NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo will soon be upon us, and I'm gonna try to win it this year. For anyone who has never visited www.nanowrimo.org, it's a once-a-year community activity in which people try and bust out 50,000 words of a novel within the month of November. Doesn't matter if it's shit, the point is to just get it all out.

Hopefully Schneider will be collabing with me on a post-apoc story, so we'll see how it goes and keep updating here.

Till then!

Ruz

Another burgershop short:

It's the beginning of something...

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She stops, tongs in one hand, half full bag of chips in the other.

“Why?”

She’s new, but new is no excuse for idiocy. I’m elbow deep in burger mince and the customers are rowdy. I don’t have time to tutor the girl on probation. “Just bag them.” I roll and knead. Two more patties are ready to go.

She stares at the bag, the paper beginning to shine oily and translucent. Her hands are rock-steady. “But why?”

I flip the patties in the grill. I placate a customer, who turns to tell everyone behind him that the store has gone to shit since I took over. “Because the guy’s been waiting for ten minutes. Bag them and hand them over.”

She stares a moment longer, and then fills the bag. “It’s not like he’s going to eat them.” She passes the chips over the counter and a young man with a goatee and leather jacket snatches it and vanishes. The bell on the door rings as he leaves; for a moment air rushes in, cool and moist from the rain. Then it closes, and all I can smell is vinegar and burnt beef, the sweat and frustration of hungry men. It’s like Singapore, so humid that the breeze drips down your face.

New girl is packing more chips. I can’t remember her name, but at this rate I won’t need to. Three strikes policy. “Two more bags for the Arnold order.” I assemble burgers with sculptural precision, knead the raw meat.

The chips are held in front of me before I can react. She looks at me with eyes glazed, a slack jawed junkie expression. There is salt trapped in her long, heavy lashes.

“It’s a waste,” she says. “He’ll be dead before he gets home. He doesn’t stop at the intersection. Back wheel gets clipped. The car keeps going. Chips get cold. Sign says Monday.”

“What?” My hands have gone numb, buried in bleeding mince, ears buzzing with the roar of the deep fryer. I must have misheard. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” she says, and her eyes go bright and clear. She blinks, as if waking up. “I’m fine. Those burgers are burning.”

I swear, shake off the mince, turn to the grill. Flip, flip, flip. I forget the girl. She’s only a cog on a great churning machine of bacon and chickensalt.

The morning paper spouts political rhetoric. I check my stocks in the business section, relaxing when I can see none have fallen below panic levels. I have two coffees with breakfast – one decaf, one strong. In my bowl are oats for fibre, tree nuts and dried fruit, a sliced banana, soy milk, a dab of honey. Midday passes. I do fifty pushups, fifty situps, another fifty pushups. Check the bathroom mirror – no change from last week. I shower for the second time.

The clock says I have to open the store in half an hour.

I change my shirt, affix my nametag, gel my hair. Throw a book in the bag for the tram ride – Tess of the D’Urbervilles, parking ticket for a bookmark. I lock the back door, double check the sliding bolts. Out the front door, lock the deadbolt, rattle the door to make sure it’s secure. Adjust my nametag; it reads MARK, SUPERVISOR. My shoes are polished to a mirror shine. I shave with a straight blade to baby softness. If it wasn’t against uniform policy I’d wear a tie.

The tram comes in five minutes, so I run.

The tram is late.

The tramstop is on the sidewalk, a faded pine bench with no sun shelter. The early afternoon is achingly hot, like sitting in a rotisserie. Even the flowers have given up, hiding their wilting petals. There is nobody on the street; everybody is sheltering in the air conditioning.

I take out Tess, but I can’t keep track of her misfortunes. A stack of local newspapers have been left by the bench, still cabletied, yellowing and curling in the heat. I pry one free, flip through. Somewhere down the street is the rumble of the tram, trundling through the suburbs. The lack of punctuality is infuriating.

The cover story is on the redevelopment of local parkland. I don’t care. On the second page is a tragedy. There is always a tragedy on page two. Child tips boiling water, house fire, drowning at the beach. Today’s tragedy is a motorbike collision, one dead. Young male, unidentified as of printing. Deemed to be an accident. The man was sober. Injuries to spine. Corner of Welsh and Monday.

There is something I remember. Something I overheard, or an echo of a dream.

The tram pulls up and I step on. All the seats are free. Normally I punch my ticket, but today I don’t see the need to reward tardiness.

The tram passes identical houses of red brick and slate tiles, well manicured gardens collapsing under the weight of summer. University Road swings by, and then Roulade. Monday Road is next. I open the newspaper.

The crash occurred around 7:20 pm.

We pass Monday Road, and I see the streetsign. Black on green, bold square lettering. Then it is gone.

I remember.

The first of many.

After 3 years (almost to the day) I have finished the first draft of Weathermen.
It's crazy, how little it resembles the idea that woke me up that morning and kept growing as I had my shower, the first scenes I tapped out on Zuul while working at ActewAGL or sitting up atop the Woden bus interchange while waiting for my ride home. I spent the first year chopping and changing, removing characters, removing complete scenes and twists, busting out the first three chapters. The second year was spent scrapping everything and starting yet again. Then, in the third year, I rethought my approach entirely, doubled my output and finished it all off.

Now I have to step back and rewrite it yet again, making the first chapters equivalent to the last four, making characters more real, turning it from a story into a real novel. But I've managed the first step, the biggest step.

One day I'll be published. Maybe it'll be this book, maybe the next. But I've taken the big leap.

