Koala!!!

I'm listening to The Knux...yeah. They're okay.



Alright, well you didn't ask for it...so you're getting it! More BTBBN!!!

Chapter 5
The Sorting Bat

Being woken up with his head bumping against the window was bad enough, but this time was worse. The entire bus was convulsing and leaping as it barreled down some back woods road, unpaved, with potholes the size of cows. Jacob looked around the bus; it was a scene of horror and confusion, children clinging to the backs of seats to keep from being flung out of them. Jacob’s backside hurt from the bucking which was so severe he hit the bar beneath the seat through its cushion. Somehow Ozzie remained asleep and mostly upright, and Jacob had no idea how Ozzie managed to stay in place when it was everything he could do to keep from being flung out of his seat entirely.
In fact, the rear wheels coming out of a deep pit somehow sent Jacob veritably flying over two seats and into the lap of the goth girl. With all the jostling and rocking they became entangled, and even though he was being constantly bruised and was horribly embarrassed at this upending, he was also touching a girl, and she was none too keen on it. “Get away from me you perv!” she yelled. Now there were two situations going on, and Jacob found it difficult to concentrate on both of them; blushing violently he managed, with the help of another pot hole, to roll overtop the seat in front of them. He wanted to catch his breath, but despite extricating himself from the embarrassing situation, he still had the bucking bus to contend with.
Eventually, and in the nick of time, the road seemed to smooth out. Jacob took the opportunity to move back into the seat with Ozzie, but instead of going up the aisle or over the seat, he decided to go under. He didn’t want to be seen by the girl just now; in fact, he thought it’d be best to never see her again.
He tried first to slide under head first, but the floor was disgusting, and as tight a fit as it was, he didn’t know how he could go head first and then manage to come back up; he would have to come back up feet first! So he went feet down instead, sliding himself under the seat. Jacob should have looked around before going under; if he had, he might have seen the cabins and surmised that they were near their destination. However, he was midway on his journey when the bus slowed and lurched to a stop, his feet below Ozzie and his head still in the seat behind. What slowed him down most was probably deciding which way would be the best to go; time was running short, and his primary aim was to avoid being seen by the goth girl.
He looked up, that is toward the back of the bus, and saw her white sneakers on the floor; she was standing it looked like, picking up her things. Why was she wearing white sneakers if she was goth? What types of shoes did goth kids usually wear? Jacob wasn’t sure that he knew. More immediately, kids were getting up and beginning to shuffle toward the front of the bus. At any moment somebody might look down and see him lying on the floor and immediately he’d be branded the weirdo of the camp. He couldn’t bare it; he covered up his face with his hands and prayed for it to just be over soon. If he didn’t see them looking at him, he could just deny it was him later. It made no sense, and yet he hoped it would work.
He could hear the kids passing by, and thankfully nobody was saying anything, then suddenly there was a strong tug on his pants leg and he was dragged forward swiftly until he was under his original seat.
“What were you doing down there?” asked Ozzie.
“Shhh!” shushed Jacob. Some short kid in a baseball hat with glasses was looking at them as he passed. Jacob tried to stand up as fast as he could, but it wasn’t easy; there was so little room between the seats he couldn’t figure out exactly how to get up. Once he managed to get back into his seat, Jacob just curled up into a ball and hid his face again.
Ozzie eventually coaxed him up and out of the bus. They were in the middle of a clearing surrounded by scrubby cedars and oak trees. Well, at least Jacob assumed they were oak trees; he actually couldn’t tell the difference between all the different sorts of trees that there were. The other kids were all out of the bus and seemed to be coalescing around a short old guy; he had no hair, and his face was wrinkled. He struck Jacob as being funny looking, because old people should be tall whereas this man wasn’t much bigger than most of the kids there. He wore a light cotton shirt, button up and short sleeve, with an A-shirt under it. There was a dark spot on his arm that Jacob could just see peaking out from under his sleeve, but he couldn’t tell if it was a birthmark or a worn out tattoo.
“Alright, kids,” he said in a voice at once high-pitched and gruff. “First things first; you’re gonna get your shit off that bus and stow it in those cabins over there, because the bus has to go pick up some more of you little shits. Then you’re gonna eat breakfast. Then you’re gonna get your shit out of those cabins, because that’s not where you’re gonna be staying.”
When the kids turned around, they saw that the bus driver and another man were already pulling the bags from beneath the bus and tossing them on the ground, kicking up clouds of dirt. The whole clearing was packed dirt and mud, with just a few ornery weeds sticking up on the tiny hills of dirt they managed to secure with their roots. None of the children were too pleased to see their belongings so rudely treated, but they were exhausted and in too much awe to complain. Also, despite his rough message, the old man seemed nice, and they didn’t want to make trouble for him.

Breakfast was strange, not least because it was really a very early lunch. Jacob had never had anything like it. He had expected one of two things: the same sort of cafeteria fare that was at school, or more sea cucumber. It wasn’t either. Instead, he had an ample portion of vegetables along with the tastiest hamburger he had ever eaten. The veggies were all cooked along side the meat on a griddle, it seemed, and they had picked up the meat’s flavor.
“I don’t understand this stuff,” said Ozzie, who Jacob was now glad to have as a friend, seeing as how he had embarrassed himself in front of a lot of the other kids. “It doesn’t taste anything like McDonalds.”
“No, it tastes…it tastes…good,” said a girl who was sitting with them. Her name was Betty. She was heavy set and looked older than Jacob and Ozzie, but middle school girls often did. She must have been four inches taller than Jacob and probably twice as heavy. She was not a small girl.
“It’s like it’s got…texture to it, or something,” said Ozzie, confused by the strange culinary experience.
Jacob ate most of his veggies, which when grilled up with the meat tasted far better than anything he ever remembered his mom fixing. Her vegetables always seemed mushy and somehow homogenous all the way through; eating broccoli was like eating a sponge. Still, he hesitated on the okra. He had never liked okra the few times he had it, but when all was said and done, he was still hungry when that was all that was left. He lifted one up on his fork; the outside was crispy and browned, all the usually offensive hairs seemingly seared off. He held his breath and took a bit. It was crispy, and the inside was a little gooey, but not as bad as he remembered. He still wasn’t sure that he liked it.
“Hey,” the kid beside him said, “are you going to eat the rest of your okra?”
“Y-yes!” said Jacob, guarding his plate from prying forks. He guessed he must like it enough.
The kid who had asked for his okra was named Willy. He was the same kid with glasses who had seen Jacob lying on the floor of the bus. He seemed pretty nice, all in all, if not a bit obviously geeky. Jacob pondered briefly if geeky looking people were just naturally interested in geeky things, or if they just got pigeonholed into that sort of thing because it’s what everybody expected of them.
“Alright you maggots,” said the old man in his gruff yet eerily friendly voice, having suddenly appeared at the door, “bus your plates and let’s go sort you out. The bus is coming back with more kids.”
In fact, the bus was driving up just as Jacob was putting his plate in the bin with the other dirty dishes; he heard it pull up outside and could see it through the big screen windows. There was a trashcan beside the bus station for scraping, but he had absolutely no food left to scrape. That was a first. Even meals he liked okay he usually got tired of.
They bustled outside. For no particular reason, everybody seemed eager to see the new kids arriving. They practically fell off the bus; their ride must have been even more exhausting than Jacob’s. They gathered around the old man who barked instructions fearsomely at them and then moved their things under the porch of the building that had just been used as a cafeteria while Jacob’s bunch stood nearby. Something about being there before them, even if it was only for half a morning, gave all the early morning kids a feeling of being old hands.
Jacob had no idea what time it was; he didn’t wear a watch and his phone (as per camp rules) had been left at home, leaving him feeling naked and alone. Maybe it was nearer lunch time after all; the day was hazy, but it seemed like the glare of the sun behind the clouds came from somewhere near the top.
Perhaps it was because they were tired, but all the new kids seemed pretty bland to Jacob. Nobody really stood out from anyone else. Even Ozzie, as dopey as he looked, had his own something special about him. None of these kids even seemed real. With the exception of one kid. There was this short kid with blond hair. The hair was cut short, and it looked like he had a faux-hawk except for that it appeared to do whatever it was doing naturally. Most striking were his eyebrows, which arched and were pointed at the top like some sort of owl. What got really Jacob’s attention, however, was the fact that as soon as he got off the bus, the boy was glaring at him. Straight at him. And scowling.
“So,” said the old man, once everybody was gathered in one big group, “we’re going to break up into teams.”
There were now at least forty kids in all, and just the one old man there, seemingly, along with this really non-descript guy. Jacob could never remember what the non-descript guy looked like when he wasn’t around. Sometimes Jacob would even forget that he had been around at all.
“Alright, so, you go over there, and you go over there, too. And you, go over there,” he said, pointing at Jacob.
“Hey, that’s the kid from the bus who jumped on me with a boner!” shouted the goth girl.
In a split second Jacob’s cheeks were roasting. “I did not!” shouted Jacob. It was a lie, but what else was he supposed to say. He looked around. Some of the girls looked at him with disgust, others with curiosity, still others as though they didn’t know what a boner actually was. The boys mostly looked down, the very idea of such an occurrence enough to stir their own pubescent impulses.
“Alright, perverts over there,” said the old man, pointing. Jacob walked over and stood alone by one of the scrubby weeds growing out of the packed dirt.
Once everybody was finally broken into two groups, he sent them away in different directions, but Jacob couldn’t hear well enough to know where. The old man turned around, “Oh, are you still there ya pervert? I was just kidding, go after that group over there.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jacob, not sure if he was relieved or not. He trotted away, after the other kids.

Metaphors

I've been lazy lately and preoccupied with my other project, an as yet unnamed board game.

