The Dumbest Thing I Ever…

The dumbest thing I ever saw was a bike commuter get hit by a vehicle at 14th and 3rd. I woke to sounds of skids and screams escaping in through my third floor window. I’m used to the whirl of ambulance sirens since my building is near a hospital but they never whine on for minutes like this.

Curiosity excused me from my bed, half asleep, to peer out a crack in the blinds. The first thing I saw was the helmet teetering listlessly between lanes. A creek of thick blood trickled slowly across the pavement, seeking the city sewers. I opened the window to see more of the scene and shivered from the rush of early morning air. Leaning in further, I took in what I’m calling an anti-miracle. A bike commuter had somehow slipped on something in the street and slid into an oncoming sedan. He had lost his helmet in the process and cracked his skull.

I stood, staring stupidly. I was in shock because I had never witnessed death firsthand, especially not one so impossible. This everyman’s ride up whatever ladder he was on was stopped without notice. And now the EMS crew was at the scene, taking him off the market for good.

Several paces back, corporate onlookers rushed to a central point, stumbling over each other to feign offers of help before artfully pushing through the crowd to the L train.

This was enough. I stepped back, tripping over my alarm’s cord. I reached to move it back to its place on my bedside table. It read 6:05am in deep red LEDs and I thought of Newton’s law about actions and reactions and deep red blood. The implication is that there is purpose to everything. But what purpose for Bob the bike-riding businessman is there in this accidental death? If God makes the miracles, does Satan make these?

Fearing change

Jon was a poor man in a rich city. But he didn’t blame them. Life holds a different secret for each of us and the actions we take decide whether we ever find out what it is. Jon made the wrong decisions. He screwed himself and now he thinks he missed the only chance he had. He wanders around with no reason to care. Jon stares at the couples in the park and wonders why it can’t be him. Sometimes he walks right through a couple holding hands just to feel what its like. He doesn’t spit on them or curse them out. He just wants to be a part of it.

But he will never be a part of it. He won’t even take the first step to get there. He can’t let himself take that risk. Something in his heart has shut his brain off and he can’t see himself as anything other than what he is. Everyday he does the same thing. Everyday he expects different results. He tells people that he’s trying. He doesn’t really care, though.

Jon should just hide away in some cardboard box, kill himself and be done with it. Who’d miss him after all? He sees the way people look at him. They know he’s a waste of skin. But what he doesn’t see is that he is just the same as a lot of those people he watches sitting in the park in suits with a 12-inch Subway on their lap. They do the same thing everyday, wish they could be a little more free and want anything other than what they are. Jon can’t let himself see it or expect anything more out of life though. If he did, that would change everything and he’d take a risk that he isn’t used to taking.

Jon is a homeless man with the world waiting on him. All he needs to do is choose to take that first step. Anything must be better than what he is. He won’t do it. Yesterday he asked a student sitting outside for fifty cents. The kid gave him a dollar instead and asked him to put it to good use. Jon said thank you and left. He didn’t realize how lucky he just was. He found the one person who might have actually seen him for the person that he is. And he didn’t think anything of it. Jon used the dollar to buy a coffee. He sat at that Starbucks with his coffee for six hours. Finally they kicked him out. He didn’t blame them. He’s just a guy who’s given up on life. He’s wasting his own skin. He should just get it over with.

Wordplay: Solo

INTRODUCTION TO WORDPLAY:
Wordplay is a writing exercise where a word is picked at random and used to write a scene.

–Wordplay word: SOLO–

Monologue of an Everyday Working Stiff who is Slightly Odd

This morning I woke up and the first thing I thought of was espresso. The very next thing I thought of was that I must have a pretty sad life if the first thing I think about when I wake up is a shot of espresso. I continued to lie on my bed, wrapped in several layers of sheets that somehow always manage to tangle up at the bottom of the bed during the night and quickly fell back asleep. I dropped right in the middle of some crazy dream that I can’t remember. The second alarm went off and I woke with a start. The first thing I thought of when I woke up was how I had thought of espresso when the first alarm went off. Man, my life is sad.

I used my mind power to get my legs off the bed. They couldn’t make it all the way this morning and sort of half swung off the edge of the bed. I was okay with it. I drifted back to sleep with my legs hanging off the bed but guilt kept me from enjoying another hour of sleep. It made my hands wipe the crinklies from my eyes. Yes, I call them crinklies. It reminds me of childhood. I focused on my breathing for a minute or so while staring at the ceiling. I had done a terrible job painting it. There’s streaks and cracking and other signs of a guy who just stopped caring. There’s also one line where the beam is clearly visible through the dry wall. The management company tells me it’s just the building settling but I’m sure the place is gonna cave in on me at some point. I wouldn’t mind too much, as long as I got out alive. I’d be set with the insurance money. I looked at the clock and jumped up to take a shower.