Thanks for all the folk who've supported me during the writing; I need your help more than ever now, to edit it into something awesome. Who wants a book to read?

Old stories, associations

I've been writing for as long as I can recall. I just haven't always been writing particularly well.

While googling about today I stumbled on an excerpt from a Stephen King story, as yet unpublished: "The Gingerbread Girl." I have zero interest in the story, but the title suddenly sparked off memories of year 2 at Fadden Primary. I was just getting into R.L. Stine, and was planning a horror series of my own, all based around bad horror puns. The first title was "More Fun than a Hole in the Head," being a story about a man who kills with a drill, the cover featuring a terrible sketch of a man screaming with a gaping wound opened in his forehead. My teacher called them disgusting and told my parents. It didn't go down too well.
I can't remember what the other story titles are, but one of them must have had something to do with gingerbread men. Why else would I have made the association?
I've been writing since I was four. I just wish to God I'd kept all those stories.

A strange image;

The restaurant is Chinatown chic, red lanterns standing sentinel at the entrance and a chinadoll waitress with her black bob cut straight standing behind the counter asking Lobe whether he has a reservation. He waves her off and steps over the rope, over to the buffet.
The man behind the buffet is one of the tech fashionista, buzzcut sprinkled with flecks of gold, mirror-finish goggles pulled up tight over his forehead. He wears a silk shirt hanging open to his waist, embroidered with dragons and lotus leaves. There is a slit running across his bellybutton, like an old surgical scar.
Lobe takes a plate. "Help yourself, sir," the man says, and bows. As he bends over, the skin of his belly slit bends and folds, and Lobe has the slightest twinge of nausea as he catches a glimpse of what seemed like the mans guts.
No, not guts. Noodles. Egg noodles. The man is an android. In his stomach cavity is a swirling stir-fry of mushrooms, bok choy and ba mee. It's like throwing your dinner into a washing machine. "Any chicken?" Lobe asks. The more he watches the tumbling, the more his own organs want to do the same.
The 'droid reaches down, digs both hands into his stomach and stretches it wide open. The noodles whirl. "Take what you'd like, sir," he says. "The serving tongs are by your left hand."
Lobe runs for the toilet.

Chapter 6 done, halfway through Chap 7... shit.

Okay, I'm getting scared now.
I'm very nearly done with my final chapter. Yeah, first draft only, I know. It's still scary. A novel is a big thing to finish. What do I do when it's all over? (besides start the next one).
One of my teachers for an Industrial Design elective is a short story author, so I'm hoping she can give me some advice on the editing and publishing process. Gahd, now I need a new goal. Second draft finished by 2009?
Also, Boilerboys should be going to print soon in the PAX Steampunk magazine. My first published (kinda) short story. I'm reigning in the anxiety by drinking a lot of tea.

--------------------------- Weathermen, Ch 6 ------------------

Aus mumbled as he walked. The others kept their distance, as if his grief was contagious and fatal. Only Alix stuck by his side through the days, speaking to him in hopeful tones of times to come. They could not avoid him at night, so they spoke to him as much as he spoke to them, which was very little.
He was often the first to fall asleep, so Marissa would lead Pal and Rei off a distance and they would whisper to one another of their plans. Sometimes Alix would join them, and sometimes not. Many nights she chose to curl up beside Aus, brushing his hair from his eyes or offering him her tummy as a pillow. They kissed every night and every morning, and as far as the others knew that was as far as they went in expressing their love. Marissa had used to raise an eyebrow or drop a snide comment when they brushed lips; now she simply looked away.
“How much longer?” Pal asked every night. Marissa always gave the same answer: “I don’t know. Not too long now.” After the fourth or fifth rebuttal, he began to press. “We should be able to see it by now, right?”
“Perhaps. We couldn’t see Seventeen until we were right on top of it.”
“Yeah, because it had fallen down. And we were in a forest. And it was foggy.”
“You’ll see it soon.”
Pal rolled onto his side, trying to find the most comfortable position in which to sleep. “You keep saying that. Maybe we’re going the wrong way.”
“I’m not going the wrong way,” Marissa insisted. “I’ve done all the calculations.”
“Still,” said Rei, leaping to Pal’s defense. “We got pretty turned around going through the hills… the city. What if that threw us off course? You said, sometimes…”
“We’d still be able to see it,” Pal muttered. “If we were going the right way.” He curled up and closed his eyes, trying to ignore how the midnight wind raised hairs along his forearms. “I really hope we are. I really do.”
They all slept restlessly, but only Marissa awoke in the early hours, blinking away nightmares of being buried in maps upon maps upon maps. She held herself tight, scraping away layers of dirt and terrified sweat, rocking back and forth until the skies lightened and the sun rose to keep watch over her dreams.
Two more days they walked, and two more nights Marissa woke with her throat so tight she could barely breathe, flailing in the darkness for her blankets or the lamp beside her bed. Every time she had to remind herself that they were long gone, and she would sit and think on all the things and people she had lost. She listed the names of Gods she had never believed in, and prayed to them all.
Please let me be going the right way. Please don’t let us be lost. Please.

The joy's of editing.

My wordcount per day has slowed, but that's because I've already done the bulk of the chapter and am now embroiled in that much easier part, the first edit. Funny how scenes that seemed so genius and pivotal when I wrote them appear tacky and clunky a week later.
This is the fastest I've ever written any section of Weathermen. Hopefully I can maintain this sort of pace for the 2nd draft edit (and then my 2nd novel... and my third... ah, dreams.)
To you folk whom I promised the manuscript of Chapter 6 when it's done... gimme two weeks, tops. I promise.