So I'm in Barne's and Nobles a few times a week because I tutor in there--don't buy from them, shop local!--and occasionally I'll go pick up a fantasy novel to see what the state of the art of fantasy is. One of the more interesting things I see is this desire to make metaphors sound scary with flourishes of ghouls and such. So you end up with things like, "She shuddered as though chilled by the devil's own kiss." Or even, "The wood was rotten and old, like the wood of a vampires coffin!" And you have to ask whether these really work as metaphors when they make a comparison to something that we here in the real world are not familiar with. I've never been kissed by a devil. I mean, I think I actually misquoted the second one, because I seem to recall the author talking about something smooth, so it was as smooth as a coffin's lid maybe... that belonged to a vampire! Is that smoother than a modern coffin lid? Do vampires keep their lids extra smooth? Or "As she spoke she slurped her words, as though sucking the marrow from a bloody bone." Really, does the bone need to be bloody? Does it make a different noise? Really, I think most people nowadays have probably never actually slurped marrow from a bone, bloody or not. The bloody just seems kinda, "err...it needs something, uh, BLOOD!" I think the image of speaking like you're sucking marrow sounds nasty enough; I think I'll swipe it and use it myself; woot.

Have you ever slurped marrow from a bone? I have. Its delicious.

Its no wonder, however, because so many people are divorced from reality, from metaphors you could find in nature, that your left making up shit...a vampire's coffin is just as real to a kid nowadays as a dank wood or a beetle's shell; those things are practically fantasy as well. Really, considering the detachment from traditional comparisons modern folk suffer from, wouldn't it actually make sense to use more anachronism in our metaphors? For instance: "Ashthar watched as Beatrique the she-wizard mounted her horse and rode away, leaving him feeling wretched and alone inside, like when a text message is not immediately answered."

Just an update

The rewrite for Oraphan Cycle continues. I'm fairly pleased with the overall change in temperament I'm doing, though some of the individual changes need more going over to get where I want to be. I'm about 1/3 through my first sweep, and after that I expect to do one more and then small fixing here and there. Nobody else is, so I guess I'll give myself some encouragement: Keep up the good work me!

In other news, here's just a little BTBBN for you; not a whole lot happening here, just finishing off the chapter and onto a new one...when Jacob gets to Camp!



BTBBN, ch3 Continues...

Jacob’s head hurt where it was tapping against the window from the bus rocking back and forth as it trundled along the highway. He didn’t even remember moving to the window side of the seat. But that wasn’t what had disturbed his sleep, anyway; he’d been ignoring that for awhile, forcing himself into a doze over and over again. What had woken him was the tugging at his shoes. His eyes half opened and he half saw Ozzie sitting on the floor beside his feet; it looked like he was sniffing at Jacob’s shoe laces.
“What’re you doing?” asked Jacob groggily.
“Nothing! What?” Ozzie moved so quickly to the seat that Jacob wondered if he hadn’t been there all along.
“What’re you doing?” he asked again, the speaking part of his brain lagging behind the sleeping part, which was trying to get elsewhere. “Were you sniffing my shoes?”
“No. I’m sleeping.”
“Huh?”
“Snore,” snored Ozzie. It wasn’t convincing, but Jacob didn’t care and fell back to sleep.

It all seemed very real at the time, and yet sometime between falling asleep and waking, Jacob had dreamily fostered the hope that he would awake to find himself back in school, three weeks left, and never a mention of a mysterious summer camp. Never had he been so glad to be in Mr. Malachi’s English class; it didn’t even bother him that he was teaching Hungarian math techniques, had a magic wand, and kept using it to make gummy bears come out of a kid’s nose. Strangest of all was that Jacob felt really hungry, and kept having to resist eating the nosey gummy bears because it was really gross.
It still all made sense in the dream, though, and so Jacob felt disappointed surprise as he found himself looking out through the grey morning light over acres of government subsidized corn and some other crops which he couldn’t recognize because it wasn’t corn. Jacob looked around the bus. The bus driver’s capped head bobbed up and down; the hair sprouting from beneath his hat was short and coarse and mostly gray. Ozzie was sprawled languorously beside him, and Jacob had no idea how he remained upright in that position. He was snoring peacefully, much more convincingly then last night; Jacob felt pretty sure that Ozzie had been fiddling with his feet, even though he had been far from certain the night before.
There was the girl decked out in goth gear the few rows back, staring away from the window, seemingly at nothing, but definitely not at Jacob. Somehow or other, her hair was still perfectly straight and shimmery in the ironic pink braids she wore. He could see a few more heads of hair peaking up from behind seats, sleepy legs dangling beneath. Then he became aware of that distinct school bus smell: dust and cold, sweaty Naugahyde.
Jacob looked around the bus, daring to stand up, partially hoping and partially fearing that his movement would disturb Ozzie. He was bored and wanted somebody to talk to, but he didn’t think he’d want to talk to Ozzie. The movement caught the attention of goth girl, and their eyes met briefly, at which point she quickly turned away to stare outside with a smug aloofness. There really weren’t that many kids on the bus. Jacob did a quick count; there were only seven he saw, though maybe a few were curled up sleeping.
He sat back down, making the seat bounce a little. Ozzie didn’t budge. Just in the few moments that Jacob had been standing, the fake leather seat had gotten cold again. Sitting on it sent chilly goose bumps all over his skin; he very subtly tried to get closer to Ozzie for warmth, but it was no use. The way the kid was sitting was bizarre, almost like he was standing slantwise, and somehow Jacob couldn’t figure out how he was supposed to even get any closer to him. He curled back up on the seat, hugging his knees to himself for warmth and feeling very hungry. He stared out the window until he fell asleep again.

Because you Deserve it

Hey, look! To celebrate the completion of the first draft of Oraphan, here's a page of BTBBN I just now wrote. Since I'm tired, its bound to be wonderful. Enjoy with reckless abandon!



Ben Thompson Brooks: Boy Necromancer, Chapter something, part 2

The length of time during which Jacob was locked in the cooler cab seemed interminable. The shopping mall parking lot into which they finally pulled was desolate and empty, with only a few cars parked here and there. Jacob wondered why there were any cars there at all. Next to the What-a-Burger a little school bus patiently waited. It looked just like the one the Cadillac man had been in that day, but it didn’t have Jacob’s name scrawled all over the side. Instead it had in big white letters ‘WJCNCBS’. Jacob assumed it stood for ‘Wild Jim’s Country Necromancy Camp and Boarding School’, and it struck him that the acronym might actually be more of a mouthful than the name proper.
“You go aheadz,” said Virgil. “I weel get your books on dez bus.”
“Are you sure you can get them?” asked Jacob concerned, for he had no idea how the small possum could transport all the books, or even one for that matter, but he was tired and ready for any chance to sit and fall to sleep. “Thanks,” said Jacob, his eye lids drooping.
“Serzly? You will let poor little possum carry all your heavy books for you?” cried Virgil.
“But you just said…” said Jacob, too tired to even manage some good indignation.
“How boyzes raisez today? How I’m supposed carry your books? I have no even opposable thumb!”
“Fine!” said Jacob, his eyes shut.
He was mostly asleep as he stumbled back and forth between the bus and the taxi. When he was finally done, which was either much quicker than he would have thought, or nearly half the night, he crawled up the steps of the bus, taking the last one on his hands and knees. He didn’t even look around to see the other kids on the bus, but felt that if he could just stumble in the right direction he could fall into an unoccupied seat. Sensing one nearby, he careened leftward, directly into the lap of a mystified girl dressed in all black with those black, spiky bracelets you find at HotTopic.
“Get off me you twerp!” she seethed at the sudden intrusion upon her person.
“What? Ohmygawd I’m so sorry!” said Jacob, shocked, but still not really awake.
KPOW! KPOW! KPOW! Jacob suddenly leaped out of his skin at the crack of three gun shots from behind him. The girl’s face exploded into a pulpy mess but then dissolved into black goo. Her livid grimace transformed into a circular maw full of spiral rows of lamprey teeth, her tentacles showing black and oily in the parking lot fluorescence.
“How’d one of those get on here?” he heard Virgil say from somewhere.
“I dunno, just slipped on, I reckon.”
“What was that?” cried Jacob.
“Don’t worry about it, Jacob,” said a man in a cowboy hat. “Didn’t really happen; you’re just sleepy. Why don’t you take a seat next to Ozzy here and get acquainted.
“Hi, I’m Ozzy,” said Ozzy from the seat just beside where Jacob now stood. He was short and pale with fuzzy brown hair, cut short so that the loose curls formed a strange sort of flat top. His face was rough with acne and he wore a greasy peach fuzz mustache over his lip that he dared not shave lest he disturb the crop of pimples which grew there. “What’s your name? Jacob? It’s really nice to meet you; I’ve heard so much about you, the one who didn’t quite die.”
“What?” asked Jacob, perplexed, his drowsiness overtaking him beside all the activity, most of which he figured was a dream. After all, he saw no sign of the squid monster goth girl, and the man seemed to be gone. Yes, he had imagined all of it.
“Whoops, I said too much. Don’t worry about it. So my name’s Ozzy. I really like stuff and things. What sort of things do you like to do? One of my favorite things to do is play role playing games; do you know what those are?”
Jacob groaned and turned away, desperate for salvific sleep. Who cared about squid monsters and cryptic messages and geeks, he jus wanted beyond anything else on earth to be able to curl up and fall asleep. But even now, the poorly padded seats thwarted his efforts, the metal frame of the seat rubbing against his shoulder blades.
“Aren’t there any other seats?” asked Jacob wearily as he turned to look around the bus. He thought he saw an empty seat somewhere, but the haze of his fading conscious was against refocused at the pestilential poking upon his shoulder by Ozzie.
“Hey, hey. Don’t you think this cool? I’ve been waiting ever since school got out to go to this camp. Do you know what it is? It’s a necromancy camp; know what that is? We get to talk to the dead and stuff. I hope there’s other kids that like to play role playing games there, because I have lots of characters of different levels, so I’m ready to play with anybody. Hey, hey. Do you ever play Magic?”
“No,” said Jacob, which was a lie. He had an infamously bad deck. Eric had gotten him into it, even though Eric didn’t play anymore, and Jacob still spent time during the school year Thursdays in the band hall trading and playing with some of the band nerds, who were the lowest ranking nerds he was willing to hang out with. Even then, it was on a very limited basis.

