Going Home Again, Part 5

This did not take nearly as long to write as part 4. Could have posted it last week, but my seven year old Dell desktop has finally given up on the world and will soon be going to that great PC graveyard in the sky. It was a good PC, wise beyond its years, but nothing lasts forever. I think this installment of the story is a marked improvement from the fourth. I hope that’s actually true.

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I left for Philadelphia on a Friday morning. I packed my suitcase in the car, had an audio book copy of the World of Ruin to force myself to listen to (I hadn’t heard anything from Ellen in the previous two weeks, and thus assumed that she was unable to deter the bookstore from their choice of reading), as well as a selection of happier music for those times I get so fed up with my terrible prose that I need a change of pace. I expect the Beatles compilation that I made up specifically for the trip down to be of special utility to that effect. It’s about an eight hour trip from my town to the hotel, so I’ll have plenty of time to get myself mentally prepared not only for the reading (I easily could have put my foot down and cancelled the whole trip in a huff, but that defeats the purpose, now doesn’t it?) but the outside prospect of finding Victoria amongst the masses. There’s a lot of confidence that comes from being an incredibly successful writer at such a young age. That doesn’t mean I’m not a nervous wreck right now as I drive through central Massachusetts. The mind is a funny thing. We were together for nearly three years; I’ve never felt more comfortable in my own skin as when I was with her, and yet the possibility of seeing her makes my mind turn to mush.

I’m driving past the outskirts of Worcester when “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” hits the speakers. John Lennon doing his version of a Bob Dylan song. It’s one of my favorites. I roll down the windows, a cool breeze flows past my arm as I sing along, getting louder as I reach the explosive “Hey!” at the beginning of the chorus refrain. Music is often catharsis. You live through the lyrics and instrumentation. You relate to the singer, feel his plight, know you’re not alone. It’s not difficult to resonate with John Lennon. “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” is one of the better lovelorn songs in the Beatles lexicon, and I feel the emotion drain away as I sing at the top of my lungs, my audience the wind whipping across the car as I speed down the Mass Pike toward my ultimate goal. The next song, “Glass Onion,” brings me down to earth with a smile on my face. I can do this. Never should have been worried in the first place.

If I’m going to do this, I should do it right. I eject the Beatles CD from the stereo, light a cigarette and insert the seventh disc of the audio book. The dry, British tones of the man Harper Collins got to read the audio version of The World of Ruin is barely audible underneath the wind. I should probably roll up the windows, but I just lit this cigarette and I’d be damned if I’m not going to finish it. I flip the stereo over to the radio, there’s a low drone of station that is not quite there and fading fast. No sense in trying to hone in on a stronger signal; it’s not like I would hear any of it anyway. You can’t hear much of anything with the windows open going upwards of 85 miles an hour on a highway. The cigarette is burned down to the filter, so I flick it out the window and close off the wind. I turn the audio book back on and begin to listen.

Josephine ran. That’s all she could do. Her gnarled yew bow gripped in her right hand, she cursed herself for not striking the killing blow with her last arrow. She could hear the pounding feet of Andriphaele directly behind her.

Andriphaele? God, that’s a terrible name. What the fuck was I thinking?

She could feel his rancid breath on the back of her neck. She needed to do something, create some distance. Running full tilt through the Darkened Grove was not conducive to making strategic decisions. She was amazed she hadn’t fallen yet, her elven senses allowing her to instinctively dodge the underbrush, keeping her deceptively strong ankles from becoming entangled in exposed roots or shrubs. She altered her gait, stepped down on a particularly dangerous root and flicked her long, slender toes, pulling the root up further in one fluid moment. A few seconds later, she could hear a snap, an anguished yell and a thud as Andriphaele tumbled to the ground. She dared not look back. Her lungs burned, sucking in hot sticky air, stifling her breath. Her calves cramped, sending shooting pains up and down her body. She started to move erratically, hoping to lose her scent in the air among the trees.

Josephine dove behind a particularly dreadful tree. Decayed bark stuck out at random angles throughout the truck. Sometimes it was brittle and would disintegrate into nothing under the slightest external pressure. Other knots were sharp enough to draw blood. She could see the remains of sparrows in the deep crevasses of the tree. Bygones from an era long since past. Before Andriphaele. Before the dark times. Before death came to the land.

I don’t understand how anyone could take this dreck seriously. I’m impressed the narrator attacks it with such pathos. Makes it almost bearable. He’s doing a good job. Much better than I would.

Josephine should have kept moving. She knew this even as she stayed there, pinning herself against the rotting, desiccated tree. The weight of the day’s events seemed to hold her down like a blood-soaked animal fur on her back. Death was all around her, choking her, sapping her of strength. She knew Andriphaeale could not have been stalled long by her gambit, and he would certainly have been on the hunt and closing fast. She could see his giant, demonic slavering jaws, thirsting for blood in her mind’s eye. She could see those same jaws closing around the neck of Tristan just a few short hours ago. She began to weep. Her best friend, her greatest ally, her fiercest lover. All of it down the drain with one attack. She couldn’t even describe the feeling when she saw his ruined body, the gaping wound leaving throat open for the world to see, the straw-covered floor of their hideout stained crimson. And Andriphaele’s wrecked, twisted form towering over Tristan, licking the blood from his lips and curling them into the approximation of a smile.

