Solitaire
We played solitaire that night, her mother and I, as she lay dying only a breath away from us. It sounds bad now, insensitive, but it was all we could find to distract ourselves from the grief at hand: that stupid little video game that our daughter used to carry around with her everywhere she went, much to our annoyance, was now our only hope for sanity.My wife slipped over an Ace before I could say anything. I almost snapped at her, but my daughter’s breathing stuttered for a moment, stopping me. It steadied again, and again I was torn — it was more time with her, the little girl with my wife’s eyes and my laugh; but it wasn’t, really. She was gone, and every breath was less a fight to survive than a mockery of the life she’d been given.
We’d given up any hope that there’d be a miraculous recovery, with glowing sunbeams, handsome doctors, triumphant music coming from nowhere. She was dead, breathing only out of sheer habit, while my wife and I played solitaire waiting for the end.
I watched it happen, too, the fall that brought her to that hospital bed. It was almost trivial, the kind of fall that just about everyone’s had at one time or another. The stairs were slick, freshly polished, and perhaps a little too steep, but nothing different from any other day for the twelve years she’d been able to walk down them herself. She wasn’t clumsy, but she had all the grace of your average, lanky fourteen year old, and she happened to run a little too fast when I called her down for dinner.
What had excited her I’ll never know. A guy asked her to a dance? Maybe; though she probably knew we’d be hard pressed to let her go. Probably wasn’t joy over a good grade on a test — she was a smart girl, and got plenty of A’s and high B’s, so that wouldn’t have impressed her too much. Odds are it was just standard, school girl giddiness over some bit of gossip she was anxious to share with her mother (probably not her father — dad was never very good at a girl-to-girl chat). I’ve wondered what she was so excited about many times since she fell, and wished she’d held back a little, at least until she sat down.
She came to the landing and most of her stopped, but her feet betrayed her, continuing on out from under the frame they were supposed to support. It took me almost a full minute to realize that something was wrong with the dull thunk I’d heard. Half an hour later, my wife and I walked into the emergency room as she arrived in the ambulance. Two days later we were told she was all but gone, and, still mostly in shock, we agreed to have her taken off the machines that were breathing for her.
I’d like to think it’s because my wife and I both knew for certain that she would rather have died than stay on the machine; in honesty though, I think it was because the word “yes” comes out easier when you’re scared to death. We held her hand and brushed her hair and hugged her and talked to her for several hours. Then we played solitaire, not wanting to stay and watch her die, but not wanting to leave her.
It’s strange to say “we” played, but that’s what it was. We’d point to which card to play when the other was about to miss it. We’d suggest playing one red nine over the other red nine when there was a choice. Not that there’s any real strategy to the game, or that either of us knows what to do better than the other. It just makes it seem a little easier when we both play together, even though it’s still just as difficult as when you go it alone.
My wife gasped silently with modest delight, and I could see she’d finally beaten it. I smiled and kissed her head and placed my hand on her shoulder. She started to sob, silently though it shook her body, and I started to try and calm her — emotions were running high, and though I couldn’t explain it to anyone, I could understand how beating a simple game might cause her to break down. Before I could say anything though, and without really knowing why, I glanced briefly at the equipment attached to our daughter. I did a double take as I saw the green lines on the monitor give a short leap, then fall still.
Later that night, as my wife lay next to me in bed after crying herself to sleep (I’ll admit I wanted to do the same, though I couldn’t break down when she needed some kind of a rock), I crept out to my daughter’s former room. I pulled the chair from her desk and faced it towards the window, overlooking the beautiful rose bushes at our neighbor’s house, now gray with night. I grabbed the solitaire game from her bed, where we’d set it with an aching despair when we returned from the hospital. I played it, letting tears I didn’t know I was crying hit it freely.