A deep sigh of relief, a deep sigh for the work ahead.

The first draft of Oraphan Cycle part 1 is now complete...and available for download for the first five followers of my blog!!!

I write like...

Hey, so, there's this site that takes samples of your writing and decides who you write most like.

I've been putting in the various chapters in order, and so far I think I've gotten: Oscar Wilde, Dan Brown, Dan Brown, Jonathan Swift, Anne Rice, feck! More Dan Brown! Crap. Scarred for like; I might as well quit; I'm a hack...but when I put in the whole story...wait for it...OSCAR WILDE! Yes!

Amphersand, Dollar Sign, asterix...

For some reason Oraphan Cycle has decided to lock itself from editing...yeah...ummm...I can't work on it, in other words...I hate technology.

ARGGGHHH!

Sorry for the utter cessation of Ben Thompson Brooks: Boy Necromancer. I'm really close to being done with the overall story of Oraphan Cycle and really trying to churn it out. There will of course be lots of editing, especially for how the different characters dialogue, making each voice more distinct and more consistent with their personalities. So, yeah, almost done. Cross your fingers.

Oh, dear

Ha, its been forever since my last update. I've been consumed with trying to finish Oraphan, and I'm almost there. Hopefully the ending will not dissapoint; the climax was definitely somewhere in the middle, but I'm hoping to make up for it by stringing along the reader and making him want the next in the series, with numerous cliffhangers...hehehehehehehehehhe...hehehehe. Still a relatively short book by modern fantasy standards, at only around 90k words, around 300 pages. So maybe it'll take me a bit longer to finish then I like, but I feel if I go ahead and go into the next major narratives, it will end up too long. Guess I'll have to see what my agent things about it...when I get one.

Bench mark

While I know you write until your story is done, I thought I'd report that I've now reached 80,000 words on Oraphan Cycle, so I've officially written something that is actually book length!

Hey hey, its the next part of BTBBN...

I usually like to have a little banter before I present the chapter. But I ogt nothing, so here it is.

Chapter 3
The Uneventful Trip to Camp

Jacob’s dad was out of town on business again, so it was only his mom who was there to boss him around. “Jacob,” she said, “you have got to pack. You leave in two days!” Jacob mostly ignored her and went on playing games. He was tired of this joke; it had ceased to be funny a long time ago, so now he just ignored it. If they wanted to keep on playing games, then they could all they wanted.
“But that note really was weird, Jacob,” Eric had said when Jacob had told him of his resolution. “I couldn’t read it, and that was real! I couldn’t see anything on it at all! So maybe your parents really did see a brochure and sign you up for this thing.” But Jacob wouldn’t buy it; it was much less unusual for his family to be playing a joke on him than for there to be a magical brochure to send him to necromancy camp, and therefore the former had to be true. Weird things like that didn’t happen; the extended joke was already strange enough.
Jacob ignored it all. If he ignored it, it would just go away.

It was sometime past midnight. Jacob had fallen asleep on the couch, lit by the iridescent glow of the television. Late night advertising programs flickered, selling knick knackery of the finest quality. Being an unconscionably heavy sleeper, Jacob didn’t hear the faint tapping at the window. He didn’t hear it when it went on for thirty minutes, nor when it turned into a sharp wrapping, and eventually an insistent, if somewhat diminutive pounding.
The doorbell rang its synthesized chime throughout the house, and Jacob woke with a start, surprised to find it still very dark. Downstairs he heard his mother shuffling to the door. She clicked on the porch lights, looked around, then shuffled back to bed, leaving the lights on. Fully awake and a bit curious, Jacob jumped in shock when he heard the tap tapping on the window once again.
The first thing he did was grab the remote and turn off the TV. His eyes still burned blue from the light, and he could see nothing save the pinkish hue of the sky outside and hints of his own reflection from the lights that still shone from the DVD player and satellite box. The tapping again, and he saw the ripple of glass where it had been hit. Was somebody tossing pebbles at his window? A shudder of fear wobbled over his flesh at the thought of the man in the Cadillac, but it was always possible it was one of his friends playing a joke on him, or trying to get his attention for something. Bending down close to the window, he cupped his hands to block out the light.
With a sudden shock he sprang back, staring wide eyed into the darkness. Two beady eyes stared back. Tap tap tap. The eyes were not human, but the looked at him with bizarre intelligence. There was a hissing and squeaking, and whatever it was scratched at the glass of the window. Jacob sat stark still, afraid to move, and then in all the squeaks he thought he heard, “Open up!”
Jacob didn’t respond. He didn’t want to open the window. He dared to get closer to the unknown knock knocker, but could not quite make out what it was, even though it couldn’t possibly be human. Was it a nocturnal squirrel? A raccoon? Jacob didn’t want to know; after a moments thought he went to his own room and shut the door, hoping that the strange creature was just confused.
He lay in bed and waited for the inevitable. The minutes crawled by, and slowly he began to nod off, when suddenly, tap tap tap went the glass of his bedroom window. He covered his head with his pillow, but the wrapping seemed to penetrate straight through and into his ears. “Go away,” he said aloud.
The tapping stopped.
He took the pillow away from his head and looked at the window. He couldn’t see anything outside except the tree lulling in the wind. At first he couldn’t believe he was actually being left alone; part of him expected to be hounded all night. Yet now there was nothing but peace and quiet. He laid down on his cold sheets feeling relaxed and sleepy.
Then the tapping was at his door.
He didn’t believe it at first. There couldn’t be tapping at his door. Slowly, with uncertainty, he sat up in bed. It was impossible, silly. He was imagining it. He had been about to fall asleep, and then his restless mind had made the noise itself for some reason. Maybe he should have been afraid, but he wasn’t, so sure was he that he had misheard. But the sound had sounded real enough. He waited longer, but there was not another tapping.
Tap tap tap.
Until there was another tapping.
Jacob couldn’t ignore it this time. It was definitely real. What was outside his room door? What could he do? There was only one thing he could do. Weakly he tried to call out, “Mom!”
But the words sputtered all the way down in his chest and just barely blubbered from his lips. He was barely audible even to himself. He tried to work up his courage, even then realizing that his courage might get his mom killed if there were something actually dangerous on the other side of the door. “Mom!” he called a bit louder, though he knew it was still too soft. He prepared to shout again.
“No, ist not your mom,” said a small, raspy voice with an odd accent. “Open the door, I’m bringing mezzage.”
Perhaps it was the unusual accent that disarmed Jacob, or the life lessons he had learned from watching movies as a child, that good things always came from opening the door to mysterious strangers in the middle of the night. Isn’t that what cartoons had been teaching him from his youth, that children were chosen for greatness in the middle of the night.
And so with trepidation, and hopes for a glorious future, Jacob cautiously approached the door. The carpet was cushy under his bare feet as he reached out for the knob. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but it wouldn’t go down; maybe he should just go back to bed after all. Surely the shadows he had seen beneath the door that looked like two little feet weren’t actually real. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat again. Where did throat lumps come from, anyway? He had never gotten one before.
With a surge of courage or foolishness, he yanked open the door.
“Hiss!” went the possum.
Jacob yelped and fell backward.
“Saury boud dat,” said the possum. “Iz jus reflex.”
“Are you going to hurt me?”
“Not right now I donz think. Just make no sudden movemens.”
Jacob nodded.
“Well, I comes to pick you up for camp.”
“What? Seriously? But it’s the middle of the night.”
“Yes, well, I comes to pick you up when I comes, and I am nocturnal so there you go.”
“But I haven’t packed.”
“You were supposed to be packed, but we are on tight schedule, so we go. Jus grab a few things and we go.”
“Okay, just a second.” Jacob grabbed his book bag from his closet and started shoving clothes into it.
“Underwear, bring loz of underwear. Do you have your toothbrush; children muz brush their teeth.”
“I’ll get it, just a second.”
“Iz very important have dry socks; bring lots of socks…and loz of underwear. You wear boxers? I think briefs better for exercise. Bring collared shirt for special occasion, okay?”
Jacob finished cramming clothes into the bag and went to his bathroom.
“You getting tooth brush? Good. Kids muz brush teeth. Did you bring enough underwear? Okay, lez go.” They left his room in a mess. Leading the way, the possum jumped up to the open window; Jacob wondered how he had gotten it open in the first place.
“Shouldn’t I tell my mom I’m going.”
“No, she knows, you should have said goodbye before. We muz go now, so no time to tarry. Go, come.”
Jacob climbed out the window. The night was surprisingly warm and muggy, and he felt sticky and nasty almost immediately. He slipped on the roof shingles when he tried to grab for the tree limb to climb down, but he managed to catch himself. Still, by the time he got to the ground he was already dirty and beginning to sweat.
In front of the house a taxi cab was waiting, and they climbed into the back seat. The air conditioning was blasting on high and just touching the cold, fake leather seats made Jacob chilly. At first the change was a bit of a relief, but after just a few minutes of driving, Jacob was rather uncomfortable.
By the time they hit mid-town, Jacob could feel his teeth beginning to chatter involuntarily. He felt tired and thought what a relief it would be to fall asleep, but he couldn’t. The houses wherever they were looked odd and smallish; in fact, he was confused as to where they were. There weren’t any street lights, and it was dark outside except a few porch lights, some of which gave off a strange, almost blinding, bug zapper like light.
“Where are we going?” he asked the possum.
“We have to pick up some of your books, since you didn’t look at your book lizt.”
“Where though?”
“This iz street nobody else come to. Iz off Robert Lee at funny angle, so iz called Diagonal Lee.”
“Is it a street that only magical people can see?”
“No, but many specialty book stores down here. Market fell out for necromancy and alchemy and like, so nobody come down here but us and few Wiccan nuts.”
“Oh,” said Jacob. “Where is your accent from?”
“Two miles from your house.”
“You’re only two miles from my house? Why is your accent so weird?”
“Why my accent weird?” asked the possum defensively, suddenly raising his voice. “Local accents appear when not everyone watches TV all the time! Possums near your house don’t even speak English! Waz closest possum available who speaks it!”
“Oh,” said Jacob feeling uncomfortable for upsetting the possum. The AC fan shushed out of the vent right on Jacob’s legs, which were growing numb from the cold, and his skin was sticking to the seats. Between this and the possum’s silence, he was fairly uncomfortable. “Uh, what’s your name, anyway?”
“Virgil,” said the possum.
“Nice to meet you, Virgil.” Jacob hoped being polite might open up the possum to speaking again; he seemed like a very sensitive fellow. But the conversation didn’t start anew, and they rode the rest of the way in silence, which thankfully wasn’t very far.
It was an old brick building with a glass front of windows that started about waist high, lit from the inside with dead fluorescent lighting. A bell jangled as they entered the door. The shelves were chock full of books, as were the couple of displays which had so many books packed on them that their efficacy as displays was questionable. Jacob walked over to one of the displays and started looking over the myriad titles. Luther Speaks: An Ode to the Great Apostate, Sun Beam’s Astrology: A Practical Guide for Me, Clarence Yojimbo’s English-Japanese Dictionary, Crystal Truths: Why its all about Lines, Man, and The Kybalion, amongst others. “Ignore those,” said Virgil, “they are not relevant to our ztuedies. Most of them are there for the stragglers who come off street anyway; zerious stuff iz in back.”
“Hey, Rick,” said a man behind the counter in the back of the store, “What’s up?” The man was tall and thin, had a thick growth of whiskers, though nothing you could call a beard, long hair and thick, black framed glasses.
“No much Moon Child, juz buying school books for zummer camps.”
“I thought your name was Virgil?”
“Virgil? Virgil! Get out of my store you overgrown gray rat!” shouted the store keeper, yanking a sawed off shotgun from beneath the counter.
“No! Iz child stupid! He gets confused with story I tellz about your arch nemesis Virgil the Immolator, possum who accidentally burn down your old bookstore and house and mother’s house. We juz meet, so he get confused.”
“I loved that house…and my momma.”
“I understand, don’t mind us, we juz pick up books. I know where are.”
They walked to the back corner of the bookstore, under a sign that said ‘Alchemy and Hermetics’ in big block letters. “Did you really kill his mom?” asked Jacob when he thought the clerk probably couldn’t hear them.
“No, but she moved to Utah after losing house.”
“Oh,” said Jacob, though he still didn’t quite understand. “What is Hermetics?” he asked after a moment.
“Stuff you can’t understand.”
“Why can’t I understand it?”
“Because iz Hermetics.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Yes.”
Their conversations made no sense, thought Jacob. He followed Virgil/Rick around the bookstore, carrying the growing stack of books that the possum pointed out. Jacob couldn’t even remember the titles of them all, there were so many. Leroy’s Practical Shamanism, A Southern Guide to Necromancy, The Tao of Willie, The Penguine thrift edition of Psychotropic Drugs and the Path to Enlightenment, Blue Duck’s History of Texas, So you want to talk to the Dead? Definitive Edition…
“Donz worry,” said Virgil, “Iz some for next semester too.”
“Next semester?” said Jacob, suddenly dropping the books and almost crushing the possum. “I thought this was just a summer camp? What do you mean next semester?”
“Hiss!” hissed Virgil. “Watch out kid! Iz boarding school and zummer camp, didn’t you read brochure?”
“I’m not going to boarding school in…in…wherever!”
“Dog Tick.”
“That’s stupid; all my friends are at Covington!”
“Fine, fine, you’re not going to boarding school, okay, fine, but pick up books anyway and ztop complaining.”
Before they were through, Jacob had three stacks of books on the counter. The bill was astronomical, but Virgil told him not to worry, his parents would be billed later. By the time Jacob had transferred all his books to the refrigerator that was the cab, his arms felt as though they were about to fall off.
“Now where to?” he asked, hoping it would be far away so he could sleep, then changing his mind because he had forgotten that the car was freezing and he wouldn’t be able to sleep.
“Juz back zouth; we muz hurry to catch the bus.”

