Current Works

Lately I've been dabbling in a bunch of different projects, jumping around from novels to articles to short stories to new ideas to old ideas.... Basically I can't keep focused on one thing long enough to finish it. However, I want to keep you all updated and interested, so I thought I would post a page of flash fiction. This is children's lit, which is outside of my usual genre, but it was kind of fun to work with the different style. I'm not certain which direction it's going, but I think it could turn into something fun:

Lydia Moore lived at 1570 Sycamore Drive, in a big house with yellow ceramic shingles, and her mother’s name was Mary Moore. She knew these things by heart, because her mother had told her she must. Lydia also knew that her mother’s phone number was 273-555-7529. She sang it, like a song. She rather liked songs. That’s what she liked about Mary Poppins, was the songs. Her mother had told her Mary Poppins shouldn’t sing songs, and she wasn’t meant to be a nice nanny but Lydia thought she seemed rather nice to her. And even if she wasn’t nice all the time, that was quite alright. Not very many people could be nice all the time. It took a lot of work. So Lydia worked at it. She thought she could make being nice her full time job and do it for a living, maybe. If she couldn’t do that, then maybe she would become a thief. After all, if thieves were expected not to be nice all the time.

If Lydia were a thief, she’d like to be a dog thief, because jewels were too heavy and at least then she’d get to play with the dogs. Lydia’s mother would not let her have a dog, because Lydia’s mother was allergic to dogs. For that, Lydia did not like her mother very much. Lydia’s mother said that Lydia was allergic, too, but Lydia thought she was lying. And it wasn’t nice to lie.

So Lydia told her mother, “It’s not nice to lie.”

“You’re right, it’s not,” her mother said.

“So why do you say I’m allergic to dogs?”

“That’s not a lie.”

“Sure is!” Lydia said, “Just watch!” She skipped up to a woman seated on a park bench, “Excuse me? May I pet your dog?” After a nod and a smile from the woman, Lydia knelt in front of the little thing with a red bow holding a tuft of fur straight up off its head and buried her face in it. She grinned at her mother. “See?”

Lydia’s mother just shook her head, so Lydia thanked the woman and the pair went on through the park.