She had been running non stop ever since she found Tristan. She couldn’t run anymore. It was pointless. Andriphaele would catch up to her eventually anyway. She would want to find him while she still had some strength left. She pulled a knife from the leather sheath hidden in her boot. It was small, but sharp. Maybe if she got a lucky shot in she could survive the encounter. She would just have to stay away from his teeming maw of shredding teeth. Easier said than done. She took a deep breath, calmed her nerves to the best of her ability and stepped out from behind her hiding place. She didn’t even see the giant hand swing at her the second she made herself visible. It connected with the side of her head with a sickening, heavy thud. She lost the knife, it careened away into the underbrush. She hit the sylvan floor and cut herself on the mass of roots and thorns. It was all over now. A powerful hand closed around her beck, pulling her up off the ground. She kicked feebly as Andriphaele smiled. He cut a long gash across her face with his claw. Blood began to seep, peppering the dead leaves below. Two more quick swipes of his free claw and Josephine’s shoulders were slashed open. The straps of her leather tunic fells away, exposing her breasts to the world. He was going to humiliate her before striking the killing blow.

She didn’t know how long he toyed with her. Her mind was swimming from the blow to the temple and the loss of blood. She was naked; Andriphaele had cut away every strip of leather from her shaking body. He had cut away the points at the top of her ears, a symbolic act of robbing her of her elven pride and heritage. She begged for him to kill her. She had nothing left to live for. Tristan was gone. Her kingdom, her world was shattered. Andriphaele refused to speak, refused to acknowledge her pleas. Blood and tears mixed together in her eyes, blinding her. It was excruciating torture. Eventually, he tired of the game and ended her with one quick, efficient snap of his jaws. All was blackness. He discarded her ruined body and moved on toward the town of Knutenheim with evil intentions on his mind.

I turn off the audio book. The prose, while not great, is better than I remember. It’s still too dark and shockingly misogynistic. I killed Josephine and Tristan, the main characters of the series since Songs of the Diamond was originally conceived with such malice and disdain. Maybe I thought doing so would kill the series. But it didn’t. Everafter was a strong return to form in my eyes. I don’t want to read this, but I might be able to pull it off in a way that is not completely embarrassing. We’ll have to see. I look out my window. Haven’t really been paying too much attention to the driving, which can happen when you’re heading down a long highway without having to worry about directions, exits, off-ramps, etc. I’m passing by Hartford now, getting closer all the time.

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This post was written to the tune of Tom Waits’ Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards

Going Home Again, Part 4

So I came up with a temporary title for this little creative writing project. I don’t necessarily believe that it will be the title when all is said and done, but it’s something to hang my hat on for now. I really struggled with this section of the story. I don’t think it’s very good. This is usually the point I reach in most stories I write where I hit a creative funk (we’re well over a month since part 3) trying to get past a difficult part of the narrative. In this case, it was filling the time between our intrepid hero finding out about his return date to Philadelphia and actually leaving to go there and move the story along. The good thing is I can simply revise this later into something readable once the whole thing is finished. I’m posting it for completeness’ sake on the off chance that anyone out there has a vested interest in this beyond me. Don’t hold it against me.

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Ellen gets back to me about a day later. The signing will be in three weeks at the U Penn bookstore. Not quite Old City, but close enough. Ellen is already hard at work with the promotion, taking out ads in the local free papers, papering clubs, coffee shops, and college hangouts. Her approach appears to be that I have become a Salinger-esque recluse that is coming out of hiding for a one time only special engagement or something equally silly. She sent me the print mock ups after she had already approved them and released them for public consumption all across the mid-Atlantic, and I had no opportunity to object. I don’t think I’m that out of touch with the real and literary worlds. Even still, this approach is certainly going to get the people to come out for this, and that was my intention when I pitched Ellen the idea. Granted, I would be perfectly happy if Victoria were the only person to come to the damned thing. Might even prefer it. But this is how you do things.

As snooty as Ellen has been in the past couple months since the doldrums kicked in, I can never say that she is a disappointing publicist. Everything I would ever need is going to be there waiting for me. Multiple editions of all my books, allowing people to choose whether they want the original cover or the movie tie-in version. She’ll probably have a boatload of DVD’s and Blu Rays of the copious film adaptations. She’s already sent over the hotel reservation; if all goes as planned that room will either be very busy or deserted for my three day stay. The signing itself is on a Friday night and I don’t check out until the following Monday. Ideas and situations are shooting through my head. It’s the most active my imagination has been in months, and it has nothing to do with writing , nor could it really translate into writing without becoming overtly metatextual. Metatext isn’t automatically a bad thing; it’s just never been my scene. I’m more fond of straight stories, not necessarily uncomplicated ones, but nothing that generally messes with any serious literary paradigms. I’m already reaching the point that I might consider a fresh start at writing when my phone starts vibrating off the table. It’s Ellen.

