NaNoWriMo

The National Novel Writing Month (or, for brevity, NaNoWriMo) is a yearly event in which, during the thirty days of November, participants attempt to write a 50,000 word novel. It is something of a contest, though the writers are merely attempting to beat the word-count and not one another. 'Winners" received a web image as well as a certificate stating such and, most importantly, a feeling of achievement and a (probably poor) complete novel which they own all rights to.

This year, I will finally be participating. I've toyed with the idea since I first heard of it in my Sophomore year in high school, but never had the conviction required. This, however, had changed, as I've found that I have no excuse to not partake in this event. I will probably update as I progress along with my novel, but I will wish to get at least part way into it before posting excerpts. You can see I've also added the image on the right to signify my approaching demise.

A Conversation

We were recently working on dialogue in my Intro to Fiction Writing class and were commissioned to write a short bit of dialogue with few or no "tags." I waited to see how the other members of the class interpreted the assignment before taking to the keyboard. This is what flowed out:

“So, do you want to hear something Simmons told me yesterday?” Weathers was grinning again.

Bill looked over his shoulder and gaped. “Are you fucking serious?” He found himself shouting to full capacity to counter the din.

Chuck frowned. “What else do we have to do we have to do?” A slight rain of dirt came down on them.

“I don't know , not die?” countered his companion as he turned back, squeezing off a few rounds from his weapon.

“Come on, you know they're not in range!” Biff-Crack-Twang sang the bullet as it caught the top of the berm and skipped off of his helmet as the final words rang out.

Corporal Bill Wilson's laughter couldn't be contained. He sat back against the edge of the foxhole behind him and let out a hearty chuckle.

Specialist Chuck Weathers hid his eyes under the edge of his helmet. “Yeah, yeah, screw you and fuck irony.” He eased up to the berm, his rifle shouldered; Whoever had scored the lucky shot was going to pay. Pift-pift-pift. The ground shot up in front of him as more rounds impacted the berm, sending him lurching back into hiding. The rifleman looked to his hole-mate, “Hey, Bill, think you can get the scope-jockeys on that guy? I don't feel like eating a lead sammich'.”

With a grunt of recognition, Wilson pulled out a headset and pressed it firmly to his ear. “Foxtrot one to Mike three. I repeat, Foxtrot one to Mike three.”

The worn out speaker buzzed back, “This is Mike three, go ahead Foxtrot.”

“Yeah, Weathers and I are having a helluva time with an unknown at thirty meters, eleven o'clock. He's not too shy on the trigger and we're right in his sights. Think you can lighten our load?”

“Foxtrot, we have no visual on unknown.”

“Yeah, hang on.” The corporal pressed the headset to his chest and motioned at Chuck. “Make him shoot, man!”

“Aw, hell,” was the response as Weathers took off his helmet and placed it on the muzzle of his weapon. He slowly lifted it above the edge of the berm. The bullets hit the helmet before the reports sounded, sending it skittering across the street. “Shit!” He quickly thrust his arm out and grabbed the pack of cigarettes that he was keeping in there, narrowly missing another volley.

Wilson pressed the headset but to his ear.

“Foxtrot one, we have visual on your shooter. We don't have good enough line of sight from this position, but Mike four is sliding on down to see if he can get a better angle.”

Bill sighed. “ETA on shot, Mike?”

“Uhhh, looks like about five minutes.”

He cursed under his breath before responding, “Roger that, Mike, we'll stay put.”

“Wilco Foxtrot one. Mike three, over and out.”

Wilson stashed the headset back in its place and let out a sigh. “They've got to reposition to- hey, give me one of those.” He waved at the cigarette that his comrade was putting in his mouth and quickly snatched one from the offered pack, “Anyways, they've got to reposition to take this prick out, so we're stuck here for a bit.” He inhaled deeply as Chuck lit it.

“So, do you want to hear what Simmons told me yesterday?” Weathers was grinning yet again.

Wilson sighed again, “Are you fucking serious?”

I was hoping to capture a mood of humor and comfort in a particularly tense situation and, according to some cursory reads from some classmates, I seemed to have achieved that. If I were to write it again, I would most likely shorten the conversation between the marksmen and Wilson, as it seems to dominate the piece. Overall, however, I am quite proud of what I came up with in an hour or so and think I may expand upon it farther.

This is Hard Life

Another writing exercise from one of my classes. This time around we had to choose a place and describe it to the fullest detail possible. Seeing nothing worthwhile in my locale, I traveled to Chinatown and slipped into my favorite internet cafe.