After some time, I wiped it dry, intent on trying to steady myself. Another tear landed on it, and I looked over my shoulder to see my wife standing above me. “You missed an Ace,” she said, her voice thick and trembling. She reached down and I hugged her, closer than I knew possible, and after a moment she sat on the bed next to me. My wife and I played solitaire that night, in the walls of the room our daughter had called her own, walls that would never echo back the sound of her voice again.
Press Releases Out
Quickie post this morning.Sent out press releases to some major newspapers about Like Glass. Not that I’m truly expecting any kind of a response, but… And I figured, you know, it takes an email just as long to get to the LA Times as it does to the Chronicle (the local paper here in Centralia/Chehalis), and even though the chances of it taking hold are pretty slim, if something does come out of it there’s a lot more readers in LA (or Chicago, or El Paso, or New York, or…) than here.
So here’s hoping…
Also thinking about doing a little “column” (? that sounds a little pretentious almost…) here with short stories — just random scribblings as they come out, with little editing, and plots only as they come. No promises, but it seems like it’ll be fun. I’ve been wanting to do something along those lines — some kind of regular post routine — for a while now, and mostly thought about C# (programming) tips; maybe I’ll even do both, what the hell.
Time to go smoke and get back to the grind.
An Old Love
We were great together once. I see that now, years after I turned my back on her. I needed her more than I knew, and as is too often the case, I took her for granted. I disregarded the importance of the long days together and th longer nights, the soft whispers and thunderous, cathartic outpourings. The times she’d echo my joy, or hold my heart as I wept.Not once in the many years we were together did she turn from me, though not always did I run to her either. But, when I did, she was there. Sometimes graceful and elegant, sometimes tired and haggard, but there nonetheless.
It was in the splendor of youth’s ignorance we first met, the playful days of summer at the time in life with no cares or worries of what others may think. Had it been later, when image becomes everything and the slightest mistake is shunned, our romance would likely have never bloomed. As it was, I cared nothing for every misplaced step (and there were countless), and we flourished.
It was in high school where our romance took hold, with the irregularities of hormonal emotions pushed us together as no other force could. The highs and lows of teenage angst, where the smallest event is either a crises or pure ecstasy, drove the fires of our passion.
As with so many high school sweethearts, college brought our downfall. In the later years of high school, I’d grown insecure, felt unworthy of her, not good enough to make it last. Everyone assured me this was groundless, but how can you uproot those seeds once they’re sown?
We tried to make it work in college, though the new sights and distractions proved too much for me. We didn’t grow apart; I grew away from her. On several occasions I tried to go back, but it was never the same. I’d changed too much to speak with her as I once had.
I see her often now, in movies or television, or hear her on the radio. She still makes me laugh or cry, but, most of the time, I find myself unable to open to her as I did back in the carefree days of yesteryear. I’ll see her sometimes in a store, or a friend house, and I’m torn between the desire to touch her again, to open my heart like it opened so many years ago; and the knowledge that it could never be the same.
Tonight I whispered to her though, softly, as my wife lay in bed and I didn’t want to wake her. There was the same, undying battle: let everything pour out as it may, or hold it back for fear of … well, just fear. Perhaps of feeling unworthy again. Perhaps fear of getting too wrapped up in something I can’t have now, at least not as I once did.
The fear won out tonight, though it was a tough battle. I dusted off her nameplate — she’s had several names since we first met, this time it’s Kimball — and I slid the polished wood cover back over her keys, keeping the pedal held down to let the last whisper hold out a little longer.
About a Publisher
You’ve probably heard me mention a few times (most likely at the “original” Chocolate for Dogs blog) about having Like Glass “professionally” published — i.e. through an actual publishing house. I wish I could say I was posting now to say it was finally accepted (or even rejected; as I’m sure any author will agree, waiting to hear back is almost as bad as hearing “Sorry, not for us”).Alas, I’m not, though I wanted to just post a … what’s the phrase … “shout out”? Yeah, that’s as good as any I guess — a shout out to the company, Rager Media. They’re based in Akron, Ohio, and they have a blog I wanted to introduce you to, The Akrocentric. There’s a lot of posts there about publishing (of course), and a lot of stuff about Akron itself — if, like me, you come from an area where the locals look on the city with high levels of contempt, it’s quite a strange and refreshing experience. I honestly never heard of an “Akronism” (not to be confused with an anachronism, a word I more closely relate with my current locale).