She’s in what I would like to refer to as a good mood. This usually indicates that she has news that she thinks will help my career immensely but probably won’t be something I particularly want to do. I decline to mention that I was about to take a crack at brainstorming ideas. That would be mean. “I’ve been talking to the folks at the U Penn Barnes and Noble. They’re very excited that you’re coming down just for them. They want to make this as big as possible.”

She pauses, mentally preparing herself for the other shoe to drop. I break the silence. “I’ve seen the ads. I wouldn’t exactly think of myself as reclusive, but I admire the effort as usual.”

“And I thank you for that.” I can hear her take a deep breath. “They want you to do a reading.” In addition to being able to audibly hear Ellen shrug, you can also hear her cringe.

I’m staring at the wall again, examining the cracks, trying to put myself into a calm and level disposition. I hate doing readings. “You know I hate readings.”

“Yes, I know. But the guys who helped me put this together think it’ll chase up more business for the store.”

“I don’t care about the store.” Perhaps if I just go about this from the perspective of irrational anger, I might get some leverage. “The whole point of this thing was to get away for a few days. Relax. Clear my head. If I have to worry about a reading the whole time I’m down there, I’m going to be a nervous wreck. Did they mention what they wanted me to read?”

Another pause. Longer this time. She doesn’t want to tell me. I’m cringing, but my body language is silent and imperceptible over the phone. Well, they were hoping you could read the climactic scenes from The World of Ruin.” Oh god. It’s like they’re trying to torture me. I consider The World of Ruin to be the worst book I have ever written. It’s the third installment of Songs of the Diamond, and the first novel I wrote in LA. I wouldn’t say I was miserable yet, but I missed Victoria terribly. It informed my process to a pretty intense degree, and I always thought it had an overly depressing and stifling tone. That might be why people liked it; a sort of Empire Strikes Back approach, but it never seemed genuine. The PR and subsequent signing tours were awful experiences; everyone made such a big deal about the dedication (“To my beloved Victoria. The world will never be the same without your fire.”). I’m pretty sure they all thought she had died. Things were just generally uncomfortable.

“George?” Apparently I have been silent for some time.

“I don’t know, Ellen. You know how much I hate readings. You know I hate that book. You might have an outside chance of convincing me to do a reading, but not that book. I’m gonna have to put my foot down on that one. Make some kind of counter offer or something. Try to aim for something a bit more cheery. I want a positive vibe coming out of this trip that will put me back on the right track.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Keep your chin up.”

The conversation ends, and I am returned to the sanctity of silence. I walk over to my bookshelf; I don’t even have a copy of The World of Ruin alongside the other hardcovers of my books. That’s a pretty good indication of my opinions about the book. I have to go up to my attic and actually find a copy of the book. I flip through it, just picking random passages and browsing through them. Even the descriptive work is dour and uninspired. I really need to find a way to get out of this one. I know I’m just making excuses at this point, but there’s no way I’m even going to try to write after that phone call. Better just to try and calm down and see if I can find anything to improve my mood and redouble my efforts.

I’m not sure if this is really the best way to go about things, but I decide my best course of action is to get nice and drunk. I head down to the living room on the first floor and open the china hutch in the far left corner that I converted into a liquor cabinet some time ago when I realized that I didn’t have any china and probably would not be getting some any time soon. The cabinet contains a sea of bottles filled to various states of capacity with different shades of predominantly brown liquids. There are some clear bottles in the back containing vodka, gin, and tequila, but these are simply there for the benefit of horrible sorts of people that would visit my home and actually have the temerity to turn down whiskey. Most of these people usually are not invited back, mostly because I don’t want to take the time to keep my stores of inferior spirits up to date and stocked. The tough choice I always run into is picking an actual whiskey to drink. Perhaps a nice smooth Canadian or a Kentucky bourbon with a bit more of an edge. Or maybe a mature peaty scotch. I shuffle through the bottles and decide on a twelve year Dewar’s. I pour a little too much in a rocks glass and drop in an ice cube or two. I’ve always loved the burn that comes from a good quality scotch. Great for a cool or cold day in autumn or winter. It also has the added ability to get you good and drunk.

