Alice and the Warden

Alice Leigh

Autumn

Since I did a post on Hackett…

The title character from Alice and the Warden.

Rebel Alice

The story starts after she’s already begun her redemption process, so this phase is only referenced/flashbacks. Funny enough, this is also the phase that I’ve had the most brainstorming sessions with my husband about.

Chin-length hair, dyed vivid pink. Lots and lots of black eyeliner and mascara. Goes out of her way to look like a rebellious, sexy, motorcycle chick. Cusses a lot.

However, her lifestyle is harsh on her. She’s malnourished, waxy and pale, and is usually too out of it to think for herself.

Her boyfriend, Damon, managed her use of drugs and alcohol to keep her malleable, but he never gave her any of the scary stuff.

Redeemed Alice

Her natural hair is growing out, so the top half is brown while the bottom is still bleached. Chocolate brown eyes. A healthy diet, lots of rest, and pregnancy, has helped her fill out and given her a much softer appearance.

More than anything, she wants to keep her baby and be a good mother, so she’s been doing everything in her power to change herself. Her isolation has enabled her to do a lot of introspection, and she has admitted a lot of hard truths to herself. She’s cleaned up her mannerisms considerably.

However, she still struggles with self-esteem and views herself as permanently damaged because of her past.

Anyway, it’s both hot AND humid today, which has me feeling totally miserable, so I’m gonna call this good.

Observations

Observations

Autumn

It’s one of those hot and sticky days.

The advertisements in my inbox assure me that this is the last weekend of summer, but the weather feels like it has other plans. I’m sitting outside with a floppy crocheted sunhat, freshly washed hair spilling everywhere, and a bunch of kids completely ignoring their new splash pad.

Smells like cats.

Crows are cawing in the distance, cutting over the music I have playing on a bluetooth speaker. The neighbor’s door slams as they let their dog out. A semi truck rattles by. The baby starts to fuss as she achieves a death grip on my hair, and the two-year-old informs me that she needs a new diaper.

…

The air conditioning inside feels nice and cool. The baby is settling down to nap as the kids beg for ice cream.

Sounds like a great idea.

About Writing

Basil Hackett

Autumn

WordPress finally forced me over to the block editor, and now I know why everyone complains about it. It strikes me as something that a bunch of tech geeks thought would be AWESOME, and they completely forgot that a lot of us users have skills that are more in line with typing up articles in Word.

But le sigh, I will have to learn it anyway.

Or I’ll start copy-n-pasting, and bypass this change all together. Everything keeps popping around and disappearing too much for my tastes.

Back to our originally scheduled program…

Basil Hackett.

For those who don’t know, he’s my fictional character from Alice and the Warden

It’s taken quite some time for me to get a clear mental picture of him, so thus far he hasn’t been properly described. This is the sort of thing that I usually add in while working on the second draft, but that will be awhile. My current goal is to write about 1000 words a week, which is comfortably steady and works well with where I’m at in real life right now, but it’s definitely not fast.

So we’ll go ahead and describe him now.

Physically, he lifts weights a few times a week (lunch break in the prison gym sort of thing), but he also has some extra padding from never saying ‘no’ to dessert. He’s bulky, but not “beefcake.”

His hair is short, combed back, mid-brown with a few gray strands at the sides. He’s always clean-shaven.

His eyes are the one thing that I do describe, a striking hazel-green that can make you forget what you were saying if you look too closely at them.

The impression he gives is being like a boulder, impassive and unmovable. The part that Alice never sees is that, as the warden, he likes to run a tight ship to ensure the safety of everyone in the prison (guards and inmates alike). He takes his job very seriously, doles out discipline when necessary, utilizes psychological methods to promote good behavior, and provides lots of training and resources to help inmates transition to the “outside” world.

Of course, the story mostly portrays Hackett behind the scenes in his private life.

Those are most of my non-spoiler thoughts about him. Honestly, it’s a little weird to be openly writing about characterization with an unfinished story, but hey, first time for everything.

About Me

The Little Things

Autumn

My husband and I finally took a trip into the mountains for a ‘micro-cation’ last weekend. It lasted for about two hours grand total, but I got to feel a little chilly when the sun began to set, which was a wonderful break from dying in the heat.

Thankfully August doesn’t carry the same intensity as July. With luck, I’ll be back to feeling normal (whatever that is) in no time. Might even start braining again.

Though apparently I’m never going to get around to actually finishing this post, since its been sitting here for a few days now. Go figure.

So.

In news that absolutely no one cares about, I am nearly finished with knitting a skirt. This skirt. I started it two years ago, then put it down for a good long while (yarn burnout, lol) until I picked it back up as something to do while nursing the baby. It always amazes me how working a row or two every day really adds up, and I’m looking forward to having this skirt forever.

I came across the toddler’s swimsuit the other day. We bought it at the end of summer last year, because it was super cute and on clearance, and we were absolutely certain that we were going to have TONS of summer fun this year.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

I felt bad, so a browsed online a bit for swimming pools, but I couldn’t bring myself to commit to any. I settled on getting a splash pad — a big one that can accommodate four kids screaming at each other. I’m half expecting it to be destroyed before next week is up.