Beats break and rhythms shatter across straight edges and hard corners. There are no shapely curves or groovy ridges; This is hard life and few of the chairs are even soft, though they are somehow comfortable, as is the din of the scene.

Unabashful disgrace hangs in tandem with the cobwebs and debris off of the minimalistic light tracks which hold bulbs as bare as is legal; This is hard life and it has no filters on its shine, though the corner shadows do creep out, trekking far from their lowly recesses.

A woman electronically screams from the peripheries, perhaps a warning to the unwary patrons; This is hard life and it brings all manner of its occupants to bear: the perfectly elegant homosexual, bruised street urchin, and sultry gothic or punk.

A treehouse holds its ground around a bracing pillar, though no sentinel mans its beacon; This is hard life and one cannot afford to live cautiously, risking everything for one more day, one more moment of experience.

People hide under headphones and man computers, wearing shirts with inside jokes only they get and using acronyms as humorous relief; This is hard life and the folding walls that contain the technomonks do little to dissuade them from worshiping the cyber gods in their own way.

There are paintings and murals in the back, by the bathrooms, and no one is forced to view but the most avant-garde of them; This is hard life and only the creators, as evidenced by their stiff price-tags, see art as anything but a temporary departure.

Three tables hold court of kings, bishops, and rooks, not guided by the hands of gods on high, but mortals in a macabre game of skill; This is hard life and these possible leaders must be ready to wield their enforces with the strategies taught by few other games.

Behind the bar and the working people is the decaying brick wall which anchors the whole room in crumbling reality; This is hard life and, not matter its true structure, the foundation must look strong, for anyone to put faith in it.

Of course, this is not hard life, but Backspace, a simple internet cafe. But what it means to me, and others I am sure, transcends such a simple premise. It accepts those which others turn away, not in policy, but atmosphere. It stands, in fact, as a reprieve from that hard life by being merely a facade of it.

With this, I was pulling some of the stylings from poems that I had enjoyed in my poetry class during the summer and tried to apply them to prose. The effect isn't quite what I had hoped for and is going to take quite a bit more work before it looks less like prosey poetry. I do think the mental picture is painted, however, which was, of course, the objective of the whole assignment anyways.

Working at Fry's

This is a story I wrote up for my Intro To Fiction class. I was to talk about a job using all the senses. I decided that I wanted to incorporate as much humor as possible. At first, I was worried that the jokes would be too cheeky or something of that sort, but, upon reading it in class, I noticed a number of genuine laughs, especially from other previous or current corporate retail workers, ensuring me in my own talents.

As far as official employment goes, I have truly only had one job, which was working as a accessory salesman at Fry's Electronics, or, as I often call it, “The COSCO of Electronics.” Prior to that, I had only ever worked for my parents in a very unofficial capacity, so I didn't know what to expect, especially since I was going into corporate retail. Whatever I did expect, the experience was certainly many orders of magnitudes more strange, mostly due to the customers that I spent most of my work time attempting to help figure out why they had even come to our store in the first place.

I was easily hired due to my proficiencies in both electronics and bullshitting, the latter being one of the most important talents in the retail market. The man who interviewed me, Dan, the Assistant Store Manager, had something that was off about his face, but I couldn't tell what it was.. I think he may have had facial reconstructive surgery at one point. He was nice, however, in that cheeky, I'm-just-a-nice-boss-until-I-gain-more-by-screwing-you-over kind of way.

I trained under a woman by the name of Stephanie (we were all about first names). She frightened me, as she had the constant demeanor of an unlit stick of dynamite. She was also one of the largest people in the store and was not shy about using it to her advantage. I later found out that she dated the nicest guy in the store, Josh, who I worked with and spent most of my time talking to. They lived together and she drove the car. The training room was as sterile as a hospital waiting room, complete with that annoying, constant humming noise. Our training consisted of watching two movies; one was some sort of racist propaganda about why black people shouldn't smoke pot and the other was (and I wish I was joking here) a recycled driver's ed tape. There were a whole stack more, but Stephanie was apparently too busy to make us watch them, so she sent us out on the sale floor to, “shadow,” our euphemism for pretending to work.

Being a naive kid, I attempted to actually learn how to do my job. I began stalking Taras at the behest of my supervisor. Taras was, perhaps, the worst retail worker in history (of course, as is common in life, he was promoted mere days later), and proceeded to instruct me on important subjects such as how to get away with texting your girlfriend for an hour and avoiding customers who wanted help. After two hours of listening to him whine about how difficult his job was, I ditched him and spent the next few hours meeting the other workers and seeing the layout of our dimly lit, sales heavy corner of the store.