I do have a tipping point when it comes to drinking. This may sound odd or shocking, but I am not particularly fond of either vomiting or hangovers. As such, it is rare that I do enough healthy drinking to reach the point that I get beyond a nice buzz. It loosens the tongue and allows for increased social interaction, but you remain in control of your faculties, will actually remember what happened, and the likelihood of doing something incredibly stupid and embarrassing is massively reduced. Keep in mind that despite this outlook, I can certainly hold my liquor. It’ll take me four to six drinks to even reach my goal of a comfortable buzz. As I sip on my fifth scotch, the living room releases itself from its confines and begins to lazily rotate around me. This is a good sign, the hallmark of the perfect buzz. I’m trying to keep my thoughts pleasant to stave off any potential belligerence, but my mind keeps returning to The World of Ruin and how much I hate it. It’s the one thing in my entire life I wish I could take back. Hell, the title isn’t even original; I outright stole it from a video game, Final Fantasy VI to be precise. It’s not that I’m upset the book is bad. If Douglas Adams could write Mostly Harmless, I’m certainly allowed to miss the mark at least once. What bothers me is its popularity. I would be happy if everyone hated it as much as I did. If I am hoodwinked into reading the book to my fans, it’ll be a hell of a lot of work to give any kind of affecting performance. Hell, it’ll be hard enough to not break into a huge rant about how the book sucks and no one knows what they’re talking about.

I can’t even commit to getting drunk. The buzz has already receded, and my mind is clear as a bell. I just need to sleep and find some way to busy myself until I leave for Philadelphia.

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This post was not written to the tune of any music at all. I wonder if that’s why it’s so underwhelming.

Creative Writing Part 3

A quick proviso on this section of the story. This is my first crack at real dialogue in a long time. I think it turned out decent, but there’s quite a lot of vulgarity, so those that aren’t a fan of off color words are forewarned.

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Maybe I should call her. It’s been so long, and I miss her so long some days. There’s probably a statute of limitations for calling up old girlfriends out of the blue, but I don’t know if I really care about that right now. Because I’m still sitting at the same desk, looking at the same blank screen trapped in the same deafening silence of my own restless mind. It feels good to walk down memory lane from time to time, and it offered me quite the distraction from the task at hand. I’ve never really had to procrastinate in my life; grade school and college offered little challenge, but I got myself into the habit of finishing my work prior to goofing off. It’s an approach that has stuck even to this day, so I find it difficult and aggravating being forced to not do work. I need another cigarette. I try to cut down or quit, but it never seems to stick. It’s one of the few things about me I wish I could change. Even still, there’s no fighting it now. I refuse to smoke indoors, so I take to the porch behind my house. There’s a nice lounge chair out there that I altered to have an ashtray built right into the armrest. I’m quite proud of that. Nicotine is an odd beast. Even back in my Philly days I never took hard drugs with extreme addictive qualities. They weren’t really Douglas’ scene, and the few of his friends that would offer me coke were easy enough to politely decline. The cravings for nicotine are strange. When they start, they’re never obvious enough. It’s not that you know immediately that you want a cigarette. You just feel something immaterial gnawing at your insides. There’s a hole somewhere inside you that you can’t fill no matter how you try. It’s uncomfortable, but not unbearable. It’s only after you realize that the act of smoking makes these feelings go away that you make the connection and begin to actively crave cigarettes. It’s when the irritability hits that you really have to do something about it.

I pull out my cell phone and call Douglas. We try to keep in contact as much as we can, but we haven’t spoken on the phone for over six months. I get congratulatory cards from him whenever a new book hits the stands, but that’s been the extent of our recent contact. He picks up after the third ring. “George, buddy! How the fuck are you? Fuck, it’s been ages!” Douglas was as enthusiastic and vulgar as ever.

“Eh, I’m doing all right I guess. Still getting used to the complete lack of hustle and bustle out here in the middle of nowhere. Remind me, you’re still trolling the streets of Philly, yes?”

“Nah, I got out months ago. Too many fucking guns, man. Really ruins your good spirits watching the news, you know? I followed in your footsteps and headed out to Cali. Frisco, to be precise. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you, George. I fucking love it out here.”

“Pretty sure LA and San Fran are pretty different scenes, Doug.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. So how’s the new book going? I’ve heard some rumors.” Apparently, my writing difficulties were beginning to make waves among the literary upper crust.

“I don’t know what’s going on. I’m lost and nothing’s coming out of my head but garbage. Ellen and Jeffrey are starting to get nervous.” Ellen is my publicist and Jeffery is my editor at Harper Collins.

“Seriously? Fuck them, man! After all the money you’ve made them? You tell those cocksuckers to go suck on some talentless hack’s dick and see how it tastes. Fucking leeches, god!” Talking to Douglas when he gets animated is not unlike being in the middle of a Tarantino film. “You need to relax, buddy. Get your mind off the work. Take a tab, find some loose pussy, do something that doesn’t involve writing.”

“I stopped dropping acid years ago, Doug. And where the hell am I going to find loose women? I’m in Vermont. I know every single person in this little town. I’m trapped.”

“Well, shit, man. Get your ass out to the coast and I’ll take care of ya.”

“My publicist will fucking kill me if I take a vacation now…Hey Doug, when’s the last time you talked to Vickie?” I didn’t really like calling her that nickname, but Douglas only referred to her as Vickie.