just a daily update

I totally and unequivocally do not buy that modern fantasy novels are 120,000 words long on average. According to Word, Oraphan is currently about 76,000, meaning I'd be halfway to this, and not quite halfway to a bigger book which can be something like 200,000 words. They say that most books have about 250 words per page in a paperback...again, I don't buy it. Looking at what appears to me to be a standard length page in a history book I'm currently reading, it has closer to 500 words on the page. If it really is close to 250 words per page, right now I'm looking at my manuscript being already over 300 pages; that's not huge by any means, but not a particularly large fantasy novel. But mostly, Oraphan just doesn't 'seem' that long; yes, I'm going by gut feel, but I can take my time getting through 300 pages in a novel. Oraphan, though, wizzes by when I do my re-reads; I think Word is lying to me...that's it.

Why is this important? Well, because supposedly first time authors do better if their manuscripts are a bit shorter, so I'm trying to figure out just where I need to wrap up the first 'volume' of my work so that it makes a nice, sellable trade paperback. Otherwise I'd just write until I'm done...which won't be for awhile. Sometimes I feel like those hack writers who just write and write and write and never even really tell a story...like a modern TV serial or something...like BattleStar Galactica. Do all those episodes really give you more character development? Not necessarily. So I have to ask myself, am I just filling space, or are my characters actually growing, and in the way I want them to. For that very reason, I nixed about 2 typewritten pages yesterday. Bren just wasn't acting like Bren...but the fact that I had to write it to realize that in the first place leads me to believe I haven't been writing him as himself consistently throughout the whole thing. I have a feeling for each character, but sometimes that can shift or move, temporarily or more permanently...so, for instance, Glay just had a shift, but it was intentional...but Lemuel has developed over time in a way that may not have made sense from the beginning...

For a writer, my blogs sure are wordy and useless. That's why I'm trying to write fiction, and not blogs, I suppose.

More BTBBN CH3 CONT>>>>

That's right, more Ben Thompson Brooks: Boy Necromancer comin' atcha! After this...

Oh, so, John Carter of Mars is one of my favorite characters in pulp fiction. The books are ridiculous fun reads, over the top, blatantly and delightfully racist at times and just good old fashioned adventure. Also, John Carter is frequently not encumbered with pesky things like modern morality and clothing. The science in the books is brilliant, with big ships flying about, propelled by a martian color that we don't have on Earth, and Mars is lush and full of all sorts of interesting flora, including some kinds that walk around and suck your blood with big hose arm things.

Certainly there was so much fun and you really have to love not being held down by things like science when writing your fiction. The only thing more deleterious to being able to write fun fictional works than understanding science is thinking that you understand morality. Thus we're always stuck writing characters who we know and who we think are believable based upon our social mores (then we label them good or bad, etc.) So I think its a lot of fun to read older works where the characters, good or bad, really have a different way of viewing reality.

Anyway, it is being made into a film...by Disney. Fuck you Disney corp. I hope the children you rear with your movies turn into cannibals and eat you.

But I promised you more story...and here it is! (The continuation of the previous post...so read there first.)

