New Blog Site

I'm putting this blog in mothballs. I've moved to a shiny new site at:

http://80proofprose.blogspot.com/

Hope to see you there.

Richard

Last Man Standing

I sadly spend my writing time working on Sunder or procrastinating. I enjoy the challenge of flash fiction but rarely put my mind to it. One of the writing websites I frequent has a weekly flash fiction exercise which caught my eye this week. 200-600 word range. I went a few words over but I let it pass as it's not a contest except for bragging rights. I would have liked another 100.
Credit to Critique Circle

Prompt:
A massive plague has killed everyone on earth, as far as you know except for yourself because of some unknown immunity. What are you going to do? Are you going to try to look for survivors? Remember, there is no one out there to help you.

Since this shares similar elements with Sunder, I thought it would be fun to take a completely different approach to the theme.

Darrel dashed across the avenue to crouch behind a bus stop bench. Although the dogs growled among themselves over the corpse's jerky covered bones, he knew from experience they preferred fresh meat. He, himself, was so hungry he could eat a dog. Over the next hour, he crept through the city streets, jumping whenever a gust of wind disturbed the debris littering the pavement. The weeks of solitude had stretched his nerves thin. It did not help that he had not eaten since his provisions ran out six days past. To continue on, he needed food. More than food, he needed a drink. A stiff one. Up ahead, a neon sign jutting from a row of buildings grabbed his attention. Vic's Place. The name carried an air of sweaty vinyl bar stools and cigar smoke. Darrel kept his expectations in check. Like the dozens of bars he had stumbled across over the last week, this one was certain to disappoint. If not closed due to the plague, the bartender would be either dead or cheating his employer with an extended break. Back at the first bar Darrel had found open, he had waited patiently for a drink amid the stench of rotting corpses for six long hours. The bartender had remained out of sight until Darrel gave up and moved on. Darrel learned his lesson and, after visiting three more bars, he made it his policy to wait no longer than an hour for any bartender to offer him service. Obviously the plague was having deleterious effects on people's work ethics as Darrel had suffered the identical neglect in each of the subsequent bars and markets he attempted to patronize. Despite his run of bad luck, a tinge of hope sparked within him at the open sign in the bar window. Darrel pushed the door ajar and peeked inside. The bartender was nowhere in sight and the room reeked of spoiled meat. A dozen rats scattered from three crumpled corpses as he stepped inside. Broken glass and several overturned stools lay on the floor. Not a good sign. A decent bartender would never keep such an untidy bar. Darrel seated himself at the bar and scanned the rows of liquor bottles lining the serving station wall. Scavenging his pockets, he brought forth the last coins to his name. One seventy-eight. He gazed down at the rotting patrons. None of them would be offering to buy him a drink; of that he was certain. He doubted his chances of credit to be good as well. He rose up on the foot rail and peered over the bar. Nothing. No dead bartender lay there. Proof of another employee's dereliction of duty. Darrel steamed at the poor service. It would serve the bartender right if he helped himself to a drink and left without paying. The owner could take the money out of the bartender’s wages for all he cared. Darrel slipped behind the bar to choose his poison. Since the bartender was buying, why not have something special. He selected a sixteen year old Bushmills scotch whiskey and set it on the bar. After staring at the bottle for a minute, he placed it back on the shelf. It would be just his luck to be caught and accused of stealing. A radio sat at the end of the shelf. He switched it on and dialed through the static to the channel he knew by heart. “...sees no end in sight as the death toll continues to rise. Now back to the mellow sounds of K-Tunes.” Darrel smiled. They were still sending him their message. Although the message never varied, it was all the proof he needed that there were people out there besides the useless bartenders and clerks. He would find the K-Tune folk eventually, if he didn't die of thirst before hand.

A Cheap Ripoff of a 2YN Post

 This following works best when read by John Cleese.

Although it's been many long years since my last post, I am most assuredly one who never gives up. As is my want in life, "never say die" is my unwavering motto. Unless, of course, you're actually dieing from a severerd jugular or something. I mean it would be pretty asinine to say "Never say die," to someone whose blood is gushing all over the upholstery and walls and everything, now wouldn't it?

Deep breath,,, There we go. Now where was I? Oh yes, ... Sunder.