“I don’t know, maybe a couple months ago. She’s still in Philly far as I know. You gettin’ bit by the fuck bug?” Such a horrifying phrase. I didn’t even ask him before he offered to text me her cell number. “Hey, knock ‘em dead, stud. I always thought you crazy kids were perfect for each other. Get into a car, drive down to Old City, fuck her brains out for a weekend, come back and writing the greatest fucking book ever known. I know you have it in you. Seriously, no bullshit. You are a great friend and an even greater storyteller. And don’t fucking wait six months before you call me again, dick.”

“Alright, Doug. I’ll talk to you soon.”

I lit another cigarette. Conversations with Douglas have a tendency to be somewhat mentally draining. Still, it was good to talk to an old friend and get my mind off the work that isn’t going to be done any time soon. A few seconds after I hang up, my phone starts buzzing and there, clear as day, is Victoria’s phone number, still with the 267 Philadelphia area code. The phone buzzes again; Douglas has also seen fit to send along a quite graphic visual aid that I don’t need to explain or show to anyone ever again for the rest of my life. I hastily delete it from my phone. That crazy bastard. I couldn’t call Victoria now. I need a plan. Some kind of reason to see my long lost love other than professional frustration and personal longing. I decide to call Ellen and give myself a less transparent reason to return to Philadelphia.

She picks up the phone staggeringly quickly. “How many pages?” Who needs hellos?

“You wouldn’t want to know. I can, however, write a pretty stirring and exacting novella about the wall in my writing room, but I doubt that would interest you.” I reply, trying to sound both resolute and dejected at the same time. I’m aiming for pity. Seems like I fail, especially considering her exasperated sigh.

“So are you going to call Jeffrey or should I?” This is what our relationship has become. No hellos or how-are-yous, just a ravenous hunger for finished pages and the paycheck that follows them. We used to be friends. We used to be cordial.

“Come on, now. We don’t need to tell Jeffrey every little thing now, do we?”

“What do you want, George? I have things to do.”

“I need you to set up a signing.”

“You’re kidding, right? This book’s supposed to be on the shelves in two months, we haven’t seen a treatment, a synopsis, a single written word about it, and now you want to go on a signing tour? Are you trying to give me an aneurysm?” I’m starting to wonder if it’s even worth going through this trauma. Then I see Victoria’s face in my mind’s eye and I make the decision to soldier on.

“Did I say tour? Will you fucking listen to me? I want one signing. One. In Philly. Old City. I need to go back to my writing roots. I need to see old friends. I need inspiration. And I need a reason to go back there. So I want to do a high profile signing that everybody in the tri-state area is going to know about and want to go to. Print ads, TV, whatever you can do. I want it to be big.”

There’s a long pause as Ellen mulls over the amount of work this entails and weighs the work output of a happy writer compared to a frustrated one deep in the mire of writer’s block. Finally, she speaks. “Fine. I’ll email you the details when I confirm a date. Even the bums are going to be lined up for this one. Should I set up airfare to Philly International?” She’s already starting to cheer up. She’s aching for something to do, and I just gave it to her. I can hear it in her voice.

“Nah, I think I’m going to drive.” You could audibly hear Ellen every time she shrugged. It’s a hell of a thing, and because of it I could tell she reacted with a shrug.

“Whatever works, George. I’ll let you know soon. And please try to get something down on paper for all of our sakes.”

“I’ll do my best, Ellen. Goodbye.”

Excitement grips me as I end the call. The spark is back. I haven’t felt this way in months. I try to write again, but too many thoughts are buzzing around my head to focus. I’m hungry. Haven’t eaten anything since a meager English muffin for breakfast. I would eat, then I would have to do something that didn’t involve writing whatsoever. Perhaps a movie. I think I’ve done enough for today.

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A quick side note on the musical piece attached to this section of the story. I’m a huge fan of The Who. They have almost always been my personal favorite of the big three British bands of the sixties. I don’t know if that’s the case anymore. I’ve been listening to The Beatles almost non-stop for about three weeks, and have come to the conclusion that they’re the greatest band in the history of the universe. Late to the party, I know, but it needs to be said.

This post was written to the tune of The Beatles.

Creative Writing Part Two

The second and third parts of this little thing are done. I’m liking how it’s going so far, evolving in its own way that seems to be beyond my absolute control. More to come, possibly tomorrow but definitely over the weekend.

