Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Difficulty

Rejection letters, non-responses can really weigh a writer down. Being a beginner, I'm doing my time, forced to accept these sorts of things. Sadly, I think I put too much stock in it. In response to this frustration and, in some ways, hurt, here is a rather emotive, single-graph piece I wrote roughly three years ago and edited today. I promise not everything will be this depressing. "Alone - A brief burst of feeling"

Slowly and steadily he walks into his room. Closing the door quietly behind him, he turns to face the darkness. There is no one inside. He is... This feeling strikes him even though he was expecting it. He knew the whole time that he would be by himself. The boy walks deeper into his room and pauses again. He is still... Now what? He looks at his computer and his heart sinks. I could talk to someone, then I wouldn’t feel so... As he sits down he begins to click on the screen-name of an old high school friend. It’s pointless. I’ll still be... He stands up and faces his room again. With determination the boy reaches toward the clothing that lies on his bed. No longer feeling or thinking, he drags the clothes off the bed and lets the fall to the floor. Am I watching myself? He has just received the notion that he is having an out-of-body experience. It’s like a movie; a very depressed person has just realized how much is missing from his once happy life. The boy curls his fingers around the bottom of his shirt and slowly raises his arms. Once his head had been ejected from his shirt he holds it and stares. The shirt hit floor. Desperate for more freedom he removes his shorts. No one is here. No one cares. Now standing in his underwear he looks around the room once more. Slowly turning his head he searches for something, anything. Nothing. In a sudden revelation he grabs his phone off of his desk and turns the ringer off, denying company. Having given up on finding someone to hold he slowly puts himself on his bed, stomach first. He reaches behind him and pulls the sheet and comforter (How ironic. It’s bullshit) up to his neck. Burying his face in his pillow he finally releases. Pillow soaked, he drifts away and loses consciousness, alone.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

More from "Unreasonable Seizure"

An excerpt from my current short story. I'm intrigued by the league of stories where nothing important happens. Examples would be "Seinfeld" and Burn After Reading.


And so they did. The two thugs tucked Rod in like a sick child and all but kissed his forehead. They rushed around the house straightening knocked over lamps and replacing furniture. The place was already such a mess that they really hadn’t done much damage beyond what was already there. Returning to their van, they grabbed their guns again.


“Not much dark left,” said Mike. “Let’s make this quick. No names.”


“No names,” Tom repeated.



First lines first

Let's get the ball rolling here, shall we? The following is the opening line to my current project tentatively titled "Unreasonable Seizure."

At midnight on an average Friday night on an ordinary suburban street, a typical 28 year old exited a normal yellow taxi.

Hello, Web

Hello, Web,

I am an aspiring fiction writer with aspirations beyond blogs, but would like to use this as a tool for feedback. I also am a young journalist, recently graduated, looking, searching and hoping to begin a career. For the time being, however, I will write what I can, and see what I can't get published.

What will happen here is I will publish short-shorts, sentences and excerpts from current projects. Perhaps once I have a fair amount of readers, I will run ideas by you. You will provide comments and feedback. Loads of it, please. I don't care if you hated every word, I want to know. I want to know what felt right, what didn't work, what you wanted more of or less of. I promise to try my best to be error free in both content and grammar. Please forgive me, as you are my editor.

My hope for this blog is that it will bring criticism, excitement, hope and encouragement to my seedling career.