What I want to say,

A shorter one this time, and probably the last.

Chapter 1

Introductions are in order

Stealing is wrong…

Viktys slunk along the corridor making no sound, dipping in and out of the pools of black left in the gaps between the flickering gas lamps that lined the sleek stone walls.

…deep down, I know that…

Up a small flight of stairs the bare stone floor gave way to plush carpeting, marking Viktys’ progress from the servant’s quarters to the main areas of the house.  They say you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat their servants, but in Viktys’ experience all servants were treated the same: poorly.

The Carpet was red, with a braided gold pattern running along the side of it.  It was probably worth a fortune, more even than the tapestries on the walls and the gold candelabras on the windowsills.  The servants would never be able to afford such a thing if they were to save for ten lifetimes.

…but it’s hard to think of right and wrong when you’re as good at something as I am.

Around a corner and the dark corridor gave way to a shining pool of light.  There was nowhere to hide here, no shadows to dive into.  Stealth gave way to speed and Viktys thanked whoever lay down the carpet that cushioned the sound of his now jogging strides.

For me, that something is stealing.

“Well duh, Vik, you kind of already gave that away.  Man, even in your own head you sound like a moron.”  His jog descended back to a walk as his mind turned its attention inward.  “‘Great Thief, Terrible Writer: The Viktys Story.’  There’s the makings of a classic right there.  That’ll be on the shelves of all the great libraries.

His arms waved as he talked, his mouth sending out a torrent of self abuse and degradation.  Viktys is the proud owner of the attention span of a gnat. 

Well, that's that done.  Not as interesting as either of us first hoped, huh?

Here's the third sample.  I actually chopped a bit off the end of this one for you.  It said, "Chapter 1.  Jacob was sleeping."  So as you see, no great loss.  I like it when I don't have to think about what to blog of a morning.  Maybe I'll spend today writing a whole bunch more of these so I'll never have to think of a blog topic again.

Prologue

Finger scraped bone.  He felt the small dimples that scoured its surface, where the muscles used to attach themselves.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you touch it?”

“I can touch it but I can’t get it.”

Jacob strained as hard as he could against the rocks trying to squish a few extra inches out of his shoulder.  In his mind’s eye he saw his finger elongating.  It turned into a little snake, stretching the skin, wriggling forward more and more, please be enough, just enough to.

“No, I can’t.”

“Let me try.”

“No.  You’re smaller than me, you’ll never reach it.”

“Let me try anyway.”

“It’s getting late.  We should probably go home,” said Jacob, looking up at Eric, who was pacing around in front of the hole, trying to get a decent look inside past Jacob’s shoulder.

“Then give me one try first, just one.”  Said Eric, almost pleading now, frightened his chance would slip by if he didn’t seize this very opportunity.

Jacob picked himself up from the ground and took one last wistful look into the hole.  It was only just large enough to allow his arm access and the boulders around it were far too heavy for the meagre muscles of Eric and himself to move.

He moved his head from side to side a little, staring into the gap until he caught a flicker of something white.  Whatever it was, it was drawing at his curious mind like there was an invisible rope attached between the two.  It didn’t look like an egg.  He was certain of that.  Birds wouldn’t lay eggs in a place like that.  Snakes might, but if he thought for a second there could be a snake in there his hand would never have left the pockets of his dungarees.

He moved aside, letting Eric in to have a try.  Eric was a head smaller than Jacob at least.  He never stood a chance, but gave it his best shot anyway.  He wiggled and squirmed like he thought he was on the edge of it, but Jacob knew there was too far for his little arms to go.  That didn’t stop Eric pulling some great faces of effort, and uttering lines about how nearly he had it but then he lost his footing and slipped back so it was once again just out of reach.

There was a moment of doubt though.  A single moment when Eric’s eyes lit up, widening like a great darkness had just descended upon him.

“Yes, yes!”  Eric cried, pulling his hand out of the whole and clutching his prize so tightly you couldn’t see a sliver of it past his whitening fingers.  He slowly released his grip from around it.  Before they were even half open it wiggled out between his fingers, streaming hundreds of legs over his hand.  The millipede found itself airborne a second later as Eric’s reflexes finally kicked in sending a spasm of fright up his arm.

Jacob nearly doubled over, but tried desperately to contain himself as Eric sprawled backwards on his hands and feet, like an upside-down crab fleeing an upside-down shark.

“Gods!  Did you see that thing?  It was… nearly had my hand off.”  Eric said, his face flush, breathing erratic.  “Did you see it?”  Jacob had turned his back to hide his laughter.  “It was all yellow and black.  That means poison you know.”

Jacob turned to watch Eric clamber to his feet, in control now.

“It almost had you,” said Jacob, a spit of laughter escaping with the last word and turning into a full out laugh.

“It’s not funny,” laughed Eric, unable to help it in the face of Jacob’s struggle to breathe.  “It’s not funny.  It almost had me.  You wouldn’t be laughing if you had to tell my parents I was dead.”

“Killed by the BEAST OF BILTON!”  Jacob could hardly contain himself.  “I’d be honoured to tell the whole town about such a heroic death.”

