"Liz" Prologue #2--Vote for your Favorite

I'm cheating.

Instead of re-writing the opening to Liz A. Stratton Closes the Store, I'm going to include a prologue. 

Specifically,  a chunk of action from the middle of the book to give the readers a taste of what's coming.

So, I've decided to post the two possible prologues here and let you all vote for your favorite. Which of these would draw you, readers, into the story the most effectively?

Please comment below, message me on twitter @marenster,  email me at marenster@gmail.com or comment/vote on my facebook page.

Here is the second option. Thanks for participating!

maren

***

Prologue #2

"Ms. Stratton, please," The debate moderator was standing, pleading with his eyebrows. The television cameras glinted in the back of the room, broadcasting to the whole country, live.

"Robert, I'm sorry, but these two patronizing assholes-I mean Candidates-have no business running for President. They are up to their armpits in dirty money, direct profiteering from this sticky, smelly mess of a war. They have no intention of ending it because they are making too much money and they have no moral fiber at all." The Green Party candidate started clapping, but Liz shot him a withering look that made him stop.

"Well, what do you propose?" sneered Senator Ostrem. "Negotiating with the terrorists? That'll work."

Liz glared at him, but he did not cow like McNerny. "Fine," she said. "You want a stronger tactic? You want a tactic that will work? You want a strategy that will guarantee an end to the war, no matter which of us takes office in January?"

"I'd love to hear it," said Ostrem.

"I spoke to a barracks full of women near an army base who said that they'd sacrifice anything to end the war. Absolutely anything. At the time, I couldn't think of anything they could give up that would change things, nothing that would convince the powers that be that the population was serious about ending the war. But I now know what needs to be sacrificed to end the war."

"What's that?" asked Senator Beckinger smugly. "Television? Eating out? Driving to work?"

"Sex," said Liz.

The room was suddenly quiet. Then someone tittered. Then the whole room roared in laughter. Liz waited until they quieted down, working out in her head how this spur of the moment plan would work. Finally, Robert McNally, wiping a mirthful tear from his eye said, "Ms. Stratton, would you mind explaining how giving up sex will end the war in Mesopotamianstan?"

"I'd be delighted, Robert," Liz said sweetly. "Firstly, let's review something. What do men love? Fighting and sex and maybe a sport or two, in that order, I believe. If you take one of those things away, the man becomes unbalanced. I think that given a choice between sex and fighting, men will choose sex. It's that simple."

Robert McNally blinked at her. "You're serious," he said. "You're seriously suggesting that women start a sex strike to blackmail men into ending this war."

"Blackmail is such an ugly word, Robert," Liz said.

Senator Beckinger was chuckling. "Well, it wouldn't work, you know," he said. "I mean, my wife likes our, um, recreation. Certainly too much to give it up for the war."

"Oh? You're willing to bet on that?" asked Liz. "She's never 'closed the store,' so to speak, to get something she wants?"

The Senator looked uncomfortable. "That's a little personal, don't you think?"

"Ha-ha! That's your answer!" laughed Governor Ostrem. "You pussy-whipped bastard!"

"Oh, Governor. It's not like you've ever passed legislation to help out one of your mistresses,
especially the one who dabbles in speculative real estate?" Liz had to remember to send her research department to Hawaii as a thank-you present.

"Robert," she said, turning back to the moderator. "I am saying that if each woman in this country got a headache every night, if she were on the rag for weeks on end, if she suddenly needed to see her sick mother for a month, if she closed the store to her husband, those men would very much want to know how to open it again. And if the same thing happened in Mesopotamianstan, this war would be over in the matter of weeks-if not in A week."

The cheering that rose from the crowd had a perceptively higher pitch than earlier in the evening as only the women were applauding. The men in the room and in the television audience had a moment of dread as, just for an instant, they considered what it would be like if, indeed, every woman in America decided to ignore them. Then they tried to laugh it off, but checked their stashes of porn once they got home, just in case.

"Liz" Prologue #1--Vote for your favorite!

Hello Loyal Readers--

I have decided that Liz A. Stratton Closes the Store needs a prologue. This is because I went to a writer's conference a couple years ago and heard a very popular "story doctor" say to never, ever start your story with someone driving in a car. To date, that is the way I have begun ALL of my novels.

[palm to forehead]

In addition, I've always, always struggled with the beginning of this book. It's the beginning because, well, it's the beginning. However, good stories don't start any earlier than they have to.

So, I'm going to cheat a little. I think this story needs a prologue. Specifically, this story needs a chunk of action from the middle of the book to give the readers a taste of what's coming. I'm not afraid of "spoiling" the surprise for anyone: the fact there's a sex strike is on the bleeding cover.

So, I've decided to post the two possible prologues here and let you all vote for your favorite. Which of these would draw you, readers, into the story the most effectively?

Please comment below, message me on twitter @marenster,  email me at marenster@gmail.com or comment/vote on my facebook page.

Here is the first option. Thanks for participating!

maren

*****

    Prologue 1

Liz A. Stratton, Presidential candidate, peeked from behind the curtain. In front of her stood a crowd of thousands of horny women who had given up sex to show support for her effort to end the war in Mesopotamianstan. They expected her to say something that would inspire tham and keep them from going to bed with their husbands or lovers (or both) until the war was over.

But Liz kept thinking about that...that...MAN (a Secret Service agent no less) who was currently in her room on the bus waiting for her, she supposed as she left him...naked and half-crazy with desire. Honestly, she didn't know whether she was going back to him once she was done with the crowd.