Over the next few weeks, I learned the functions of a accessory salesman: moving boxes, opening boxes, stacking boxes, properly putting boxes on shelves, cleaning up boxes, and other exciting, box-related activities. I smelled of corrugated cardboard by the end of the day and often felt like it. I quickly understood why all of the Fry's employees smoked, with the exception of Josh and I (Stephanie wouldn't let him and I'm allergic). I did enjoy the box crusher, though, which was, of course, a machine design, built, and operated for the sole purpose of flattening the multitudes of boxes we received computer equipment in. It bled grease and oil from every orifice and groaned, reminding me of some sort of complicated contraption I would read about in one of my steampunk novels.

My very favorite task was actually helping the costumers, something which I learned to restrict myself to doing as much as possible and was really the only person there who was at least decent at. In the first month, I received more commendations from customers than any other person in my department due my actual caring about connecting these people to the needed equipment, no matter if I steered them away from or too a more expensive item. The other 'associates' there were content to play with their boxes and, if, by some divine happening, they were roped by a costumer, they would do as little as possible to help them, often times sending them to the farthest aisle they could, or, if they were feeling particularly trollish, into different departments.

This is where the reality of the unspoken trust that customers held and retailers abused was first revealed to me; I once saw a worker tell someone that a piece of photographic equipment was in the movie section and that person, in infinite consumer loyalty, actually walked across the store to find it, striding right by the section that held a large sign signifying it's content to be that which the customer was seeking.

The main problem with being the retail altruist that I was was that I often found myself helping the sort of customers who either have non-electronic related issues or simply had no business being in our store. The most loathed group had to be the Mouth Breathers, a segment of the population who are almost always in their sixties, unkempt, and crazier than a Pink Floyd song. Of course, as their name gives away, these people all chose to inhale and exhale all air through their encrusted, decaying mouths. Combine this with a strange habit of standing uncomfortably close to the second half of a conversation and you have a recipe for a truly punchable person.

There are many zany stories I could write about, but none of them are really all that unique and would only make sense to other retail workers. Looking back, my employment at Fry's Electronics was actually very rewarding; I received a decent discount on purchases, I spent lots of time hanging out with fun people, and still have a stack of business cards and the like from customers of various walks of life offering me a job, including the leader of IT at Nike. And, aside from the few Mouth Breathers, Crazies, and other unbearable people, the customers were fun to interact with and really let you know their appreciation for your help, even the most minor of things. Sadly, I never accepted the tips, since I was only making eight dollars an hour, part-time.

A Life of Tom

There once was a young man named Tom. Tom had made his childhood very tough, and had spent many years in self-made depressions. After fighting these bouts off for years and years, he finally rose above them and found himself alone on a plain of sheer happiness. No matter what happened in life, he could find the best in it and knew at all times that he could handle things and, thus, believed in himself so strongly that he had true control over his negative emotions.

Being on this high point of positivity, he looked around him and saw that he knew no one else that was at such peace with themselves and the world. He believed, perhaps with little pretentiousness, that he could help these people; he thought that they would all want to be happy as he was. He began to live for other people's wellbeing above his own, taking the brunt of the negative emotion in stride and coaxing them to better themselves and find the good in them. Tom spread no ill will, even to those who flagrantly wronged him and felt, probably arrogantly, that he was better than them because of it. Meeting with much success, Tom enjoyed his life and honestly felt very important to the lives of the people around him.

After graduating high school, Tom went off to college, full of exuberance for all of the new people he would meet. He went to all the parties and made at least the acquaintance of everyone on his floor and the one above him. Not being interested in the excesses of drinking and drugs, Tom was also a very useful person to have around as he knew how to take care of the needy and was always well enough and ready to do so. This was something he was proud of. Soon, he fell in love with a very nice young lady who he had taken care of and was determined to win her over. He did, filling him with even more excitement for the year. He had a whole new group of friends, a constant companion, and felt he was finally going somewhere in his life.

Six months later, the cloud which had lifted him so high was quickly dissipating. The friends he had made in the beginning of the year all but ignored him, the relationship which made him so happy was leading him down a path he feared, and he had failed almost all of his classes. At the end of winter term, he had a nervous breakdown and barely got out of bed for weeks. Only with the intervention of his parents and lots of love from his mate did Tom stay in school and climb painfully from the hole that he himself had dug. He was determined to not allow himself to ever fall into that life again; he had abandoned it years ago and had nearly forgotten all of the lessons that had made the preceding years so happy and near pain free.

