TERRY GROVES

MUSINGS

 

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Here is something new - listen to this audio story "Humming Along" and send me some feedback on what you liked/disliked about it and I will email you another story in audio form. Be sure to include your email address in your feedback. 

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Want to know what goes on in my brain? Here are some excerpts from my writings along with synopsis and maybe even some history of the stories.

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Cruising Along (2020 in progress)

I have decided to try my hand at a murder mystery novel. It will be the story of a middle-aged woman, trapped in an abusive relationship. Not knowing how to find love, acceptance and self-worth, she logs into chat rooms, hoping to meet other women for support. She ends up in conversations with Brian, a kind man who is the exact opposite of her husband. In the meantime, the Wednesday Killer is active in her home town of Vancouver, targeting middle-age men. She tries to not hope his next victim might be her husband Jason.

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She and Brian make plans to strike an activity off of her bucket list, an Alaskan cruise. Travelling as companions, totally platonic, Melody begins to realize that no one is totally honest, everyone tells lies.

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Can she find redemption in this clandestine relationship, will she ever get out from the heavy hand of Jason. Will she find happiness?

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Resolution (2017)

I was so confident when I threw my smokes away at the stroke of midnight. Now here I am, on my very first sojourn into healthy activities, a trek through the woods, caught in a web, giant mandibles snapping at my face and not even the flick of a Bic to defend me.

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Terry's mussing on Resolution: Sometimes it feels like just as soon as you make a decision, set yourself on a path to betterment, you find out you have made the wrong choice and now it is too late. This little story is meant to illustrate that feeling. How did I do?

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Daddy's Slippers 

"Jenny's scared of old slippers. Jenny's scared of slippers." Wesley sang from my door. He scrunched his face up, letting his tongue hang out as he mocked me, making the words slurred and cruel.

"Shut up 'LITTLE' boy," I emphasized ‘little’ since he hated being only six. "Get out of here or I'll punch you out." He also hated that I was stronger than him.

"Slippers of death, yah! yah!" He sang, strumming an air guitar like a rock star. "Slippers of fear." I slammed the door in his face. "Yu cain't hyde fm slprs of dooooom," he had pressed his lips to the crack along the bottom of the door.

I jammed Ken doll's arm under the door and heard Wesley cry out. He went away.

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Terry's mussing on Daddy's Slippers: This is another of my 'older' stories. In fact, if memory serves me (and it often doesn't) this was the story that really got me into writing as an adult. I wrote it for my daughter, Jennifer, so she would have a chance to be older than her brother (it was a rivalry thing). As the story developed, a deeper meaning emerged. Even though this may not be my best writing, I have a strong emotional attachment to it. I doubt it will ever be officially published and I may consider posting the full text on this website sometime. I would like to see it get published, however, because I think the message it carries needs to reach a wider audience than this website ever will.

post note: see how much I really know. Within months of posting my musings above, 69 Flavors of Paranoia chose this story for publication. I hope its message gets well read.

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Car Pokes

They flashed past me and my first instinct was to tromp the gas pedal and catch up to them. Then common sense kicked in and I relaxed my grip on the steering wheel. When I saw the rope lasso extend from the window of the car on the left, I was glad for my innate fear. No one messed with the car rustlers.

They drove fast, into the mass of morning rush hour traffic, heedless of the horns that blared in their wake or the raised fists and fingers of commuters.

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Terry's musings on Car Pokes: The idea for this story came to me one morning while my commuter bus was sitting in morning traffic as it was carrying me to work (my have-to work as opposed to my want-to work). It struck me that the cars making their way into Victoria were like a herd of cattle and I began to wonder what might result if they were treated like cattle. This is a fairly recent story (original idea conceived in 2011) and the first draft only took a few hours. The editing has been may hours but has been a fun experience. As of May 30, 2011, I have not submitted this story to any publishers. This story was picked up by Vagabondage Press for their March 2017 Strange Fictions eZine. You can read it here.

 

Mileage - re-titled to Body Work

Being tall, it was a long stretch to reach under the dashboard. He had to make struggling faces in order to accomplish the maneuver. He had to dip one shoulder to grab his toe. The car swerved over the center line He concentrated on steering until the vehicle was travelling in the proper lane again.

Paul's attention returned to his foot. He could feel he wasn't tangled in the wires so it must be his lace caught. Then he remembered, he was wearing his low boots with side zippers. He ran his fingers along the strangely lumpy line of his sole trying to discover the problem. He could feel his boot and the pedal but he couldn't feel where they met. A car horn blared.

 He muttered to himself and pulled back into his own lane. Flicker, flicker, blink tingled in his stuck foot. Paul gave up trying to free himself and placed both hands on the wheel. It nagged him.

 Paul found his mind wandering to his foot. What had he felt? He stretched his arm down again, fingers questing.

"Huh?", he said out loud. He could feel his boot but it felt even lumpier, swollen somehow. When he pulled his hand away, slime clung to his fingers.

 Paul shook his hand, snapping the goo to the passenger side floor. An exit ramp was approaching and Paul maneuvered up it.

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Terry's musings on Body Work: This is an old story compared to most of my work. The main character is based generally on my younger brother Paul and epitomizes his attitude as I saw it 'a car is something to own, not take care of'. I have done a lot of re-writing on this one, shortening it from it's original length of about 5000 words to it's present 2300. While I ended up cutting out a lot of 'brilliant' writing, there wasn't much real story that ended up in the trash heap, just a lot of spare words. I don't want to say much more about this story because I don't want to spoil the end for you. It hasn't been published so if you want to read it all, you are going to have to write to publishers and ask them to publish it, or, at least buy some of the books that my sold work are in to help elevate me to 'best seller' status so the publishers will be knocking on my door fearing rejection instead of the other way around. -- On May 30, 2011 I received word that Bewildering Stories was going to publish this story.