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Philadelphia was a wonderful time of my life. I had just inked a long term book deal with Harper Collins based on my manuscript for the first Songs of the Diamond book. I had been living in Atlanta, but the southern summer heat didn’t agree with me and I wanted a change in scenery. Philly existed in a more temperate climate, and I loved the history and architecture of certain parts of the city. I had real money for the first time in my life and decided to splurge on a gorgeous one bedroom apartment in Old City. I even bought an old fashioned typewriter and quill pen set to see if that would lend some authenticity to the creative process for my next book, which ended up turning into The Era of Heartache. Kind of an odd book to produce during such a generally cheerful time of my life, but sometimes things just work out that way. I would take walks around the city during the day, exploring Penn’s Landing and Walnut Street. Nights would often be spent on South Street; I was twenty-six at the time, so I wasn’t completely out of place among the younger populace of the city. I was in the best shape of my life, had all the confidence in the world, and turned myself into quite the social butterfly. Writing was so easy for my back then. I didn’t even have to focus on what was in front of me. My hand was like a faucet that would spew forth fantastical ideas and long, flowing passages of beauty whenever its pen touched paper. At that time I was very much in the habit of writing my first drafts by hand and revising and proofreading as I typed into an easier to deal with format for my editor and publisher. I had more free time than I knew what to do with, and sought out many of life’s chemical pleasures. I’m not a big drug user these days, but back then I was willing to try a lot of things. My psychedelic journeys were certainly fun at the time, but there is a time and a place for such things. The one tangible good that came out of my drug use was Victoria.

We crossed paths at a party thrown by Douglas, a literary agent who introduced me to both Harper Collins and LSD. He wasn’t actually my literary agent, but he managed to be gregarious enough to read my manuscript and pass it along to the publisher before we had even met face to face. Indeed, Douglas, was one of the major factors that led to my decision to move to Philly. Shortly after I finished the opening parts of The Era of Heartache, Douglas asked me pretty matter-of-factly if I had ever tried psychotropic drugs. At the time I hadn’t, and he offered me the opportunity to have some mushrooms and see where it took me. I think he assumed it would enhance my imagination and by extension my writing. His heart was in the right place, but I’m not exactly Hunter S. Thompson, nor do I want to be. Still, this guy gave me my first big break and was the sole reason I was being so lavishly compensated for just being me. He didn’t even take a cut out of the contract. Perhaps he expected one, but I was young and ignorant and he never showed any ill will toward me. I indulged him and myself and went along with the idea. Trying to explain an instance of tripping on mushrooms after the fact can be a bit difficult. Your head swims while incomprehensible visions assault your brain. It’s quite the experience. I wasn’t affected in any deep or meaningful way by the events of that evening, but I enjoyed myself and Douglas’ company enough to continue on these sojourns periodically. I traded up from mushrooms to LSD; the synthetic compound offering more sustained and stronger hallucinations. Douglas began to introduce me to his extended circle of friends and invite me to parties.

We didn’t drop acid at the party I met Victoria. This was probably for the best; I don’t think my true personality shines through as well as it could when I’m under the influence. We were drinking, of course, but it shouldn’t be too hard to deduce that being drunk and tripping are two entirely different states of mind. I probably knew between half and two thirds of the people there, and the beginning of the night consisted of a lot of hand shakes and introductions with people whose names I forgot almost immediately. It was a little weird at that stage of my life being introduced by Douglas as the next big thing in the literary world to all of these strangers; Songs of the Diamond hadn’t been published yet, and I was just some guy. It was embarrassing to say the least, but I smiled through it.

Victoria’s was one of the many faces that passed in front of me early on in the party, but unlike everyone else, she became indelibly burned into my mind. She was a beautiful woman; this was plain to see. Raven hair, long and thick that had a tendency to fall over her face and obscure her left eye. The eye that was visible was a deep forest green, creating a strong sense of mysterious and deeply intriguing dichotomy on her face. Her body was well proportioned; she was no supermodel, but no one in his right mind would ever be embarrassed to be seen with her. When I took her hand I felt a jolt of electricity shoot through my entire body. Instant attraction. The wry smile on her face seemed to indicate her own interest. It didn’t even phase me when Douglas called me Tolkien’s heir apparent or the next Dickens or something equally ludicrous. But just as we were beginning to get acquainted, Douglas whisked me away to some other corner of the flat to meet even more people whose names didn’t matter to me. I could only hear one name in my head. I was determined not to let the night end without reconvening with her.

It was a fantastic night. Douglas was well connected in the literary world and had a full cabinet of expensive and extravagant wines and liquors, none of which he bought with his own money. I spent the rest of the night sipping delectable whiskeys, bourbons and scotches of all shapes, sizes, and ages, while having delightfully pedantic conversations about art, politics, philosophy and past loves. No matter how engrossed I became in whatever verbal tête-à-tête in which I may have been partaking, I always kept one eye searching the house for any signs of Victoria. I would wager that about three hours passed before I saw that unmistakable streak of jet black hair reveal itself from the crowd of revelers. Our eyes met. She winked at me and nodded her head toward the open double doors that led to the balcony on the second floor of Douglas’ apartment. As she moved toward the open air, I hastily excused myself from whatever subject I had immediately forgotten the second I caught a glimpse of her, refilled my glass with some devastatingly free Johnny Walker Blue and joined her under the night sky.

