Platinum

Posted just on the edge of Friday/Saturday, but it's still good. Closed on a house today and almost forgot about this. Please let me know what you think, and as always, feel free to be extra stabby with your critiques. It's the only way to help both of us grow.

Mark ripped the cable from Thom’s guitar. The amplifier crackled with static followed by a droning hum.

“What was that for?”

“You’re off beat again.”

Thom took a seat on the old, beat up couch, sinking deep into the cushions. “I can’t take this anymore. I don’t get what you want. I was playing to the clicks...I don’t even know where to begin.”

“It wasn't much, but I heard it. The only reason I'm bringing this up is because we should strive towards perfection.” said Mark. “Not silver level perfection, not gold level perfection, but--”

“Platinum. I get it. You’ve told us a hundred times.”

“Then why do you look so confused?”

“How come you don’t get that we’re humans? You know, real life musicians. We’re not robots. If you need perfection every single time to the 256th of a beat, perhaps you should consider a career in techno.”

“That’s not what I expect and you know it. I want us to strive towards that level of excellence, but expect...no.”

Thom lifted his guitar over his head, laying it on his lap. He ran his swollen fingers gently across the strings, pressing them down just enough to touch the fretboard, but the guitar remained silent.

“You could have fooled me with that whole 'platinum' perfection thing and the way you’ve treated all of us. And if this isn’t going to change at all, let me know because there are plenty of things I’d rather spend my time on.”

“Are you...you’re not thinking of leaving, are you?” asked Mark.

“The other guys and me, all of us, we’ve talked about it for a while. We’re at our breaking point. This was supposed to be fun. What happened to that?”

“I told you. The fun will come. But we have to make it first.”

“How’s that going to happen when the entire band dreads coming to rehearsal, studio sessions, and even shows?” Thom said. "The reason we sound so flat half the time is because we’re so afraid to make a mistake that we can’t put any life into the songs. This isn’t healthy.”

“Then maybe you should leave. If playing the songs the way they were written is too hard for you, perhaps you’re in the wrong band. I need people who can play.”

Thom pressed his lips up against his teeth and sucked in, making the sound of a balloon when air is slowly let out. He stood up, picked up his guitar, and packed it away. “I can play. You know I can play. But it won’t be with you anymore. It’s not worth it.”

“Give me back my key.” Mark held out his hand like a teacher demanding a student give up a toy they’ve been hiding.

“I’m gonna get the truck tomorrow so I can get my amp out of here. Then you can have your fucking key.” Thom picked up his guitar case and left the room, flipping Mark the bird as he turned the corner.

Goals for the Week. Part 4

After last week's abysmal progress on my goals, I think I did much better. Still have not gotten very far on doing edits on one of my short stories, but I don't have a lot of motivation to keep editing it. It's from something I wrote a while ago and I just don't think it's a turd that can be polished enough to sell somewhere, but I suppose I'll never really be happy with anything I've been finding out, so perhaps I need to suck it up and send it out. However, I'm very happy that I've gotten a my flash story for this week already done and ready to go as well as a massive 5k outline for my next novel (A Sci-fi epic)!

Anyways, here's the list.

1) Have two flash stories polished by Friday. DONE
2) Get a rough outline for the new novel completed. DONE (over 5k words into my outline)
3) Finish Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. ALMOST DONE
4) Get a third round of edits done with my short story. ONE ROUND DONE


This week I hope to finish up those things I did not finish as well as the following new things:

1) Have two more flash stories polished by Friday.
2) Outline and draft a second short story
4) Get two more rounds of edits done with my short story.

Again, the long term goals for this month stay pretty much the same with a couple additions

1) publish on my blog a flash story each week.
2) draft at least 2 short stories intended for submission.
3) have an outline for my next novel completed. DONE.
4) do this goals thing.
5) read Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. ALMOST DONE.
6) have a short story and flash fiction story ready for submission to contests and/or lit magazines.

Wish me luck with these and be sure to hold me feet to the fire.

Abigail's Ashes

Please let me know what you think, and as always, feel free to be extra stabby with your critiques. It's the only way to help both of us grow.