When I started the finale for Sunder's second world, I felt hopeless. It seemed absolutely imposible that I  could deliver what was required due to all the previous chapter's promises. I humbly admit, I feared ithe entire climax would turn out something like this: The heroes snuck inside the store and were attacked by bad zombies who aren't really zombies at all but look and smelled like real zombies. They fought really really hard and kill all the zombies. Plus some really fat zombie rats that leak stuff all over the place. And then they got saved. The end.

Fortunately, the conclusion went better than expected. It turned into two chapters of 4k words each which are  exceedingly long chapters for such rubbish.. On top of it all, it ended in a way that will allow yours truely to skip directly to the chase and finish up this world in one or two chapters more. That's one or two chapters less than I originally though necessary. In my book, that is a very very very good thing.


And one other thing...

God, I am so looking forward to leaving this world (the fictional one) so I can deal with the more mainstream subjects of cannibalism and mad scientism in the next. You are what you eat, after all.

If you find a moment, please pray for me.

Dancing a Jig Across the Parallel Universes

It's been a while since my last post. That's due to Sunder's slow progress. Nothing has seemed worthy of a post.

Until today. Today, Sunder begins to make sense.

From Sunder's conception, the logic behind the plot was blatantly weak. I continued on, however, in the expectation that things would work themselves out before the end. Today, some biggies fell into place.

I was aware that the entire world portal system was much too complicated to work well in a simple story. The main problem was devising an explanation for why the kidnappers have to travel across all the parallel words to return with the child, when no such detours plagued them when they traveled to the child's world. This and a few other significant problems all centered around the subterranean portal system that, if not answered satisfactorily, wound topple the entire story. Eureka! or Shazam, or whatever it is writers shout. The answer is so simple (as you would expect) and came with an added major plot bonus. I now know how the crystal and shard play the key roll in the plot's resolution. Two birds with one stone! 

I know now that I am on the right track and believe the ending of the tale, which is undetermined as yet, to be on far more solid footing. How do you know when a solution is correct? When in retrospect you can't believe it took you so long to see what was right in front of your nose.

Post-Part-One Depression

Following the conclusion of part one, I found myself disinterested in part two and have struggled over the last few weeks to find some motivation to begin writing again on a regular basis. Having "Pirates of the Burning Sea", one of my past favorite online games, go to a free to play status at the same time didn't help me get much writing done either.

The break, however, seems to have done me some good, and now that I've done a fair amount of plundering and pillaging, I'm back to writing every day.(as life permits) Clay and Mark have even had their first zombie encounter. There's nothing like the rotting living dead to get the juices flowing.

Point of No Return

I had not noticed that last week I'd reached the half way mark of my original 90,000 word projection. Having arrived at the 46,000 word mark, I'm as far from the end of the story as to the beginning. If I'm going to run out of fuel, it might as well be near the finish than somewhere along the trail heading back to the start. Then again, this logic might not apply as well to writing as it does to flying. No matter, I'd still rather crash and burn near the end than the beginning. (This entire issue is mute as my reassessed word projection is 120,000 words.)

"Part One is up 'n done," says I, wiping me bloody hams of the whole sodding mess.

(Would you believe I'm presently reading Treasure Island)

And there it is, lock, stock, and barrel, the whole bloody mess that is part one of Sunder, my literary tribute to the B-Movie genre. (This means that I have finished the first draft of part one.)

The ending of part one presented me with the closest thing I've ever known to writer's block. In this last chapter, all I needed was to find the portal to the next world and zap, let them port and be done with it. So why did it take me so many days to write a measly 2,440 words? Because the ending needed some sort of kick in the pants. By this point in the story, my readers (should I ever acquire some) as well as myself, would be sick of the damn hell trees. I needed to spice things up, so even though there was one last battle with the forces of darkness, I glossed over the final hell tree encounter and moved quickly on to the cave portal.

And there I became stuck. I was standing on the precipice of completion. All I had to do was end the thing.

The problem was that everything leading up to this point made it impossible to just say they found the portal and vanished. There had to be a problem. That, it turned out, was a problem for me.

Clay is standing before the portal with Mark.It's only a few feet away. Where am I going to come up with a conflict at this point? Is it time to bring in the machine gun toting naked women as suggested by course instructor, Zette? No, I want to save the naked women for later.

