Three Count (Snippet)

I came up 190 words shy of my wordcount goal last weekend.  I had just ended a big scene and didn't want to start another just before bed for fear that I wouldn't be able to sleep till I'd finished it.  Unsatisfied with my explanation, my girlfriend (and fellow writer) told me to "write something else."  I said I couldn't fit a story into 190 words.  She disagreed.  So, on a dare, I tried it.  

And here it is.  Thrice:
 
That's the rain, that is, high up on the wall there.  It happens a lot here; twice as much in the winters.  Nothing to fret about, mate.  They patched up the ceiling just last month, they did.  Hardly leaks at all anymore.

Don't trouble yourself with the sounds out there now, mate.  You ought to be more concerned with the world in here; this room with the high walls you can't climb and the door you can't open.  These are your sounds now, mate.  The hollow footsteps in the halls at night, the light scritch-scritch of the rats behind the walls.  And me, mate.

Seems like you need a friend, see?  Someone who knows his way round the place, knows how to hide the pills you shouldn't take and knows when the guards come by at night to have their fun.  Good things to have, friends.  Just one problem, mate:  it's awful crowded up in here.  The others aren't so kind, you see.  You hide from them now, but they'll whisper to you when it's dark. 

But don't worry, mate, you'll always have me with you.  Me, and the rain.

- - -

The view from atop the Tower of Knowledge was one of particular brilliance at this hour of the morning.  The light of day pierced the veil of the paper forest and draped all the room in a pleasant, sandy hue.  In the distance, the shadows of the Forbidden Mountains sank into quiet obscurity, forgotten in the warmth and boldness of the sun.  Yet all this beauty was lost on the prisoner within.

Timber's eyes, slow to open, soon gazed about the waking room.  All this was his to roam, and yet a prisoner he remained; never to feel the green grass, never to feel the hear the crunch of the snow beneath his feet;   trapped forever to watch from this tower and wonder at a world that might have been his. 

Leaving his high perch in an effort to assert his limited will on such a confined state of being, Timber descended the tower and scratched at the door to his master's study to demand the day's stipend of dry giblets and stale water.  Winter was upon them, and the housecat had no intention of waiting it out without protest.

- - -

"I don't care what it's called, it smells like rubbish," Bristol said, wrinkling her nose at the serving dish.

"Oh, hush," said her cousin, opening the oven to gauge the roast inside. "It's not like it'll kill you to try something new for the holidays, no?"  Satisfied, she shut the oven door and removed her oven mitts, taking up a separate serving tray as the doorbell rang again.  "Not another one..."

"I'll get it, Paris," Bristol answered with a lilt as she set the tray of cheese and sauces aside, happy for the excuse to be rid of it.  Not bothering with the peephole after so many guests had arrived, she pulled the door open with her arms flung wide to welcome the newcomer, hoping in her heart that it was Vladimir come round to pay them a surprise visit.

But the man standing in the doorway was not Vlad at all.  The tall, dark-haired man in the clean, pressed suit smiled at the woman greeting him so warmly.  "Gute nacht," he said.  "My name is Frankfurt."

"Bloody hell," she said, unable to stop herself.  "There goes the whole party..."

Thirty-Fifth (Snippet)

The dark silence of the exam room was punctured only by a thin line of blue light from underneath the door and the sound of Jason's slow and measured breathing.  He sat on the exam table with his hands in his lap, his head bent with the wear of a thirty-four-hour shift at Greyson Memorial.  The clock hanging high on the wall pointed at six o'clock, but Jason couldn't for the life of him tell whether the time were coming or going.

The long hand swung round to twelve, cuing the buzz in his pocket like a captain signaling a cavalry charge.  Without the strength left to sigh, Jason pulled the pager free of his scrubs and eyed the message scrolling across the display.  I.A. victim, severe bleeding, ETA 2 min.  Another industrial accident.  Third one today.  Or was it yesterday?  Hardly mattered now.  With effort, he slid from the cold table to the tile floor and exited the room, letting the light and sound of the bustling emergency ward rush in upon him like a tidal wave.

The haze of his sequestered state left him immune to the urgency dashing by in the chaos of the open hallway.  Walking with cool precision to the double-doors to the ambulance lot, he stopped just long enough to grab a gurney and a few extra pieces of equipment to help replenish what the EMTs were likely to have exhausted in transit.  No sooner did he reach the doors but he saw the flashing lights round the turn and come rushing up to the doors.