“Make sure the trenches are at least one and half meters deep and the bodies are spaced forty centimeters apart.” Said Mr. Adams to one of the local officials who nodded obediently. “And no stacking them for the love of god.”

The man sat down on one of the chairs, pulling a pitcher of water from the center of the table. Mr. Adams tapped his fingers on his clipboard. “What are you doing? The longer they sit out there in the heat, the more they decompose.”

The man left the tent, muttering something in his native tongue as he passed through the entrance. Mr. Adams yelled out, “Make sure they all have their tags. They all need a tag!”

He leaned back in his chair, the legs of which burrowed further into the mud. Taking out a pencil, he returned to his checklists when an elderly woman entered the tent. She approached him with her hands folded and centered, head down. “Mr. Adams?” she said meekly. “I hoped to talk to you about—”

“You want to see the big board on the other side of the field for the deceased.”

“No. No. I want to ask you about something else.”

Mr. Adams put his pencil down and looked closer at the woman. It appeared that her clothes had not been changed since the disaster, but then again, none of them had. Their homes and what little they had was under a pile of rubble and mud. “Alright then, what do you want?”

“My granddaughter, Abigail, she died, and I need her ashes. They need to be taken to the temple. I need to perform the rites of death.”

“I’m sorry, but we need to bury them, just for now, until other matters are resolved. Do you understand?”

She shook her head back and forth. “No! You can’t bury her! Her spirit needs to be set free. She will lose the path to the next life if you do this!”

“I understand, but over two thousand people are dead. I can not honor every single request I get. These are unusual circumstances and I’m sure that your gods—”

“No!” shouted the woman. Her elderly voice rose into the high, creaky registers, strained from days spent crying and panic. “Her spirit needs to be free. She will never find the next life if you bury her. Please help me, good sir.” The woman reached into her pocket and pulled out a small tin box. She put it on the table, sliding the box gently towards Mr. Adams. “Please. Help me.”

Inside the box, a couple small coins were crammed in with faded pictures and cheap silver-plated jewelry. “I’m sorry, but the answer is no. Do you understand?”

“I can help you, and you can help me.”

“I want to.” Mr. Adams said. “I really do. But I have to follow the rules. I can't afford to have one of the volunteers search her out.”

“I could find her.”

“There is not enough wood for a cremation.”

“I have wood.” She said with the defiance of a woman fifty years her junior. “I must do this.”

“I have to do my job so that eventually, once everything is fixed and better, everybody can take their loved ones back and you can have your ceremony.”

“No! She will loose her way.” The woman’s bottom lip began to tremble. “It will be too late. Her soul will be gone.” She nudged the box towards Mr. Adams. “Please.”

He took the box and ran his fingers through the coins. The woman bobbed her head forward like a pigeon, urging him to take it. He had heard of people offering bribes to officials, but he had never heard of anything so small.

Mr. Adams shuffled some of his papers and flipped to the volunteers list. They told him to use the elderly only in an emergency during training, but he wondered what that was exactly. To this woman, he thought, this is an emergency.

“You want to help me?” Mr. Adams asked. The woman nodded. “Keep your money. I need somebody to help make sure the numbers on all the bodies are right. Can you do that?”

“Oh yes. I can do this.”

“Stay here for a moment.” He scanned his finger down pages of lists until he came to a lone name. Mr. Adams pointed at the entry, sliding the paper towards the woman. “Is this your granddaughter’s name?”

“Yes, this is her. This is Abigail.”

“Go out and look at all the tags on the bodies. Make sure they all have a number on them. When you see this number.” Mr. Adams circled the co-responding number with his pencil. “It will be your granddaughter. You may take her with you.”

The woman snatched the paper from the table. “Thank you so much. Thank you so very much.” She peeled it from her chest for a moment and looked once more towards Mr. Adams. “Bless you, sir. Bless you.”

Goals for the week. Part 3

The picture pretty much says it all. I had a couple things come up during the week that messed up my schedule, but I was pretty lazy during the weekend. I guess I came pretty close to some of my goals, and I am thinking that for my Friday flash stories, I'm going to try to have a couple polished stories ready to go in case I have a brutal work schedule sprung on me Thursday...but anyways I may have had a setback, but I'm going to keep moving forward.



