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While googling about today I stumbled on an excerpt from a Stephen King story, as yet unpublished: "The Gingerbread Girl."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.

Zuh?

Another post? So soon? Writing is going well, aided by Milo and Earl Grey tea every night. If I keep up this rate, I should be done with the chapter within a month, which is scarysoon for my usual speed.

Just hoping to get some feedback on my dialogue. First draft dialogue always sound incredibly hammy and forced, so if anyone reads this, help me tidy it up, huh?

--------------------


Aus jumped up onto the rock. “Mind if I steal your place for a while?”
“No.” Pal looked over to where the girls were resting on the far side of the lake. It would be nice to talk to Rei, he thought, but pushing himself into the middle of their girl talk would be awkward. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Aus smiled. “Good. I want to talk to you about something.”
“Something?”
“Nothing bad. Just ideas.”
Pal sat with his back against the stone, Aus hanging overhead. “We… um… don’t talk much.”
“I know. And it’s my fault. Are any of those peaches still alright?” He took the tin from Pal and inspected it. “Still good. It’s only grass.”
“You had ideas?”
Aus squeezed a piece of peach between his front teeth, and juice ran down his chin in a sticky river. He licked around his lips, thinking. “Yeah. Pal… lying is wrong, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“But you’ve lied, yeah?”
He shrugged. “I guess. Everyone has. Why?”
“Just thinking. Sometimes, you have to lie, even though it’s wrong. It’s better for everyone if you don’t tell the truth. So is it really wrong?”
“It depends, doesn’t it?”
“It does. But sometimes, it would hurt someone more to tell them the truth than to lie and let them find out the truth later. For a while, you need to hide things. And then later, you can make up for what you did wrong, and it’s all okay, yeah?”
Pal felt hairs on his neck beginning to stand. “Like you said, sometimes. What’s this about?”
“Nothing important.” Aus coughed. “Just trying to get things straight in my head, I guess. Sometimes you need to bounce ideas off someone else to make them work. So, is it sometimes okay to do wrong things if you know that they’ll help people in the end, if you absolutely know it? I think it is. What do you think?”
Pal stood, suddenly feeling stiff and uncomfortable. “I guess. But there are some things that are too wrong. You can’t… have an excuse for everything.”
“What if you need to do it to survive? What would you do if you needed to?”
He knew now what Aus was talking about. The memory of his dream crashed back, fingernails like claws tearing through his flesh. “I think…” He stopped and turned his face to the ground. “I think you could have pulled him up.”
“No,” said Aus, and his voice was unusually calm. “I don’t want to die. I can’t die. And you wouldn’t have held him for a second. You would have just dropped him and watched him sink, but I held on until I couldn’t anymore. So you understand now?”
Pal baulked, expecting the swing of a fist at any moment. “I don’t.”
“We need to survive, “ Aus said, “and sometimes, to do that, you need to do wrong things, or let wrong things happen. Because if we don’t, you’ll die. We’ll all die. Do you understand now?”
“I do,” said Pal, his mouth dry. “Can I go?”
Aus nodded and patted him on the head. “You can. Good kid. You’re a good kid.”
Pal shook to his core and ran.

Writing more than I expected

Doubled my word count for this week. I've discovered that my muse comes much more easily with pen and paper.

--------------------------------

There had been something wrong with the horizon since the night before. It had been too dark to make out, but there was something curious about the night sky, as if there was more of it than usual. Rei commented on it, “There are more stars than yesterday!” but Marissa laughed at her curiosity and that was the last they spoke of it that night, although she dwelled on it more than she let the others know.
By morning the sun was rising fast through a cloudless sky, and Marissa conceded that Rei had been right, in a sense; in the distance was a huge lake, mirroring the blue above. It stretched so far that the land beyond was invisible, lost behind the glare of sun on water. The wind blew Pal’s empty plastic bags out behind him like streamers, flapping about his head no matter how he tied them to his bundle. He batted them away and licked his lips, dry and chapped against his tongue.
Finally, he thought, a clean drink. Beside him Alix smiled. “Finally, a good bath.”
After an hours march, the lake had grown again. They could see now that it extended far off to the east, and almost certainly wound off to the west as well. “Maybe it’s a river?” Rei suggested.
Marissa shook her head. “I don’t remember any river this big,” she said. “Then again, I don’t really know this land at all.”
“Is it in our way?”
“There’s always something in our way.”

Run Down & Onwards Chapter Six!

Finally got off my arse and REALLY started work on chapter 6 of Weathermen today. I find I get so much more done writing by hand in my little notebook and typing it up later; all my best dialogue is written down in there. The most powerful moments seem to come to me on the tram.

For extra viewing pleasure, here is the short film I did for my Media and Meaning class, in Industrial Design. Tis an experiment in product placement with parkour thrown in for giggles. Enjoy!