The shower was hot. I like it when its hot. So I took my time massaging my scalp. I always try to recreate the way the girls in the hair salon wash my hair but I never even come close. They have some secret method of destressing your head muscles. Some kind of tantric magic or something. They know all the right spots. I often wish I could sit down in my shower. There’s just not enough space though. It’s one of those 4 foot-wide stand-up showers where you barely have enough room to turn around. If I sat down I would likely fall asleep anyway so it’s probably best that I don’t have the space. Instead I sort of bend over and try to touch my toes. It makes me feel good. While I’m down there I let the water fall over my hair and across my face. I can’t put my face directly in front of the shower head because of the high pressure. It hurts. But when I use my head as an intermediary it works great.

But back to my morning.

Read the rest of this entry »

Aleria: Lost in the night

A Canyon in the Land of Ice and Water - Night

A small group of soldiers are huddled around a meager fire. A constant wind tugs at the flames as the bard holds their attention with a story.

Bard

You see appearances can be deceiving. You wouldn’t think it, but this land, which has caused us to lose our way, is more dangerous than the ice-encased city of Vorago. Here it appears empty of life and, in a way, it is. But half-living things crawl just under the surface, around the corners, inside the holes, in the ground and behind the bushes. Even under the rocks you sit on! Their lives, once normal, were destroyed when the tempest came through over one hundred years ago and forced them into submission as baseless slaves. Now, the scourge has left in search of new conquests, but a new evil has been let loose in these half-living slaves who have no master to control them anymore. They lost hope long ago and there is nothing left for them but the instinct to survive. They are savage by no fault of their own. Yet savage they are, nonetheless.

The wind picks up the fire embers and scatters them away. A dark silence embraces the group and they tense as one who is the prey sensing a stalker close by. Raj alone seems unmoved by the omen as he stands to look around.

Raj
(pacing contemplatively) Everyone of us will die.

Issak, the leader, gets the fire going again.

Issak
I know you’re afraid Raj. But If you show weakness they’ll come and you’ll get your wish. You have to pull it together.

Raj
I don’t mean like that. I know we’ll get out of this. What I mean is we’re all going to die eventually. No matter what we do or how right we are, we’ll die just like those things eventually will. We can hope to leave here unharmed but we can be sure that death will come at some point.

Matt
Eghm. Issak, his attitude is bringing my morale down. I might hesitate in battle. So I think Raj should be hog tied or else we might follow his lead.

The men erupt in laughter.

Issak
You know, I think you’re right though. Tie him up. And Raj, if you fight them I will kill you.

Read the rest of this entry »

Advantage - Me

Strip club bathroom - Night

A small, fat middle-aged man slumps on the back wall of a dirty bathroom while Kathy waits across the room to provide the services he’s already paid for. But he makes a phone call instead. Then he has Kathy lay her head on his chest and rub his feet with cold water from a dirty faucet. That’s all he wants.

Kyle V.O.: You know, It’s interesting how appearences can deceive. Not only appearences, but personalities. She came from my past - my long forgotten past - and she took hold of my thoughts with a word and a glance. I know she’s a boring waste of my time, and yet, something about her draws me to ask a question; an innocent question that I know she can’t ignore. I’m depending on her not to ignore it. Her conscience won’t let her ignore this question. Let her answer and let her open her heart to me once again. She was always easy that way. And I need someone easy right now.

Cheryl’s bedroom - Morning
A young red-head puts her clothes on while she talks on the phone.

Kyle, I got your message from last night. Can we meet tonight after work? You…the message you left really means a lot. Call me. 752-482-6829. [pause] oh, it’s cheryl. bye.

….to be continued.

A simple man’s great loss

He wakes up and reaches for her but his hands only find cold sheets. Why are they cold? There’s a breeze. He opens his eyes to look towards the window but all he sees is a dim white light. Something is covering his eyes. He reaches for it and touches soft, marred skin. A thick puss has crystallized in the corners of his eyes. He pushes the thickness aside and mistakenly brushes his cornea. He doesn’t feel a thing. A sickness starts low in his stomach as he presses with more force into his destroyed eyeballs. A scream is stifled as it attempts to escape and his stomach pain grows deeper. He scrambles to the edge of the bed and slips off. His immediate panic and loss of context only exacerbate the sickness and push it into his lungs. Struggling for breath, the blinded man slowly picks himself up to stand next to the bed. Something else has happened. It’s why the window is open. His breathing is shallow and measured as he moves hands across the bed once more. There’s no one there. He listens for her but his wheezing drowns out the silence in the room. She’s not here and she isn’t coming back. Unconsciously, he touches his ruined eyes. She’s made sure he’ll never find her. His lungs lock up in shock with the realization. He tries to pull the air in through his mouth. He vomits.