So for days, I half heartedly stabbed at the chapter hoping an idea would come before I lost patience and just had them port with the ease of turning on the TV. A solution did come, of course, and it was so simple I didn't even realize I had found it until I had finished writing it. I had even mentioned the problem earlier on but had overlooked it's potential. The solution, as I said, was simple. If you came upon a pile of stones you suspected of being a portal to another world, how would you go about triggering it? And there you go, a perfect little dilemma to frustrate the boys before they can port to Part Two.

I can now say the first draft of Part One is complete.

It's now time to move on to the more funner stuff: ZOMBIES.

One more Chapter to Go... before the next one

I just wrapped up chapter sixteen. Only one more chapter until Clay moves on into Part Two. This chapter contains the climax for Part one and, believe it or not, I'm satisfied with the result.

For months, I've lived with the knowledge that my resolution to part one might present a problem. The difficulty being,this chapter depicts the shortest battle, as opposed to the longest. Wham, bam, thank you, mam. Over and out. Please take all your belonging with you when you exit.

But the point is that, for now, I believe it works.

Of course, that's only the author's opinion. He'll have ample opportunity to change his mind once the critiques start rolling in.

Still Pluggin' Along

Clay and Mark have almost reached Lemon Town, the quintessential one horse town, comprised of a truck stop, service station, and restaurant. This is where the final conflict takes place before they hop over to the next world in Part Two.

A snippet from chapter thirteen:

Coming upon a light colored Prius, high centered on the edge of a shallow ravine, Clay shinned the flashlight onto the driver's window and found it shattered. Curiosity moved him to investigate. Drawing closer, the grisly remains of a driver could be seen seated behind the steering wheel. What remained of the broken window was splattered with the same dark substance that coated the area below the black cavity in the side of the driver's mummified head. 

Clay ran the light about the interior of the vehicle. He then opened the door, and holding his breath, reached across the corpse and took ownership of the handgun clutched in the man's grip. He then rejoined Mark, who had stayed back from the car.

Clay handed the flashlight to Mark and had him hold the light while he examined his new sidearm. Clay's knowledge of handguns was limited, but he found the model imprinted on the Clot Python barrel. There were four unspent 3.57 rounds  in the cylinder. He slipped the pistol into a coat pocket and said, “Funny what a little iron can do to raise your spirits. I'm already feeling a bit more optimistic about introducing myself to Dog and his friends.”

?

This is one mother of a chapter. Yes, it's the same chapter as mentioned in the last blog. One thing leads into another. The problem isn't so much what to say as what not to say. This is a chapter of ideas.  I can not bore my reader with ideas that are too inaccessible.  I want my readers to be able to look at my characters and think they are crazy, but crazy in the sense that most normal people are crazy?



Clay described to Mark everything he could remember, from leaving the Jeep to Nat's first sight of the petroglyphs. Mark became most interested when Clay mentioned the large stone spiral on the canyon floor.

Another circle,”said Mark.

Pardon?

Another circle. Like the glass anomaly. The spiral is one of the oldestt symbols found on Earth. It's usually two concentric spirals interspersed together like a flattened double helix. Or  you could call it a simple maze.

Double helix? Like DNA?

Exactly. Our ancestors knew a lot more than they're given credit for.

You don't really believe cave men knew about DNA?

Don't get me started. I could go on about this for the next year. Have you ever studied the Lascaux cave art?

Yes,some of the most profound works of art I've ever seen. They verge on the magical.

I Hate Red-Eye

I hate Red-Eye. It's so damn hard to concentrate on writing when that show is on.

Been struggling with some of Sunder's philosophical loose ends in chapter 12. I want to  get through this section so I can get on with the show. Here's a few lines to show the awful stuff I'm stuck trying to work through. Grrrr....

This is the way it stands so you'll have to live with the un-punctuation slop.

"The problem is the energy necessary to rip the universe in two would have to be astronomical. That much energy wouldn't just turn a little sand to glass, it would probably consume half the universe.

Humor me here. What about magic?

Magic? Not my forte. I pretty much follow Arthur C. Clark's supposition that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. 

Fine. I'll buy that. But what if there's a force in the universe that, for lack of a scientific name, we call magic? 

