Bailing Out

And… it's late. Again. I even had this one outlined in advance, I just didn't write it. I'll be honest with you, I'm kind of getting bored with it. I feel like it's not going how I want it to, and I can't pull it back and divert it. So, I think this is a sign that I should wrap it up. There will probably only be a few more installments, and then we'll move on to something new. I just need to get to a good stopping point, that's not like a bullshit cliffhanger.

So… Part Six:

"I thought of angels choking on their halos…"

The room spun. The ceiling warped like a heat mirage. The light fixture threatened to blink out of existence.

Patrick tried to raise his injured arm. It didn’t cooperate. He picked it up with the other hand and brought it up where he could see it. Besides the crusty bite marks, he could swear he saw something moving under the skin, crawling through his veins.

The front door opened. Patrick dropped his arm, wincing when it landed on the couch. Someone walked through the haze of the room. He expected Bryony, and thought it was her until he saw its face.

The Spread of Darkness

I don't know why I can't write this on time. I'm terrible. I'm sorry.

Here's Part 5 of "Just One Yesterday."

Patrick could try to get his job back, and work for a soulless hell-monster. He could try not to stare at those abysmal eye sockets. But Frank would know. Somehow, they always knew that he could see them.

He wanted to be a badass and do a tactical roll out the door to escape from danger. That wasn’t going to happen. Instead, he awkward shuffled out the door, still crouching and hoping the booth shielded him from the view of the kitchen. He didn’t look back.

He crossed the street and kept on walking. He wasn’t going to deal with this right now. His arm hurt where that thing had bit him, like little pinpoints of fire. The job search would have to wait. For now, he was going home.

Taking a Step Back

So I've written a bit of a twist in the last installment of this story, and I'm not totally sure where to go from there. Hence the lateness of the post. Also I went to go see Black Panther (super good, go see it), and then took at least two naps. Saturdays are my napping day.

I am calling the story "Just One Yesterday" for the time being, so now all the pieces are tagged with that. And I guess it's going on hiatus for the moment, since I'm not sure what happens next and I don't want to screw it up. It'll be back next week. Maybe even on time. But probably not.

What am I going to talk about today, then? Well, I'm glad you asked.

Filling in Blanks

All right, here's Part Four. Three hours of sleep followed by at least three naps and I finally got it done. A lot of dialogue today. Hopefully moving us into the next part.

“Really?” the girl asked. “Because I just saw you fight an old Asian man, murder him, and then he disintegrated. So please, let’s hear your perfectly reasonable explanation.”

“Okay, maybe not perfectly reasonable.”

She took her phone out of her pocket. “I’m going to call the cops.”

“Are you?” he asked, sounding bolder than he felt. “You gonna tell them I vaporized a guy?”

Getting the Hang of This

If you've been keeping score at home, you may know that we’ve just passed the two year mark. My first post was February 2nd, 2016. I kind of forgot it was the anniversary, so I didn't plan anything special. I hope the next part of the serial story will be enough.

And yes, it's up late. I had to do adult things like buy a new microwave, and then less adult things like watch Star Trek. I'm trying to get back on schedule, I'm just really bad at it.

So here's Part Three:

The dusty remains of the thing settled on the kitchen floor. Patrick looked at his arm. Irregular teeth marks had been cut into either side. He wrapped it in a dish towel and peered out the kitchen window. There were probably more of those things out there. And he was probably supposed to fight them.

That bus station guy had been really vague on the details.

There was another knock on the door. Great, what now?

Where Am I Going?

I moved the blog post to Saturday so that I could spend all day working on it.  So as you might guess from this very late post, I have spent all day doing… not that. I've been "thinking" about it, I tell myself. I do an awful lot of thinking.

Lately I've been thinking about this story I'm working on. Namely, what should happen next. I haven't written it yet because I don't know. I don't know if it's going in a good direction, as is.

As I'm sure I mentioned before, one advantage to publishing episodically is that you can get feedback along the way, right away. You can see if a character or a storyline is doing well, and that gives you some indication of where you might want to take the story.

Forces of Darkness

Boom, Part Two. One I name the damn thing, I'll tag them all with it for easier future finding. Also, we're going to Wednesdays and Saturdays, for the time being.

Patrick awoke on the ground in a pool of blood. Here was his body, right where he’d left it. He sat up. Someone screamed.

The express bus back to Earth. Good for extending your miserable life, and startling passersby who had just seen you die.

He held up a placating hand to the woman in question. “Sorry, sorry. Everything’s fine here.” He stood up and brushed himself off. It didn’t help. He was still covered in blood, people were starting to stare, and distant sirens were growing closer.

This would be a good time for him to be anywhere else, so he did the natural thing, following a near-death experience, and went home to take a shower. He earned a few stares along the way, which was to be expected. What was not to be expected was the face at the corner of 3rd and Main.

One Piece at a Time

I've been thinking about serials. Not killers, not at the moment, anyway. I'm talking about old school serial novels published in magazines or newspapers. If you were anyone in the Victorian era, you published your book in serial form first, and then in a single volume. Everyone did it. Arthur Conan Doyle. Alexandre Dumas. Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Now, obviously, this has something to do with only offering Part One of my story last week (it still doesn't have a name). I have realized that I can release this thing, and future… things, piece by piece.

This brings up a new can of worms regarding formatting. Or structure, I guess. Each piece needs to have its own story arc. Like a TV episode. There's an big arc for the whole season, but there's also an arc for each episode. I am intrigued by this.

Heaven Nor Hell

I did indeed set out to write you a short story based on the vague idea I had the other day. But the more I thought about, the more I realized I was not going to be able to write the whole story in the amount of time I had.

So here's Part One.

Patrick’s arrival at the Pearly Gates was not as advertised. For starters, there were no gates to be found. Rather, he appeared to be at an abandoned bus station in rural Montana in the middle of the night.

Had he stepped off a bus to get here? He couldn’t remember. For a moment, he couldn’t remember anything. He looked around, up and down the empty road. No, that was right. It came back to him in flashes. An uneventful life and an abrupt end. Somehow that had landed him here.

Wherever here was.