Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Mirror Mel

A/N: Companion piece to Mel, Too! Reviews are delicious.
Warnings: This needs beta love.
Disclaimer: Own everything, especially the arrangement of the words in this post. I do not, however, profit from any of this, which makes me sadder than you can possibly imagine. Oops, pix not mine (here be the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/envina/2994513811/)



And so the baker dreamed, while another reality staked colonies in her subconscious. This reality supported a persona, a writer who knew how to bake but lacked the necessary follow-through. As a result, the cookies she baked were disgustingly mediocre, which she rationalized as insignificant, considering her focus should be on stories and not pastries.

But baking skills weren’t the only thing she lacked. It bled into other things. The absence of a tattoo on her left hip, the missing dog, the non-existent duplex, and the never-to-be-husband called Zach. These things filled her with an unexplainable longing that fueled her contempt for the world she lived in. It made her more susceptible to a blinding need to be liked. It made her mean her apologies. And it made her seek people who would always value her sense and conscience.

For reasons unknown to her, listening to a lot of Anti-Folk and Dream Pop always calmed her down. And it was through listening to The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane that she found herself creating a character, whose personality would be the polar opposite of her own. This character, she decided, would be a baker with a fondness for Martha Stewart. She briefly thought of replacing Martha Stewart with Julia Child, but immediately dismissed that idea as absurd.

She needed another character to flesh out the baker’s personality. She needed Zach. Zach, who was charming, good in bed and had a funny nickname like Captain Awesome or Commander Sexypants. Sexy Zach would provide levity to the baker’s take-no-shit attitude. And Zach would be the guy the baker’s dog hated.

With a few more details—naming the dog Spock and having the major characters plan a wedding—she finished her draft. Perhaps, she would add a baby to the mix, maybe a new house like a duplex with four bedrooms. Money issues, she mused, would be an element that needs to be injected to the story. For now though, she needed to rest. And as her eyes closed, her last thought would be of babies and bakeries.

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