Wedding Bells Are Ringing!

Sadly, not for me... :)

No, these wedding bells are for the illustrious Dark Fairy Queen, Anna Meade, whom we all love very dearly in the writerly world. In honor of her wedding we're putting together a Dark Fairy Queen Writerly Bridal Shower.

I knew it would have to be something utterly fantastic to convince me to update my blog. ;)

This is my silly, silly story that I thought up while I was at work. Congragulations, Anna! :)
Love, Kenzie

Title: You Can Do A Lot In Three Hours

Author: McKenzie Barham

Yes to Ebook!

Auntie Fergunson was a flighty creature with an unfortunate habit of squealing at anything that made her remotely emotional. She hummed pleasantly now, running her expert fingers through Anna’s hair, convincing the wild curls to be calm for just this day.

   

She caught Anna’s eyes in the mirror and wriggled her eyebrows. This was another unfortunate habit.

   

“What?” Anna asked.

   

“Oh, nothing, darling,” Auntie said with a mild squeal.

   

Anna sighed and smiled, assuming it would be another pre-wedding moment of excited squeals.

 

“Auntie...”

   

“Oh, all right. You have mail.”

   

Anna opened her mouth and closed it. “Mail?”

   

“Yes!” Auntie squealed.

   

“Auntie,” Anna laughed helplessly, “I’m getting married in three hours.”

   

Her tiny aunt ran out of the dressing room for half a moment and shoved the pink envelope in her

hands. A twinge of worry hit her stomach.

   

“You can do a lot in three hours. Just look at that stamp.”

   

“Yes, it says, ‘America.’”

   

“No! Look closer!”

   

Anna scrunched up her eyes and gasped. The stamp shimmered before her eyes, changed images and shot tiny fireworks that rippled into three words: Super Secret Wombat. She ripped into the pink envelope ferociously.

   

“Don’t they know I’m getting married?! Ugh! I’m not going anywhere! I swear if they do not start reading the calendar--oh...”

   

Auntie giggled hesitantly. “What’s a wombat, darling?”

   

Anna wasn’t sure how to approach this subject. Auntie didn't even know she owned the castle they were in now. “It’s a sort of mascot, Auntie and basically, well, I...” She winced. Auntie looked at her expectantly.

   

Anna took a deep breath. “I’m employed by the Dark Fairy Investigation Agency and I investigate all forms of magical crimes.The pink envelope means someone’s been kidnapped. However, the wombat could mean any number of things.”

   

The smile on Auntie’s face shrunk microscopically.

   

“I’m kidding. I just have to go to the bathroom.” Anna fled out of the dressing room almost tripped over her seven bridesmaids (who were actually fairies) who waited expectantly, envelopes and weapons in hand.

   

“Greetings, your majesty,” they chimed simultaneously.

   

“Keep your voices down,” she hissed. “Now what is so important that you interrupted my hair dresser?”

   

“The Wombat is jealous,” whispered one.

   

“The Cannon is not yet fired,” said another.

   

“We must rescue the Knave.”

   

“He is not a knave,” Anna sighed. She loved her fairy friends dearly but they were insanely jealous of her fiance. Soon to be husband, if I could get my hair finished.

   

The fairies’ words finally sunk in. “Did you say he needed to be rescued?”

"It is imperative to The Wedding we rescue the Knave."

Anna felt her heart plummet towards her white wedding slippers.

~ ~ ~

Within minutes the fairies had led her to an alarming scene. Positioned upon a balcony outside of her castle was her largest Cannon. Behind the Cannon was a busy wombat who grinned deviously down at them. Sticking out at awkard angles were two polished shoes, undeniably attached to two struggling legs.

Anna unfurled her fairy wings and leapt toward the balcony. "Wombat, what are you doing?" she cried in horror as he lifted his match and set the Cannon ablaze.

BOOM. Showers of glitter flew through the air as Anna watched her poor groom disappear over the trees surrounding her castle. Anna knew that although being fired from the cannon was entirely safe, there was no way to tell where anyone landed.

"The Knave is lost," the fairies murmured. They did not sound particularly remorseful.

Anna glared at her Wombat. "And just what do you think you are doing, sir?"

