This year’s October fiction project is a short middle-grade horror novel. The working title is “Turning Leaves,” but that will probably change.
Here are the rules (which I am making up as I go along!):
- Write every day.
- Write about a thousand words every day.
- Write words the same day the characters would be writing them, for the most part (that is, Oct 1 words in the story = Oct 1 words in real life).
- Don’t plan ahead.
- Don’t quit.
I don’t have an outline or even a plan.
It’s been a while since I wrote middle-grade fiction. This should be fun.
…
October Fiction Projects to Date:
2017 – October Nights – General flash fiction short horror-ish stories.
Website – Ebook
2018 – Tales of the Normal – Twilight Zone-style surreal stories.
2019 – Crime du Jour – Short crime stories.
2023 – Turning Leaves – Middle-grade horror.
Website – And sign up for the newsletter to get updates about the final ebook!
Turning Leaves (Working Title): October 16 - Excuses
October 16 – Lola - Loose Leaf Notebook Paper
I woke up this morning at Jayla’s house in her bed, my back against her back. My head hurts a lot. I don’t know how I got here. I don’t remember almost anything from the last few days. I tried to look through my journal to see if I wrote anything but there was only one torn out page. Whoever tore it out did a good job. The torn part is torn, not cut, and it’s very smooth. When I touch it, it feels like someone used a metal ruler as a straight edge to keep the torn part neat.
Did I do that?
I have torn out pages before, but I just tore them. The edges are messy, and I always pick out the biggest pieces left with my fingernails so they get even messier.
I asked her this morning what happened. I only whispered but she still said, shhh.
My stomach growled.
Jayla rolled on her stomach and I did too.
“Do you remember anything?”
“No.”
She shook her head. “You won’t believe me, then.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s crazy.”
“So?”
Jayla’s cat scratched on the door and meowed to be let in.
She said, “So you won’t believe me, and then you’ll think I’m crazy, and then you will do something that makes us all unsafe. It’s better if I don’t tell you anything. At least until lunchtime. We still have to go to school today.”
The cat scratched harder.
“Aren’t you going to let him in?”
“What?”
I rolled on my stomach, then tapped her ear. “Can’t you hear him? Your cat.”
Jayla’s eyes got wide. “My cat?”
“Oh. Is he your Stepdad Dave’s cat? Should I not talk about him?”
“Which cat?”
“The big gray-black one? He was on the oven when I was here. I’m not sure what day that was. You were upset about your mom and I didn’t want to say anything. I should have probably told him to get down. He was licking the inside of a pan. What’s his name?”
Jayla was quiet. She got up, walked to the door, and opened it softly, so it didn’t make a sound.
Inside walked the dark gray-black cat, with big gold eyes and a tail that shook in a curl as he walked.
He stopped just inside the door, and gave Jayla a mad look when she almost closed the door on his hindquarters. I lay flat and put my hand over the side of the bed and wiggled my fingers at him.
He walked over and butted my hand with his head, and I gave him pets on his head.
❤❤❤ SO PRETTY ❤❤❤
I sat up in the bed and the kitty climbed up into my lap and purred while I petted him.
“His name is Ghost Cat,” Jayla said.
And then she told me what happened that I couldn’t remember, at least, as much as what she could figure out.
But the important part is that I have to start writing fake entries for my journal. If I want to write something down that’s the truth, like now, I have to write it and hide it.
October 16 – Lola’s Journal
Back to school!!!
I am SO glad to be back!!!
Not!!!
As my dad would say.
During our week off (after parent-teacher conferences, where everyone BUT Mr. Henderson said many nice things about me), my family went to Seattle for Mom’s doctor work. Dad also got to meet with his friends from college and I got to hang out in their apartment for a long time and play with their dogs, which was okay but not great. I didn’t do any of my class journals because I was on VACATION.
But did read a LOT of books, and I have OPINIONS on them and I wrote a LOT about them and I am going to be LAZY-NOT-REALLY-LAZY and print them out and staple them into my JOURNAL so Mr. Henderson knows I wrote A LOT while on vacation.
I also wrote a bunch of fanfic and posted it but I don’t agree with Mr. Henderson’s FEELINGS about
L I T E R A T U R E
so I will not print those out for him, because one of my fanfictions now has almost a thousand kudos on AO3 after only one week of being posted and that might hurt his FEELINGS.
I got to hang out a little at Jayla’s house too. Her mom is super nice and I like their cat, Ghost Cat, a lot. We watched Creature from the Black Lagoon. It was sad and scary, but mostly sad. Next time, monsters, please ask nicely before kidnapping people. They may want to run away with you anyway, or they would if you didn’t scare them by sneaking up on them.
My mom is still in Seattle for work. My dad says he will think about letting me stay over at Jayla’s house. If I am good, by which he means I have to beat him at Scrabble tonight or I DON’T GET TO GO.
Is that fair?
IT IS NOT.
October 16 – Jayla’s Journal
I am not giving my real journal to Mr. Henderson. I told him that I ruined it with coffee and he sighed and said that I shouldn’t be drinking coffee and that I needed to start a new journal, and that I needed to write an essay on the value of a good education and turn that in with my journal tomorrow morning or I would get an F for not doing my journal entries for a whole week.
I still have to write my essay tonight. I will write down what I think about everything else tomorrow after school.
This morning, I told Mom that Lola’s dad had an emergency, and would it be okay if she stayed over for a while. Mom said, I’ll have to talk to him. I said okay, his phone number was saved on the answering machine. She called his number but nobody answered.
The voicemail message went blah blah blah, leave a message. Then it went beep.
Mom chewed on her lip and said that of course Lola could stay over at our house. Then she gave her new phone number and hung up.
Then she picked up her purse and said, “I’m going to go over there and see him in person. You tell Lola at school that she’s welcome here whenever.”
“Okay, Mom. Thank you.”
She left and Lola and I sneaked off to school. She had to walk. Her bike was still at her house.
After school, we sneaked into her house and filled up her backpack with clothes. She filled up a big totebag with library books, too.
She looked like she was going to cry the whole time but she didn’t cry until she saw her bike and noticed that the flowers were gone.
I said, “We can get new flowers.”
She said, “Where are my mom and dad?”
I don’t know where my mom is, either. We both cried a lot. Then we heard a noise in the basement and left quickly. I don’t want to have to walk through dark place again.
Lola can see Ghost Cat.
That means he’s real, doesn’t it?
Or does it?