We talked for what seemed like hours. She threw some playful jokes about Douglas’ embellished introduction. I deflected them with self-deprecating aplomb. We went through the standard relationship starting talking points: childhood memories, towns in which we lived, colleges attended and degrees attained, future plans and so on. She was an intoxicating human being, the physical embodiment of a slow drink of barrel aged whiskey. And she had some tough competition considering the heavenly blue label scotch sitting in the rocks glass in my right hard. I was pleased to see that Douglas had become wise to the goings on of our balcony retreat and turned himself into an impromptu bouncer. He did a hell of a job giving us our privacy. I lit a cigarette, she produced her own and coyly waited for me to provide her with fire. The orange glow of my the flame from my lighter licked and sputtered in the breeze, throwing wild light and shadow over her verdant, sylvan eyes. We smoked and drank and talked, each of us using lulls in the conversation as an opportunity to inch closer to one another.

Eventually, Douglas poked his head through the closed curtain to inform us that the guests were beginning to leave. We followed him back into the house holding hands, said our goodbyes and exchanged pleasantries to mutual friends. We could not bring ourselves to break our grip on each other, perhaps out of fear that we would never touch again if we made the mistake of letting go. She came home with me that night and we made love. It was magic. For the next two years, we were inseparable. She was my best critic and the ultimate support system. I was never a fan of dedication pages in my books, but every novel I wrote in Philadelphia was dedicated to Victoria. Some super fans of mine refer to this as my Victoria Period. Our relationship never actually ended, per se. I made the decision to move to LA and write screenplays. She couldn’t bring herself to leave her family, her friends or her job. I said I understood, but inside I was crushed. We haven’t talked in over five years. If I couldn’t have her, I didn’t want to think of her. It was too painful. I took her picture out of the frame that now sits on my desk shortly after I left LA. It reminded me too much of my one regret.

MORE TO COME

This post was written to the tune of The Beatles’ Help

Creative Writing Project, Part 1

Considering that The Machine of Dreams has died on the vine, I wanted to do some different creative writing. I’m hoping to overcome the clichés of the central plot (as it is at the moment), and at the same time, I am trying my best to avoid becoming meta. This is an exercise more than anything. No title as of yet. Enjoy.

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One of the most overused clichés in a sea of overused clichés is the ideal of writing what you know. I’ve always hated the phrase. I got where I am today specifically because I wrote what I didn’t know. And here I am, one of the most well loved authors of the past decade. I don’t have any intimate knowledge of most of my more popular subject maters, and this is why I have come to the conclusion that all that truly makes a good writer is skill. I possess more finely honed skills than most, and am all the better for it. You stick you neck out and you take a chance and it can lead to something great. But what happens when you have nothing about which to write? No matter the skill set at your disposal, you can’t write if you have no subject. You can write about writing and the art of writing, but such reflexive and reflective approaches can only get you so far without true inspiration. Hell, I’m trying to work right now, staring at a blank sheet of paper in front of a blank word processor screen with its sad, solitary little cursor flashing in the top left corner. I take a sip of coffee and come close to spitting it all over the paper. It’s gone cold and chalky. More disappointment. I’ve got to move. My ass hurts. My legs are starting to seize. The last thing I should do is get up from my chair. I’ve got deadlines that need to be considered, publishers and fans breathing down my beck for new content. This is what I get from writing so much so quickly. Thirteen bestsellers in five years. Twenty-two total in the last decade. Successful movies that have broken records at the box office for films that don’t have men running around in capes or explosions every two minutes. To implement a bit of a bad pun, I’ve written myself into a corner. Fuck it, I need to move.

It’s too sunny out. My eyes can’t adjust quickly enough, my corneas burn and I need to shield my face like some kind of goddamned vampire. I used to get out of the house. I would get up, bang out thirty pages of manuscript like it was nothing and enjoy the world guilt free. I hate guilt. It doesn’t make sense to feel guilt. I usually don’t feel guilty about anything; I’m a successful guy, and it doesn’t come up too often. That was a pretty conceited turn of phrase, but I don’t really know how else to say it. Walking to the Dunkin Donuts on the corner to get a half decent cup of actually hot coffee should give me some time to think, clear the cobwebs, get some original thoughts flowing through my brain. It’s not like I don’t have any ideas at all. I could just throw out another book in the Songs of the Diamond cycle in a fortnight without breaking a sweat. But it’s not challenging. And as much as my many fans would probably hate me to say it, I think the whole fantasy genre has gotten rather stale and played out. I want to do something new, you know? No zombies or vampires or hard boiled detectives or sword and sorcery epics. It’s all too derivative. How could I possibly remove myself from the shadow of Tolkein or Hammett or any number of other literary giants. I want to move the world in an entirely new way. I want…coffee. I take my slightly sweetened black coffee from the man behind the counter, hand him some change and take a tentative taste. It’s not world shattering stuff, but it’ll do.  I thank the man in his little paper hat, though he is barely beyond a boy, and take my leave of the establishment. There’s a charming little bench across the quiet street. I walk over, pull a crumpled packet of cigarettes out of my shirt pocket. I shake one out, light it, inhale deeply. The smoke envelopes my lungs. The stimulants head straight for my brain. It tastes like death, but also like home. This is a disturbing thought, but I shake it off. I sit and I sip and I smoke. And I think.