1) edit and polish one my flash stories to post for #fridayflash. FAIL
2) draft the short story I outlined. 3/4 DONE
3) draft another flash story. DONE
4) start the outline for the novel idea I came up with. DONE
5) finish get at least two rounds of edits into an old short story. ONE ROUND DONE
6) get half-way done with Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. DONE




This week I hope to finish up those things I did not get to as well as the following new things:


1) Have two flash stories polished by Friday.
2) Get a rough outline for the new novel completed
3) Finish Self-Editing for Fiction Writers.
4) Get a third round of edits done with my short story.


Again, the long term goals for this month stay pretty much the same with a couple additions

1) publish on my blog a flash story each week.
2) draft at least 2 short stories intended for submission.
3) have an outline for my next novel completed.
4) do this goals thing.
5) read Self-Editing for Fiction Writers.
6) have a short story and flash fiction story ready for submission to contests and/or lit magazines.

Wish me luck with these and be sure to hold me feet to the fire.

Goals for the week. Part 2

Alright, It's been a week since I posted my first set of weekly/monthly goals and it's time to see how I did. Overall I'm pretty pleased with myself in that I got everything done. It wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be, and it looks like this type of system might be exactly what I need to make sure that I'm always working in the most efficient manner possible. So to review last week, here's what I said I would do and what I actually did.


1) edit and polish one my flash stories to get me back into the #fridayflash world.: DONE
2) outline a short story. : DONE
3) draft at least 2 more flash stories. : DONE
4) come up with an idea for my next novel. : DONE

Other stuff I accomplished was starting the editing process on a short story I wrote last summer as well as starting the book Self-Editing for Fiction Writers.


This week here is what I hope to do:


1) edit and polish one my flash stories to post for #fridayflash
2) draft the short story I outlined
3) draft another flash story.
4) start the outline for the novel idea I came up with
5) finish get at least two rounds of edits into an old short story
6) get half-way done with Self-Editing for Fiction Writers


Again, the long term goals for this month stay pretty much the same with a couple additions

1) publish on my blog a flash story each week.
2) draft at least 2 short stories intended for submission.
3) have an outline for my next novel completed.
4) do this goals thing.
5) read Self-Editing for Fiction Writers.
6) have a short story and flash fiction story ready for submission to contests and/or lit magazines.

Wish me luck with these and be sure to hold me feet to the fire.

The Iron Door of Salvation #FridayFlash

I finally got around to posting another #Fridayflash. Please let me know what you think, and as always, feel free to be extra stabby with your critiques. It's the only way to help both of us grow.

Owen ran his fingers across the iron bars overlooking the deserted cafeteria. “You said he wasn't supposed to be here.”

“Plans get fucked up. But I’ve got it covered.” Tim pressed the sharpened toothbrush handle up against the guard's neck, pinning him against the industrial sized oven. “And besides, this bitch has been harassing me for the last five years. I can’t wait—”

“Don’t fucking kill him.” Owen said as sweat from his back soaked into his orange jumpsuit. “What about knocking him out or something?”

Tim pressed the shiv in deeper, pushing the guard’s cheeks up to the stainless steel panels. “I told you, breakin’ out could get messy. Now, the way I see it, if we let him live, we’re gonna get caught.”

“But if we knock--”

“Then we might as well walk our asses straight to the warden’s office.”

Owen paced around the room with his hands pressed up on his head. “There's got to be a better way. I'm not a killer.”

“Wouldn't be my first....”

The guard struggled to get a couple words out. “I didn't hear anything. I swear. I've got a-- Wife. Kid on the way.” A tear ran down his cheek. “I won't tell anybody.”

“Keep it the fuck down!” yelled Owen in the loudest whisper he could manage. “This whole thing is royally fucked, isn't it?”

Tim nodded. “Killing him's our only choice.” He gestured towards the clock mounted above the door. “Jimmy’s been waiting in laundry for ten minutes already. He won’t stay much longer.”

“You can't kill--”

“We've go no fucking choice.” Tim said, grabbing the guard’s collar and slid him slightly up the stove.. “It's decided.”

“Please, no!” cried the guard.

“I said shut up!” shouted Owen, no longer whispering.

