DFW Rhinos

Nüshu (literally “women’s writing” in Chinese) is a syllabic script created and used exclusively by women in the Jiangyong County in Hunan province of southern China. Up until the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) women were forbidden access to formal education, and so Nüshu was developed in secrecy as a means to communicate. Since its discovery in 1982, Nüshu remains to be the only gender-specific writing system in the world. Read more here.

Alternatives to Steampunk

Even in bed, I’m thinking:  Did I lock the doors? Yes.  Did I wash my hands? Yes.  Did I lock the doors? Yes.  Did I wash my hands? Yes.  But when I saw her, the only thing I could think about was the hairpin curve of her lips..  Or the eyelash on her cheek-  the eyelash on her cheek-  the eyelash on her cheek.  I knew I had to talk to her.  I asked her out six times in thirty seconds.  She said yes after the third one, but none of them felt right, so I had to keep going.  On our first date, I spent more time organizing my meal by color than I did eating it, or talking to her..  But she loved it.  She loved that I had to kiss her goodbye sixteen times or twenty-four times at different times of the day.  She loved that it took me forever to walk home because there are lots of cracks on our sidewalk.  When we moved in together, she said she felt safe, like no one would ever rob us because I definitely lock the door eighteen times.  I’d always watch her mouth when she talked-  when she talked-  when she talked-  when she talked;  when she said she loved me, her mouth would curl up at the edges.  At night, she’d lay in bed and watch me turn all the lights off.. And on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off.  She’d close her eyes and imagine that the days and nights were passing in front of her.  But then.. She said I was taking up too much of her time.  That I couldn’t kiss her goodbye so much because I was making her late for work..  When she said she loved me, her mouth was a straight line..  When I stopped in front of a crack in the sidewalk, she just kept walking..  And last week she started sleeping at her mother’s place.  She told me that she shouldn’t have let me get so attached to her; that this whole thing was a mistake, but..  How can it be a mistake that I don’t have to wash my hands after I touch her?  Love is not a mistake, and it’s killing me that she can run away from this and I just can’t.  I can’t go out and find someone new because I always think of her.  Usually, when I obsess over things, I see germs sneaking into my skin.  I see myself crushed my an endless succession of cars..  And she was the first beautiful thing I ever got stuck on.  I want to wake up every morning thinking about the way she holds her steering wheel..  How she turns shower knobs like she opening a safe.  How she blows out candles-  blows out candles-  blows out candles-  blows out candles-  blows out-….  Now, I just think about who else is kissing her.  I can’t breathe because he only kisses her once-he doesn’t care if it’s perfect!  I want her back so bad..  I leave the door unlocked.  I leave the lights on. ”

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My brain is a simple one.

“I was wearing an old Salvation Army shop boy’s suit. As I went to the bathroom I heard people saying, ‘Hey, faggot’. They slammed my head into a locker. I fell to the ground and they started to kick the shit out of me. I had to have stitches. The school kicked me out, not the bullies. “Years later, I went to a coffee shop and I ran into one of the girls who’d kicked me, and she said, ‘Winona, Winona, can I have your autograph?’ And I said, ‘Do you remember me? Remember in seventh grade you beat up that kid?’ And she said, ‘Kind of’. And I said, ‘That was me. Go fuck yourself.’”

Are you participating in NaNoWriMo? If so you should read Kathryn Olsen’s article on how to make the most of your novel writing month. You can read it here: AuthorsPublish.com