He felt his legs spring into action beneath him, his arms signaling to another orderly without even looking at the man as he pushed open the doors and drove the gurney outside to meet the ambulance crew.  The back doors to the vehicle swung open at once and he could see the body lying on the stretcher, writhing about in pain.  The face and throat were marred beyond recognition.  It looked more like a slab of overcooked meat than a person.  Wide leather straps held the victim's wrists in place so as to minimize the damage he could do to himself.  Given the violence of the man's thrashing, Jason found himself disinclined to remove them before it became absolutely necessary.

The EMTs, covered in the evidence of arterial spray, hauled out the gurney and helped with the hand-off as Jason and his fellow orderlies rushed the body inside.  As the double-doors swung shut behind him, Jason could swear he heard the two EMTs discussing the man's injuries.  There was a surprise in their voices that seemed amiss.  Few EMTs were surprised by anything anymore.  Those that were were still new enough that they'd likely be found puking on the sidewalk, not sharing a calm discourse about the chewed up body still thrashing in its bindings.

They rushed the body into the trauma ward and began the business of hooking up the fluids and monitors they hoped might bring the man back from the brink of nothingness.  Jason, the largest of the orderlies, held the patient at the shoulders to pin him firmly to the gurney while the others worked to get a needle in his bloodied arm.  His skin felt especially soft in Jason's grip, sliding about all too easily with any shift in pressure.  He dulled his senses against the implications, listening intently for the signal from his colleagues for him to let go.

"B.P. eighty-five and falling," one orderly called.  "Get me another IV!"

The measured tone reminded Jason that he wasn't the only orderly working a triple shift tonight.  They had all let go the effort of being affected in order to better serve the hospital in crisis.  To care meant to stop caring.  There was no energy left in them for it.  As the second IV began to drip, Jason felt the man in his grip slow his efforts to get free.  The sedative, he knew, would not work that fast.  The man had lost too much blood to keep fighting.  From the way his neck was torn, it was no surprise.

As he settled, Jason could at last get a look at the man in the light of his new surroundings.  Despite the stains across the patient's shirt and pants, the only injury seemed to be at his neck and upper chest.  Whatever machine had malfunctioned, its errant flailing had been surprisingly precise.  As his eyes returned to the man's face still contorted in pain, Jason found himself preferring the previous incident, wherein so little had been recovered there had hardly been a person there at all.

The monitor's steady beep continued to wane, stretching its cadence out into a worrisome dirge.  The orderlies all watched it closely, still jointly looming over the body and holding the IV bags aloft, fixed like figures in a diorama as the beat continued to fall.  Each prayed in his own way that the descent would slow, perhaps even cease, in validation of their efforts.  They prayed too that, if it did not, it would instead hurry onward to hopelessness with all speed and not leave them in this fearful in-between.

The pace of the monitor began to level, diminishing at a much reduced rate.  Too familiar with the dangers of hope to chance becoming optimistic too early, the orderlies remained in their frozen state, unwilling to breath for fear of tipping the proverbial scales.  They hung in time with the monitor as it hesitated, but their relief was short-lived.

The body on the table began to convulse violently.  All attention left the monitor at once and became focused in the duty of helping Jason hold the man still so he didn't further injure himself.  When the body stopped its thrashing, the ensuing adrenaline drowned out at first the pervasive noise filling the room.  The monitor's rhythm had become a single, long note, stretched on into endlessness.  The orderlies exchanged glances and then returned their eyes to the body.  Lacking the strength to sigh, one of the orderlies reached up and switched off the monitor.  They left Jason to the duty of ferrying the body to the morgue.

There was little need to hurry now.  Jason took his time removing the needles and sensors from the unmoving corpse.  He undid the leather straps on the man's wrists, seeing little need for them now.  With one last glance at the twisted face staring in horror at the lights buzzing quietly overhead, Jason pulled the gurney down the hall to the elevator and pressed the button for the bottom floor.  As the doors shut, the light and sound of the busy emergency ward vanished once more, leaving him in the peaceful solace of the elevator, accompanied only by the silent corpse at his side.

