fan off before we fell asleep because it might give her a sore throat. The last girl was like that. I like the noise, but I'd rather listen to her breathe and the funny little sounds she doesn't know that she makes while she sleeps.
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Excerpt: "Mirror, mirror on the wall, show me the fairest of them all."
A craaaaaaccccck sounded as shattering lines appeared in the full length mirror, then it crumbled into thousands of pieces, scattering with a loud skittering sound all across the black tile floor.
"Mage," Queen Persephone shouted, "you promised your magick would hold the mirror intact."
Excerpt: I watched from the porch as Dale pulled his gopher trap out of the earth to check it. He whooped with joy when he saw the small animal that struggled against the trap's spring-loaded spikes.
Lucy, our daughter, who had been following him around, began to cry when she saw that the little rodent was crushed and speared. "Oh, daddy, it hurts, why did it hurts?" She reached out a hand toward the, blood and dirt-caked, animal. Dale swatted her hand away and held the gopher out of reach. "Don't touch it, Lucy. Varmints are dirty."
Excerpt: On December 3rd all the elves were busy in the workshop building toys, bicycles and dolls for Santa to deliver on Christmas Eve. Everyone had a special job to do except for the little Pixie named Maxwell. He was dressed head to toe in a red felt jumpsuit. He loved to play pranks on the elves moving their tools to different benches. The elves had grown tired of Maxwell's foolishness ordering him to leave the workshop.
Excerpt: The tiny, hand-carved, wooden train fit nicely in the palm of her wrinkled hand. Marge held the small ornament out between two fingers and watched the gold sequins covering the wooden train's wheels sparkle in the light as it slowly turned on its red ribbon. Gently curling her fingers around the wooden train, Marge sighed and held it to her chest. Sadness sagged her shoulders as she thought about that night so long ago.
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Excerpt: I was taking my usual walk through the woods, the one I take every day I can, no matter the weather, when I came upon an unexpected sight.
“Why it’s a snowman!”
I continued to exclaim and admire it as I walked around its tall thinness.
“My goodness, he’s certainly not the traditional plump shape, by any means,” I concluded.
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This month's question: How do you manage your time during busy parts of the year?
September's question: Do you get story ideas from relatives?
jackieboy  responded: My collection of short stories has been well received in America. The title: First Communion, a collection of Irish short stories.
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Short Stories: December 16, 2015 Issue [#7375]
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