My husband also got the battery in my laptop replaced, so now it doesn’t randomly die on me. Yay!

Plenty of mundane stuff going on. Nothing terribly philosophical, but it’s keeping me busy enough.

About Me

School Lunch

Autumn

We were part of the free lunch program with our school district this summer. Normally it’s not something I participate in since we’re homeschooling, but this year I figured it would help ease the burden of feeding the horde of monsters that fill my life, with having a new baby and all.

Honestly, we won’t be participating again.

While I appreciate the idea of nutritionally balanced, it functionally doesn’t mean much when the kids refuse to eat their whole grain oatmeal raisin bars. I mean, that’s really asking a lot of them.

ANYway, my main complaint is actually the fact that absolutely everything is ‘fat free’. Like, hey I really don’t approve of the assumptions that you’re making.

I, for one, do not believe that,”eating fat makes you fat,” I do not think that drinking 8 ounces of whole milk a day is going to cause childhood obesity. Maybe the insane amount of juice and soda pop that I’ve seen parents give to their kids, but not things like milk, ranch dressing, and mayonnaise.

I do, however, believe that fat is essential for physical development. I don’t appreciate feeling like I need to supplement meals that are supposed to be nutritionally balanced, because they go out of their way to eliminate such an important element.

And seriously, what sort of person actually thinks that children are going to wash down their whole grain oatmeal raisin bars with skim milk?

The end result has me feeling guilty about the amount of food we’ve thrown away, and I’m grateful that homeschooling is an option for us so my children aren’t stuck eating like that all year round.

 

About Me

Thistle

Autumn

Even my 6-foot tall thistle got et by bugs.

I know this probably makes me a weirdo (I totally am anyway), but thistles are one of my favorite plants. They look so mean, yet the purple flowers are exotic, and they get monstrously huge.

And even that wasn’t enough to save it.

Curse you, grasshoppers, curse you.

About Me

Homesteading

Autumn

For some time now, I’ve been thinking about loosening my veil of anonymity, but I haven’t done it yet because it’s – well – scary.

But hey, it’s 2020. YOLO?

I live in Utah. Since that always makes people wonder, the answer is: No, we aren’t Mormon. We have five kids because we like having kids, and religion/God never factored into it.

I grew up in Utah with a fairly boring and normal life, until I met my husband and he dragged me around the country on a number of adventures. Our first baby was born during our “off-grid” phase, and when she was a few months old we returned to Utah.

Living off-grid with a baby is flipping HARD. I do not recommend it.

But enough of it got into my blood that I can never return to being a typical suburbanite after that experience. We homestead — and we aren’t the only ones in our neighborhood with backyard chickens.

However

I hate gardening.

I know. Pinterest has everyone convinced that homesteading revolves around picturesque raised garden beds, but we don’t do that at all.

A few years ago, we planted a bunch of perennial herbs straight into the ground, then let them grow wild and untamed (just like my spirit, lawl). The strawberries and raspberries were also plopped into the ground and left to do their thing, with some maintenance weeding every now and then.

Anyway, the reason why I hate gardening is that it requires an enormous amount of work to set up, followed by endlessly watering and weeding, only to have the end result always be this:

20200725_1717514790642615789183487.jpg

Et by bugs.

Alas, the sad fate of our potato plants this year.

We don’t use pesticides because of the children and animals, and there are an insane number of insects and slugs around our property. We’ve tried a number of organic methods, but they are ultimately ineffective. The bugs always win.

Hence why I hate gardening.

About Me

Whining about the heat

Autumn

Temperature has been getting into the upper 90s. I’ve been giving ice to the animals to help them stay cool, then retreating to sit in front of the air conditioner with ice cream. I sorely miss going out to play in the public swimming pool, but that probably wouldn’t have worked with a 1-month-old baby anyway.

*Insert whining about the heat*

My mind isn’t terribly active at the moment. Too busy whining about the heat to think of anything interesting to say. Lol.

I’m really just checking in. Hello, nice to see you all again, and I hope this was an enjoyable 60 seconds of your day.

I need some ice cream.

Because it is hot.

And my feet hurt.

About Me

Accidentally writing a novel

Autumn

I’ve hit 30,000 words with Alice and the Warden. While I had originally intended it to be a cutesy little side project, I just keep having more ideas. Thus, the story is still ongoing, and I haven’t even proven who the real murderer is yet.

At this point, I’ve realized that if I properly fleshed out the descriptions and gave it a (very) solid round of editing, I could publish it as a novel. Insert philosophy about additive writing, blah blah blah, etc. Basically, with my writing process, I metaphorically paint in broad strokes with the first draft then go back and add the details in later. That means that 30,000 words is going to end up being longer in the final version just from adding in details.

Not right now, though. Right now it’s July. My brain is melting out of my ears, and I’m having weird dreams about my children eating moldy cabbage. Like they’d ever willingly touch cabbage. I do not handle this part of summer all that well.

Anyway, it is kind of funny that my little romantic story has taken on such a life of its own.

I haven’t even gotten the two of them laid yet. XD