The company is quite new for the publishing industry — roughly a year old — but they’re already starting to make a few (albeit small) waves, with Jonathan Baumbach and Gary D. Wilson both getting good reviews — Baumbach’s You, or the Invention of Memory in the LA Times, and Wilson’s Sing, Ronnie Blue reviewed in the Chicago Sun-Times and on Kansas.com (unfortunately, both of those reviews are older than either site allows access to — if you can find a link, by all means let me know).
Rager Media’s “official” website (i.e. .com) is a little … well, under the weather. Which is strange, because when I first made my acquaintance with the company (~ June 2007) it was quite nice — nothing spectacular, but attractive and friendly. As a web developer I admit I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to websites, even though the design aspect (read: the pretty stuff) of web development was always a little beyond me. There is a lot of good information there, though, and a lot more info on their authors than I can put here, so be sure to check it out.
As I said, they’re still quite new to the business, so they’re swamped with submissions at the moment, and they don’t have the staff yet to keep up with it. I was speaking with the editor-in-chief, Christopher White, today, and he was saying that one of the main reasons they haven’t gotten to my novel yet was that they’re trying to give the authors personal attention, and there’s still a few of their “earliest” authors they haven’t gotten to.
That’s the way it should be — I’d much rather know that my work was accepted (or rejected) by someone who was giving it a serious effort, instead of just glancing through it and tossing it out because they just weren’t in the mood to read it. Even if it means having to wait a little longer to hear anything about it, it’s definitely worth it.
Be sure to check out the sites though, and take a look at the two books I’d linked to above (though I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that your primary interest should lay with my book, of course — which, for the time being, is still in my hands).
Book #2, Where Art Thou?
Thinking about it this morning: it’s been over a year since I typed “The End” on the last page of Like Glass, and the ever-elusive Book #2 is nowhere in sight. Sure, there’s been tons of excuses — too much work, too much on my mind, can’t write this story because it’s too much like Book #1 and I don’t want to be pigeonholed, can’t write that story because it’s too different and I need to create a “brand” of sorts, etc.I have had a couple of ideas that have stayed with me pretty strongly throughout this past year, and while they will keep me in kind of the same “genre” (whatever genre I’m in), I’m thinking one of them will be Book #2 when the ideas are done simmering. Maybe even both of them — they aren’t formed well enough yet to say they’re entirely separate. Or maybe I’m sitting on #2 and #3, and they’ll just come right out when the time is right.
That’s the main thing that I’m trying to convince myself of — there’s no need to force them out right now, I’m not on any kind of a contract or anything like that, so they don’t need to get written tomorrow.
Sure, lots of people say that you need to make yourself write, you need to “get in the habit”, you can’t just sit back and wait for your muse. That’s probably true to some degree, but (for the time being at least) writing is an escape from stress for me — why the hell do I want to force it? That takes all the enjoyment out of it, and I’m sorry, but if it’s not enjoyable, it’ just not worth doing in my opinion. And I’m sure anyone who’d read something I’d forced out would be able to tell that my heart just wasn’t in it.
That’s one thing I’m looking forward with the upcoming move. One of the books I’ve had in mind is set in El Paso, and it’ll be much easier to write about the city when I’m there and can see the streets and mountains I’m trying to write. Granted, we’re going to be so damned busy and stressed trying to get settled in down there that I won’t be able to see straight half the time, but with a little patience perhaps the book will find its way onto my computer within a few months of our arrival.
I’m going to go smoke and get ready for work now; it’s a little early yet, but no sense waiting to the last minute.