The floor seemed to sink away as the elevator started its slow journey down to the morgue.  Its first lurching motion left Jason resting gently against the mirrored pane halfway up the wall.  He didn't resist the welcome shift in momentum, instead reaching into his pocket to pull out a small paper carton, wrinkled from overuse.  With two fingers, he reached inside and pulled out the same cigarette he had held the day before.  Resting it in his lips, he closed his eyes and rolled his head back, breathing in through the filter and imagining the taste of the rich tobacco smoke filling his senses.

The elevator dinged the next floor on their way down.  Jason leaned a hand on the gurney to take the weight off his legs, breathing deep the quiet stillness of his new sanctuary.  Another six hours and he could go home.  Another three years and he would graduate, and then it was on to residency.  His whole life had begun to feel like a 40-hour shift, where time stretches on the closer you get to the end.  There was little point in stopping now:  it was too late to regain the hours lost waiting for the pager to sound.  All the remained was to keep moving forward until, at last, his efforts would be rewarded.

A strange sensation at his wrist pulled Jason out of his dream-like state.  He opened his eyes and looked down, expecting to see his hand slipped from its grip and leaning against the side of the gurney.  What greeted his eyes instead was the hand of the dead man lying beside him, gripped firmly around his wrist and pulling itself up from the stretcher.  Jason stared without words, unable to tell if what he was seeing could be real.  He could only watch, dumbstruck, as the corpse pulled its mangled head from its resting place and opened its twisted mouth.  The sound the followed came not from the dead man's lips, but from the hollow space where his throat used to be.  It came as a fragile whisper, but Jason heard the words as clearly as if they'd been written on the walls.

"They are coming..."

The bell of the elevator rang again, and the doors opened on the empty morgue.

Author's note:  I apologize to anyone in the medical profession, I ran short on time for proper research tonight.  Suggestions and corrections welcome :)  Also, I really hope I don't give any of you nightmares on long shifts...

The Ember Woods (Snippet)

"I don't get it," said the duck, kicking a pebble as he walked.  "There's no reason for them to treat us this way."

"I guess not," said the bear, shuffling along beside him.  Lake Wanaloupe wasn't much further down the path.  Not wanting to leave his friend in dour spirits, the bear spoke up again.  "Maybe they don't understand why it is we're upset," he offered, hoping to salve the wound his friend was still nursing.  The duck had always been a particularly sensitive sort.  It didn't take much to ruffle his feathers.

"Then they're not paying attention," the duck muttered, pulling one wing forward and preening his underfeathers without breaking stride.  "We've done all we can to show them, and has it stopped them?  Not in the slightest!"  Both wings went up to emphasize his objection.  "I just don't get it, friend.  How could anybody be so stupid?"

"It's not so bad..." the bear mused, trumping along at as slow a pace as he could manage and still be moving forward.  "It's probably all just a big misunderstanding."

"Misunderstanding?!"  The duck stopped cold, both feet planted firmly on the spot.  The bear took another half-step, pausing with one paw still raised and sighing to himself.  "Misunderstanding?" the duck repeated with special emphasis.  "There's no misunderstanding!  They act like we don't matter, like what we say isn't real!  What's to understand?"

"I think," said the bear, bringing his head around slow to peer at the fuming waterfoul, "that they don't understand what we're trying to say."

The ducks wings went skyward again.  "Of course they don't!" he shouted, ignoring the pained look on his friend's face.  "They don't listen to us!"  The wings swung round to point up the path behind them.  "You saw how they looked at me!  Like I was nuts or something.  And they barely even looked at you at all!"

The bear returned his eyes to the path, starting to shuffle onward again.  The duck fell silent, still standing in the path with his wings outstretched.  Letting his plumage settle, he hurried to waddle up alongside the bear once more.  "I'm sorry," he said, his tone at once calmer than it had been.  He placed one wing on his friend's flank.  "I didn't mean--"

"I know, friend," said the bear, not bothering to turn his head. 

The duck muttered under his breath, tossing a glance back along the path the way they'd come.  The faintest sound of the revelers could still be heard from deep within the thicket far behind them.  The sound of it started to stoke the mallard's distaste, but the sensation swiftly settled on sadness instead.  Hanging his head, he consented to trudge in silence beside the bear as they rounded the last bend and the lake came into view.