For a moment, stillness crept into the kitchen. It hung there with the smell of industrial strength cleaners and bleach until Tim plunged the shiv into the guard's neck. He fell down, grasping at the wound. Tim dropped the bloody weapon to the ground. “There, it's done.”

“What the fuck did you do?” asked Owen, who stood over the guard.

“I fixed our problem.”

Through the guard's fingers, blood oozed out onto the floor, forming a puddle that slowly spread out over the concrete. His mouth hung open in a silent scream, but nothing came out. His eyes pleaded for Owen to do something.

“Do you think...How long until?”

“It'll be soon. Now, let's get the fuck out of here.”

Tim swung open the heavy, iron door. “Got everything? Once this door shuts--”.

“Yea, I fucking know.” Owen picked up his pillowcase with their tools from the ground.

“Get your ass moving then!”

Owen slung the pillowcase over his shoulder, following his partner through the door. When Tim had gotten a couple steps ahead of him, Owen raced back into the kitchen before the door slammed shut. When it did, Tim looked back through the bars. “You fucking asshole! What are you doing?”

Owen ignored Tim's shouts. Instead, he emptied the pillowcase and used it to press up against the guard's wound. “Everything's going to be alright. I'll get you help.” he said.

Goals for the week.

I recently came across something K.T Hanna has been doing at her site with #writemotivation. She basically is having people publicly post their goals in hopes that with them out there, we as writers feel more obligated to meet them than if they are just sitting out on our desks.

So in that spirit, I'm going to post some of my goals here, hopefully every week and my progress on them.

So for this week here is what I hope to do:

1) edit and polish one my flash stories to get me back into the #fridayflash world.
2) outline a short story.
3) draft at least 2 more flash stories.
4) come up with an idea for my next novel.

More long term goals for this month would be the following:

1) publish on my blog a flash story each week.
2) Draft at least 2 short stories intended for submission.
3) Have an outline for my next novel completed.
4) do this goals thing.

Wish me luck with these and be sure to hold me feet to the fire.

Plot and Character more Important than Prose?

I'm the type of writer, who I'm sure is like most, that frets over using the right word, right sentence structure, right exact perfect mechanics of prose to get across what I want to communicate in my stories. But does that really matter? Does prose actually have that much of a bearing on how it comes off to the reader as we think it does?

The other night as I was driving along the highways for work late at night, I popped in the audio book of "Epic of Gilgamesh" which is considered by a lot of people to be the oldest story in history. (Written around the 18th century BC. on the clay tablets pictured above.) Suffice to say, the word choice and sentence structure is not very advanced. There are many parts that repeat itself verbatim many many times to the point where I was chanting along with the narrator by the middle of the book in some parts. Overall, the work is very basic and has about the same sophistication I would expect out of a 10 year old.

But still, this story drew me in and kept me awake so I didn't crash my car. (yay!) And I began to wonder why that was, since it was so basic. And the reason is that the plot and characters are well developed. In reality, this is all that The Epic of Gilgamesh has going for it, and it has survived for almost 4000 years!

This brought me to another train of thought then. A lot of the classics that we know and love are indeed translations from the original work. And the format they were originally written in is usually not how we experience them in present day. For instance, just about everybody knows and likes the Iliad and Odyssey, however I don't know many people who have read it in the epic poem format. It's usually the modern spin offs that they have seen. But the power of the characters and plot has allowed this story to survive and still impact people after many years.

Shakespeare wrote plays, but still, people pick up those plays and read them as if they were a book, still getting enjoyment out of them. There is virtually no description, and all we have is dialogue that many of us struggle to comprehend without putting on our thinking caps. And still, he's widely read by people far and wide, even after they graduate. What keeps drawing people to these works, again, is the power of the characters and plot.

Even more modern works that end up getting translated loose a lot of the feel of the author, no matter how good the translation. But still, there are great pieces of literature that survive this process to still touch our hearts. Because the only thing that really can be translated across language and time barriers is in my opinion, character and plot.

I'm not saying that you should be writing your work at that 10 year old level, but perhaps a lot of the agony we spend trying to come up with the perfect word could be better spent on making sure we have an overall story that connects with the reader.