That is, a force that can't be measured by science. What do experts generally do with data that challenges their expertise?

They bury it under the rug. At least, that's what I'm always preaching to my readers.

Precisely.

You agree with that?

Of course. It's human nature. People protect what they have.

You think that's all it is, human nature?

Sure. What do you think, it's a conspiracy or something?

No, of course not. I mean, it's not like it's a back room conspiracy or …. look, never mind what I believe, you might be on to something, here. What makes magic magic is it's miraculous nature. It does what science dictates is impossible. You know, your theory sort of throws a monkey wrench in the Sherlock Holmes's notion that if you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.  I mean, how do you eliminate the impossible when magic is an element of the equation?

 

You spend a lot of time alone, don't you.

IT'S THE MUSIC

Chapter eleven, blah, blah, blah. Turn an info dump into something interesting to read. I've avoided starting this chapter for a bad week. To be continued....



Lo and behold, (how many times have you wished you could actually use that phrase?) it has turned out to be one of the most fun chapters I've written in the entire story, so far. This is probably not all that satisfying a   revelation for someone following this blog, so (Echoing the words of the Pink Floyd, "Is there anyone out there?") in a pointless effort to alleviate the void, I'll  post this priceless passage from chapter eleven for your immeasurable pleasure.

Yes, the “priceless” and 'immeasurable' parts are intended as  facetious.


Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


Here Clay realizes he has become twenty years younger....

Clay took another look in the mirror and then faced Mark. “You're right, I do look about forty. But listen to me, as strange as this sounds, I really am sixty three.”

“Sweet mother of pearl, you're serious.”

“Damn right, I'm serious. When I left home this morning I looked every year my age. I don't know why it's happened, but I've a pretty good idea what's causing it.”

“The alien probe,” Mark said, like an exuberant school child with the answer to his teacher's question.

“Yeah, only I don't think it's a probe and I don't think they're aliens. At least not in the flying saucer sense.”

“Amazing. You've got the actual fountain of youth sitting inside you,” Mark said, breaking the seal on the bottle, “ and there aren't even any headhunters guarding it's secret.”

“I wouldn't be so certain about that, Kid.”

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Oh, it slipped my mind but I was listening to Oldfield.

VIDEO BELOW

The video below is just too good, no matter what side of the isle you're on. Best laugh I've had in a while.
Sorry, I don't know how to post this in a better format.

Obama! A Modern U.S. President (musical spoof)

Speed Bump

The transition of Clay meeting Mark turned out to be much more difficult than I had imagined. There is a heap of information that has to be exchanged between these two and that's no easy task to do without it coming across as something like, "Please listen, Mr. Bond, while I divulge every sinister detail of my diabolical plan to you." I think I finally got a handle on it and here's a piece of dialogue between them which I wrote last night.

(clarifications)

“Listen to me,” Clay said, halting his advance. “I'm human like you. My name's Clay Middleton. All I want is a little information and then I'll leave you alone.” 

The man stopped his shuffling feet, cocked his head to the side a bit, snapped his mouth shut, and said, “I've survived for what must be a month by staying high. Uppers at first, whatever I could find in the pharmacy. Liquor came next, fits my disposition better. Been drinking nonstop for … what's the date, don't really matter... Then you come along and suddenly I find myself sober as a judge. I don't even have a hangover to show for everything, not the slightest trace of a headache even. Now it's not that I'm not grateful, cause I am, but why on whatever world you're from would I believe you?

“You're sober?”

“That wasn't what you had in mind with your voodoo?”

“It ain't my voodoo. If anything had something to do with you sobering up, it was the damn crystal, not me.”

Clay pulled up his shirt and let the man have a look. Whether the nebula had grown more intense, Clay was not sure of, but he could now discern more color and movement from the light. (fragment of a larger crystal glowing under Clay's skin)

“Woe! Dude, that's the queen mother of all (alien) implants.”

“Glad you approve. Does that mean I can get some answers?”

“I've got to get a better look at that. My name's Mark, Mark Raft, damn glad to meet you. Untie me so I can get a closer look. That thing's amazing.” 

Clay pulled his shirt down over the shard. The turnabout in the man's demeanor was so sudden and dramatic that Clay was, himself, uncertain that this fellow, Mark, was what he appeared to be. “Maybe later. You said something about aliens passing through town, did they have a child with them?”

