The Confabulator Cafe

Author: ajaquays

  • Last Men

    She flipped through page after page of headshots. The smiling, clean shaven faces felt false to her. Occasionally she would pause and trail a finger along the stern outline of a jaw before flicking her gaze down to read the words printed beneath. She skimmed the paragraph listing his vitals and skills. This man with dark brown hair and dull gray eyes was a proficient marksman and had an above average IQ. His short stature promised that any children she had with him would be compact enough to comfortably roam the underground tunnels without stooping.

    She carefully wrote M764 on her list she was compiling of men whose qualities lined up with those she wanted to pass on to her children. Though, as a marksman it meant he went abovegrounds and that always brought with it the chance of introducing contagion. Her pen hovered over the number. Would M764 be the type of man who would want to visit his children? Or would he be content to father them and leave them be. She surrounded his number in question marks. (more…)

  • When Dawn Breaks

    She sat in a stained cotton chemise, half a moth-eaten blanket wrapped about her shoulders for warmth. Outside her cabin, the wind gusted, pulling free the reddening leaves and leaving bare branches in its wake. Her dress lay crumpled in her lap as she carefully stitched sleeves onto it. The worn fabric tore from too many years of carefully removing and replacing the sleeves. Each rip brought with it a fresh wave of tears.

    Her sister fell ill at winter’s end last year and she wasted away for months before succumbing to death’s embrace. When the flies brought summer’s plague, she lost her mother who had never quite regained her will to live after burying her eldest daughter as she had her youngest years before. This winter she was alone. This winter she had no one to huddle against for warmth at night on her lumpy, straw mattress. (more…)

  • Against Stone Doors

    The first step to achieving world peace, she decided, was to get everyone’s attention. If the whole world focused on a single, miraculous occurrence, they would have no time to fight any longer. She considered stopping the sun or making all of the stars go dark at the same time, but those weren’t really things she had control over. Not without asking the gods for a favor she wasn’t sure she could afford to pay back.

    So she tried to think of things on a smaller scale. She could set fire to all of the forests at the same time or dry up all of the rivers. But then the nature sprites would be upset and she didn’t really want to hurt all of those innocent animals. Not to mention, it would be nearly impossible to coordinate an effort that massive. Plus, seeing as she didn’t have the magical ability to start fires or dry up rivers, it would require another favor from the gods—and while this one probably wasn’t quite as major, depending on the mood of the god it could end up being worse. Being indebted to the gods was never advisable, no matter how small the debt. Trying to outwit them to get what you wanted for no cost even less so. (more…)

  • Unlickable

    “Ma’am?” She turned around to face a sheepishly grinning man. “I’m afraid you have—ah…” He cleared his throat delicately while tugging on his earlobe. “There’s something attached to your… skirt.”

    Warmth rushed to her cheeks as she twisted about, trying to spot the object in question. Something white flashed at the corner of the eye, sticking out from under her butt. She grabbed for it, coming into contact with a sticky, paper stick. She tugged on it, feeling the skirt shift away from her rear, but a few tugs could not pry it free.

    She drew in a breath, counting to three before returning the man’s smile. “Thank you for pointing it out, that could have been embarrassing.” Her daughter must have left something on one of the chairs. Something she had licked, and by the feel of it licked quite thoroughly. This was why she kept a spare change of clothes in her office, clothes she never took home. Her assistant took them to the dry cleaner once a week and returned them straight to the office. She had enough suit separates to last her an entire week. (more…)

  • Reservations

    Fred slung his too-heavy bag off his shoulders, dropping into the rolling chair behind his uncle’s cherry stained desk. When his mom told him his uncle needed him to help out for a few hours a night leading up to Valentine’s Day, he’d imagined something more glorious than answering the phones. At the very least, he imagined a task that would let him work on his assignments that were piling up by the day.

    Still, as long as his uncle was willing to slip him a crisp Benjamin at the end of each night, he supposed it was worth giving up his free time. His elbow smacked painfully onto the desk when the phone shrieked to life. He pressed the down arrow on the volume even as he picked up the phone. Now that he was here, there was no need to have the volume up loudly enough to be heard through the clattering din of the kitchen.