Over the weekend, Jacob lamented his situation while his friend Eric listened.
“I just don’t get it. I know it has to be some kind of joke, but they’re just not letting up. What if they really are going to send me away to some weird camp.”
“What’d the slip of paper actually say?”
“Wild Jim’s Country Necromancy Camp and Boarding School.”
Eric flinched. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I dunno.”
“You mean you never looked up what ‘necromancy’ meant?”
“No,” said Jacob with a scowl, feeling a little foolish. “But what I don’t get is why they don’t even call it the same thing.”
“Well, what do they call it?”
“Wild Jim’s Country Fun Camp.”
“Maybe ‘necromancy’ is a funny way of saying ‘fun’.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, guess not,” said Eric. “Can I see the flier?”
“I don’t want you to.”
“Why not? I want to see if I see it like they do or how it really is.”
Jacob was glad that Eric at least assumed that Jacob wasn’t crazy and that his family was insane instead.
“That’s exactly what I don’t want,” said Jacob. “You’ll look at it and probably see some fantastic brochure too.”
“I know, but I really want to find out. Maybe they aren’t kidding and there’s some sort of spell on the paper. You know, like magic or something. Maybe it’s a magical camp and they’re going to teach you magic! Just like in the movies!”
“If it were like that, then wouldn’t I be the only one who can see the real flier.”
“Maybe you are! Maybe ‘necromancy’ is another word for magic and you’re the only one who can see it!”
Jacob pondered this for a minute. It seemed pretty backward that the real brochure would just be a scrap of paper with the name of the camp on it. He thought maybe he could show it to Eric after all. Wasn’t that why he had swiped it and put it in his pocket? “Here,” he said producing the letter from his pocket and handing it to Eric, who took it.
“What’s this?”
“That’s it; that’s the flier.”
Eric flipped it over in his hands. “But this is just a blank sheet of paper.”
“Don’t you screw with me, too!”
“I’m not!” said Eric, a little taken aback by his friend’s sudden outrage. “Seriously, I can’t see anything on it. Is this really the right thing?”
“Yes it’s the right thing! What do you mean you can’t see it? It says right there!” said Jacob flipping the paper back to its right side and jabbing at it with his finger. “Wild Jim’s Country Necromancy Camp and Boarding School!”
“I can’t see it. Seriously. I’m sorry.”
Jacob scowled and tightened his lips until he couldn’t tighten them any more. “This is stupid. This is impossible! You have to be able to see it! If you can’t see it then—then, maybe I am crazy!”
Eric looked away, just as lost at what to do as Jacob was. Maybe Jacob was crazy, but the letter being magic seemed much more interesting and therefore much more likely. “Wait,” he said, perking up. “I’ve go an idea! Come on, let’s go to my house!”
In the back of Eric’s house there was a gas barbecue pit with an automatic igniter sitting on the patio. It was still sunny out, so most of the mosquitoes that liked to live in their thick saint Augustine grass were still in hiding. Eric’s dad, Mr. Samuelson, loved to grill, and Jacob frequently got invited over. But even though Mr. Samuelson was always spraying the grass with insecticides, the mosquitoes didn’t seem to do anything but thrive. In fact, the more he sprayed, the more mosquitoes there seemed to be. The repellent they used seemed equally ineffective, so Jacob would stand around in the smoke with greasy skin getting eaten alive by mosquitoes at least twice a month. Even now, the tiny vampires, smelling Jacob’s sweet blood, were being coaxed from the damp grass, hovering ever nearer.
“What are we doing here?” asked Jacob, swatting at a mosquito buzzing around his ear. Their incessant whine bothered him, and he thought perhaps it was not the bites but the callous indifference of the mosquitoes that annoyed him more. They would just whine in his ear, ignorant of their own offensiveness.
“We’re going to set the letter on fire!” said Eric with a smile.
“Why didn’t I think of that?” thought Jacob to himself.
“If it’s really magic, then it shouldn’t burn!”
“Wait,” said Jacob, “Just because its magic doesn’t mean it won’t burn.”
“But whoever wanted you to get the flier needs you to keep it around, right? So that your parents can get the information off of it and send you there. They would make it indestructible until it wasn’t needed any more so they could make sure you made it to camp!”
Eric had quite the imagination, but Jacob thought it sounded reasonable. “Okay, well, let’s light it up.”
Eric grabbed the long nosed butane lighter that hung next to the grill; it was stick from being left outside all the time with all the greasy smoke and bug spray and the bugs that stuck to it because it was already sticky. “Okay, here goes.” He tossed the letter on the grill and held out the butane lighter at it.
Nothing happened.
“What’s happening?”
“I don’t know; the triggers stuck.”
“You have to push that thing on the top.”
“Oh, yeah, I knew that.” He pushed and pulled and a tiny little flame popped out and then was gone. Eric tried again, with no more success.
“Here, let me try it,” said Jacob, grabbing the lighter from Eric. He held it close to the paper, but the pathetic flame never lingered for more than a moment or two. The slightest breeze was enough to blow it out. Finally, when it was dead calm, and though he could feel the itch of a mosquito drawing blood from the side of his face and another on his arm, the flame stuck, and he held it steady as can be next to the paper.
“Look, look!” said Eric excitedly. “It’s not lighting on fire!”
But this was premature. The paper did catch fire, and in a few moments had burned to cinders. They both watched and wondered if they should put it out or let it burn; after all, it seemed like if it was magic, it might be a document of some significance. But neither moved in time to save the burning thing which in the space of a few seconds had become charred and black before falling apart altogether.
“Well,” said Eric. “I guess that’s that.”
“Yeah. I guess so.”

“You’re leaving on the 6th,” said his father.
“What?”
“The 6th.”
“Leaving for where? I’m not going.” Jacob didn’t even know why he was still resisting. Hadn’t he decided this was all just a joke anyway?
“For camp. And yes you are.”
“Fine, alright, yes, camp.”
“You’ll only have a couple days after school gets out, so you better be packed and ready to go by then. You’re going to need to bring the tent, and a sleeping bag...”
“Wait, I need a tent?”
“Yes, didn’t your mom show you the checklist that they sent?”
“No.”
“Well, go ask her about it. Go.”
Begrudgingly, Jacob got up to go see his mother. She was busy cooking something strange for lunch.
“What’s that?” asked Jacob.
“Sea cucumber, it was on your list of things to eat before you went to camp. See?” she produced for him a scrap of paper with a list of odd things that he was not sure were all foods, sea cucumber being one of them. He looked suspiciously at the stewing, rubbery chunks.
“I’m not eating that,” he said matter of factly.
“Oh, come now, dear. Try something new every now and then.”
“But you hate trying new things! You’re the one who gets the same thing at Apple Bee’s every week! I’m not eating it! I’m leaving!”
And without further ado Jacob walked right out of the house and down the street. What was wrong with everybody? The gag about the camp brochure was bad enough, but now they were trying to make him eat weird things. It wasn’t like his mom to go to expense to play a practical joke; it wasn’t even like her to joke. In fact, none of his family really had a sense of humor to speak of, including him! “What’s wrong with them?” he thought, trying to make me try new things all of a sudden!
So caught up in his own thoughts was he, that when he suddenly realized that there was a car chuggily idling along with him as he strode down the sidewalk, it had already been with him for over a minute. He just kept walking, hoping that if he ignored him, he would go away.
“Where ya goin’ Jacob? Ya need a ride somewhere?”
Jacob was in no mood for this. Setting his jaw he fixed his gaze straight ahead and marched on. He had no time to worry about the child molester.
“You running away from home?”
Still, Jacob did not respond.
“You ignoring me? That’s not too friendly.”
“Go away.”
“That’s the spirit. So what’s the problem?”
“My mom wants me to eat sea cucumber.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound appetizing. Get in the car and I’ll take you to get a burger.”
This was dumb. Shouldn’t Jacob be running away or something? But it wasn’t like the man was chasing him; as long as he stayed out of the man’s car, Jacob figured he should be safe. “No, thanks.”
“Hey, Jacob.”
“What?”
“Hey, Jacob.”
“What?”
“Hey.”
“Leave me alone!” snapped Jacob, looking over at the man in the Cadillac for the first time. He was holding a gun and pointing it straight at Jacob.
Jacob was amazed at how fast he was able to get to the fence; it took no time at all to climb over. Perverse laughter leaped over the fence after him. “What’s that guy’s deal, anyway?”
After jumping from yard to yard, and not wanting to return home yet, he stopped at a house where he knew the neighbors worked over the weekend. Their little boston terrier barked at him for a long time and wouldn’t get close enough for him to pet it. After awhile it just went back to its little dog house and growled at him.
It was late afternoon when Jacob woke up; he hadn’t even noticed when he fell asleep. He wondered what time it was. He hadn’t brought his phone with him. Begrudgingly, he got up, jumped back over the fence onto the street, and walked home. Judging by the light, he figured it must be somewhere around 4:30. The house was quiet when he went inside; he didn’t think he’d ever heard it that quiet, but maybe that was because usually he was playing video games or watching TV at that time of day. He heard rustling papers.
It was his mom; she was in the kitchen looking at bills. She didn’t look up when he entered. He was about to leave the room and go upstairs when, still not looking at him, she said, “You’re lunch is on the counter.”
He walked to the counter. The plate was gooey with sea cucumber juice. He started to say, “I’m not going to eat that,” but he thought better of it. “I’ll take it upstairs.”
“No, you’re going to sit right here and eat your lunch. There’s no excuse for you to run out like that and let the food I made for you get cold.”
The plate looked excruciatingly unappetizing. He grabbed his fork and scooped up some of the sea cucumber. Slimy ooze trailed off of it and onto the plate. With a force of will he began shoveling it into his mouth; it was revolting! He nearly gagged with every bite!
At last the ordeal was over, and he panted as though he had just been doing some vigorous running. “That was awful!” he said aloud. “How did you guys eat that stuff?”
“We weren’t going to eat that; that was for you. We just had burgers.”

BTBBN CH3!

I think this is about where we were. Since I've been working more on Oraphan for the past week (did I actually manage to get 5000 words written?) I haven't spent as much time on BTBBN, so I'll just ration this out in little bits to you guys...like healthcare from death panels. And because I think a post without a picture lacks flare...LAID OUT!!