The bear stopped, rolling onto his haunches and sitting with a 'thump' as he gazed out across the water.  The duck patted him gently at the shoulder, walking forward to the edge of the lake.  The light ripple of the water splashed quietly against the lip of the shore under his feet.  The dark, murky water was a welcome relief from what it reflected:  the sky still burned, smoldering with orange fire like some great writhing snake high above them. 

The duck sighed, slipping from the shore and coasting out onto the surface of the water, kicking once to turn himself about.  Back on the path, the bear sat staring at the sky.  His large shoulders drooped, and the duck could see the last grains of hope leaving his friend for good.  "Come on," he called, waving a wing to signal his friend, but the bear did not move.  "Don't be like that," the duck chided.  "It'll be fine.  We'll be safer out on the water.  Come on."

The bear only sat and stared.  Muttering to himself, the duck paddled back to the shore and began drawing himself out of the water.  Just as his first food was clawing out of the lake, the bear spoke up, his eyes still fixed on the rolling clouds of embers.  "I think..." he started to say, his voice trailing off as quickly as it had emerged.  The duck froze, unsure what made him pause.  Something in the bear's voice was amiss.  "I think," his friend began again, lowering his muzzle to see eye-to-eye with the duck, "I like it here."

The duck could only stare at his friend, whose eyes now glinted with the same rolling orange pattern as the skies above.  Still stuck in the act of pulling himself free of the lake, the duck sighed and lowered himself back into the water, kicking off from the shore.  He coasted in reverse, his eyes lingering on his friend sitting near the shoreline, so close to freedom. 

As the first hint of a current picked up underneath him, the duck kicked once to better line himself up with the parting stream.  He cast one last glance over his shoulder at the bear, gave a long, sad sigh in parting and consented to the current to carry him away from these tormented lands forever.

* * *

Author's Note:  This is something I wrote ad hoc.  It started nice and peaceful and then went suddenly dark.  I have no idea what the burning sky is about or how it captivates the denizens of the Ember Woods, but the whole thing felt very natural as it was being written.  I plan to do a few more on a similar vein (similar tone, different settings, different styles) and see if any of them take root.  If any of them pique your interest, make your comments known :)

Positive Reinforcement

The subject of a reward system has come up before, and it's such a tailored subject, unique to each writer (or general craftsman), that a simple list of suggestions would do little more than establish a base for personal extrapolation at the risk of boxing in the imaginations of others.

That said, it is my birthday, and so I am rewarding myself by being lazy :)

For those already a week into NaNoWriMo, I wish you the best.  As of this minute, you should be about 7295 words in.  Now stop wasting time reading blog posts and get back to it.

I myself am exactly 4284 words behind, a deficit I plan to make up during my errand-free day tomorrow.  I'm not aiming for a true NaNo, as I started my 50,000 word aim in September.  Having crested 50,000 by the seat of my proverbial pants in 2008, I made a pact not to attempt the feat again until I had fully recovered.

In truth, NaNo is not nearly so difficult as it sounds.  Much like losing twenty pounds, the difficult lies purely in the doing:  the simple sacrifice of that which you love (or would rather do) for the self-made promise to complete what you began.  It may seem easy at the start (or shortly after you start).  Too easy, really:  you will find yourself lazing, confident in your ability to "make up the difference" at an undisclosed time hence.  And then somewhere towards the ides, you realize that the turtle is winning.

The trick to NaNo is honestly the same trick that a select few learned early enough to excel in school at a young age:  if you just do the homework, first, early, before launching into the things you love, it will be done and out of the way and leave you in peace.

If you have to write 1,667 words in a day and you work a nine-to-five, make a point to sit down right after dinner and start writing.  Before CSI, before the House marathon, before football or the Food network, before you lose an hour playing with the cats or reading Twitter or reorganizing your photo collection, WRITE.

You don't have to pen all 1700 words in one go.  Knock out a page and give yourself a break (15-30 minutes only, not long enough to get caught up in a show that may leave you wondering if Tony really is a spy for the Russians but-wait-there's-another-episode-coming...).