“I said that? Sorry, my life's been in kind of a fog lately. The kid, was he human or alien?”

“Human. He's my grandson and if you can't help me I'm wasting my time here,” Clay said, flipping open the (straight) razor he had pulled from his pocket.

Mark pressed his back up against the bar and cried out in a whine, “Woe! You don't need to do that. Look at me; do I look like any kind of threat?”

“Oh, shut up and turn around. I'm not gonna just take off and leave you tied up.”

“I knew that,” Mark said in a more relaxed pitch. “If you'll just give me a couple minutes to think, maybe I can remember what it was I saw. Can you give me a hint what the aliens looked like. Were they grays, blondes, reptilians, or what? Something to help jar my memory.”

Mark turned his back and held his breath while Clay cut through the leather thong with the razor. Clay knew what a gray was, but blondes and reptilians sounded like something from a low budget sci-fi film. “I only got a good look at one. It has a human body but it's got the head of a coyote, sort of like that Egyptian god with the dog's head.”

“Anubis, god of the afterlife, and it's a Jackal's head, by the way.” Mark rubbed the circulation back into his wrists and hands. “Just let me have a couple drinks and we'll see what comes back to me.”

“I'm not hanging around here while you get loaded again. Goodbye.”

“Wait. I don't know how you've managed to survive for all these weeks, but if I don't stay a little high I'll be outside eating fruit like everyone else has done.”

“Weeks? What are you talking about, the trees only showed up today.”

“I suppose your being loony could neutralize the trees the same way the booze does. I don't have a clue what today is but it's been at least three or four weeks since the first tree appeared. Within two days, there were only a handful of us left who hadn't eaten the fruit. Me, Marleen, and a couple passing through were the only ones who'd figured out how to counter the narcotic.”

Clay could sense the truth in Mark's words but was not about to accept such insanity without a fight. “Stop! It's like you're talking gibberish. Today is December nineteenth and I was here in Bixby yesterday and everything was normal. There were Christmas lights and displays all round town and people and cars were rushing around like they do every year at this time.”

“Well, in case you haven't noticed, the last thing celebrated around here was Halloween. I'll take your word on the date being the nineteenth of December if you'll take my word that the planet went to hell on November second.”

Clay flopped down in a chair. “November second? How could .... I don't ... Aw hell, maybe you're right about that drink. Bring us a bottle of tequila, if there's any left. My brain needs a break.”

Tip Toe Through the Tavern

I have nothing to say tonight so I'll just post a little snippet from chapter seven. Is Clay at a bachelor party or is he investigating a noise he hears in a ghost town?

Near the front door was a wood walking cane hanging from it's curved handle over a coat rack peg. Clay grabbed the cane and whacked it hard against the steel frame of the barber chair. When it did not break, he pulled the razor from his pocket and whittled the cane's straight end to a tapered point. Returning the razor to his pocket, he got a feel for his weapon with a couple of two handed thrusts. 

He then unlatched the back door deadbolt and, after a quick look outside, exited the shop. Flanking the rear of the buildings, he hurried back to the tavern keeping his steps as quiet as possible, all the while thinking the chances were that he was stalking nothing more dangerous than a feral house cat looking for food. 

At the Tavern rear entrance, he found the service door locked. He had hoped to gain the advantage of surprise but he had no choice now but to go around and enter from the front where the door stood open.

Once there, he stepped onto the wood boardwalk spanning the front of the tavern and cringed as the plank creaked under his weight. Every step thereafter resulted in a similar moan from the sun dried boards.

Halfway to the door, another miscalculation dawned on him. His shadow was leading the way. Another step and anyone inside, who had not already heard him, would be able to see his dark precursor in the doorway. Damn.

It's a Nice Place to Visit but I Wouldn'nt Want to Die There.

Snippet #2.  Chapter seven is important in that this is where Clay meets his main sidekick, Mark Raft, the sole survivor of the hell tree* invasion in the small desert town of Bixby.

* Too big to fail, this benevolent vegetation will steal your soul for your own good.