Things did get a bit better. Tom decided to work at a job he loved and went to only part time classes. He had found a professor whom he really got along with and thought might help him become a professional artist, something which he had always dreamed of. Tom and his lady broke up, but stayed close friends and lovers; barely anything changed, but he was no longer going in a direction that displeased him. He had made real friends and was busy dedicating his time to them, as well as some of his friends back at home who had fallen on hard times. He looked toward Summer with excitement and felt so clear of the drama which had cast a shadow over his life only months prior.

The Summer would not be as joyous as anticipated. It began with another lady friend. Tom had been there for her while she was in a relationship with someone who was bad for her. He had given praise, advice, and an ever-open ear to hear out her ills; Few people had someone to talk to about their problems and, since Tom was on level footing, he offered such a privilege to everyone he knew, thinking that not only would it help them, but also endear him to their hearts, making them feel grateful to have such a wonderful friend as he. This lady was to test that idea. Once she was clear of her previous relationship, Tom very quickly and daftly moved in; Not as a predator, but as someone who would be good for her. He knew he was a good mate; Tom would do anything for his companion, no matter what tax it bore on him, assuming the same treatment would be returned to him.

The fatal flaw was that it wasn't returned and Tom began to realize that many of the connections he had made over the many years since he began his crusade for world happiness were one-sided; He was being used by many of the people he had worked so hard to please and to comfort. Even worse, Tom saw that his loving nature is what had driven so many people away that year. Few of those he called would respond to him and those that did often made excuses or stood him up because he cared too much. Many people were uncomfortable or just downright disliked being looked after and worried over. Others suspected ulterior motives and hidden agendas to Tom's actions. He was nearly universally distrusted and avoided except for by those who saw him as a tool to fulfill their own selfish desires. They cared little for him and were cruel.

These realizations came almost all at once and it was nearly too much for him to bear. The pit below him opened it's black jaws again and, though he tried very diligently to cling to hope, Tom began to let it best him. The thought that people did not want someone so caring in their life was disheartening to him. His intentions were honest and true and he only wished to help people and that was costing him their friendship and his happiness. Those few around him that did care for him told him to change. “It's not worth it,” they said, “Just stop caring. You can't save these people, Tom. You have to look out for yourself first.”

Tom didn't want to change. He was the friend every person said they wanted and he was good to the world. Why should he take a step back and begin treating people worse? He found himself with little choice, though, and became, consciously, very jaded. He began to put his needs above those around him and did not do nice things for them anymore. Tom said hurtful things to those who had wronged him and treated those he didn't like with disrespect. He was cruel to people on a whim and enjoyed poking fun at them with others. And others there were. He found himself to quickly be very popular, even becoming liked by those who had previously spurred him. He found it was much easier to make friend by looking down on everything and being a generally hilarious elitist.

The saddest thing about Tom's life is that he was happy to have become the person he did. He enjoyed standing atop the broken egos of his enemies and friends alike and, for perhaps the first time in his life, thought that he was honestly better than those around him. Through betraying his desire to help people, Tom was filled with hollow happiness and never once cried again.

For those who are reading this, it is probably most apparent that it is about my own life. I am at Tom's moment of change and, having seen the returns on even just the little jadedness that I have tested with, I know this to be one possible path. Whether I will take it or not is still being decided.

A View on "Pharmacide"

A number of weeks ago, my professor (and, probably, my mentor as well) Grace Dillon had assigned for our Science Fiction class a weekly "dialog journal response," which is to say that we were expected to have actually read the material and have had an opinion about it or something pertaining to its general nature. She also opened the assignment up to more interpretation, however; If we were creators, we were allowed to create something every week to compensate for it. Of course, being a writer, I decided on that a story was in order. The result was Pharmacide.

The story itself is not finished, though I should have it completed shortly. I have a suspicion that I will want to submit this story and, seeing as how there are rights to publish and the like, I am not assured enough to know whether I can post the story in its entirety or not. Being as such, I have decided to put up the first two parts (mini-chapters, essentially) for your scrutiny. Please, comment on this story, reactions, ect. I am looking for feedback. Also, please note that there is more editing to be done with this story before it is in final draft, so some leeway will be appreciated.