    “Thank you for calling Rizzolini’s, this is Federico. How may I assist you?” His ear still smarted from the twisting his uncle gave it the first time he was caught answering the phone as Fred. Such an American name would never convince customers they were an authentic Italian restaurant. He was to go by the name his father put on his birth certificate—or else. (more…)

  • Writer’s Log, Day 19

    Guess what! I found a plot!

    Guess what! I broke the Wednesday curse!

    Guess what! Yeah me too. I’d also like to know what comes next.

    I managed to write a solid 1800 words today progressing the plot in a direction I’m mostly pleased with. Yay! I’m managing to stay on par (barely) but for the first time in my NaNo career, I’ve had days where I ended below par.

    I don’t like it.

    Like, seriously. This year is hard, y’all.

    I procrastinated on writing this and it’s late at night and I’m tired so…

    Captain out. Keep with the wording.

  • Writer’s Log, Day 12

    Welcome to NaNo. This is my second from the trenches post for the season. What? You didn’t see my first post? It must have been a 404 error. I swear I wrote it. No! Really!

    Okay, so this is actually my first post because while I remembered to write it last week, it was never on the day it was supposed to go live. You’ll forgive me for forgetting, right? NaNo is all about being a scatterbrain after all.

    Last Wednesday was the day that kicked off week two for me. Last Wednesday I hit the first of the Idunwannas the first of the writingisstupids. That’s what happens when you’re ahead of word count, you hit the dreaded blues ahead of schedule.

    But don’t worry, by Monday I’d pulled myself out of my funk. Only to fall into it again this morning. Because, in case you were wondering, Wednesdays are apparently an evil pit of word suckage.

    Today I’m here to tell you that writing is the actual worst. But it’s okay, because not every day is a Wednesday. Some days are Tuesdays… and Tuesdays are awesome for the word count. I just have to not fall terribly behind before my next Tuesday.

    But hey, I’m 20k in and only just about to get my character out the door on her quest, so at least I know I have the plot left to see me through the end of the month!

  • Outlining for Dummies, or Why an Outline Is Not for Me

    Throughout my life I have been presented with the daunting task of creating an outline. High school English teachers treated them like they were the be all and end all of papers. No good paper could be written without a clear outline in place.

    That was problematic for me. My brain doesn’t function from an outline. How do I know what’s going into that paragraph until I’ve already written it? As I write, I discover that the point I wanted to make actually belongs four paragraphs down. Which, I’m sure my teachers would insist would present itself as I outlined.

    It doesn’t. Not for me. (more…)

  • The Locked Door

    She rubbed her hands together, trying to restore some semblance of warmth to them. When she took the trash out to the curb, she wasn’t expecting the door to lock behind her. She hadn’t even realized her door could lock without a key.

    She thought about knocking on one of her neighbor’s doors and asking if she could sit inside until her landlord opened the office in half an hour, but she hadn’t had a chance to get to know any of them yet. The only neighbor she’d met had given her the creeps and she didn’t want to risk knocking on his door in a robe and slippers.

    She didn’t even have her phone on her. Whoever designed her robe and pajamas clearly felt that pockets were unnecessary. Up until now, it hadn’t been an issue.

    Chafing her hands wasn’t doing much good in the freezing weather, so she shoved them under her armpits, dancing about to keep her blood circulating.

    This was the last time she would ever leave the apartment without her keys. (more…)

  • Reader Accessibility

    Years ago, if you wanted to contact an author, you waited until they went on tour. Or you sent them a letter or more recently you sent an email. These things were likely all filtered through an agent so that the author didn’t have to deal with it all.

    Now with Twitter accounts, Facebook author pages, Tumblr, and blogs (and I’m sure several other forms of social media) readers have the chance to directly interact with their favorite authors. Some authors are heavily involved with their followers. Maureen Johnson, Cassandra Clare, and Melissa Marr all frequently respond and retweet questions from followers on Twitter, which is really cool.

    As a writer, this is both something I look forward to and dread. It would give my readers a direct line to me so that they can tell me how much they love my books, so that they can worship the ground I walk on.

    It also means that they can tell me every place I screwed up. It means they can point out where they think I could have done it better.

    And you can’t please everybody.

    (more…)