Chapter 3
Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother

The Smith family happily sat about the dinner table making insignificant conversation. Mrs. Smith asked the boys about their days. The boys each said, “Nothing.” But Mrs. Smith pressed them and eventually they each gave a thorough debriefing of their day, which was, in truth, rather uneventful. Then Mr. Smith railed against the government and gave his nightly political speechifying; this was when the boys and Mrs. Smith learned everything they needed to know about politics. They were all pleased to have him back in town after his two weeks away, for he seemed so much wiser regarding the ways of the world than they were, and his sumonizing meant they did not need to think as much for themselves.
“Jacob,” said Mrs. Smith when there was a lull in the conversation, “why don’t you tell your father about what you’re doing for summer?”
Jacob shrugged, wondering what his mom was talking about. “I-unno,” he said shrugging with his mouth half full.
“Oh sure you do, tell him about that camp.”
The camp? He had thought she’d given up on the camp! “I said I wasn’t going to that!” he protested.
“What camp?” asked his father.
“It is the neatest looking camp ever. I’ll have to show you the informational brochure.”
“I’m not going, mom. It looks weird. I just want to stay around here with my friends.”
“You can’t just lollygag around here playing videogames all summer, Jacob. Now, what is this camp?”
“I don’t even know. There’s no brochure.”
“Oh not that again,” said his mother. “He’s exaggerating. It’s folksy, but very professionally done.”
“You can’t even read it! And it’s all hand written.”
“Oh, honey, that’s just the font.”
“Well, let me see this brochure.”
“No!” shouted Jacob, fearing the same effect would take his fathers senses over the matter. What was wrong with them?
“Clay, go get the flier for your dad.”
Clay got up and left.
“Dad! I don’t want to go!”
“Well if you don’t want to go, that’s fine, but you need to find something to do this summer. Maybe we can find you a job.”
“Oh, dear, just look at the flier. I think you’ll see we really should send him.”
“I’m not going to force him to do something he doesn’t want to do, Emily.”
“Just look at the flier; you’ll see.”
At this time Clay came back with the sheet of paper with the scrawled script. Mr. Smith took it from him, said “What’s this?” while giving it a suspicious looking over. “What is this?” said Mr. Smith, perplexed and sounding a little angry, much to Jacob’s relief. At last, somebody else saw that it was just a crummy rolled up paper with scribbles on it. “What is this, and how come they didn’t have it when I was a boy? Look, rafting!”
“I know!” cooed his mother. “Doesn’t it look great!”
“No!” shouted Jacob.
“Jacob, don’t shout!” shouted his dad. “What’s wrong with you? This looks like a fantastic camp. It beats the pants off that crummy acting camp you go to every year.”
“But I like acting camp.”
“Look at all the manly things they have you do! You’ll be rock climbing, and building furniture, and learning finances…”
“Building furniture? That’s not a camp, that’s a sweatshop!” Jacob didn’t know why he was arguing the point. Where on earth were they getting all this information from? Was it some sort of joke they were all playing on him? That had to be it. “Okay, guys. Jokes over. I get it now. You got me good.”
But they just ignored him and continued to speculate about all the different fun things he could do at camp that weren’t listed on the flier that wasn’t a flier.

wheeeewwwww...wow,slow going. But okay Oraphan Fans, got 3 pages written today so far. I wonder how much 'good' writers get written every day. Just those 3 probably took me 3 hours, golly. I wonder how many Steven King puts out...he does something like a thousand page book every two weeks, right? Oh, but wait, its because he has stock characters with absolutely no depth or realism to them. This is how I keep myself going..."You're a better writer than Steven King..."

I haven't read "The Name of the Wind", but I am impressed with its scale. How did a first time writer get a book so big published? I read the first chapter or so, and I wasn't thrilled by it, but maybe that's because I don't like the whole well trod 'high fantasy' setting. Tolkien's high fantasy wasn't nearly so...high. Most of the time its like reading video-game scripts with these things. I pick them up and think "I ought to be able to write better than you, but I'm just not sure...maybe my writing is bad, too..." Then I think, "No, it can't be that bad...because at least I don't start out every-single-fantasy-novel with a bunch of guys riding through lonely hills with red glowing eyes." You see, red glowing eyes means you're bad...even if you're the 'good guy', you'll be a bad boy. I think one day I'll write a story with a guy with stoplights for eyes.

More Ben Thompson Brooks: Boy Necromancer!

I'll need a better way to format this so it comes out cleaner when I put it on here. In the meantime, my apologies. Here is an adorable and maybe frightened panda to make up for it. Stick 'em up Panda. I want your bamboo.

Chapter 2
The Unlettered Bottle

It was Sunday morning, and the post man had not yet come, for he did not come on Sundays, of course. Nonetheless, there was a letter on the doorstep. Moreover, the letter clearly did not come from the post office, because the post office was not in the habit of delivering unmarked glass bottles. The bottle was worn and dinged and chipped, and looked like it had been tossed around on the sea for quite some time; it even had what looked like a bit of sea salt caked around the screw top. It took Mrs. Smith a few times to get the rolled up piece of paper from out of the bottle, shaking it upside down and trying to catch a bit of it with her finger, but eventually she succeeded. All along, she thought nothing at all out of the ordinary in her behavior, even though she was usually of the firm belief that when something strange appears on one’s doorstep, one should probably throw it away or maybe even phone the police. Yet she could not stop herself from her investigation of this penurious parcel.
Falling lightly into her hands, the coiled paper unfurled almost of its own accord. Looking at it, she saw it was an advertisement for some kind of summer camp: “Wild Jim’s Country Fun Camp and Boarding School”. It looked professionally done in a folksy sort of way, the camp seemed of high standing, the celebrity endorsements were convincing enough, certainly. This would be something fun to do for Jacob over the summer, and the prices were very reasonable.
“Jacob,” called his mother.
“Yeeees?” he answered from upstairs.
“Come down here a minute.”
“Just a second!”
It was a long second, because he wasn’t anywhere near a save point, but his mom waited patiently, looking over the advertisement. “Look at this, Jacob. It’s for some sort of summer camp out in the country, at some place called Dog Tick.”
“Dog Tick? Why would I want to go there?”
“It’s just a name. I think its some sort of reading camp. They’ll teach you all about ancient civilizations and such.”
Jacob looked at the paper for the first time. “But this is just a bunch of scribbles.”
“What? Of course not, look, here’s a picture of their ropes course.”
“It’s all hand written.”
“No, that’s just the font.”
“What are you talking about? It’s just scribbles on a piece of paper!”
“Look, Jacob, if you don’t want to go, then just say so. But I think it looks like a lot of fun.” Also, she saw the promise of “GPA boosting study classes, habits that every sixth grader should know!”
“I don’t want to go.”
“Well, think on it.”
“No.”
“Jacob Alexander Smith,” she said firmly, putting her hands on her hips and cocking her head to one side so that all her blonde hair hung over her left shoulder. “You’re going to at least think about going to this camp. I think it will be a good experience for you.”
Jacob stood perplexed beyond belief, but he didn’t have the strength of will to countermand his mothers semi-disciplining. What was she talking about? There was nothing on that little leaf of paper but odd squiggly writing. He could barely even read it except at the top where it said “Wild Jim’s Country Necromancy Camp and Boarding School.” “What’s ‘necromancy’?” he wondered to himself.

Jacob’s older brother Clay came back from a friend’s house that afternoon. Clay was a strapping lad of Fifteen, and Jacob looked up to him as though he were a god. Clay was a starter on the JV football team for Akin’s High, and was one of the few boys Jacob knew who actually had a steady girlfriend. It lent a sort of credence to his coolness that legitimate ability could never do. She was tall and blonde and had something that girls Jacob’s age didn’t have, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, no matter how much he tried. She treated him like a little kid, and he ate it up. Even though they weren’t that much older than him, they always took him places and treated him to movies and ice cream. Sure, neither of them actually worked for the money they spent on him, but it was nice that they thought of him anyway.
Clay had his hardship license since their dad was always traveling on business and his mom needed her car for her work as well. He wasn’t the only fifteen year old at school with a car, and it wasn’t even the nicest one—Leon Metzner had a new Mustang—but it still put Clay ahead of most of the kids his age, and was one more way in which he was the coolest older brother ever.
Currently, they were just playing a game of Super Smash Brothers, and Jacob was getting squarely beaten, which he usually did as soon as Clay decided to stop going easy and play as Lucario. “Mom says she sending you to some new camp this summer,” said Clay offhandedly.
“No,” said Jacob with amused aloofness, thinking the very notion ridiculous. “I’m not going to that. Did you see the flier?”
“Yeah, I think it looks pretty cool. I’d go if I weren’t too old. They got a rock climbing wall and a river for swimming…”
“Wait, wait, wait! You saw the flier?”
“Yeah.”
“But there was nothing on that flier!”
“What are you talking about? Sure it was a bit folksy, but it looked professionally done. Didn’t mom show you the picture of the ropes course?”
“Why would I want to go on a ropes course? What is a ropes course? Would you want to go on a ropes course?”
“Well, no,” said Clay, pondering the question to himself, “but I still think that you really oughtta go for some reason. I think you’d have fun.”
“Just play. I don’t want to talk about it. I’m not going. I want to stay here for the summer, not go to some crazy camp with a flier that isn’t even readible.”
“It was just the font they used.”
“It wasn’t the font,” muttered Jacob under his breath.