Part I

The alarm clock buzzed; Dimitri had woken up late. Always fuckin' late he thought as he shot up, skipping a shower, and rushed down the hallway, disparately trying to get his black and brown slacks on both legs at the same time. The woman in the elevator found this show to be endlessly amusing.

As he stood in one of the long, single file lines to board the train that would take him across New Haven, Dimitri ceaselessly watched his state-issued watch, seeing the equisitely painted, bright red hands slowly inch towards the the larger, stationary ones that had been preset by the hospital to signify his appointed check-up time. The twenty-three year old both groaned and sighed at the same time, producing a sound that draw weary looks from his fellow line-waiters. To defuse the tension, he raised one hand, saying, “Don't worry, just a little stres-.”

There was a quick shuffle of people ahead as a man fell to the floor and started convulsing. While Dimitri watched, white foam began to come from the stricken man's mouth. Dimitri, looking at his watch, began counting to ten. It was said that no matter where you were in The Dome, the medics would get to you in ten seconds or less and this particular onlooker liked to test that theory, though he'd been disappointed to find it true thus far. Three, four, five he slowly sounded off in his mind. Looking around, he saw no one approaching and thought, with a slight giddiness, that today would be the day the record was broken. A quick look down told him there were only two seconds remaining when, as expected, three men in thick white suits and face-worn air purifiers calmly walked up, seemly in no particular hurry. Seeing this, Dimitri threw down his arm in disgust. He was annoyed they hadn't been late to help this man.

After the arrival of the medical personnel, the waiting line was reformed at a safe distance. Everyone observed the man's plight, though most were truly watching the medics, attempting to understand the enigma that lived behind the black goggles and masks. No one ever saw them when there wasn't someone to be tended to, so there was an almost angelic aura to their presence that few people found anything but enthralling (the few that did used this distraction to better their place in line). Soon, the man was placed on a litter and carried calmly to the exit by the three silent figures. They looked at each other every so often and bobbed their heads as though talking nonchalantly, yet no voice rang out.

Once they were out of earshot, the crowd was abuzz with rumors and gossip about the phantom medics, and even a little about the striken man. Most talk was of the workers' ability to be seemingly everywhere at once. “I hear they have teleporters, that's why they sometimes come out of those off-limits rooms!” said one women. Dimitri cringed at her wet and nasally voice as it smacked across his ears.

“No, they just use some sort of invisibility device. They're just always around, waiting. Hell, they're probably listening to us right now!” retorted an old, rough looking man in a suit.

The two began to argue, but Dimitri paid no attention. Like most, he was watching the four men off in the distance, now climbing the long staircase to the surface. He said a silent thanks, as they all did, to that man for boring the brunt so the rest of them may live.

That's how it worked in New Haven; you lived your life as well, and as clean, as possible. In the event that you were infected with illness, the medics came, scooped you up, and took you to the Medical Terminus, which remains as the largest hospital ever built. Once there, the disease was studied and anti-bodies and vaccines were produced. These were then added to the weekly injections given to the populace and the illness was stamped out. It was also well believed that the vaccine was then shipped out to the rest of the world and sold to protect those abroad. How else could AboMed afford to operate New Haven? As for the ill themselves, no one really knew. The rumors varied from them having their memories wiped and being assigned a new identity in another section of New Haven to drafting into the Security Corps and even to them receiving no treatment, dying, and their bodies being ground up and sold to the rebel communes in east Europe as animal feed.

Dimitri chuckled softly at the notion as he finally boarded his car. He slowly made his way to his seat, the same seat he sat in every week, and began staring out the same window. It wasn't so much that he particularly liked the seat or the view it afforded that he choose to sit there: the thing had his name written on it, as they all did. He didn't mind so much, however, as the conformity allowed his meal to arrive on time and to his specifications without having to deal with the hassle of ordering or any such nonsense.

Next to him was Ron, the pudgy nerd who was already asleep, giving off soft snores. He always used the four hour ride to catch up on sleep that he missed while in the simulators, or so was the story he had told a few months back when Dimitri struck up a conversation before Ron could get to his nap. He wasn't a terribly interesting man and quite cranky on that occasion, so Dimitri found it best to just leave him alone.

Sitting across the aisle and facing them was Jesse, a cute girl of fourteen. Today, however, her face was scrunched up in a heart-broken depression and the reason was apparent. The seat next to her, which belonged to her mother, Sharon, was vacant and the name plaque had been removed. She had obviously been stricken in the last week and hauled off, never to been seen from by her family again. Seeing this, Dimitri reached across and squeezed the young woman's knee. When she looked up, a new tear blazing another trail down her cheek, he smiled in a most reassuring way and said, “Don't worry, it's going to be alright. I'm sure where ever she is, she's happy.”

