I'm Consistent . . . In My Inconsistency

He looked up from the short manuscript I’d dropped in his lap just minutes before and said only, "That was certainly tongue in check."

I laughed so loudly that it startled him a bit from his seat. "Honey, I think the term is tongue in cheek."

Trying desperately to cover his small mistake, he replied with a smile, "I wasn’t trying to use that particular turn of phrase. I simply meant that there were lots of things you could have said in that piece that you didn’t. Like how "Sarah" is a raging bitch who thinks everyone envies and adores her. Or how "Mandy" pretends to be this doting mother and martyr for all, but in her spare time has phone sex with almost-strangers. So, I said what I meant . . . you managed to keep your tongue in CHECK."

"Oh," crestfallen, I looked to the floor, "so you recognized Carissa and Angela in the story? I thought I did a pretty good job disguising them in the characters."

"Anyone who knows them would recognize them in this story."

I sighed heavily then stamped my foot with child-like anger. "I just can’t write fiction! I try and I try, but everything I write ends up being about the people or the events in my life. Why does it seem to come so easily for everyone else in my writing group, yet I spend hours and days agonizing over one tiny piece and it still comes out horribly?"

He didn’t need to rise from the chair and pull me to his chest. It wasn’t necessary for him to stroke my back with the lightest of touches. I just wanted it.

But it wasn’t his way.

He didn’t use touch to soothe. And though I am loathe to admit it, sometimes the reach of his words strikes deeper than the caress of his hands.

"You can write fiction. Only a handful of people would ever know this was based in truth. Your writing is flawless, the flow uninterrupted, the words carefully chosen and exact in their placing. Hemingway, himself, would be jealous. What you think you lack in creativity you make up for in sheer ability. Submit this for publication - under a pseudonym, of course - and it will be picked up immediately. Or just present it to your writing group next Tuesday and watch shock, awe and thinly veiled jealousy rise to color their faces."

I rolled my eyes and kept my petulant stance, but deep inside I was glowing. He wasn’t a man who used words lightly, he knew the weight that they held, particularly with me. And though I'm not deluded enough to believe what he said; I know that he thinks every word he said was true.

I wonder, again, if I write only for his praise. I stopped writing for myself long ago . . .

I'm a Joiner. Sue Me.

And below, you shall behold, my Three Word Wednesday.
A close friend of mine expressed a new found love of the word Marionette and an odd fascination with the word Horticulture last night, so my Three Word Wednesday is actually a Five Worder. :)

She knew she ought to be listening to the droning voice of the professor standing before her, but her attention was shot for the day. Summer classes were the worst. Four weeks of cramming in material that is normally discussed over the course of four months. Who'd come up with that bright idea? Just thinking about it made her groan. Uh oh. Had she done that aloud?? She looked quickly around her but her classmates seemed absorbed in whatever Professor Mackaby was saying. She wondered for the thousandth time that hour if she should change her major. Something exciting like zoology or criminal justice, something enticing like creative writing or romance languages, or even something just plain strange like horticulture . . . anything but accounting.

The endless clicking of the clock on the wall drew her eye to it's hands. She was certain it was her mind playing tricks on her, but she could swear that the minute hand just ticked backwards. Another groan escaped her lips. "This class is never gonna end." She thought she'd said it internally, but the shadow falling heavily over her desk made her wonder. She glanced up and Professor Mackaby was there. "Miss Toney, do you have something to add to the discussion of Adams's theory of economics?" Somehow, she successfully stifled the need to roll her eyes heavenward. "No, Professor Mackaby." He bent his lanky frame so that his face was within inches of her own, "That's odd because I could have sworn I heard you mumble something over here. I assumed, since we're so pressed for time in this class, that anything worth interrupting the class for was important and relevant to the course." Focusing entirely on keeping her eyes still, she couldn't quite stop her foot from tapping impatiently. "I didn't say anything, Professor." He cocked one eyebrow quizzically and she was struck, not for the first time, by the desire to hit him. He rotated quickly on one foot and began to amble back to the podium.

Watching him, she noticed how he more danced than walked. Each leg moving independently of the other, knees raising high. His arms, alternately, following suit. It was as though he was a marionette controlled by the strings of God instead of a man moving of his own accord. She wondered if she slapped him, would her hand come back to her with a splinter embedded in the skin?

She looked back at the clock and sighed. Still another hour and a half to go. She wasn't sure she could make it without entertaining herself with thoughts of Professor Mackaby as Pinocchio and herself as Gepetto. If she squinted tightly enough, she could almost see the bright rouge circles of color that would grace his cheeks. The things she would make him do, if only she controlled his strings. She smiled a bit wider than was necessary and felt the Professor's eyes on her again. She just couldn't have any fun.