Paperback on Amazon
Just a quick note: Like Glass is now officially available, in paper back, on Amazon.com — you can get it here. Granted, it’s the exact same thing you’d find at the book’s CreateSpace store, but still…it’s Amazon….Short Story vs. Novel
(Originally posted on http://mcory.wordpress.com/ on 4/28/2007)I’m trying to come up with something to write, plotting, etc. Ain’t happening very well. I do have a “set of scenes” in mind that could play out well for a novel, but it’s not gelling together very well just yet–it’s hiding quite effectively amid the forests of the rest of my life.
Last year, when I started trying to write seriously, I churned out 4 short stories in a relatively short amount of time. I don’t know what’s happening on that front; I’ve gotten more focused on wanting to write a novel, and I’m finding it much harder to find something that’s worth saying and possible to say in a handful of pages.
That’s crap.
I’m too closely tying “short story” with “horror story”. That was the genre I was trying to get into last year when I wrote those. A short story is great for those, in my opinion: you set the scene, give a slight amount of back story if necessary, and then bring in the ghost/monster/psycho. Quick, simple, marginally effective.
Now I’m wanting to write “fake biographies” (for lack of a better term), or quasi-romance, whatever exactly this stuff is. It’s much harder to generate an emotional attachment to a character in four pages than in four chapters, and, quite frankly, I’m not exactly looking for a challenge at the moment.
At the same time, I don’t have the time (without really moving things around) to get another novel out in short time span here. A short story would be great; perfect. Get up one morning, sketch it out. Next morning (maybe couple of mornings), draft it. Edit. Revise. Rinse and repeat. Start on Monday, by the weekend you have another story ready for the limelight. (in theory, at least.)
With a novel, well… Working on it just a couple of hours each morning it’d take me a couple of months at least to get it knocked out, and that’s assuming the story just falls into place and I don’t have to waste a morning or three staring at a blank piece of note paper counting the lines and then the spaces and then the lines and then….
But, you get what you pay for I guess; it feels pretty cool to tell people “yeah, after I finished my book, I…”
Oh well. I’m going to the rez for smokes now that Patti’s home. We’ll see what’s going on later; maybe we’ll do some music stuff or something. Who knows?
Quickie Post
Can’t write too much, as I’m running late.Been thinking a lot about the move — it is officially decided, just a matter of coming up with the finances for it and we’ll be on our way. I’m excited, though I admit it’s a little depressing as well: I don’t feel like we’re just giving up — we’ve put up a good fight since we’ve been out here — but I feel like things could’ve worked out a little differently and we’d be a hell of a lot happier now. Anyways…
I like planning stuff, and this trip’ll be fun. Of course, I’m sure I’ll drive Patti crazy with it within the next couple of weeks, but for now it’s neat to talk about saving money, how far a drive it is, where we’ll stay (on the road and when we get there).
I know Patti feels the same way about it; we’ve done a lot of talking, and we both know it’s best for us to go back home, but neither of us are terribly thrilled with leaving. We came up with a good analogy that suits us both on this: it’s like having an sick dog, one that you just love to death but you know you got to have them put to sleep because there’s no way in hell you could ever afford the vet bill to fix them. You don’t want to do it, but you know it’s for the best. You know you’ll miss them, but you know it’s not worth it to try and stick it out, and you know you can’t make things better any other way without investing a lot more resources than you could possibly have.
Okay, it sounded a lot better when she and I were discussing it the other night, and this doesn’t sound quite right anymore, but you get the gist of it, right? (Scary thing is, that Chloe — our beagle — has been a little under the weather since we made that analogy. Maybe I should come up with something a little happier…)
Anyways, I gotta go smoke.