The statement had the intended effect and Jesse weakly smiled back and leaned over, giving him a hug. Of course, Dimitri doubted any would be okay and was sure Sharon was already either dead or doing hard labor somewhere, but he didn't let the poor girl know anything but confidence.

Part II

Phillip “Flip” Anderson hated his job, though it wasn't so much the work itself as all it stood for. As Medical Officer #361, he was tasked, as were the others of his profession, with moving the soon to be dead corpses of victims of a society they remembered nothing of; the tragedy that made modern medicine possible for the rest of the world.

“Flip, are you listening to me or not?” buzzed the voice of his group leader through the dilapidated speaker that had probably been put into these goggles when The Dome was first built. The most profitable business in the world, eh? he thought, absentmindedly replying, “Yes, Scott, I'm with you,” in the dullest groan he could muster.

“Hey, people's lives are at stake here! Don't you even care?” Scott Peters replied. Of course, he wasn't referring to the man who was currently vomiting all over his girlfriend's bedroom floor; like most nearing the end of their tenure, Scott saw this person as nothing but an active culture to harvest antibodies and vaccines from (not to mention the odd gene and organ). Instead, he was talking about the billions of people on the outside who relied on the medicines produced from this place for their daily survival from vicious diseases that mutated into new strains on a weekly basis.

Philip gave a smirk, though the facial purifier (or “mouth can” as they called them) protected him from another tongue lashing. “Let's just stabilize this one and get him out of here so the shrink can get on with her,” he said while nodding towards the victim's girlfriend who was, at this moment, having a severe panic attack due to being covered by her lover's bloody vomit.

“Yeah, I'm working on it.” Scott had tranquillized the man and stopped the puking and was now readying the rehydration bag that would be injected once Philip found the vein, a task which was apparently exceedingly difficult. After thirty seconds of waiting, Scott finally grabbed the needle and shoved him aside. “God, how many months have you been here now? You should still be practicing on dead fucking cadavers, Flip,” roared the captain as he plunged the thing deep into his arm.

Stepping back, Phillip rolled his eyes at the gruff man, much to the amusement of the third in the team, Claude, whose light chuckles draw a sharp glance from his leader. Scott was preparing the stricken to be taken to the hospital by rolling him onto a litter. Phillip realized as he took two of the handles that he knew little about either man with whom he worked twelve hours a day; they didn't live in the same structures and didn't spend any of their precious free time together. Of course, Flip only knew either on a first name basis, as was standard practice for The Dome's medical workers, though few truly understood what the intention of such a rule was. Flip cared little, however, and preferred to not question authority, a trait handed down by overbearing parents.

The three men marched off towards the stairs, the dying man's head slowly lolling to one side in rhythm with the steps. As they passed through the door from the apartment, a middle-aged woman with a subdued blouse and skirt swept past them and into the room, her eyes preoccupied in a folder. Like clockwork thought Philip and they began to descend the stairs on their way to the vehicle that would return them to the Medical Terminus. He only let himself look at the man once, depression washing over him. How could anyone choose to live like this?

Let me know what you think.

-Kendle "I'm Almost Done With a Story!" Kelley

Ego-risking Step of Faith

From time to time I will post things I am writing, have written, abandoned mid-sentence, or just generally never believe will see the inside of a publisher's mailbox. I am posting these things to be able to point out the flaws that I see and, once (/if) I get readers, what they see so that others and I can avoid these problems in the future. These, as are all my posts, fully open to criticism and disrespect as long as there is no malicious intent (if there is, I doubt it will even bother me; I'll probably just mentally label you ignorant and continue on), so comment away

This is a story I wrote up this morning just as the sun was peeking out over the rooftops. My first critique is that any idea or writing done under such circumstances is essentially doomed from it's inception. I'm also frustrated by the fact that I began this with a clear idea that had entered my head (and, quickly, my story journal that I record such plot sparks in) about the reactions to the impending Water Crisis that one might see. I quickly decided that I would like to do things differently this time and, instead of neutering all the foul language one might expect, I let it flow from the mouth of a character not dissimilar to the previously aforementioned Maddox. What resulted ended up being the character taking out my frustrations about the "Gaia Solicitors" around campus on a character that was (unsurprisingly) quite similar to them. I doubt I'll ever be able to shape this story to it's original premise, so I don't intend to expand upon it farther unless something really pulls me to do so. So here, in it's entirety, are the first few paragraphs of my story of water crisis that never was:

“So, what you're telling me is that you don't care at all?” said the young woman, a look of astonishment on her face. Jack was happy to find that his position still shocked these people.