“Shut up.  It’s not funny,” said Eric, almost all the way back to town.

Behind them, in the hole, creatures were stirring.  Black bodied, hundred legged, parchment and membrane winged creatures of all different kinds, scurried around looking for the light, and escape.  Something else was stirring in the hole, something tickled by a child’s careless finger.  The memories imbedded in bone, awoke.

I think if there're a moral to that beginning of a story it's, Kids = Trouble!

Listen people, let's not say nice things while I'm shaming myself, OK?

This one is older than the last one, and significantly shorter.  The dialogue is awful, and the transitions, even worse.  I suck at transitions.  They're the thing I find hardest.

Downpour

She smelled of roses and rain: intoxicating and pure.  Her hair clung, dripping, to the side of her face and when she brushed it away, her fingers glistened.  Rosanna De Las Lluvias, against all advice, stood on the highest, easternmost balcony of the palace and watched the horizon for the first signs of her approaching future.  She wouldn’t be moved for the world.

“Princess, please.  Do you really want to meet him for the first time with a runny nose?”  Her handmaiden, Lucille, was always looking out for her best interests, or more precisely what the King had instructed her that his daughter’s best interests were.

“He won’t care.”  Her voice was as soft as the wind, as perfect as a single snowflake landing on a child’s waiting tongue.

“Well, no, you’re right, of course he won’t, but if we have to get you out of those wet clothes after he arrives you’ll only keep him waiting.”  Lucille had been trying for the last three hours to get Rosanna back inside, without raising her ire.  It was something she thought she’d become good at over the last several years, but today seemed to be proving her all wrong.  She’d given up on tact over half an hour ago and had now resorted to random questions, hoping one of them would have a different answer.

“He won’t care.”

She sounded so sure.  So perfectly sure that this was meant to be.  Lucille had never seen a more willing participant in an arranged marriage, especially from someone who had never seen their intended.

“You can see just as well from inside you know.  I mean, you might not be able to see all around but you can see the road they’ll be riding in on well enough.”

“Thank you Lucille.  I’m fine here.”

Lucille shook her head and went back inside to once again fiddle with all the things she’d arranged for when Rosanna decided to come back inside.  Towels: that was it.  She’d thought of bringing the dress up here for a quick change when they saw Prince Dairis’ party arriving, but there simply wasn’t anywhere clean enough to put it.  Dust had blown in from outside before the rain started and no one had been up here to sweep the place since.  Dust... another idea popped into her head, which she stuck once again just under the eaves, far enough to be heard, but not so far as to become a target for even the smallest of raindrops.  She wasn’t young and foolish like her Princess.  Well, she corrected herself mentally, I’m not foolish anyway.

“You know, with all this rain the road up will be a veritable swamp.  It could be hours before you even catch a glimpse of them.  And it’s not as though you’ll see the dust from the hooves when they’re close either.  They’ll be right on top of us before you can get dried up.”

Rosanna turned to her and smiled.

“Thank you Lucille, but I’m okay for now.  If I tire, or it gets dark, or I start to sniffle, or I get too cold, or hungry, or if I just feel like it, I’ll come inside.  I promise.”

“Of course, Your Highness.” 

I'm glad we've got that out of the way.

I think I've decided to put some of my old beginnings up here to shame me into learning how to write properly.  I could do with reading a lot more too.  The more you write, the better you get, or so people say, but I'm too busy thinking about all the cool things I could be writing to actually write them.  John August has an interesting interview here.  I agree with him that I'm not so good at the writing, but I love having written.  He's better at pushing past the discomfort than me though, by a mile.  I really like this snippit:

"(By the way, this -- answering questions for an email interview -- isn't writing. This is talking with a keyboard, which is damn near effortless. I think one of the dangerous things that's come with the rise of the Internet is that people are confusing typing with writing. Just because your words are captured in a UTF-8 character set doesn't mean that you're actually writing. Writing involves carefully shaping a thought for its desired impact. Writing means anticipating the reader's reaction, and honoring (or defeating) that expectation. Writing requires logic. Blogging just requires an account.)"

It's all good stuff.

Recently I've been looking over some of the stuff I started writing but never got anywhere near doing anything with before I chucked it and moved on.  It's been an interesting experience.  I feel like I've fed all my latest and dearest works into an all knowing computer, listened to it beep and whizz for a while and then had it print on screen "Congratulations you've now attained the level of: fucking amateur" with those last two words, underlined, in bold, 4 points larger than the rest of the message, all in caps, and flashing alternating eye-catching colours.  Then it prints a shiny badge with my name and new designation on it... which also flashes.

Here then is something I started sometime shortly after the fall of Rome.

All you have to do is…

Jonas fell to the ground, the dust of the road making a new home in his nose and mouth.  His lips parted enough to allow his tongue to poke out.  Then came a raspy breath, a futile, subconscious attempt to expel the new coating on his tongue.  Dirt plus saliva equals mud.  This was the mathematics of his life, and it didn’t taste good.