I look out at the main drag of this sleepy little hamlet and I wonder how I got here. There was a time when I would never even have considered living outside the limits of a city. I grew up in cities, went to colleges in cities, worked in cities before my writing career took off, wrote in cities, lived in LA to be closer to Hollywood when every single book I wrote was being turned into a film. I think LA’s what did it, really. It’s such a different vibe than Philly, Boston, or Chicago. I didn’t like it there, which is an understatement. They still make movies out of my books; I’ve reached the point that I just don’t care anymore. I used to be on set, working with the screenwriter (when I didn’t actually write the screenplays), explaining motivations to actors. It burned me out. For whatever reason, I decided to try out suburban life when I left LA, and found a quiet little burg in Vermont. Nobody really knows who I am here, which is a nice change of pace. It can get boring, and on a day like today I do wish that I could simply walk to Downtown Crossing or the MFA or take in a Sox game without having to worry about driving three plus hours to get to Boston and back. The pros generally outweigh the cons though, and I’ve quite enjoyed my time here. The cigarette is burned to the filter, the coffee cup emptied. I have no excuses now, and should return to my writing room that is fast resembling a dungeon of Lovecraftian horrors.

The frustration that is inherent in writer’s block can drive even the strongest willed writer to the brink of sanity. You feel broken inside. You have the tools, the skills, you may even still have the confidence, but you don’t have the ideas. It’s like you’re a carpenter that is all set to start work on a masterpiece of a house; you’ve got all your tools, nails, wood glue, etc. and you’ve been carpenting for years and are among the best in your field. But you get to the work site and discover that all your wood had caught fire overnight and all you were left with was ash. Suddenly you’re stuck, and you’ve got these expectations and people counting on you and can’t do what you were born to do. It’s difficult to remain optimistic in such situations, not necessarily for the long term, because you know that shipment of wood will be delivered sooner or later, and you know the ideas will hit you eventually. But the interval is just hell.

I should listen to some music. I usually don’t like to listen to music when I’m writing; it has a tendency to inform the process too artificially, inserting moods that I can’t fully control. But there are times that drastic measures must be taken. I grab my iPod, plug it into my speakers. I scroll through the artists absentmindedly, pausing here and there, looking at albums but never really deciding on anything. This sense of discomfort and confusion has permeated every part of me. I need to do something, accomplish something. I just throw the MP3 player on shuffle, and Tom Waits’ raspy drone floats through the speakers, the minimalistic crashes and bangs of guitar, upright bass and percussion riddle the silence with bullet holes of dissonance. This isn’t exactly music to relax to, but it’s better than the crushing heaviness of an empty room, quiet and alone. “Hoist That Rag” continues to rumble along; I sit and listen, tapping fingers and toes somewhat along the beat of the drums. The song ends and the silence returns. I shut off the iPod. That really didn’t do a whole lot. I try to imagine what my mental process was like when I first came up with Songs of the Diamond or The Era of Heartache or any of my other books. But I’ve got nothing. I’m having difficulty remembering much of anything, process-related or otherwise. This one little chink in my armor shows up and everything goes to hell from the top down. It’s like someone grabbed the wrong Jenga block and it all tumbled down, neuroses flying everywhere, confidence slipping away into inky blackness.

I don’t know how long I proceeded to stare at the wall across from my monitor. My mind restless and blank, I took to examining the cracks in the plaster, black protrusions into a sea of off-white, spindling out in every direction with no discernable rhyme or reason. No patterns except what the eyes decide they want to see. A few splinters come together to look remarkably like a pair of eyes peering at me with disdain and disappointment. Great, even my wall is getting into the act and lost faith in me. More cracks, more shadows and pictures that aren’t there, more tricks of the mind. The passes and I just keep looking at this wall. I tell myself that I’m fascinated by the false images, but I’m really just looking for any excuse not to look at the blank screen, the monolithic flashing cursor. For a moment it sounds like it’s making noise every time it disappears and callously comes back into existence. A terrible banging sound deep in the canals of my ears. My own personal tell tale heart. I shake out the cobwebs; the sound disappears. This time around, the silence is a boon. My eyes flutter across the room until they rest on a picture frame on the nightstand next to the makeshift cot I put in the far corner of the writing room for use when I’m too exhausted to drag myself to the master bedroom up a flight of stairs. There used to be a picture in that frame. My thoughts turn to Victoria.

TO BE CONTINUED

This post was written to the tune of Tori Amos’ Boys for Pele.