“Look, the world's fucked no matter what we do, okay? You can't wave some optimistic bullshit in the air at me and tell me that giving my money to you will somehow benefit me. I'm not some fuckin' drone that's just going to do what you tell me, okay?” he replied, forcing an angry snarl to his features. He wasn't really upset; in fact, he enjoyed these little arguments and their ability to piss of the Purifiers.

“But, studies show-” she tried to get in, but he had her on the ropes and wasn't letting up.

“What the fuck are you going to do? Huh? You going to go join those idiots up on Red Death? You think you're fucked here, try living with terraforming. That's a real death sentence, not like our fucking water.” Jack's face became redder and redder as he bellowed at the solicitor. He was sure that by now she had lost all hope of getting anything from him, yet she didn't shy away. If she hated herself enough to not only do this job, but care enough about it to be his verbal punching bag, then Jack wasn't going to let her go.

“So, what? What are you going to do? Nothing, and you know it. Dammit, don't you people ever even research the bullshit you're selling? We can't do shit, and all the research proves it, yet here you are, with your little fucking clipboard and sandals, trying to extort me out of my money that I could use on hookers or some shit that will actually make me happy. Fuck, maybe I can buy some real water with it, not your bullshit 'water deed.' Why the fuck would I want to buy a patch of polluted water? That's just the dumbest shit anyone could have ever come up with. So, fuck you, and your fucking clipboard.,” he snatched the thing out of her hands as she tried to use it as a shield against his perceived attack.

It wasn't even a clipboard this time; it was some sort of binder with a tablet device that was probably built in the country that caused the Purifiers to have something else to complain about. He didn't care; it had an even more gratifying effect when he slung it against a nearby wall, all of it's tiny electronic components bursting out like plastic shrapnel. He opened his mouth to speak again, but, seeing the terrified look from her and all those around him, he decided that was a good enough exit. He threw one last look at everyone around him and marched off, leaving a scene an emotional vandal.

-Kendle "Hey, At Least I'm Writing" Kelley

So, Content!

How does one start getting into the writing business? By writing, of course! And I'm finding out that writing is a difficult thing to accomplish more often then, say, every month or so. The best way to make yourself write, it seems, is reading, which is something that any writer is going to have to do constantly. There really is no excuse to write if you're not reading something. It doesn't even matter if you're reading something completely unrelated (I'm reading Killing Pablo and Dictionary of Bullshit right now, and they're both non-fiction!), as reading excellent writing will only stand to improve your own craft. I've even heard some people say that they stop reading when they're writing because either: 1. they just don't like anything but their own writings anymore (which is either an outright lie or just completely pretentious) or 2. they don't want to "poison" their work with someone else's muddled thoughts (as if their writings are not inspired by anything else already). These excuses are utterly ridiculous; one must read.

I'm also finding that materials about the act of writing are also very good motivators. A book I recommend (although, at times, it seems highly outdated) is Writing And Selling Science Fiction. It was published in 1976, so much of the practical information about selling information is a bit dated, but the concepts of the craft all seem to be sound and I've had a noticeable improvement in my work since I began reading it. Another book that I've been told to find is Steering the Craft by Portland SF author Ursula K. Le Guin, a massively prolific writer who has been hailed as "the greatest writer of our century." I believe I would be prone to apply anything she says.

Just to help those too lazy (or broke) to purchase these books, I'll list and summarize the top five tips for new writers from Writing and Selling Science Fiction, all of which I've already found helpful in my own writing. These are all listed in the introduction as written by C. L. Grant:

#1: READ (He says it a few more times): Yes, this is repetitive, but it is honestly the best thing a writer can do besides, of course, bringing pen to paper (or, in my case, fingers to keyboard).

#2: Set a schedule: Writing only when one feels like is not a sustainable method when money will eventually be on the line. Set a schedule and don't do anything but write from beginning to end. Any interruption will cause incalculable loss of quality to the piece and stack another barricade on the path to it's completion.

#3: Write, even when you have nothing to say: Any writing is better than nothing. No matter how terrible the product, every moment spent writing will improve your talent. Every successful writer has commented about writing ten or more pieces of rubbish for every decent story.