He chuckled, paws over his mouth. Anna stalked toward him, her Dark Fairy side trickling into her eyes. She was about to stuff the Wombat into his own cannon when a voice said:

"Does anyone know what Super Secret Wombat means?"

Someone stepped out from the glittery shadows and held up a pink envelope. Anna threw her arms around her groom.

"Michael! I thought you'd been fired!"

"Fired?"

The fairies shyly gathered around him and tugged at his shirt. "The Knave is rescued. We are glad."

"Did they just call me a knave?"

Anna shook her head. "It's a long story." She glanced back at the Wombat who was dancing on top of the Cannon. "What?"

"It is unlucky to see each other! You can't get married now!"

Anna and Michael exchanged amused glances. "I'm quite sure we can, sir."

"I'm not even in my wedding dress!"

"But... but the fairies said..." the Wombat stuttered. Anna whirled on her fairies.

"I knew this was your doing!"

The fairies wrinkled their noses and shuffled their tiny fairy feet. "The Knave is kidnapping you. We are sad."

Michael held up his hands. "We're leaving for a week and then we'll be back! No kidnapping involved, I promise."

The fairies cocked their heads. "You are returning?"

"Of course! We live here," Anna laughed. She waved a few particles of glitter from the air. "I really need to finish my hair. By the way, who was that you fired from the Cannon?"

Two fairies began to cry.

"We are sorry, your majesty."

"Well?"

"It was Auntie Fergunson."

FSF: Tears

Annoying droplets of water kept trickling down from my eyes and they refused to stop falling. The wind was blowing against my face, making it cool and fresh.

I wondered if the shade of my nose matched the red shoes I had put on… because everyone knows red is a lucky color. And if shoes are red, well, it might even give you the strength to tell someone you love them.

Even it meant running away to a world I wasn’t sure existed… and yes, even though he would laugh at me and ask me if it were even slightly possible that I’d been crying over him. 

A random Spring Break pic since I have no teary one...

Well. This is convenient. :) I had a writer's meeting last night with two delightful friends and we were discussing our big projects/manuscripts and the equally important "distraction projects". The project that keeps you going when you hit a rough spot and need to be creatively rebooted. 

I didn't really have one. I have plenty of ideas, they just seem to fizzle away after a few days, maybe a week. I still love them, it's just nothing grabbed me like my current project. 

Last night I remembered a fun, modern day, fairy tale that I had always wanted to write but I joked that I didn't think I would like it because it's just so... happy. Compared, at least, to my current project which is filled with some pretty messed up people. 

But I like happy stories. So I got home, pulled out my old storyboards and started flipping through all sorts of character charts and exciting plot points. I'm pleased to say I discovered that I had carefully mentioned at least one insecurity and 'greatest fear' for each character. Several have very broken pasts. I liked that. 

Suddenly, they all seemed like real people. And real people make for delicious fairy tales. So I'm kindly writing them one. I'm quite distracted. :) 

Anyway, the convenient part of this post is that, as I was writing, I hit a rough spot. Then I remembered the Five Sentence Fiction word for this week! TEARS. 

Even happy fairy tales need a healthy dose of tears. I have to make their lives a little miserable before the happy ending, right? Bahaha. 

Problem solved. 

And The Plot Thickens....

ARE YOU READY FOR PART FOUR?!

*throws confetti* 

Yep. It happened. As you might remember, I've been writing a fairy tale about a Trig Troll and a collection of interesting characters that are fighting for their lives against this monster. In real life, they're the three other kids in my Trig class. Ha. This morning I awoke to find that one of my delightful Trig companions had written the next installment of the adventure!! It's very exciting. Except I almost die. Almost. ;)

And now, ladies and gentlemen, we have Part Four... from the mouth of Sir Gluten himself:

The Troll and the Rock

Well, Sir Gluten, Sir Constanius Copernicus, Mary Anne, and Matilda Joy were quite peeved that the ceiling had fallen in on them. In fact, you could say they were in a tizzy. Sir Constanius Copernicus, practically exploded out of his share of the rubble. 

"THIS RUBBLE IS WASTING MY TIME YOU INSOLENT CALVINIST SHAMROCKS."

