Thursday, April 21, 2011

Drafting on slow days

Put up a new story today, clearly. Or rather, not new; it's actually rather old. I wrote it the summer before my last semester of college, which was a rather dark time in my life. Many nights I found myself walking around at night, and the things I saw and/or imagined on those walks had me a little worried for a while.

In fact, I knew I had this somewhere. A few days before I wrote "Of course it's not real.", I saved a file called "hrm.txt" It's pasted unedited below.

For the past couple of days I've been seeing imaginary bugs darting accross the floor, the walls, etc. It's always in my periphreal vision and they always disappear when I look for them. This could do with the earwig I had crawling on me a couple nights ago right when I was about to fall asleep. I've been around bugs my whole life and there's no other reason I have to really fear them. But it is somewhat unnerving. 6-23-06

To me, the interesting part of the story is that I found it creepy enough to include every distinct image in it when I wrote Battlesongs of Hope a year later. The horns-for-eyes monster gives Jacob a scare early on. And the smiling guy in the hat is actually the main antagonist in the book I'm working on now, The Nomad's Wilds.

Speaking of, I'm 15,000 words into drafting Nomad's and have been hitting a pretty good clip these last couple of weeks. Not today though. I'm at one of those spots where I know what has to happen to move the plot, but I just can't get things going.

Part of it is I know that whatever I write for this part probably won't last past the initial edits. It's a narrative in the middle of a book, which is almost always bad practice, but I need to get the ideas down so I can move onto cooler parts. And right now, knowing that has me tripped up.

The good news is I kicked 858, 528, and 600 words on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, which means I almost hit my goal of 2000 words per week already. Won't be getting anything done tomorrow because of a road trip followed by a party followed by chores on Sunday. So I guess that's how things will stand until next week.

I may try to add something about drafting every week on here, on the off chance my books actually find an audience someday. Girlfriend says some strange people enjoy 'relating' to other people, and I suspect that if any of my books do sell copies, some of those readers may want to write their own books. So, future friends, this is the first drafting entry.

"Of course it's not real."

The problems come when nightmares start invading your waking hours.

Out of the corner of your eye you see an insect, impossibly large, a foot or more, more legs than you care to count, black pupil-less eyes, visible fangs. And it's moving. Fast. Up your wall, across your floor. Darting behind you, dashing under a chair as you approach. Then when you look it's gone. Nothing. Just a trick of your imagination.

Now it gets worse. Animals you've never seen: gray cats with a single eye and fangs that dip past their chin and jut past their nose. Dogs with wire scraggly fur and no lips to prevent the rabid foam from dripping past their snarling jaws. There's one running before you on the other side of that fence. Oh, but that's just a shadow played from a streetlight. You're reading on your couch and out of the corner of your eye you see one perched on the back of the couch; just inches from your face, watching, watching, watching, licking its lips. You snap around to see it and it vanishes. Silly you.

Now you're walking across a baseball diamond in the fall. The season's over but the afternoon sun is warm. You don't see the second base anchor and you stumble a little. As you fall you see a man standing over home plate. His hair is black and thick and sticking out from under a black wide brim hat. This mans' jeans are stained darker than dirt could ever get them. You can't see his eyes but you see his smile, grinning man. He has something in his hand. Something terrifying. But you can't see because now you hit the dirt. You scramble around, rolling in the dust. You look towards home plate and the man is gone. Must have been a whirlwind blowing some leaves.

But the man doesn't stay at the diamond. Oh no. He follows you. There he is in the back of that passing car. You see nothing but the silhouette of his head and hat and that ridiculously wide grin. Gone. Above you in the tree, crouched on a thick bough. Dangling something from his hand. He has an axe in the other hand. Not an axe. A hatchet. You don't want to look up but you do. Gone. At home, through the crack of an almost closed door, you see that Cherise cat smile; hidden eyes watching you. Spring open the door; gone. You drive. Drive to clear your head. Tell yourself that you're a rational, educated person. Perhaps it's stress. Perhaps you should see a doctor. But then the grinning man is standing in the road ahead and you're going too fast to stop in time. He throws the horrid thing in his hand at your windshield and it sticks. That's the way you part your hair, just a little crooked there. That's the scar you have from when you were a kid and you got cracked in the head with a bat. The saggy thing leaving blood streaks on your windshield, your hood, is your own scalp. But in front of your car is just a dead possom.

Soon you find yourself wondering in the morning and evening if you are really awake or asleep. You touch a door handle that turns into a vicious snake head; you wake up. You see an oblong scaled hand reaching under your window; you slam the window and the hand disappears but you're still awake. Something tall and man shaped, pure midnight black with two wicked growths where its eyes should be is standing in your kitchen when you go to fix dinner; you stay awake. This thing doesn't go away. It walks toward you. Your rational brain tells you that you're imagining things. Your heart is hammering too hard to tell you anything. It reaches out a hand. Four clawed fingers, powerful and swimming with scores of little blisters roaming just under the skin. You close your eyes. Not real. Not real. Not real. You tell yourself this even as the things hand grips your shoulder. Cold. The claws pierce your skin and whatever was swimming under the blisters now rushes into your open wounds and you can feel tiny worms winding their way under your skin and through your veins and into your eyes, eating as they go. You cry out to an empty kitchen. The thing is gone and your shoulder is unscratched. You decide you need a doctor.

Hrm, hrm, hrm, says the doctor. You're laying on a nice red leather couch; he's sitting in a matching overstuffed armchair. You're very comfortable. You keep asking for coffee. Oh yes, I've heard of this, says the doctor. He says you must have some repressed fear that you haven't come to terms with. How are your dreams? You don't know, you can't tell the difference any more. Insomnia, says the doctor. Take some sleeping pills; they'll make you feel better. As he says this his forehead wrinkles in concern. He's very very concerned because you're a highly valued patient and oh, did he tell you about how he and your father used to go golfing. Little tendrils are coming out of his ears as he says this. Little black strands of spaghetti with minute mouths and minute teeth. Forehead wrinkling. Wrinkling and cracking. Sloughing forward from his face.

Maybe you need to get out more, the doctor says in his doctor voice, which is currently issuing from a melted rubber mask of a face. You look away and look back. I can write you a prescription, says the doctors voice. Hundreds of wispy tentacles wave in some unfelt breeze, each with a tiny mouth, tiny teeth. They come from a black head bleeding red blood. No eyes, horns. Curved goat horns growing from the eye sockets. Grinning mouth with too many and too large teeth. A hatchet in one hand. Your father and I used to go fishing, says the doctor's mask from its position on the floor. Weird insects appear on the walls. Scurrying from one place to another, bumping into each other. You hear gurgling barking from the hallway. On the ceiling, hanging from its enlarged claws is a one eyed cat. Watching you, licking its lips.

You wish you could wake up.