Jogging is an overused metaphor, but it honestly fits, if not in the way some of its users might have intended.  For the average non-athletic person, jogging goes about like this:  big run, walk and pant, little jog, more panting, speed walk, hands-on-hips lazy walk, collapse, pant some more.  Writing often follows the same pattern:  if you get that first sentence out, things start to flow.  The stored energy of an unimaginative day explodes onto the page, and before you know it, 400-600 words appear as though sprung from the head of Zeus.

Then the panting starts.  You hit a word you don't know, you stick on a piece of dialog, you go to research something about your setting and lose half an hour chaining Wikipedia references, etc.  You will slow down.  Now writing becomes arduous.  It would be very easy to just sit down on the sidewalk and catch your breath.  There's nothing wrong with that, right?

But what applies to running applies to writing:  if you take a break to catch your breath, if you don't keep your feet or your fingers moving, if you stop, it becomes damn difficult to start up again.  Those 400+ words you're so proud of will look like a shameful sample by the end of the night.  So keep your feet moving.

It doesn't matter if it takes you half an hour to pen the next sentence.  Get the sentence out there.  Slug through.  Use placeholders if absolutely necessary (just make them easily searchable later).  To wit:

{WORDS GO HERE}

will sometimes be enough to launch you to the next scene, where you can keep writing.  Something in that scene may well jar the parts of your brain dedicated to filling in the missing piece into action.  This can be especially true for turning points, mystery clues or tricky moments of dialog.  If what has your brain stuck is the crux of the scene, mark it, set it aside, and let the pieces around it point back at where they came from.

So long as you keep momentum, it doesn't matter if you've slowed to a crawl.  Keep crawling.  As embarrassing and disheartening as crawling is, it moves you forward.  Crawling can surprise you:  sometimes the 200 words you slug out in an hour can be the toughest part of the entire night's work.  After that, everything else feels like a breeze.

Speaking of breezes:  you will get your second wind.  Until you're sincerely exhausted (and believe me, you'll know), keep moving forward until you find that next slick patch of earth that zips you ahead.  Those sudden shifts, where gravity takes hold and you go for a ride without even realizing it's begun, will often add another 200-300 words a lot faster than you might expect.  Add that to your first big push and the short stretch you slugged your way through, and you'll be most of the way done with the night's writing.

Often times, the first second wind is all you need to wrap up a NaNoWriMo night.  It can take on a life of its own, pulling you forward without your noticing as you work desperately to commit to paper (or pixels) the thoughts now screaming across your brain.

Other times, the second wind is more like the little half-hearted jog in the middle of a run:  you're still exhausted, still panting, but too embarrassed, stubborn or impatient to crawl all the way home.  You force yourself to bounce a little, hoping the mere motion of it will somehow translate to forward speed.  It feels like work.  It feels like torture.  It is also necessary.

At times the best emotion you can foster when trying to slug through your remaining wordcount for the night is anger.  Imagine it's the last mean little hill standing between you and home, where epsom salts and a footrub await.  Get pissed at this hill.  Promise it new heights of pain.  Swear an oath against its children.  Assert your dominance with each heavy footfall.  Let the hate flow through you.  Attack the hill with singleminded resolve.

Now, this practice may seem contrary to some scenes:  if you're writing a sweet, romantic balcony scene, the raw passion that comes with anger could lead to a rushed and tumultuous night for your main characters (not that they'd mind, I'm sure).  You can tone it down in the editing.

Or don't.  If you're passion comes through into your work, why fight it?  The recklessness that comes with genuine you-will-not-stop-me-you-stupid-hill emotions can lead to some remarkably unscripted, notable human entanglements in your narrative.  Clean up the in-between bits later, but let the sparks shine through.

Lastly, understand that this technique means being a little angry and a little worn down every night for a month.  If you haven't already alerted your friends, family, cats and significant other that you are writing a novel in 30 days or less, now is a good time to stop and write up an email to forewarn them that you will be unavailable or unpleasant to be around for a month.  If you're dating a coder, relax, he or she already understands exactly how you feel.

You're going to lose about two hours a night.   Accept this as truth.  You lose as much watching a movie.  The difference is you're writing this one.  You're creating it.  And when it's all said and done, you'll be most of the way to a publishable piece of print that most people spend decades promising themselves to "get around to."  So fish out the sweat bands, get to running, and show that hill who's boss.

(Fun fact:  This post?  1355 words.  312 short.  Took about an hour.  Now get back to writing!)