His eyes fought to focus on something, anything, and finally settled on his bloodied hand.  Then a boot came crunching down on it.  The pain must have been there but it didn’t reveal itself as the searing sensation he expected.  Instead, it rippled through him as a simple shiver, a stall in his heart-beat and breathing, and utter disbelief at how easily the hand crumpled.  He tried to move it, but couldn’t muster the energy.  Then the pain started revealing itself.  It was a throb, slowly pulsating, and every second it grew in intensity.  If he kept the hand perfectly still, this would be the extent of it.

There were footsteps behind him, shuffling through the dust, probably getting ready for another kick or stomp.  Then it came, into his back, his right kidney.  The throb in his hand became a scream, and then slowly calmed to a conversation; an argument in waiting.  That last kick, there was something about it, something half-hearted.

The sound of the footsteps changed, the shuffling became crunching as dirt turned to gravel.  They were walking: walking away by the sound of it.  Jonas didn’t move; he hardly dared to breathe.  Anything, the simplest sign of life, of defiance and they’d be back to finish the job.  Getting back to your feet was always asking to be put back on your knees; or worse, your face.

He stopped thinking about defiance as soon as it had entered his head.  He didn’t have enough energy left in him for that.  He probably didn’t have enough energy in him to do anything ever again.  The thought would have been frightening, if he’d had enough energy left to really consider it.  As it was his only concern was that when they found his corpse the left side of his face would be a bubbling mess from the unrelenting sun and its pitiless clear blue sky.  Wasn’t there supposed to be rain when someone died?

He listened to car doors open and close and the beginning of the struggle to get the engine to start.  A chug combined with a swish, repeating, dreamlike, hazy.  Swish, swish, went through his ears and made its way to his eyes.  They seemed to close without his control, like he was falling asleep but was too tired to stop it.  The red through his eyelids was haunting.  This is where you’re headed Jonas, a red place; very, very red.

There was a fly or something on his cheek, it felt funny.  He screwed up his face as best he could to try to get rid of it.  The red faded to black and the fly jumped and landed where it had been.  No, it splattered where it had been.  Then another fly splashed near his temple.  Confused, he opened his eyes, strangely now willing.  It didn’t seem to work, though it felt like it had.  Or maybe, yes, it was a lighter dark.  There was another splash.  He turned his head to look at the dark clouds covering the night sky and opened his mouth to the rain.

Minutes passed before he could find it in himself to sit up.  He put weight on the stomped hand and immediately realised what a mistake it was.  The pain that was dulled before, when there was too much for his mind to take in, was real and visceral now.  He wasn’t going to get revenge with that hand any time soon.  Luckily the hand that held his trigger finger was still in one piece.

He tried to shake his head, but thought better of it when the nausea came.  Who was he kidding; they’d kill him the moment he set foot within an inch of the city limits.  He looked at the hand, smashed and bloodied, through the eye that wasn’t swollen shut and realised how lucky he’d been.  He’d seen a lot worse.  Sure, it’d been on corpses, but then that’s what they’d intended for him wasn’t it?  Leave him out here for that agonising, slow death that he knew was coming and couldn’t do anything about.  No, it wasn’t even that, they just didn’t care.  They didn’t care if he lived or died, they were indifferent.  They were just doing their jobs.  Some live, some die, it’s just another day to them.  It was nothing personal.  The thought lingered in his head for a while as he accepted the rain.

When everything was still inside, his breathing calmed after the last burst of pain and his dry throat thoroughly watered, he forced himself to stand.  It was a single, fast movement that ended in a stagger.  Anything slower and he knew the pain would overtake him and he would slam back into the ground, possibly for good.

He stood frozen in place until the screams and races inside him quietened again, the whole time his mind trying to work out its next step.  East; back to the city; his wife; his troubles.  West; disappear; become someone else; free.

He shuffled around to face east for the last time.  They’d done a good job.  He couldn’t even see the city.  He didn’t get one last glance at the place of his birth, the place he’d spent every day he could ever remember.  Every other city, every other opportunity, was only a few fleeting glimpses on TV to him.

He closed his eyes to shield them from the high-beams of a passing car.  In the darkness he saw his TV past the worn-old socks he rested on the coffee table.  Tiffany came through carrying a steaming cup of coffee.  It smelled good, so good, and the addicted part of him nearly leaped out through his chest.  Had he really not had a single cup, all day?

She kicked his legs with the same force she used to move the dog when it was lying in the doorway.  The dog never moved and she always had to step over it, but he did.  She put the cup where his feet had been and sat beside him, the soft, worn cushions tilting her into him.  He didn’t know the words he needed to describe that sensation.  He’d miss that.  She was soft, she was warm… she was comfortable?  She was just right, she was just right.  There was no other way to say it.  They just fit together like yin and yang, like strawberries and cream, hot showers and soft towels.  Like bullets and guns.

"I’m sorry Tiff."  He spoke the words into the air, opened his eyes and turned to head west.  The road was straight, and long.  He didn’t know how long.  He’d never been out this way before.  For all he knew it was a hundred miles to the next town.  He’d probably die on the road, but that was better than certain death in the city.

I think I need to learn the art of re-writing.  Not just cosmetic, touch it up, add a few long words, fix the spelling, re-writing, but real, full-on, let me write this scene, chapter, or even half, in a completely new way, re-writing.