Upon proclaiming such obscenities, Sir Copernicus fell over. The other three were quite sure he was dead. Sir Gluten risked poking him with a pipe cleaner, which seemed to bring Sir Copernicus back from the land of the dead. Once he had recovered, the four decided they had had quite enough, and plodded along merrily, to the tune of Die Viridi, a favorite band of minstrels. Suddenly, the quartet found themselves back inside the classroom of the troll! The troll laughed merrily (in a most trollish manner, as can be expected). "You foolish mortals thought you could simply escape my omnipotent clutches! Now I will unleash my true-" "Wait," interrupted Matilda Joy, "You're omnipotent?" "Why of course I am, you slobber brained pork snail otter loaf!" Retorted the troll. "If you're so powerful," challenged  Sir Gluten, "Why don't you make.........

A CLOCK!?!"

"Pfft," pffted the ghastly fiend, "Too easy." And with his horrendous pencil, he quite easily created a working clock, complete with tangents. "Quite practical if you ask me." said Sir Copernicus. The other three stared at him with a mixture of disapproval and sheer lack of understanding. "Why not try and give me something challenging?" boasted the horrendous scary thing. "Alright!" Accepted Mary Anne, "Why not give us an inverse trigonemetric ratio for the absolute dispersion of a chemosynthetic varible solubilty compund using logarithmic proportions?"

________________________________________________________________________________

That was just a taste. If you want to know what happens next, you can finish reading the story on Nathan's (I mean Sir Gluten's...) blog so I don't get sued for copyrights or anything. ;) Its completely hilarious.  And you should follow him too, I'm sure that would make him feel nice no matter what he says about hating things...

Are you lost? Confused? Intrigued? Read Episode I, Episode II and Episode III to catch up on all the juicy action! :D 

A Story About A Troll: Part Two

I'm going to preface this by saying: I'm a failure at deadlines. But sometimes you write something and you just know, it's not good. And I can't post anything that's not good. So. Tonight had a good feeling about this. Yay!

The Troll's Dirty Secret: 

(Missed the first two episodes? Read them here and here, por favor! :])

It might have come to your attention at some point in your travels or perhaps therapy, that the evil laughter of trolls tends to destroy one’s resolve. Completely. As in, obliterated, scraped together, burnt and scattered about the ocean.

            Matilda Joy and Mary Anne later documented this laugh as the second most evil laugh in all of Highschoolia. But Sir Gluten and the mysterious knight beside him seemed unshaken. Two pairs of eyes gleamed at the troll – one blue, one brown – and swiftly returned to their calculation.

            “Sir Constanius Copernicus, I believe we are dealing with a troll.”

            “Are ya worried? Are ya worried? Are ya worried?” asked Sir Constanius, the knight with the blue eyes. Sir Gluten shook his head.

            “No. Actually yes, but really, we’ve trained for this over ten hundred years. If we win, I swear on the Day of No Graduation that I will buy you a new laptop!” Sir Gluten pressed his forehead against the front of his calculator to see the screen better. (Laptops had just recently been invented by a rebel Wizard and had been given an illegal copyright by the Dragons of Procrastination – but that is mostly irrelevant. Suffice it to say, they were rather rare among the highschoolians and much coveted.)

            Sir Constanius so excited he began speaking in binary, which brought more tears to the girls’ eyes. But they struggled to remain perfectly silent so the intense calculation battle would not be interrupted.

            At this point, the evil troll was turning purple and had already broken the record – twice – for the evilest laugh in recorded history. Dark impenetrable clouds had appeared above his head and lightening lit patterns in his eyes.

            “You will never defeat me,” he cackled and threw a sharpened polynomial function toward the sweating  knights. They ducked. It crashed through the side of the pit and into what seemed to be the troll’s bedroom; although it was decked out in bright pink alphabet letters and Justin Bieber posters.

            Mary Anne couldn’t help herself – she giggled.

            If anything infuriates trolls more, it is the high-pitched, ever-lasting, female giggle. On top of that, his bedroom and life secrets had just been exposed. You see, all this troll had ever wanted was to write songs like Justin Bieber.

            Matilda Joy dared to look up, saw the posters, and giggled as well. The two knights were so confused they collided into each other’s calculator and fell on the floor in a tangle of legs.