The last two weeks of school passed without Jacob hearing anything more about the bizarre summer camp with the unintelligible flier. The Cadillac man also seemed to have ceased stalking him, but that did not allay Jacob’s anxiety. Far from it. It seemed the more time that went by without seeing the creeper again the more afraid Jacob was that he might suddenly appear out of nowhere. Not a day went by that he didn’t hold his breath a little as he exited the school doors, expecting to see that crummy whiskery face with its crooked smile waiting for him where his mom should be. And when he was out and about with friends, he constantly looked over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t being snuck up on. It got to the point where his friends kept asking him what he was looking for. Jacob would just shrug and mumble something.
On Tuesday he was supposed to take the bus home. He had wanted to just go over to Eric’s after school, but his mom had said she wanted him home right away because he needed to be clean and ready for some guests that were going to come over. His parents and the guests were going out to dinner, and Jacob and his brother were not invited, so he didn’t at all see the need to be clean and at home to greet anybody.
He never remembered what his bus number was, so he just walked along hoping that the kids on the bus or the bus driver looked familiar. One of the bus drivers did look familiar. He was sitting in a blue bus, smaller than the rest, and painted on the side it said “Jacob’s Bus.”
“Well hello there,” said the bus driver with a craggy smile.
“Trade in the Cadillac?” asked Jacob acidly.
“No, but usually I don’t want to take this one out for a joy ride. A bit hard to maneuver. Do have to take her out occasionally though, just to make sure the battery doesn’t die on me.”
“I don’t think this is my usual bus,” said Jacob as he turned to leave
“Wait, this bus only makes one stop. We’ll get there faster.” But Jacob had already left.
Another child came by. “Is this my bus? My name’s Jacob.”
But the man just waved the kid away impatiently.
Luckily for Jacob, he recognized the Giraffe; he had forgotten that they pasted the animal pictures on there for the younger kids from the elementary school, of which the bus was practically overflowing. He hadn’t remembered there being so many younger kids on his bus, and he hadn’t remembered that they smelled so bad either. He found a seat next to some boy with glasses; the kid was looking out the window and picking his nose. A hint of urine wafted from somewhere behind him. It seemed like ages passed. No more kids were getting on the bus, and yet there they waited in the stifling heat, with only the open windows and the tiny fans running to keep the inside of the bus cool, but it was practically buzzing with kids. Jacob recalled that the inside of a bee hive was considerably warmer than outside, though he didn’t remember the exact difference in degrees. He thought something similar must be happening here. If only he could dump some of the kids on the creepy man’s bus; he probably wouldn’t bother them. After all, it was Jacob’s name on the side of the bus.
After an interminable period of fetid moisture stagnating in the still bus, they were finally away. Coughs of diesel exhaust from the busses ahead sifted through the child clotted windows and packed innards of the bus.
They passed the blue bus; the man just waved and smiled as they drove by. A lot of the kids waved back. “He’ll be in an ice cream truck next,” thought Jacob.

Rant: RED VS BLUE

Deleted for thinking

A new story begins...

Its a web exclusive sneak preview of my brand new story! Featuring the all new adventures of Ben Thompson Brooks, boy necromancer in his first feature length novel:

Ben Thompson Brooks and the Philosopher’s Stone!


“Get in the car, Jacob,” said a creepy man in a beat up Cadillac outside of Covington Junior High. It was clear he was some sort of kidnapper or child molester. But how did he know Jacob’s name?
“How did you know my name?” asked Jacob.
“Don’t be stupid. Everyone’s name is Jacob nowadays.” It was true, three of Jacob’s friends were named Jacob.
“Are you a child molester?”
“Yes, but not in a sexual way.”
“I gotta go now.”
“Well fine, but I’ll be seeing you later,” said the creepy man with a sideways smile that was moreso a sneer. He didn’t seem friendly at all. Probably a kidnapper should be less sinister looking if he wants to be a successful one, but Jacob was nonetheless disturbed by him.

Jacob moved away as quickly as he could, hiding in the doorway of the school. Eventually the man left and Jacob’s mom pulled up. He told her about the strange man, and she said she would call the school and warn them. The next day there was an assembly about safety and avoiding strangers, and several more security guards than usual were posted outside after school.
Jacob was eleven years old and small for his age. He also had a nasty looking scar on his chin which looked like a backward thunderbolt near his lip, and a guppy nearer his neck. This did not bother him much, as his mom always told him that it was what was inside a person that was important. He had an enjoyable life, filled with all the things little boy’s lives should be filled with…video games, television, acting camp, and a recreational soccer league where everybody got a trophy at the end of the season.
A week later, on Friday, Jacob’s mom did not pick him up. He was supposed to go home with his friend Eric to stay over the night. Jacob’s father hated for him to spend the night at Eric’s, because he thought Eric was gay, so Jacob and his mom always said he was spending the night with his friend Erica instead. Probably if Jacob had known that Eric’s mother wasn’t picking them up after school, he would have had to tell his own mom. She wouldn’t have let him stay over if she knew they would be walking to his house, even though he lived nearby the school.
At first Jacob was worried about it. They walked away from the school and over to the Taco Bell. Even the prospect of crossing the road without a conveyance seemed somewhat strange; the rushing metal beasts that roared by them as they rushed through the intersection, only to be stopped by traffic shortly after, seemed menacing and dangerous. He held his breath against the exhaust fumes which the cars quietly emitted from their back ends, but Eric seemed not bothered at all.
“Come on,” said Eric in his effete way as he began crossing the street.
“But it says don’t walk.”
“Don’t be a sissy. The cars aren’t even moving.” It was true, they were covering the crosswalk, but there was enough space to go between them. With some trepidation, Jacob followed, waiting for the inching cars to close space between one another and crush his legs. A couple of cars honked as they lurched forward angrily, as though they had to stop suddenly, and Jacob looked to see angry drivers gesticulating from behind bug eyed sunglasses. Eric paid them no heed, and just kept on walking.
Things didn’t seem so bad to Jacob after they finished eating at Taco Bell. It was hotter outside, and there was even more traffic, but he had survived once, and he was pretty sure he could do it again. It didn’t take long for them to get to Eric’s house. They jumped on the trampoline for a bit, then played Eric’s Wii, then his X-Box, then they ate dinner when Eric’s mom brought home KFC. She was sweet and kept on giving them knowing looks and winks and saying things like, “You boys stay out of trouble.”
“Yes, ma’aaaam,” they would reply.
When Eric’s mom went to bed, it was dress up time. Jacob had been shocked the first time he had gone to Eric’s house and Eric had begun trying on girl’s clothing; he kept a stash of different outfits in a box in his closet. But after being over there several times, it began to seem fun, and Jacob would help Eric put on makeup and clap and whistle at Eric as he strutted and posed and made pouty lip faces. It was nothing Jacob wanted to do himself, but he didn’t mind that Eric did it. Eric always invited Jacob to join, but Jacob pointed out that if they both did it, there wouldn’t be a boy there to clap and whistle.

Eric walked with Jacob to the school in the morning for a soccer game. Eric didn’t play soccer, but he said he would watch the game. Jacob’s mom asked Eric if he needed a ride home after the game, “No, thanks, Mrs. Smith,” said Eric. “I’ll walk.”
“I’d really prefer if you came with us, Eric, it’s too dangerous to be walking around the neighborhood alone.”
“Mom!” began Jacob, thinking to kill two birds with one stone. “Can we go by Jack in the Box for lunch?”
“I guess so.”
“Come on, Eric. Come eat with us.”

Eric could not rightly decline that offer, and so he joined them. Eric and Jacob both sat in the back seat talking about whatever it is pre-adolescent boys with disparate interests talk about. Mostly video games and occasionally girls, which neither of them understood, though they both understood they were supposed to find them unavoidably preoccupying. Nobody noticed when a beat up Cadillac pulled up beside them at a light; it was gone a few moments later.
They ate their lunch in the back seat of the car in front of Eric’s house, and when they were done they said their goodbyes and he ran back into his house.
“I think I need to talk to his mother,” said Mrs. Smith on the way home. “I don’t think it’s safe for him to walk around as much as he does.”

Jacob still felt conflicted on the matter and didn’t know what to say. His mom had always taught him about being safe, and most all his knowledge derived from her. But nothing had happened when they had walked around the previous day, and nothing had happened to Eric ever, even though he walked all over the neighborhood on his own all the time. When his mom was out that afternoon, he thought he’d try it again.
“I’m going to the store,” called his mother up the stairs. “Do you need anything?”
“No, ma’am,” he called back from his video game den, where he was playing the latest incarnation of Call of Duty.
“Okay, love you, buh bye.”
“Love you too, Mom!”

He heard the garage door close and immediately he was up and out of the house. It was an oppressively hot afternoon, especially by the street, so he walked across people’s yards instead. On the grass and in the shade it felt a whole lot cooler. He hadn’t realized how far apart everything was. Even getting out onto the main street from his cul-de-sac took awhile. He knew the way, he had to take three turns to get there, but it seemed a whole lot further than he had imagined. By the main road it was even hotter still; it seemed like the cars added to the heat, and their exhaust fumes made him think he was being poisoned.
There was a bird in a tree nearby singing. Jacob stopped to look at it. The bird paid him no attention, and he wondered what sort of bird it was. Seemed like everything was just a bird. This one made a peculiar noise; actually it didn’t make a peculiar noise so much as it just made lots of different noises. He hadn’t realized that a bird would make more than one kind of chirp. He whistled at it; it looked briefly at him, and then flew away.
“That’s no way to talk to birds,” said a familiar, gruff voice. The man in the Cadillac was idling by the curb. “I can teach you how to talk to birds, though you might not like what they have to say. They’re interesting enough, but a little single minded.”

Jacob was running.

He ran as fast as he could down the side walk, but the man easily kept up, his car rolling along lazily, as he taunted Jacob through the open passenger side window. “Where you going boy? Don’t you want to know about birds? You do realize the road follows this sidewalk, don’t you?”

Jacob veered through a person’s yard, he thought to run to the door and see if anybody was home, but even if they were, and got to the door in time, how would he explain this to his mother? So he ran aside the house and over their fence. Long years of training in rules and property rights had trained him never, ever to do such a thing, and it had almost cost him his life!
“It’s a lesson in non-linear thinking,” drawled the man from the car.
Running, Jacob found it surprisingly easy to leap over the wooden fence, into somebody’s back yard. But the dog came running out after him and he jumped right back over the way he had come.
“Wrong one? Are you gonna let one little dog boss you around?” shouted the man from the still idling car.
Jacob ran to the next house and dove over the fence. The dog next door was at the edge of the fence, snarling and scratching at the treated wood. Jacob waited anxiously, holding his breath without realizing it. Was there a dog on this side too?
“I’m coming to gitcha, better run!” The man’s gruff voice was just on the other side of the fence! Jacob bolted, launching himself over the next fence and into another back yard. He would just be on the next street over, but he was already feeling lost and confused. He unlatched the gate and crossed over into the front yard, running to the street lest somebody see him wandering through other people’s property and getting him in trouble. But wouldn’t they understand if he was being chased by a scary stranger? The houses here looked familiar, but he was unsure. Was he on his own street, or just one nearby. Maybe if he had some time to think the houses wouldn’t all look so much alike as they did right at that moment.
Then the Cadillac turned the corner down the street. Across the street Jacob took to flight, leaping a sprinkler and scrambling over the fence. He could hear the squealing car tires as he ran from one backyard, over a fence, and into another again. He knew this house! He was close to home! What was more, the car still must be on the other street, and even if it wasn’t, he could stick to the back yards until he got home. He crawled slowly over each intervening fence, watching the street to see if the man passed by while he was in view, but he never saw the Cadillac once. Occasionally he thought he heard the growl of its engine and would duck low under some bushes until it subsided; he wasn’t sure he even heard it or if he imagined it sometimes.

