Andrea Marcusa’s work has appeared in Gettysburg Review, Citron Review, Cherry Tree, Heavy Feather Review, and others. She’s received recognition in a range of competitions, including Smokelong, Glimmer Train, Raleigh Review, and Southampton Review. She received Honorable Mention in the Cleaver 2022 Flash Contest. She studies with Philip Schultz at The Writers Studio. For more information, visit: andreamarcusa.com or see her on Twitter @d_marcusa
DON’T FEAR THE WACKY STUFF, A Writing Tip from Andrea Marcusa
A Writing Tip from Andrea Marcusa
DON'T FEAR THE WACKY STUFF Estimated reading time: 2 minutes Do you ever have wacky ideas or thoughts that you scribble down, but then decide they're too awful to keep? If so, I have a suggestion for you. Put them in a file and label it something funny, like "Wacky Pantry." Then, come back to them a few months or years later. Often, the thoughts or ideas that we feel compelled to write down are the ones that feel wrong, not "us," embarrassing, or poorly written. We might think that no one would want to read them, except maybe someone who's been waiting in a doctor's office for hours with nothing to do. But I'm here to tell you that's not true. I've banished many dashed-off pieces, scenes, or rants to a file, thinking they were plain, sad, pathetic, icky, or trite. But then, years later, when I'm going through my files (which always feel a bit like a foreign country), I come across them and ask myself, "Why did I think this was so bad?" Usually, it's because I've uncovered something difficult, painful, and shameful—those feelings that we all possess that we'd rather not ...
DON'T FEAR THE WACKY STUFF Estimated reading time: 2 minutes Do you ever have wacky ideas or thoughts that you scribble down, but then decide they're too awful to keep? If so, I have a suggestion for you. Put them in a file and label it something funny, like "Wacky Pantry." Then, come back to them a few months or years later. Often, the thoughts or ideas that we feel compelled to write down are the ones that feel wrong, not "us," embarrassing, or poorly written. We might think that no one would want to read them, except maybe someone who's been waiting in a doctor's office for hours with nothing to do. But I'm here to tell you that's not true. I've banished many dashed-off pieces, scenes, or rants to a file, thinking they were plain, sad, pathetic, icky, or trite. But then, years later, when I'm going through my files (which always feel a bit like a foreign country), I come across them and ask myself, "Why did I think this was so bad?" Usually, it's because I've uncovered something difficult, painful, and shameful—those feelings that we all possess that we'd rather not ...
THE TUMMY BRIDGE by Andrea Marcusa
Andrea Marcusa
THE TUMMY BRIDGE Right now, it’s an old wooden bridge spanning railroad tracks, a rickety structure that’s fun to cross on her way to the beach. Its steep incline causes her car to jump when she zips over it too fast, and then her stomach to lurch into the air. Her two children and husband love the bridge. When she calls out, “Here comes the Tummy Bridge,” they wait in anticipation holding their stomachs and then erupt into gales of laughter. She presses the brakes, and her husband, who is in the passenger seat, reaches his hand across the gear box onto her knee and travels up her thigh to her bikini bottom and says, “I can’t help it when you pump your leg and arch in that wet suit,” and doesn’t leave her thigh until she swats him away and whispers, “Later!” After the kids are asleep, she’ll lower herself onto him, the room flooding with a chorus of crickets and the ding-donging of wind chimes outside their bedroom window. The sheets soon a damp tangle, her hair matted, they’ll both collapse euphoric, out of breath, feeling each other’s hearts pounding along with their own. Propped on her ...
THE TUMMY BRIDGE Right now, it’s an old wooden bridge spanning railroad tracks, a rickety structure that’s fun to cross on her way to the beach. Its steep incline causes her car to jump when she zips over it too fast, and then her stomach to lurch into the air. Her two children and husband love the bridge. When she calls out, “Here comes the Tummy Bridge,” they wait in anticipation holding their stomachs and then erupt into gales of laughter. She presses the brakes, and her husband, who is in the passenger seat, reaches his hand across the gear box onto her knee and travels up her thigh to her bikini bottom and says, “I can’t help it when you pump your leg and arch in that wet suit,” and doesn’t leave her thigh until she swats him away and whispers, “Later!” After the kids are asleep, she’ll lower herself onto him, the room flooding with a chorus of crickets and the ding-donging of wind chimes outside their bedroom window. The sheets soon a damp tangle, her hair matted, they’ll both collapse euphoric, out of breath, feeling each other’s hearts pounding along with their own. Propped on her ...