            “Grabbin’ an extra calculator,” muttered Sir Gluten, feeling extremely sorry for his smashed number machine. But he had just finished the calculation and shouted the answer despite his sorrow.

            “I did that ten minutes ago, Sir Gluten…”

            Sir Gluten turned to glare at his companion. “Why didn’t you say something?!”

            Sir Constanius only laughed and held up his calculator – it seemed he had programmed it to play a game called Minecraft. Sir Gluten couldn’t help but appreciate this but suddenly the troll screamed and the ceiling began falling around them.

            The poor, evil troll’s Justin-Bieber-Loving heart was completely shattered. His Trig Test had been destroyed by these two punk knights and now his secret was out. Nothing could have consoled him if it had wanted too.

            Sir Constanius and Sir Gluten carefully threw their damsels in distress over their shoulders and carefully deposited them underneath a ledge that seemed sturdy. Of course it wasn’t, and a boulder crashed down, separating Matilda Joy and Mary Anne.

            “Oh, he’s ragin’ now!” shouted Sir Gluten, much too gleefully for Matilda Joy’s tastes and she slapped his knightly arm.

            “Shut up and go rescue Mary Anne!”

            Sir Gluten threw his arms up into the air and spluttered but he did as he was told. Mary Anne was rescued and the four of them escaped down a hallway, where they found a yellow room. Since, yellow is a very magical color, everyone felt relieved. Especially since this yellow magical room held a closet.

            “This is the key to our salvation!” cried Matilda Joy and she kissed Mary Anne’s cheek in complete joy. Sir Constanius laughed and cocked his head to one side.

            “Open it,” he said, smiling largely.

            Sir Gluten grasped the door handle and swung it open to find whatever saving magic would be inside. The girls gasped but Sir Gluten had so much body they could not see around him.

            Sir Gluten threw his arms in the air. “There is a tree in this closet.”

            He moved aside and, indeed, there was a large Christmas tree in the yellow closet. Along with several pipecleaners. Neither were very magical. And suddenly, the yellow ceiling collapsed upon them.

To Be Continued............ 

A Story About A Troll

Once upon a time, in the land of Highschoolia, in Upper Lighthousical Academial,surrounded by the mountains of Mathematics, there was a beautiful young junior named Matilda Joy. She was taking a frolic on a day, not unlike yesterday, in the month of March. She was armed, by order of the King of Highschoolia, with her trusty Calculator. Since the Day of No Graduation, ten hundred years ago, all young Highschoolians were required to train in the art of calculation – for their own safety.

            

Matilda Joy spent most of her time picking flowers for she greatly enjoyed making lotion. Mostly, she liked smelling it but making the lotion had to come first.

           

 As she picked, she was unfaithful in her vows to the art of calculation and she did not look where she was going. And before she knew it she had fallen into the dreaded pit of the evilest troll in all of Highschoolia.

           

Needless to say, Matilda Joy screamed a lot.

            

Several weeks before, a different young junior had disappeared from her kingdom after escaping the hands of the Wizards of Teacherdom. Her name was Mary Anne and she had been the very best friend of precious Matilda Joy. Matilda Joy had missed her so much, she had invented a new lotion scent with Mary Anne’s name on it, in remembrance of her best friend.

            

So she was quite surprised, that at the end of the thirty six foot fall, she ran into Mary Anne. Or rather, ran her into the ground. This saved Matilda Joy from any broken appendages but Mary Anne was knocked quite unconscious.

            

Matilda Joy jumped up in joy, screamed without words and fell to slapping her friend until she regained consciousness. There was much happiness and embracing and a little bit of a concussion on Mary Anne’s part but they were together again and that was all that mattered.

            

Until the stench of nine thousand rotting trigonometric functions reached their nostrils. They began to tremble in their fancy slippers.

            

A dreadful, grating, voice reached their ears.

            

“Whooooo daaaares enterrrrr myyyyy domainnnnn.”

            

“Um… no one?” suggested Matilda Joy. Mary Anne nodded, squeezing her eyes shut and wishing for her fairy godmother. Mother Google did not appear.

            

What did appear, was a huge troll with bright red eyes and a fearsome row of sharp numbers lining his mouth.

            

“You’re a troll…” Mary Anne whimpered. Both juniors began to cry as the evil being confirmed their darkest fears.

            

“I am the troll of Vile Trigonometrical Functionalia and this is my pit!” he cackled and threw the two girls into a classroom full of all instruments of torture. Suddenly, Matilda Joy remembered her trusty calculator!

            

With uncanny precision she destroyed each problem on the Evil Troll Torture Board and left the evil Troll frantically checking answers with a very broken pencil – it had been so long since anyone had challenged him he had forgotten to sharpen it and it had fallen into disrepair.

            

The two juniors ran for their lives.

            

Once outside, a beautiful sight left them breathless. A fine, musical rain was falling – the perfect kind for kissing a handsome junior prince. But alas, none were to be found. So they continued on their way.

            

Presently Mary Anne said: “I say, Matilda Joy, is that a marshmellow hanging from yonder tree?”

            

“I do believe it is,” she exclaimed and they ran to the tree to discover what might be the cause of such a thing. In their fascination they both forgot the second rule of the art of calculation and as their masters rolled over in their graves................ they misplaced their calculators.

          

An instant later, the evil troll was upon them and threw them back into the classroom.

            

“Here you will stay!” he shouted and showered them with geometry proofs. Mary Anne almost melted into a puddle. Matilda Joy found slight comfort in the fact that she could still smell her lotion.

            

After geometry proofs came polynomial division and after that was the terror of parabolas… until finally, the Troll waved an inconspicuous piece of paper in front of their teary eyes.

           

It was a trigonometry test.

            

Matilda Joy could no longer smell her lotion. Mary Anne hid behind her hair and begged, pleaded and promised money if Mother Google would just come save them.

            

But no one appeared…

            

The troll laughed and since he was the evilest troll in existence, it was the evilest laugh ever to be heard within the land of Highschoolia. The two juniors were doomed. They accepted their fate quietly, with folded hands and only a couple hundred tears.

            

The troll tore the paper in half and suddenly it became two sets of ten pieces of paper. These he lay in front of the juniors.

            

“And now, despair for I have sentenced you to – “

            

There was a knock at the door. The troll growled. “Can’t it wait? I’m in the very best part!”

            

The knocking grew more desperate and the troll rolled his eyes, stalked to the door and jerked it open.

            

“What,” he snapped. And then he took a step back. And then another. And then another, until the two juniors could what stood in the doorway.

            

There were two young men wearing shining armor, calculators thrust forward in an experienced fashion.

            

“I am Sir Gluten and I am a Knight of the Pi Radius Squared table,” said the first young man and he bravely began punching numbers into his calculator. The troll laughed. 

~ ~ ~ 

To Be Continued...

*ahem* : This is what I do when I just really hate Trig. Which is pretty much always... but at the moment I hate it more than usual. It is an evil troll. That is all.  

In The Land of Highschoolia...

Once upon a time, in the faraway and sometimes beautiful (but often horrid) land of Highschoolia, in the province of Lighthousical Academial, across the river of Homeworkish where the dragons of Procrastination reside, there was a young junior.

This young junior was locked in a tower of Historia and could not get out. Her only chance of escape rested in a small piece of oratory. This oratory was half-written and confused and distracted but she knew if she did not complete it by morning the Wizards of Teacherdom would swoop down upon her poor soul, eat it, and then (ultimately) destroy the universe.

So she labored extensively, reading books of research and compiling her information, dreading the day to come, knowing it would bring her to ruin... Unless...

Suddenly she had an idea. She called upon her fairy godmother with all her might. The fairy godmother's name was Mother Google and she arrived with a burst of definition glitter and explained the concept of an 'open market' to the poor, confused junior's mind. She didn't quite understand but she thought, perhaps, her small understanding would do. At least... she hoped it would.

And then... as the rays of the rising sun rose over the brilliant mountains of Lighthousical Academial the junior took a deep, shaky, petrified, but halfway confident breath. She was ready. She stood before the Council of Wizards of Teacherdom, and with shaking knees, presented her oratorical speech of freedom.

To her astonishment her idea had succeeded! She had so astounded the minds of the Wizards with her brilliant speech that they sat drooling in the carpet and never rose up to challenge her again!

