This Month in Writing

It has been a heck of a month.

I have written nearly every. I finished a draft of the CHEMO: The Unnamed Vampire chapter and a short Chapter CHEMO: The Meme. I was mired somewhat writing the next chapter about CHEMO fighting an advertising campaign, but decided to 'cheat' and make it a short chapter. Two projects I have on back burner are a a horror story called 'Adjoining Room,' a silly story about a Vampire Elephant called 'Blood Tusk' and the book length nonfiction piece I have been writing and rewriting for years (formerly Meditations, formerly An Orientation Manual for Life and Death in the 21st Century) that I am currently calling 'Life like Ring mail.'

Since the change in my situation, my goal is two and half hours of writing every day. And to finish a short story every week. And to put in long shot submissions/applications.

Dunesteef responded favorably to my query about "CHEMO: The Condemned" and requested to review the whole thing (for those not in the know, when you are trying to sell writings sometimes you send a query letter that has a synopsis and a writing sample instead of the whole thing so the publisher can figure out if they are interested without drowning in your manuscript). A group of actors read "Leave a Man Behind." Sadly I couldn't make it to their reading and they didn't record the sucker =/. Still, I got a lot of good/useful feedback... the bit that made me happiest was being told that the dialogue was good, especially since I tend to be paranoid that all my characters sound like barely tweaked versions of me. So it is nice to hear that "Leave a Man Behind" doesn't suffer from that (speaking of which, I have posted 'Leave a Man Behind' and you can read it here as I have neither the energy nor the know how to try and sell a play). And finally, Julie over at 13 Nocturne Ave is still working on her adaptation of CHEMO: Town of Golden Woods and I can't wait to hear it!

Sample of Something I wrote this Month:

I fumbled to press down my throat mike with my ruined arm. There was no way I was going to use my good hand to do anything other then keep the gun pointed at the vampire. It hurt like hell, but I managed to get ahold of someone.

"I got a Cancer here, who just won't go down. I'm here and I'm too injured to make a way to get away..."

The precanned voice responded. "Courage Agent, onward. The fight is nearly through."

I punched my throat mike again, furious and made more furious by the pain I shouldn't have to be feeling right now. "Enough with this canned bullshit. I have literally shot this thing a dozen times, taken out its knees and eyes, and it is healing as we speak! I need a missile or a flamethrower or a fucking tac nuke but I need the help now!"

Zebra F-301

This is a true story about a pen and why I am a writer. Specifically, this is a story about the zebra F-301 (pictured left). The story starts like this:

I work(ed) at a Bank and I hate(d) my job. This hate was a multifaceted, and when you get right down to it, boring thing. Nothing impressive, nothing worthy of passion; I was just another in a long litany of listless modern twenty somethings who didn't think much about life after college until it 'snuck' up on me. I spent my days thinking about how miserable I was, how nothing I did during the day had any meaning for anybody, least of all myself. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to fritter away time since they took away my net access and fantasized a lot about walking away.

Yesterday I was fired.

The firing, like my hate for my now former employment, is a modern listless thing.  I did nothing wrong, a touch of misunderstanding mixed win with managerial paranoia.  Dosen't matter.

Being fired is an interesting experience. I was just thinking not a month ago that I hope my (purely hypothetical) children get fired a couple times in their youth so they can exorcise the fear. I am conditioned like most products of the academic 'honor' machinery to be largely defenseless in the face of official disapproval. So, being fired from a job I detest produces a whole range of contradictory emotions. The nearest description I can give is the feeling of a thousands squacking bird like emotions all simultaneously trying to exit a too small hole in your chest. I was/am scared elated terrified liberated nervous gassy.

So last night, before I went to bed I asked for an answer.

There were no dreams that I can recall, and I spent my day listlessly applying for the next potential paycheck dispenser and wandering slack jawed about the internet as brought to me by stumbleupon.

My gorgeous wife came home and while I was cooking dinner she tells me she has something for me. A random old man walked up to her in the course of the day and handed her the pen I mentioned before. He told her that she was supposed to give this to her husband.

The zebra F-301 is my favorite, and I have a twin of the one I was given today that I have preserved even throughout all the pen hemorrhaging I went through at the bank.

You might think that this is merely a coincidence.  Perhaps a lie on the part of my wife looking to cheer up her now jobless hubby.  Perhaps maybe a customer who knew where my wife worked and who had seen me using the pen just wanting to do something nice for me...

You could get into Jungian notions synchronicity.  Aliens.  Angels.  However you want to slice up the world and explain away everything, distance the awe from your heart.  But your metaphysics (or lack thereof) is immaterial to me.  Because today, a small token, a gift worth about a buck has weight and meaning for me exceeding a thousand billion dollar ad campaigns.

Today, it seems, I simply needed to be reminded that I am a writer.

I do not know if I will settle into another corporate gig, I do not know if I will finally get my blog together and start monetizing the synergy of new media via facetwitter.  I do not know exactly how things are going to work out as far as my cash flow is concerned.  But I do know that -from this day forward- I will never again be shy about telling people exactly what it is I am and what exactly I do. I do know that from this day forward I try my very hardest not to be scared.

I am a writer.

Things happen. Freedom is scary. But it is not now, nor has it ever been a curse.

It's time to get to work.