Hours later, the middle-aged man sits in a rocking chair that is too small for his bulk. The mixture of anger and sorrow is almost too hard to bear. So he sits and thinks about nothing. Just stares at the room that was hers for those twelve short years. He took her off the streets when she was just eight and gave her the care that only a real lover could give…showed her what was best for her…she fought for awhile but once he taught her how to make love she stopped fighting…until today.

He jumps up and throws the chair smashing against the wall. It’s his own fault for trusting her. She said she’d make a home-cooked meal and then give him the best sex he’d ever have. She wore him down with promises until he let her go into town for the day. With all her promises, of course she’d come back. He doesn’t remember anything after the drinks.

Writing is believing

Great stories are written by fanatical believers; by passionate people who have deep faith in an idea. Faith is magical and it is underrated.

You are almost always guaranteed to find that badly written stories are spewed from the dry minds of non-believers. They don’t care about principles or exploring important ideas in their fiction. They just want to write a story. But their mistake - which they often make with an “artsy” pretentiousness - is thinking good stories are based simply on cute plot arcs and interesting characters. Good stories come from characters, environments and plots that represent some real aspect of our condition as humans. To get at this, you have got to have faith.

—In this immortal time and place I paid homage to George Michael.—

I find it enormously important to monitor the state of my musings on an almost daily basis to ensure that I am taking enough risks to stay honest. I need to rekindle my deepest, most esoteric ruminations in order to stimulate passionate stories. Those of us who’ve closed, bound and hidden away emotional wounds and intimate experiences should tear them open and allow the body to become a vessel for their torments. Just make sure you’re in control of your hands so they can write (or type).

Writing is for everyone. Professional assholes can go to Hell.

Is telling a story the privilege of a small group of talented writers? Or is it an innate right of humankind that has been stripped from the comman man and artificially setup as the domain of eccentric “thinkers”?

I have the feeling that writing has been hijacked by an ego-centric group who is trying as hard as they can to keep people from pursuing amateur writing - in the real sense of the word amateur meaning passion - in order to maintain their grip on the “profession”.

Writing is an expression of personal experiences, beliefs and desires. I don’t care if you have ten years of professional training or if you’re an illegal immigrant pizza delivery guy who writes his thoughts down on stained napkins - writing is at its best when it is authentic.

Screw you, the person who sticks her nose up to an inexperienced writer because he doesn’t know someone in your stupid field. Screw you for thinking you’re the gatekeeper of great stories and the only one who understands what it means to influence emotions.

Writing is subjective and you’re a waste of skin in the big picture if you don’t pay attention to anything that hasn’t already been recognized by Sundance or some other lame professional creative organization. Go back to your wannabe celebrity lifestyle that you can barely afford because you don’t get paid shit compared to the actors who depict your stories.

Keep pretending you’re all about the story and the characters, all the while compromising so people accept you. Have fun being underappreciated. I, on the other hand, won’t settle for just pre-production involvement.

So who’s the more ego-centric writer? You crave acceptance so badly that you’ve lost sight of what it is to tell an honest story. I just want to tell a great story. Everything else is an afterthought.

I have a feeling that I’m more ego-centric than you. But you’re a spoiled artifact with an addiction to crappy ideas that sell. What’s worse, you think I’m stupid for my “blind” belief in creativity. You’ve just fooled yourself into antiquity. You’ll be at WE soon enough. bitch.

Music is a powerful tool for Method Writing

Music really can have the same affect on us in real life as it seems to have on characters in the movies. Except rather than allowing us to empathize in one way or the other with specific characters and their circumstances in movies, music for life spurs intention in the right direction and can literally inspire action in dull moments.

Music can spur proactivity in a positive, disruptive way that almost nothing else can. Music is subjective enough in its ability to affect us and to be interpreted that it can provide that metaphorical kick in the ass that each of us often needs for that highly unique personal form of motivation.

Let music guide your mind to dream in ways you wouldn’t normally go. Dream with your eyes wide open and with an open mind to the possibilities. This will lead you to realize the great things you can do. And we can all do great things with just the right amount of dreaming and willingness to suffer for those dreams.

For writers, that simply means visualizing the story on a musical landscape and living it out through the pen.

Bridging fissures in the creative foundation with storyscaping

Storyscaping - building the tonal environment for a story - can be the first step for writing. It’s where we can let our thoughts become free, unfettered wanderers on the creative landscape. It allows us to paint a holistic picture of what the story may feel like without worrying about the particulars.

The process is more important than the progress and the questions are more revealing than the answers. The goal for storyscaping is to develop very general ideas from feelings and to write based on those. It isn’t about the words or the structure. It’s about the tone and creative direction. We need to focus on the general direction of the story idea without focusing on the words.

A great tool to encourage this kind of thinking is music. I believe in the power of music to inspire great thought. Music influences our souls in the right way. It provides perspective in the moment and emotions to stimulate fresh thought and intention. It’s so cheesy to think of music as a soundtrack for life, in the same way it is used for film and television. I believe it can serve that purpose though.