She ran down the forty-seven flights of stairs to the great door of Exit and Freedom and burst out into a world of butterflies, chocolate, good grades and sunshine. Her fingers could stop typing, her brain could stop hurting... It was a beautiful occasion. She frolicked in among the bright flowers and butterflies and danced without a care in the world.

Everything was so bright and lovely and she couldn't really see where she was going but it didn't matter! She was free! The young junior jumped and squealed her delight to the sky................................................................. and fell into a evil pit owned by none other than the Troll of VileTrigonometrical Functionalia.


The End.

Fairy Ring Contest

Hi, I'm not dead and I do remember the fact that I have a blog. :)

I'm joining in a super fun contest courtesy of Anna Meade over at Yearning For Wonderland. She's delightful and this contest made me excited. Here's my little 300 words of fairy encounter. I guess I'm kind of melancholy today. Heh.

Please Send This To My Fairy:

The first time I saw you, you weren’t very pretty, and to be quite truthful, I was a little scared of you. I was right to be so, wasn’t I?

            

The second time I saw you, against the white walls of my prison, your black and blue hair stuck out and when your pale green hand brushed my cheek, I almost cried.

          

  You were angry at them, too.  I was so frail then and you knocked the cup out of my hand as you gathered me up and we flew away.  The medicine made me afraid of going outside – and I knew the nurses wouldn’t let us – but I wanted to trust you.  

          

  You don’t know how sick I am, I thought, breathing the woodsy scent of your clothes, feeling your heartbeat against my temple. So familiar yet, so foreign.

           

You told me I wasn’t sick. You said it so fiercely I banished the thought from my head – just for you. We were together; I was thrilled you had come, so I tried my hardest to fight against my medicine.

            

Those days passed much too quickly. You wreathed my pale head with flowers – I kept one. So I would hold on. You sang me to sleep in your arms as twilight trickled into the sky. You whispered things in my ear: you were sorry, you loved me, you were coming back, you would keep me next time, and soon.

           

But can you keep a mortal?

            

Now I sit within my white walls, with my pills and my nurses, fighting to decipher the illusions from the dreams and the dreams from reality. They tell me I’m still very sick. They tell me you weren’t real.

            

I’m holding onto my flower, my love. The drugs can’t take everything away.

            

But please come soon. 

________________________________________________________________________________

Details: 

This Post Doesn't Actually Have A Point, But Its Happy. :)

I am a sucker for fairy tales. I love them. I love them so much I might explode. Today one my friends took me to see Beauty and the Beast in 3D and I fell for that movie all over again. If my first dance can be like the one in the ballroom where they sing that gorgeous song and Belle is wearing that wonderful gold dress...

Zomg. I can't wait to get married. X)

I'm also a big fan of happy endings. I have a weird fascination for movies with depressing, break-your-heart-bring-out-the-tissue-box kinds of movies (usually they're about writers too - go figure) but oh my goodness. Who doesn't want to fall in love with a wonderful beast, have him turn into a gorgeous prince, kill off the evil awful suitor, break a curse and then live happily ever after in a castle with a library the size of Hong Kong?!

I wouldn't mind that at all.

One of my new favorite TV shows is Once Upon a Time. I'm just waiting for Beauty and the Beast to pop up. Or the little mermaid. Don't even get me started on how much I love that story. It's funny - I hate movies that happen under the ocean and I'm terrified of sharks but I adore mermaids. My very first Nano - and my first completed manuscript - was about a bunch of mermaids. Heh. No one is ever going to read that story, except my mother, who already has. :)

That story does, however, have a very happy ending and some delightful characters... Hmm. Maybe I'll pull it out one day when I feel like a Super Editor.

Sigh. I had such a good day, ya'll. Just listen to this and feel happy.

Or this...

I'm going to explode into rainbows and butterflies here in a second. Also, my mother made lasagna for supper tonight for which my love is second only to spaghetti on my favorite food list.

And guess what?! I started writing again. Book Three has officially begun.

How's that for happiness?????

P.S. The 3D version of Beauty and the Beast is soooo gorgeous. The artistic side of it was absolutely breathtaking. I highly recommend it. :)