#4: Observe: Stories are supposed to be portholes into real, living worlds and that cannot happen if the writer doesn't even truly understand his or her own realm. Every person that you come in contact with can shape your characters, every overheard conversation could spark that winning idea. Take every advantage you have and gather all the raw information you can from those around you.

#5: You must want it: If one does not gain pleasure from writing, they will never make it. There has to be a drive, a motivation, to see that story through all of the writer's blocks, bad dialogue, and general frustration.

So, with that, I leave you. Find those books, devour them as I am, and maybe (just maybe) one of us will make it. I can only hope that it will be more than that.

-Kendle "I Wish I Could Indent" Kelley

Post Script: I apologize for the quality of this post; I've not slept all night and that seems to be affecting me. Luckily, I didn't play video games and started writing instead. :)

I Am Now That Which I Taunt

I loathe blogs for some reason or another. In fact, I actually tend to agree with the highly intelligent (yet woefully belligerent) Maddox on this issue, something which I'm not sure I'm really all that happy about. Either way, I am doing something that I have always taunted, so any defense against the title of "hypocrite" is forfeit.

I do, however, have good reason to have made this, which is why I have allowed myself to do so. Two reasons, actually, which I will describe here, as all blogs seem to do in their usually innocent first posts. These reasons are as follows:

1. To (hopefully) provide useful information to aspiring writers as I go along my own path to becoming a paid, full-time writer (more on this later).

2. To put additional pressure on myself to write since "the blog demands it."

It is by these excuses for this "blogging" that I feel I have full right to post here, unlike most blogs which seem to be concerned with the particular author's opinion on something they're not really all the qualified to talk about in the first place. Armchair anythings upset me greatly (though I do admit to being called an armchair historian, tactician, warrior, and scientist). This is not the intent here.

I will now, however, explain what the intent is and why I have said intent, in reverse order:

As is the title of this blog, I am now an unpaid, full-time writer. This changed from being a writing enthusiast to my current status last Sunday when I finished out my final day of being a "Computer Accessory Salesman," which is, of course, a fancy way of saying that I moved boxes and explained the finer points of corded and cordless devices to the unknowing. Anyways, I'm now unemployed in the traditional sense and have only one class to attend to (which is only a one-hour-a-day, two-days-a-week endeavor) for the next four weeks, leaving me with a stupidly large amount of free time. This free time is intended to be filled with writing and fun (in that order) in order to realize two of my life goals: having a career in writing and always enjoying life. Both of these goals are lofty, to be sure, but I suspect that was my hidden motive for creating them in the first place.

To clarify what I mean when I say the word 'writer' (which is honestly a terrible blanket statement I should never make, but do so often) in relation to myself, I will explain what kind of writing I do and am (in my dream of a perfect future) going to build a career out of. I write Science Fiction, which is another term which I am going to attempt to do away with using, but am finding very difficult to replace with the better term of 'Speculative Fiction' as it often confuses the laymen (and laywomen, let's not get sexist now) I talk with about such things. So, I suppose, from here on out, SF or Speculative Fiction are to be my titles of choice for what I write. So, back on that track, I write SF short fiction, which encompasses short stories and novellas mostly. I dream of someday writing a novel or many, but that is a long way off. I prefer short fiction anyways because it allows for the exploration of a single idea or problem without the threat of it becoming stale or muddled with the implications of others. Short fiction can, of course, span many different areas of interest, but it still retains that ability to be singular, which I enjoy.

Now, on to intent. Seeing as how my short term goal is to become a paid, full-time writer, I have a number of steps that I must take, many of which I currently know nothing about and am gathering all information and research I can. This journey from amateur writer to (hopefully) published author is going to be a difficult one, to be sure, but I feel as though all the toil I will go through will not be an exclusive experience. Much to the opposite, I think that I will be following in the footsteps of many of the most successful (and otherwise) in the field and that many will come after me, or with me, or whatever sort of time-based image you can put to that idea. So, there is good chance that everything I learn can be of use to others who dream of "sailing the craft" and actually getting paid to do it. It is to that end (and also of possible exposure and pressure to write) that I find myself willing to become that which I taunt: a blogger/bloggist/person with an opinion and a keyboard. Hopefully that which is useful will spill out here and, if not, any readers I may collect over time will hopefully tell me as such so I can avoid that pesky "hypocrite" title.

-Kendle "Blogger" Kelley