Getting Setup
If you haven’t noticed, there’s about 11 posts now (more to come) with the line “Originally posted at http://mcory.wordpress.com/” at the top. No, this isn’t some attempt at getting away with splogging (if I were going to do that, I’d jack some better posts). Those are posts I made at my “original” blog, and I’m migrating them to this one.Aside from that, I’ve also added a page where you can find Like Glass, my novel, available for the first time in paperback and eBook format. Content’s still really light for now, so bear with me while I get things adjusted, migrated, setup, whatever.
About time to go smoke and get on with life, so I’m gonna run.
Writing Tips: Ideas and Planning
(Originally posted at http://mcory.wordpress.com/ on 11/08/07)This post is directed at one individual who left a comment on the Like Glass page; seemed a little lengthy for a reply, and I figured it’d make for a good post anyways. I don’t mean to single them out in particular — and you have my apologies for doing so — but they said something I felt I needed to talk about: coming up with ideas.
I’m sure you know what it’s like to take pen in hand and just sit there, waiting for that perfect thought to come up that’ll change the literary world forever. After a while — fifteen minutes, half an hour, half a day if you’re really patient — you give up in frustration and you start thinking stuff like “Damn, I just can’t come up with anything.” Or maybe you don’t even bother getting ready to take the idea down, you just get the urge to write and shut it out because you know you can’t come up with anything.
I cry malarchy on that.
You can come up with ideas. Its really easy, but it’s easier to just talk yourself out of it. Maybe you don’t think you have time to bring the idea to fruition. Maybe you think you’ll just be laughed at by anyone who finds out about it. Maybe you don’t want to write something without knowing exactly where it’ll start and where it’ll end. I don’t know why, but I do know the odds are good that you probably have a ton of ideas that you’ve just gotten so used to knocking out of the water that you don’t even know you’ve come up with something anymore.
You need to look inside and see what exactly it is that stops you from taking your idea and running with it — I can’t help you with that. I can tell you that I personally have lots of fear of rejection. “I can’t do this because someone will say it’s stupid.” “I couldn’t get that story published if I paid them to print it.” Stuff like that. I try and work around it, and just realizing that that’s what stands in my way helps, but it’s tough. You just do the best you can and (pardon my french) fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.
I want you to try something. Get a piece of paper, or open up Notepad or Word or some other text editor on your computer. Now, I want you to write a really, really simple sentence. We’re talking first-grader stuff here: The boy ran to the store. The tree fell. The dog barked. Just a simple “noun that did something” sentence, and come up with one of your own — these examples are protected by copyright law now.
Got it? Great. See how easy that was? You just had an idea. This idea — that simple sentence you just wrote out — is the seed for a story. It’s a tiny seed, true, but a seed nonetheless. Now you build on it by asking yourself questions. Why did the boy run to the store? Was he running from something? Was he running to someone? Was the dog barking out of happiness at seeing his owner? Out of fear of something in the back yard?
If you keep asking yourself questions like that, you’ll eventually have a scene, or a story, hell, even a full novel if you ask enough questions.
Of course, coming up with ideas inevitably leads to questions about planning and organizing your ideas. A lot of writers feel the need to have everything planned out, start to finish, before they write the first lines. Then they’ll go through and write everything in the order their plan presents. If that has worked for you in the past, great, by all means keep it up.
Here’s a bit of news for you though: you don’t need to know anything about your story before you write it! Seriously, that’s half the fun of writing: watching it develop in front of your eyes.
When I wrote Like Glass, I had most of it planned out like you’re “supposed to”. I had a series of notes placed in order and it worked decently for me. Then about halfway through the story started to change. For one reason or another, the plan wasn’t quite working anymore, and I got stuck. After freaking out for a bit, I decided “hey, this is the way the story needs to go, and to hell with the plan.” I changed the plan midway and was able to finish the book. Hell, even when I started, I only had a rough idea of the ending, and kept bouncing back and forth between a couple of different options while I was writing the novel. Then when it came time to draw it to a close, I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and I was glad I didn’t paint myself into a corner with having everything pre-planned.
I wish I could keep writing about this, but the time has come for my cigarette and to run to work.
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