What could she possibly say to those women to keep them on track if she wasn't even able to contain herself?

She slumped in a folding chair and flipped through her talking points, not reading them. She was thinking of Dion's floppy hair, his sexy sunglasses, his lopsided grin, what his cock must look like. She sighed and swore.

Maybe this sex-strike thing was more trouble than it was worth.

LIz Blog #2--Rush Limbaugh

Liz A. Stratton is the host of Spare Me!, a daytime talk show, and the Presidential Candidate for the Women’s Action Party. (She’s also fictional, but don’t tell her that!)

Follow Liz’s adventures in the novel  Liz A. Stratton Closes the Store, and keep watching this blog for Liz’s posts (they will be listed in the sidebar). 

It should be no surprise that Rush Limbaugh is my nemesis. That I hate him and all he stands for with every inch of me. That 90% of the sputum that flies from his lips makes my hair stand on end. That should go without saying.

Mostly, however, I can ignore him. Mostly, his hate-filled speech rolls of my back like greasy oil of his head. 

But not this week. 

The healthcare debate has taken a strange turn lately. The threat of crossing the beams of church and state (usually dismissed by the likes of Limbaugh) has derailed the process of insuring the American people because of birth control. Rush is just the pinnacle of a great mountain of stupidity surrounding the debate up to now. 

Ms. Sandra Fluke, a law student at Georgetown University (a Jesuit university), was denied in a request to testify at a  congressional hearing about how the government should make insurers cover birth control. She did testify at an unofficial hearing held by Democrats where she declared first that the university's lack of birth control coverage was harmful, and second that she, herself, used birth control. 

On February 29, Limbaugh said on his show, "What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex"(1 ).

If that weren't enough, he then said, "If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it, and I'll tell you what it is: We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch" (2 ).

Four days later he " publicly apologizes ." 

My favorite part of his apology was this: "I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke." 

So, was this attack aimed at all women who would like to control their rates of reproduction and have this treated like the health condition it is and have it covered as such in their health insurance? 

All of those women are sluts and prostitutes, too, and he wants us to post our sex lives on YouTube? I have half a mind to call on all women to do so. And every lady who hypothetically might do this should hypothetically send Rush a bill for the "service." 

Rush has successfully taken this debate out of the sphere of whether the government should force institutions to pay for insurance which covers medical treatments like birth control which are counter to their religious inclinations, and transported it all the way back to the original debate about birth control: should women have sex before they get married, and should they be able to control when they have children whether married or not?  

A recent New York Times article revealed that half of the women under 30 years old who have children have them out of wedlock. Some conservatives have pointed to this statistic as an indicator of our decent into the pit of moral anarchy. However, no matter how I chew on this statistic, I can't help but think that more available birth control could do nothing but decrease the number of out-of-wedlock births.  

As of this writing, 26 advertisers have abandoned Rush's show. I hope the rest follow. 

The First Amendment protects free speech like Rush's from legal repercussions within limits that he often tests. The First Amendment does not protect him from social backlash. I say we backlash that asshole until he dries up and blows away in the wind. 

Spare me!

Liz A. Stratton

Liz Stratton Blog #1--TVUS

Liz A. Stratton is the host of Spare Me!, a daytime talk show, and the Presidential Candidate for the Women’s Action Party. (She’s also fictional, but don’t tell her that!)

Follow Liz’s adventures in the novel  Liz A. Stratton Closes the Store, and keep watching this blog for Liz’s posts (they will be listed in the sidebar). 

Dear Reader--

My esteemed biographer, Maren Bradley Anderson, has asked me to write a series of blog posts in order to promote our book Liz A. Stratton Closes the Store, and my campaign for President of the United States!

I said, "That sounds like fun! Let's do it!" Then she gave me a deadline, and I said, "Oh, really? Okay." 

I think a brief introduction is in order for those of you who don't know me. My day job is as the host of Spare Me!, a very popular talk show. This year, though, my best friend and head of the Women's Action Party convinced me to run for President of the United States. I'm still amazed that I agreed to this crazy adventure, but I’m loving it!

So, here it is, my first campaign blog post! 

I’ve only just announced my candidacy. I will go into our talking points in great detail in later posts—stay tuned for my views on the glass ceiling, freedom for the uteri, and ending the war in Mesopotamianstan—but for now I want to talk about a serious issue and one woman’s successful effort to stop it. 

The Virginia State Legistlature has approved a bill which requires a woman to have an ultrasound before she could have an abortion. Previous versions of the bill stated that she might have a transvaginal  or abdominal ultrasound, and the woman would not be “given a choice” as to which was used. Sometimes transvaginal ultrasound is necessary to detect early pregnancies.  

So why legislate the use of ultrasounds? This was clearly an effort to put one more invasive obstacle between a woman and her legal right to decide if and when she wants to bear children (although this assumption may be misguided).

The good news is that the section about the transvaginal ultrasound was removed in part because of Rep. David Albo’s wife, who refused to have sex with him—for one night—after watching a television segment about the bill. Don’t believe me? He told the whole story to the House of Delegates. In short, he was trying to “put the moves” on his wife when a news story about the bill came on the television. His wife suddenly turned to him and said, “I have to go to bed,” and left him on the couch.  

He changed the wording on the bill the next day. 

Ladies, if one senator’s wife can change a bill by getting a headache for one night, imagine what might happen if all women in the country were to band together for a common cause? 


Just imagine. 


Liz A. Stratton