So far the story has focused heavily on Clay and the solo portion of his journey. This has meant an absence of dialogue which is usually what I enjoy writing most. That's not to say that I believe Clay's exploits have been boring up to now but it will be a relief for him to have someone to talk to. All I have to do now is get Clay into town and find out how they meet up.

 This is giving me a run for my money. A good portion of a day and three previous failed attempts at beginning the chapter have resulted in these few paragraphs.

..................................

A thirty five mile speed limit sign marked where the state highway took a break and Prospect Boulevard intervened for a quarter mile. A diesel filling station, truck stop, and restaurant greeted southbound travelers to Bixby. Curbside telephone poles diminished down both sides of the boulevard where single story stuccoed store fronts vied for attention with tourist friendly signs.

Vehicles lined the curbs while others parked haphazard in lanes with doors left open. The three palm trees of the Three Palms Liquor store lay in ruin across the boulevard with two vehicles and the facade of the Desert Apple Book Store crushed beneath.

So quiet was it that Clay could hear the rustling of a newspaper as a gust flittered it past. Nothing stirred but by the wind, not even the hell trees encroaching throughout the town.

I'm givin' 'er all she's got, Cap'n. Without another 30,000 words, she's gonna blow!

Okay, I'm taking another look at Sunder's 90,000 word projection. As it stands now, I have 16,000 words and Clay, the guy we're rooting for, has yet to meet his Samwise Gamgee, Mark Raft. I'm now writing chapter six which turns out to be the place where I had thought I'd be by the end of chapter three according to my outline. Things seem to be getting a bit deeper than I anticipated at this point. You still with me, amigo?

My point is that I've got several more chapters to write in part one which is the shortest section of Sunder's three parts and I've already completed a sixth of the projected word count. Now imagine this, part two* is supposed to fill about half the book. That doesn't take into account part three which will have all the super cool big bang answers to life, the universe, and etc.

Crap, do you think I may have underestimated the length by just a tad?

*That's the part with all the nasty zombies I've been promising.

The Devil's in the Details

Ain't that the truth. Sometimes, writing seems to be nothing but details.

MC does something with a something.
Where did he get the something?
Oops, better go back and find a good place to show that the something is already in his inventory.
Rats, he doesn't have anything to keep his inventory in.
Best go back four or five chapters and show that he has something to keep his somethings in.
A baby sealskin leather bag with Bald Eagle talons stitched around it will do nicely.
Excellent, maybe now I can get on with the story.
Crap, I just remembered my MC's a PETA vegan.
Why would someone like that have a leather bag to keep his somethings in?
Okay, from now on, MC's a hamburger loving mercenary.
At last, everything works and I can get back to the story.
Now what the hell was I writing about?

SUNDER FIRST PEEK

Here's a snippet from chapter two. Remember, this is a first draft. I had to stop myself from reworking the chapter when I was looking for a section to post. Aside from going back to make spelling corrections, I'm trying very hard to keep moving forward with the writing and leaving revisions for the second draft.

~

The Jeep wound it's way through the canyon as the late morning sun blazed upon the red and yellow sandstone of the upper most portion of the eastward facing walls. Coming to a stretch that narrowed to barely the width of a man, Clay spun the car around pointing it in the direction they had come and killed the engine. 

“We walk from here,” Clay said, exiting the Jeep. 

Nat looked into the narrow rock passage as a worried frown crossed his face. “We're going in there?”

Clay slipped a key into a waterproof lock box bolted under the driver seat. “Yep, but it'll open back up before you know it. It's a pretty cool place once you get used to it.”

“I don't know. What if there's a mountain lion in there or something?”

“Then he'll need to find another place to hang out until we leave.” Clay pulled a nylon holster from the box and clipped it to the right side of his belt. Next from the box came a medium size revolver which, after opening the gate and giving the cylinder a spin, he holstered.

Nat's expression showed less frown and more worry. 

“There's nothing to fret about, Nat. I always carry a gun when I'm out in these remote spots. It's just sort of a security blanket for scaredy cats like me.”

“You get scared, Grampa?”

“Well sure I do. It's beautiful out in the wild but it ain't all that hard to get spooked now and then with all the solitude. A gun can be a real comfort at those times. The thing you need to know is that, in all the years I've spent in places like this, I've never needed to fire it at a living thing, not once. So get that look off your face and let's go see a wonder.”