Finally he made it home. He had to go into the front yard because that was the door he left unlocked. Since he wasn’t supposed to be out on his own, his parents had never given him a house key. He closed the door and locked it behind him, but feeling anxious in the house. There was no sign of the car, and how could that man know where he lived? Could the man have slipped in the open door while Jacob had been winding his way back home?

He thought about calling the police, but then he’d be in all sorts of trouble for going out on his own. Even if they weren’t mad, his mom would be all kinds of worried. Wasn’t it always the bad kids who were out without their parents, roaming around on the streets, getting into fights, smoking cigarettes behind the high shrubs that were supposed to hide the gas station from the neighborhood it sat adjacent to? Indecision churned in his stomach.

The prospect of calling the cops was awful, and as the seconds ticked by and the whisker faced stranger did not jump out from anywhere, calling the police seemed worse and worse than being chased through the house by a psychopath. He knew he shouldn’t, somehow, that he should stay alert, but it was too frightening to be there alone in the house. He went upstairs. He hadn’t even turned his X-Box off because he didn’t want to lose his progress in the game, so he sat down and started playing right where he left off. There were the normal creaking sounds of the house, which sent chills across his flesh momentarily, but in the warm video game induced stupor he could write them off, as distraction shuttled away the fear.
“Hi, honey.”
Jacob jumped in his skin; his mom had come up the stairs behind him and he had not heard her at all.
“Hi mom,” he said, his fingers still working the remote.
“How are you doing, sweetie?” she bent over and kissed his cheek. “I’ll have dinner ready in thirty minutes, okay?
“Alright, mom.”

You're Wrong Stephen Hawking

Proof against time travel? Here it is. People are dumb; they use any technology they have, no matter how dangerous. If people could actually travel into the past, they would, and we'd know about it, because they (we) are not smart enough to follow the "prime directive". So, yeah, time travel? We already know it won't work, do not be fooled by Mr. Hawking's pretty eyes.

An angsty article about video games

Disturbing in its lack of direction, the author uses video games to express deep metaphysical emptiness:

http://wii.ign.com/articles/108/1088891p1.html

Show Me

Dream Analysis

We came to a familiar pool we had swum in many times before, though when I had been there last I could not remember. Crossing the water upon some stones, I looked down and saw that resting on the bottom of the pool several caimans, and I saw nearby even several smaller ones upon the rocks we were crossing.

Then the other side of the pool was full of people, their children playing near the edge of the pool. I rushed over there and shouted for them to beware, not to let their children in the water. A man looked at me callously and said, "If our children get in the water, then we'll go in and get them."

At this time, a little blond boy swam alone into the center of the pool, I shouted, but he did not hear. A juvenile caiman, little larger than the boy, swam up from the bottom, and latched onto his arm. The boy swam to the side as fast as he could, at the urgings of his father. He tried to shake off the caiman, and to swing himself and strike the caiman against the chain link fence beside the walk, but as he did, the caiman climbed higher on him until it latched onto the boy's throat. Then, as the boy tried to shake him off again, his neck suddenly snapped broken to one side, and water began gushing out.

I rushed to his side, followed by a crowd of onlookers, but his father said to stay away, not to worry. He spilled no blood, only water, and though his wounds were awful, he seemed like he might live.

Then the father said, "Looks like you'll have to spend some years, son."

"No, daddy, I don't want to," said the son.

But the father told him he had to.

A strange vision of ogres, enshrouded in total darkness, though their skin glowed a bright green. They danced to a perverse, off kilter rhythm, shaking gnarled canes which glowed alternately green and red at the ends.

The boy awoke, standing, a tall, strongly built adolescent. His hair was no longer blond, but dark and curling, like a young Samson. The crowd still surrounded him, watching. Then, though he had stood as a marble demi-god, he called in a small voice, "Daddy?" And looked around afraid.

Then the crowd parted, and a decrepit man stood there, shrunken with age, his cheeks dark with large liver spots. "I'm here son," said the man.

Then I woke up.

Like a Cyclops, but in reverse!

Tyrone, my sister's tiny white poodle, was sniffing me today, and I had a sudden realization. Dogs can see into the past. This is incredible! My brother could come home and I'd say, "Where have you been? Who have you been with?" But a dog can tell who I have been with, so long as he's met them before, and, who knows, maybe he can tell something about them only by their smell. "You've been with children all day," says Tyrone, "I can smell middle school BO and remnants of Axe body spray."

Why, oh why do the stupid little boys wear axe body spray at school? I think I'd rather them stink of sweat than Axe; good gravy its awful.

But, yes, no other senses can tell us so directly where we have been. I cannot look at you and see the past three hours of your life, nor can I hear it, unless you tell me. There are no echoes of your activities, nor shadows from the days events, nor impressions upon your skin which I can feel, but if I could smell well enough, I'd know so much more with just a whiff.

Truly, animals are amazing, being able to see into the past as they do.

Ouuuuch

Just finished reading Lonesome Dove. Rough. That may be the most emotionally draining book I've read in a long time.

Drawing

What business does a writer have drawing? None. But I haven't been writing lately...got stuck. So here's a quick sketch (ok, it took me an hour) of Amuel. In truth, the body type is more like what I had imagined for Bren, but in the many attempts at the face a scar formed that looked really cool...so its Amuel.

More steps back...

5 more pages deleted in Oraphan Cycle. Somewhere I felt I lost the grittiness. My supposition is nobody else would notice, but I felt the plot had forced the characters into not being themselves, so back to the drawing board.

Oh, I get it

I realized this morning (thanks to my homeopathic remedy? I almost hate that it seems to work...or doesn't, and its just a placebo effect) that lately my writing is much heavier on the plot end rather than the character development end; I'm bending my characters to my will to make a twirly plot rather than just letting them do what they're doing in the context of each other. I suppose there's a balance there I need to find.

I'm going to try to get some work on "Invalid" done. Invalid is a story about a boy searching for a friend stolen away from him by cancer.

Hats Off

Working on "Hats off to you kids". This is one of my few finished stories. Right now I'm just going through and correcting little typos, but it needs some revision, though I don't know where. It doesn't always capture the mood I'm looking for, but I'm a little clueless as to what to change without being verbose. Certainly it is one of my favorite stories, but reading it, it doesn't match up to the perception of it in my head.

High Fantastic

Finished my "Fantasia" story, by the by. It's right at 3000 words, and very strange. I doubt I should even send it to magazines, but we'll see what my readers say about it.

Guy dies, Yahoo reports

Some Guatemalan died from knifing in NY city after helping a woman who was being attacked by another man. After the Guatemalan collapsed, people passed by without helping for about an hour before somebody finally got the police to the spot. Now, there were a couple 911 calls before then, but they gave the wrong address it seems. So, are people really callous? That's the rub of the article. But I don't think they are, not if they're like the people I meet elsewhere. They're just so clueless and made to feel helpless by their robotic rolls in society that they just assume they have no way to aid, that the man is probably already as taken care of as he can be, that medics are on the way, that somebody else is in charge. That's our crisis; our utter estrangement to life via our modern lives. We're barely human anymore, sure, but not because we're callous monsters, but because we're just a bunch of dumb herd animals.

Two steps forward...

Two pages written...two pages annihilated! All things must remain in balance! Take that crappy writing. Oraphan Cycle has been on the back burner lately. I've been more into Fantasia and Invalid, although actually, I've spent more time trying to re-pick (pun?) up the banjo. Well, sad day, but I was not at all pleased with what Amuel was up to...it was too...touchy feely maybe. I dunno, anyway, its gone. Nothing like breaking a writer's block by forcing yourself to write and then destroying it.

I H8 Blogs

Dear Diary,

Today I'm writing in my blog because that's what you're supposed to do with a blog. The publishers' website told me it would be good to have a blog, if not a full blown site of my own, as an aspiring new author. So here is my blog, in which I will dump all my personal and private feelings about this and that, thus letting the world feel as though they know me, creating sympathy and understanding, so that they buy my stuff because they think they're my friend...muahahhahaha.

Inaugural Pic

Yeah, so I thought I would post a doodle I made seeing as how I'm...a writer. As I write this, I'm listening to "Caligulove" by Them Crooked Vultures. Has there ever been a better title to a song? So, this is from ummm...untitled adventure story 1. Well, as you can see, there's a title, but hardly acceptable for mass consumption. What we have here is a picture of what is supposed to be Malcolm and the pile of beetles (if you're one of the two people who have read the story, then you know what this is about). If not, some background: this is a story, the majority of which I wrote when I was 19 and then barely worked on again after that. I still want to finish it one day, unfortunately there's a lot of distance between me and the characters now. Hopefully this posting a pic works and isn't a bunch of bull hockey. Its totally just a doodle; unfortunately its also about as good a drawing as I could do if I really put my heart into it. Harder I try, worse it gets. Anyway, hopefully it works. Here goes