A Woman Made Cold Short Story

She had endured a life seated in unparalleled heartbreak. She was not born hard; she was a woman made cold by circumstance.

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She walked up to the door… her black leather heels digging deep into the softening oak beneath her. She didn’t knock. Her steps were authoritative without being obnoxiously loud.  She seemed emotionless but if you looked hard enough you would see that her compassion ran deep. She had endured a life seated in unparalleled heartbreak. She was not born hard; she was a woman made cold by circumstance.

Excerpt from “A Woman Made Cold” original short story

by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse

This story is still unfinished. It comes to me in pieces that may or may not ever fit together, but I suppose that is the nature of inspiration.

Untitled Artwork by Vanessa Cate 

No Room for Pierre

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No Room for Pierre by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse

I started with the cartoon of the  lonely, french babyman. When he was done, I noticed that his expression was very dreary and  disheartened, so I added the tub filled with others just like him enjoying a group bath. The backgrounds that I drew ended up distracting from the absurdity, so I moved on without completing the piece. I really would like to blow it up and hang it in my kitchen one day.

Interview with an Artist: Alison

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Interview with an Artist: Alison McPherson 

 the closer I am to finishing something, the more I ruin what it could potentially have been if I didn’t finish it.

ANGIE: Do you have any thoughts on why art is often left unfinished?

ALISON: When I draw, it’s like something is both intoxicating me and pulling me along with its momentum. I stop when that feeling stops.

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ANGIE: Do you feel like you usually finish your creative writing projects?

ALISON: The shorter ones, yes. The longer ones, never. And finish isn’t really that set in stone. It’s more  “presentable”. I might go back to it later.

ANGIE: Do you think there is something in you that resists completing the project on some level?  My friend Mitch and I were talking about how finishing a project sometimes feels like accepting a death.

… an anticlimactic death

ALISON: I feel that way with more complex pieces. It’s very much reminiscent of Lost in Translation. Sometimes the potential of a piece is more exciting than the execution and the closer I am to finishing something, the more I ruin what it could potentially have been if I didn’t finish it.

artwork by Alison McPherson

Alison’s Blog:  http://boastingsquidsandolivehomages.wordpress.com/

Opening to “Hypochondraway”

There is a bloody rot in this place. It breathes beneath the floors. It lurks in the shadowy vents stalking the weak- hunting for meat until all the sick are swallowed whole. The thick smell of it made my vision go grey.

I’d been here as a child when it was a normal crumpled hospital for normal crumpled cirhossis patients and gangrenous feet. Thoughts of cancer crept into my ear, reminding me that there are poisons in this world that I can taste as clearly as the salt that rides on an ocean breeze.  I wasn’t completely cured yet. Dark, unpleasant thoughts often swelled up in my head leaving no room for cupcake recipes or oven cleaning tips. Today’s Hypochondraway treatment would fix all that though. From now on, ALL my daydreams would be happy and light like lemon meringue.

Excerpt from unfinished science fiction story titled “Hypochondraway” 

 The concept of this fragment is inspired by  a  series of psychosomatic fainting spells I had. The imagery, which I will expand on in later posts,  is taken from a dream I often have where I am sitting in the waiting room of a hospital in the early 1970s. Everything is yellow, linoleum, and humming with the sound of indifferent machinery.

by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse

Unrecorded Song

the bitter kiss of compromise

stained your lips and stole your voice

you’re a stranger I’m a ghost

and i can’t reach through all your noise

I’d float through all our clouds of smoke

That’s if I felt I had a choice 

Every morning I feel older

dark nights crawl, and warm days race

you’re so black and I’m too blue

our bed is such a lonely place 

Every day we wake up dry

in fields too brown for rain to save

sleep in weeds until we die

sleep in weeds until we die

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Time will bury girls and boys

paint their minds then blow away

I was bright and you were new

I was a poem yesterday

now cut my skin or kiss my mouth

The notes I sing are always gray 

and every time you looked at me

My eyes were hard

My eyes were drained

My eyes were nothing much

 My Eyes by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse

This song is about my relationship with my first live-in boyfriend after we grew tired of each other. I just remember scrubbing plates in our kitchen thinking, everything in my life is losing color but at least I can look out the window while it happens. Years after we broke up, I started  working on an album and wanted to capture that feeling in a song., but the chords I wrote felt very repetitive and didn’t really capture the mood accurately, so I scrapped the project.

Untitled Sketch drawn while listening to Kid A

by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse