THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)

  • 28 Mar 2024, 06:42
  • Welcome, Guest
Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: [1] 2 3   Go Down

Author Topic: Writtin' Thread  (Read 22419 times)

Eris

  • Duck attack survivor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,919
  • bzzzz
Writtin' Thread
« on: 17 Aug 2008, 05:22 »

It has been a while since we had a writing thread around here (other than the furry smut one), so I figured I might as well start one and try a few things. So to get this off and running I thought there could be a theme for the stories, if people are having trouble thinking of stuff then they can use what I provide as inspiration. I also have a book of writing exercises which I can put up for people to try out if they want.

A few rules, though:
1. No pointless smut. We had enough of that in the other thread.
2. There has to be some effort involved. No rushed 30 second job just for the sake of posting, unless you are really good at that kind of thing.
3. No novels. There isn't a set word limit, but as is the internet, a wall of writing will probably be skipped over, so maybe keep it around the 400 mark?


Ok; Theme! When looking through my new Dictionary and Thesaurus I found the word Ostentation. Say it, it rolls off the tongue in quite a way that makes you get a feel for the word (The definition and synonyms are linked back there). Use your new found knowledge of a word to write something (at least partially) to it. Here is mine!

     Desiderata

      I always wanted to be on the television. When I was little I would dress up, wearing my mother’s clothes and make-up, singing into the hairbrush along with the popstars smiling out at me. Once I even took the TV apart to work out how the people got in there. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to put it back together. As a teenager I would watch my soaps, like a little old lady, adamant I could do a better job of acting than those on screen. I would perform to the bathroom mirror and reassure myself I was made to be on TV.
      After they finally caught me I embraced the role. My lawyer said I needed to act innocent to increase my chances at trial, so I did. Oh, how I acted the part! It was my only chance to fulfil my dream; I wasn’t going to let it go without showing my full potential. As we walked out of the courthouse the media swarmed around us, pressing in from every side, slowing our progress to a crawl. I shone; I really did. I smiled broadly and gave them my best star expression.
      Of course they found me guilty; we all knew it was going to happen. “Showed no remorse” was what was said. So now I am locked up in this room, away from the rest of them, and only you for company. Can you even see me, all the way up there in the corner of the ceiling? I know you can see me, that’s your purpose. Dear little camera, keeping an eye on me.
      I always wanted to be on the television…
« Last Edit: 17 Aug 2008, 05:59 by Eris »
Logged
Quote from: Drunk Pete
MACHINS CON ESFU EPETE

fatty

  • FIGHT YOU
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 446
    • the Notorious F.A.T.T.Y.
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #1 on: 17 Aug 2008, 05:50 »

Excerpts from my Blog: http://aka-fatty.blogspot.com/
Just a bit of writing I do. It's not bloggy, but it's not fictional, it's my personal type of expression I guess. Just a few paragraphs, or I'll drown people in text.

In Defence of Architecture

I’ve a lot of thoughts about the nature of the profession of architecture, and the practice of design. In some ways, the study and practice of architecture is a very closed profession, it is not much discussed or understood outside of the profession or academia. I’ve named this ‘in defence of’ not because I think architecture needs to be defended for lack of relevance, but because the mere act of architecture is sorely under-appreciated and misunderstood, that a little bit of insight will clarify this. I’m not sure where to start, but I will start somewhere, starting with my broad ideas over a few posts, before I go into things which are more specialised.

An interesting starting point lies in the semantics of the word ‘design’. For an architect/designer, ‘design’ is an action and a process. It embodies what we do as a discovery or exploration of many things, the eventual honing and narrowing of focus, and finally, a conclusion that is influenced by all these things. But the real pride comes in the process, the act of designing as a means of creating something a machine can not. For a designer’s client, the ‘design’ is a product. Something they can touch and feel and something that is finally finished, when the designer has done all their arm waving and talking. To have a client really understand and appreciate the design process, they must be involved from the beginning and brought along on the journey.

Experience of Art

There is a beautiful place in Sydney known as the Finger Wharfs, near the Rocks. It has beautiful restored wharf buildings, a view of Sydney harbour and the bridge, quaint terrace houses and lovely views. It also has the Sydney Dance Company, where I go to do open dance classes – just for fun and exercise, and the Wharf Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company. It also has a tiny art gallery called ‘One of a Kind’. Inside, are the works of Arie Levit; self proclaimed ‘greatest artist in the world.’ Okay so maybe he is over-confident, egotistical even. But as an artist, I think you need a good dose of self belief to get anywhere.

Art is an experience, it’s something you take in and interpret; you let it take you where it wants to go. You have to open your eyes, see what you can, look harder than you’ve ever looked before. Sometimes you see it, sometimes you don’t. But an artist always has a story. He or she pours something into that work, to tell you something. When I see this guy’s work, I see what he’s thinking. He gave me some introduction, guided me through some of them; told me their story. The thing that struck me was that this guy had vision. He had short and long term goals. Art wasn’t his hobby, it was his livelihood. He believed that his art was going to transform Sydney, and that he would be famous. It takes a lot to self-promote; maintaining his own gallery means that he has to be the one there selling his work every day. He even wrote a song, played it twice every day, about how people walked past and never came in. Then he did a painting about that story.
« Last Edit: 17 Aug 2008, 05:53 by fatty »
Logged
est: she is basically an ass to everyone

Oli

  • Cthulhu f'tagn
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 549
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #2 on: 17 Aug 2008, 07:30 »

This is a load of nonsense I wrote a few weeks ago (maybe longer, who knows!), about making a pot of tea. It didn't really fit into the theme very well, but god damn I can make it.


Tea!

The kettle is still warm so I use the remaining water to warm my pot. I quickly swirl the water in my little brown pot with my left hand as I push the spout of the kettle around the tap with my right. Then I set my pot down on the surface and twist the tap, water gushing out into the kettle. I'll need about a litre and a half. After about 20 seconds I stopped the tap, check the water level and move the kettle onto it's base where I flick the switch and instantly I can hear the wooshing sound of the appliance in action. Electric kettles really are the best thing about modern living.

Picking up my pot I pour a little of the hot water into my cup. Warming the cup prior to use is important and I guess this also warms the spout of my kettle which will probably improve my tea immesurably, obviously. Deciding between my loose leaf PG tips, un-named "dust" tea I bought for a pound in egypt and my newly aquired Darjeeling leaf tea that my mother bought me in India is arguably the hardest descion I've made all day, but I opt for the PG tips because I'm in the mood for a strong tea. The Darjeeling is rather fruity, almost herbal, incredibly delectable it must be said. The dust tea is nice in it's own way, although ultimately not too different from the PG tips. I pour out the hot water, through my strainer of course, and scoop two spoonfuls out of my tea caddy, a metal jar with an ornate thistle design, and into my pot. The kettle's nearly boiled now - the steam wooshing out of the spout as a whine fills the air. As the wee red light clicks off I pour the boiling water into my pot, place the lid on it and give it a good shake. Setting it down on my tea-tray and fitting the tea-cosy (knitted by someone's Nana and bought for a pound at a jumble sale) I consider the option of a biscuit. 'No', I conclude, 'there's only a few digestives left.' I open the fridge and pour a dash of milk into my metal milk jug. The bottle's run out so I rinse it under the tap to get rid of the dregs and put it in the bag for recycling. I throw the lid into the bin.

After 5 minutes I pour the hot water from my cup - through the strainer of course - and then place my strainer over it. I pour out the hot hazel coloured liquid and sniff the air. Aromas sweeter than any perfume. The nectar of the Gods. As I splash milk into the cup I gaze, as I always do, at the milky mushroom cloud exploding beneath the surface. The billowing of milk in the bronze deeps. This is the sight that fills my heart with expectant joy. This is a cup of tea.


Then I pretensiously juggled with my tea pot, cup and milk jug in order to impress guests.
Logged

allison

  • Bling blang blong blung
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,182
  • i really want a mustache
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #3 on: 17 Aug 2008, 09:04 »

I don't really write for any reason, but sometimes there's a scene in my head and I have the urge to write it down.

--

Eight o’clock on a Saturday night, the pub is teeming with people and I don’t know if I can go through with this. The air is stagnant and stale, and the beer in my hand is warm. I feel somewhat uncomfortable with my choice of clothing, because it seems that my shirt collar is shrinking around my throat. I undo yet another button and quickly check my watch, realizing that my entire body is shaking uncontrollably. I’m aware that I have less than ten minutes before I have to walk onto the stage in front of this crowd, and I suddenly have the urge to vomit.

Suppressing it, I pick up my guitar. Holding it seems to calm me a little, and I take that as a good sign. For the fifth time tonight I tune the six worn, comfortable strings. They’ll have to be changed later tonight. The guy on stage finishes his mediocre cover of an old Lightfoot tune, and says that’s all for him tonight. As he passes me, he puts a hand on my shoulder and wishes me good luck. That doesn’t really help my nerves at all, and so I do my best to but one foot in front of the other and walk out into the pool of light around the tiny stage. Because I have no idea what else to do, I down the last of my pint and put the glass on the floor. It feels like all the eyes in the place are on me, and I think I just might pass out. I pull myself together.

After what seems like ten years, I adjust the microphone and confer with the sound guy. “A little more vocal in the monitor?” I ask, and he obliges. Test, test, checkcheckcheck, one, two, three – my voice resonates through the dimly lit room and I feel cripplingly self-conscious. The sound is fine, and I think I’m just buying time. I squint from the few bright lights focused on me as I lean forward, and I introduce myself because the MC seems to have disappeared. I think I saw him leave with the woman who’d sat all night at the bar. She looked lonely and tired, and a little bit desperate. She needs him more than I do.

I take a deep breath, and I hear someone in the audience clear his throat. A sneeze. Every sound around me is amplified and I do my best to block it out. I give a preamble to my song, one that I thought was quite witty – apparently not, according to this crowd – and I begin to play the intro. My voice cracks on the first note I sing. I play another couple bars on my old Martin guitar, hoping that I can pull myself together. Again, I start to sing. When I reach the first chorus, all I can feel is the chord progression playing itself on my fingers and all I can hear is my own voice, weaving itself into a melody.  I close my eyes and I see the words in front of me.
By the end of my set, the crowd seems pleased, and I think I’ve done a fair enough job. I muster up a smile, and dip my head quickly, then I walk off the stage as quietly as possible. The applause dies away, and the din of conversation buzzes throughout the space again. I let the adrenaline rush die away, and I fade back into the crowd.
Logged
Quote
[00:30] KharBevNor: Crawling undead terrorcocks

Eris

  • Duck attack survivor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,919
  • bzzzz
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #4 on: 17 Aug 2008, 20:42 »

It didn't really fit into the theme very well, but god damn I can make it.

You don't have to use the theme if you already have something written. It was just a way to start things off if people wanted to participate but were having trouble coming up with ideas.

Both Oli's and Allison's stories are lovely (I had read Ali's before when reading her blawg) and emotive. I quite like them!
Logged
Quote from: Drunk Pete
MACHINS CON ESFU EPETE

ThePQ4

  • Asleep in the boner patch
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 789
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #5 on: 17 Aug 2008, 21:19 »

Man...I don't think I could write something in the ballpark of 400 words if I tried...

Most already know about my blogger due to some excitement that occured about a year ago... However, I've moved completely past the Harry Potter Slash fiction and most recently have been dabbling in Original Slash (because saying I write gay fiction is weird). BUT, for a fiction contest in a local arts paper (which I think it is keen to point out that I did not win... but I did win 2nd place in a campus arts paper w/ a semi-gay coming of age story...), I did write a short hetero-romance piece. Two actually --one from the POV of a girl, and the other of the guy in the same relationship at different periods...

Anyway, this piece is a LITTLE longer then recommended, but I figured it would be OK.

Edit: I just read over it again...goddamn, that was horrible. I am never writing het-romance from a male perspective again. Ick. ...Also, I think part of it is missing...Hrm.
__

   I walk into the kitchen for a soda. The can makes a cracking sound as I pull the tab forward. I lift the can to my mouth and the envelope on the fridge catches my eye. My eyes narrow. What is this? I wonder silently. I put down the can on the counter, and pull the envelope from the fridge. The paper doesn’t want to come out, but with minimal ripping, it finally comes free.

   My eyes scan over the piece of paper. I can’t help but narrow my eyes.  I knew this was a long time coming…but I hadn’t expected it so soon. I wondered when she had done it. Why hadn’t I noticed her absence?

   It seems she has left me. After threatening it for weeks…even months. She finally pulled it together and left me. She doesn’t say why –just that weak “It’s Me, Not You” excuse that everyone uses. I knew we had our problems, but…why now? Things were just starting to improve, weren’t they?

   My hand moves of its own accord, and suddenly the can of soda I had just opened splashes everywhere. The tin clinks against the linoleum floor and rolls under the cupboards. I feel the dampness soak into my jeans. My knees seem to give out, and I sink to the floor. The paper crumples in my fist, and my forehead presses onto the floor.

   I don’t cry. I can’t. She was just a girl. A girl that I loved. I thought that she loved me too, but if she was so willing to leave me… Why does this hurt so much? My fist aches as I pound it into the floor. The letter falls from my hands onto the floor as I pull myself back together a moment later. I stare at the dirty envelope that fell to the floor somewhere between the soda splattering, and the collapse to the floor. Her handwriting…the perfect formation of the letters to my name. I want to hit her. I want to make her cry. I want to hear her laugh –even if it is cruelly and at my own expense.

   I get up off the floor. The first thing that I think is Shit, I should clean up this mess. But I turn my back on it. It isn’t like it’s going anywhere. I walk back up to my office, and go back to work like nothing has happened.

   I work steady until I simply can’t anymore. I have tried to push the fact that she is gone, from my mind. I walk down the stairs, and throw myself onto the couch. She would usually be home by now…I wonder when she’s going to come and get all of her stuff. I look around the room and see that there are large gaps in the movie collection, a few pictures missing from the walls. Her ottoman is gone. How did I not notice? When did she take them?

   I want to act out. I want to hit something. I want to find her. I want to find her and hurt her as much as she has hurt me.
Logged

jodizzle

  • Scrabble hacker
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,253
  • Stairs will tear us apart
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #6 on: 17 Aug 2008, 23:14 »

I guess I will contribute!  I have a thing that i started that I will probably never finish because it is ok buit not very good and I am lazy.  So it is not a full story, just kind of a...beginning thing.

The Whiskey Pit

I was always just one of those kids, you know?  The kind that had their life planned out by everyone else.  Usually that means graduating high school, then university, really making something of your life.  That wasn’t how it was for me.  Everyone who should have been there to encourage me was instead trying to shove me back to where they had decided I belonged.  Apparently there is no place in the world of success for someone of my background.

My family were not the most saintly bunch.  In fact, I came from a rather long line of non-saints and I was expected to follow in their less-than-holy footsteps.  We had no great scandal, no murder charges or dramatic affairs, but we had vices, and that was enough.  The most common was whiskey.  Beer didn’t get them drunk quick enough, too much liquid and not enough substance my father used to say, although it often came out slurred.  The drinking was not so much the issue I suppose, as the results of the drinking.  Broken furniture and bones, bruised faces and spirits.  When I was in primary school I would often arrive with conspicuous injuries which everyone ignored.  Not once did a well meaning teacher ask me if there were problems at home.  It was simply accepted that was my lot in life, that’s what you get for being a Flynn.  As if I had somehow done something before conception that made me deserve being thrown into the whiskey drenched lions den, expect broken bones before dinner.

My mother was a woman with few talents, but the one she utilized most was fucking.  Sex wasn’t her vice, it was her job.  Each night she would go out, screw a few, and return with cash for food and booze.  I didn’t resent her for her chosen occupation, I resented her for distaste of me, the unwanted only child.  I wasn’t an accident, I was a planned baby with parents who had no idea.  It didn’t take my mother long to realize that having children isn’t like owning a dog, and that this planned baby was nothing but a goddamn burden.  I grew up surrounded by resentment, abuse and whiskey.
Logged
Quote from: Hannah in Meebly
you it be the mics taht are broked?
Quote from: ViolentDove
But then again, I used to dress like the bastard child of a drug-addled punk and a shrubbery.

Eris

  • Duck attack survivor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,919
  • bzzzz
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #7 on: 18 Aug 2008, 06:13 »

Immolation

       He wasn’t sure how long she’d had it, the gaping hole in her chest; the edges were puckered and uneven, framing the view into the black space in her chest where her heart should normally reside. It was obviously an old wound, but even though the question pricked at the edges of his mind, he knew not to mention it. She never told anyone about it, covering her chest and pretending everything was normal; he was amazed he had seen it at all. But for all her acting he could still tell that it hurt her. She tried to cover it up, but the little flinches and winces that others didn’t notice were all too obvious to him.
       Nights were the worst. When she was asleep she couldn’t control her reactions, and her whimpering was almost too much for him to bear. He would sit, watching her sleep, and try and work out a way to help her. He couldn’t just let her keep living this way; she deserved more. She deserved to be happy. So he considered his options, unable to sleep, until finally he came up with the perfect idea and newly energised, he went about preparing everything. Of course she had no clue what was going on, but that was kind of the point. It had to be secret, otherwise he knew she would protest and the gift would be ruined.
       She woke, confused, in the middle of the night and wondered what had caused her to stir. That was when she saw him. His hands were resting in his lap, the knife held loosely there. The tears running down his face dripped onto the stained sheets, mingling with the blood seeping from the cut on his chest. He looked into her eyes helplessly and almost pleaded to her.
       “I just wanted to help…” he gulped, shuddering as he sobbed. She bundled him up in her arms, his blood soaking into her nightgown, and murmured reassurances into his hair. “I tried, but I couldn’t do it. It just hurt too much…” The insistent explanation was muffled against her shoulder, but she understood that he had to tell her.
       Using the ruined sheet she cleaned up the worst of the mess on his chest and kissed the tears from his face. He latched himself onto her and as she rocked him, still whispering comforting words, he finally slept.
Logged
Quote from: Drunk Pete
MACHINS CON ESFU EPETE

jodizzle

  • Scrabble hacker
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,253
  • Stairs will tear us apart
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #8 on: 19 Aug 2008, 02:30 »

I like that one Han.
Ok Hannah told me a writing exercise that I decided to give a whirl.  Basically you choose a sentence of something you have written, then use each word of that sentence to start another sentence to make a paragraph!

Mine became somewhat...abstract.  I probably chose a silly line, but I have always liked it.

“I’m God’s most fuckable angel” She’d told me

I’m surrounded by pieces of her.  God’s little black sheep, the lost lamb finding her way with cocaine and cigarettes.  Most of her evenings spent bathed in vodka and smelling of sex, ‘Satan’s Paradise’ she called it.  Fuckable mysteries in smokey bars would chat her up and take her home, another conquest on her heavenly mission.  Angel eyed innocence long since stripped from her, now replaced with a Devil-may-care attitude to rival the big man himself.  She’d had a glimpse of paradise and gave it up for the taste of cigarettes and sweat on skin.  Told by heaven to go their way, she carved her own path through the vices of the city and reached her chosen destination.  Me, left to sit by the window and watch her, descending in flames from the sky.



Now I know why I never got accepted into that creative writing degree so many years ago.
Logged
Quote from: Hannah in Meebly
you it be the mics taht are broked?
Quote from: ViolentDove
But then again, I used to dress like the bastard child of a drug-addled punk and a shrubbery.

jimbunny

  • I'm Randy! I'm eternal!
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 662
  • I'll show you the life of the mind!
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #9 on: 20 Aug 2008, 01:12 »

Your prose is beautiful! "She’d had a glimpse of paradise and gave it up for the taste of cigarettes and sweat on skin." Awesome sentence.

Also, I really liked Allison's. I think you paced yourself really well.

I don't have anything just yet, but I don't want this thread to die!
Logged

Thomas Edison

  • The Tickler
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 913
  • Everyone is getting old.
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #10 on: 20 Aug 2008, 02:49 »

Wow, a thread that I actually think is a good idea, and that surely cannot fall into endless quips of a sexual nature.

I might get something typed up at work later and post it up.

Ossstentaaaatioooon. Awesome word.
Logged
Quote from: Patrick
I am pretty miserable at going down on a lady

Quote from: Khar
I can't really work out in my head why it's not cool to bone your sister as long as you don't make babies

ThePQ4

  • Asleep in the boner patch
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 789
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #11 on: 20 Aug 2008, 09:51 »

Quote
that surely cannot fall into endless quips of a sexual nature.

Okay, now you're just asking for someone to write some smut. But Eris asked nicely for us not to turn this into a sexy writtin' thread, so I shall ignore this sudden urge... But if it is not so nicely ignored by someone else, just know it's your fault, k! (Note: I'm not being bitchy, I mean that in a cute sarcastic way...I'm trying not to resort to the smilies...)
Logged

Scrambled Egg Machine

  • Bizarre cantaloupe phobia
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 248
  • Of course you realize this means war.
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #12 on: 20 Aug 2008, 10:10 »

I am a single face in a sea of digital camouflage. Stepping off of the train onto a bullet pocked concrete platform fifty miles south of Denver, I am one more soldier in the meat grinder that is Mid-West Theater, Sector 1. This town was once called Castle Rock, but all it is now is a firebase and supply dump, the rest of it having been pounded into oblivion by artillery. A-10's slam past overhead on their way to the trenches. I follow the crowds, into a bunker with truncated stumps of antennae protruding from the top. A bundle of gear is shoved at me and  am ejected into the trench systems to find my unit. A Chinese-made ground attack fighter rockets overhead, cannon fire tearing into everyone and everything around me. I drop, bisected by a 23mm cannon round. Welcome to the war.

This is a segment of the prologue to a novel I am attempting to write.
« Last Edit: 20 Aug 2008, 10:13 by Scrambled Egg Machine »
Logged
Not so sure about these things anymore.

Leinad

  • Pneumatic ratchet pants
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 363
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #13 on: 20 Aug 2008, 10:17 »

Well you already shot your main character in half. I for one cannot wait to see how this turns out, if you can make him recover from that in a way that does not turn him into some super-human killing machine. Because we have way too many of them. But if you make the story a gritty, tough place without anyone thing being too over-bearing then you could have something interesting going on. PM me with more stuff, eh?
Logged

Thomas Edison

  • The Tickler
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 913
  • Everyone is getting old.
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #14 on: 20 Aug 2008, 11:40 »

I sit, idle as my car, outside a building which can only be described as a last desperate bid to re-enact the ‘70s ‘Late Modernism’ architectural movement. The funny thing is that it fails to grasp the monotonous feel that it’s supposed to have captured. Around it, across the streets and throughout the city, the other high rise buildings are bizarre, eccentric and generally a love-or-hate affair. This one, however, stands out like a blank canvas in a gallery of complex artworks. It is tall, as well as bland. Others try to be new, expressive, arty. This one, however, does not. It just is.

I know this because my father wanted me to be an architect.

I tweak through the radio stations as the car motor purrs, the flickering static complimenting the oppressive gloom of the building to my right. The airwaves are laden with news of impending war, of ever rising death tolls and of the new threats that emerge daily. I can’t suppress the curling of my lips as I realize it paints a bleak picture, just like the monolith to my right. As I said, it's a funny thing.

The building itself is the base of operations for a company whose name I choose not to recall. It is fifty eight floors high, and holds a number of workers too large for me to grasp. Maths was never my strong suit.

I am not smart, I am not witty, I am not wise.

I check my rear view mirrors before opening my car door, though I needn’t worry. Rush hour is long gone, and no one drives for the sake of driving anymore. With income decreasing and petrol prices increasing, the only time people drive anymore is when they need to get to work.

In fact, the only time I drive anymore is when I need to get to work.

I cross the road, the security of the building have opened the doors for me already. They’ve observed me coming here, to this building, every now and then for a few months. I am familiar to them. Each time I enter I carry a package made from cardboard and wrapped heavily with that odd brown packaging tape which, I think, smells glorious. The package is usually empty. This time, the package rattles when I shake it.

The men in suits with name tags smile and nod as I enter the building.

Within this building is a man. This is a man with power. Within this man is knowledge. This is the kind of knowledge I could never have. Not many people know it, but this man is one of the main driving forces behind all our problems. This man is sat at the top floor. This man is the head of this company whose name I refuse to recall.

In three minutes, this man will be sipping expensive brandy from a cooled glass. In five minutes, I will be within an elevator, pressing the shiny button for the top floor. In twelve minutes, I will be tearing open the package and assembling the contents. In fourteen minutes, I will check the clip is ready and the safety is off.

In fourteen and a half minutes, the man will be dead.

My father wanted me to be an architect.

__________


Today has been a reeeeallllly slow day at work. We've managed to watch Pulp Fiction, Transformers and that Pixar film with the rat. =/ I even managed to get to mah laptop.
Logged
Quote from: Patrick
I am pretty miserable at going down on a lady

Quote from: Khar
I can't really work out in my head why it's not cool to bone your sister as long as you don't make babies

mat_mantra

  • Guest
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #15 on: 20 Aug 2008, 12:32 »

Meh, i'm not really in the mood for fiction, might be more cathartic to get rid of some of the stuff bouncing around in my head from work.


       Sometimes i have to wonder if I was meant to be a medic.  I've always been one of those naturally empathetic people, always with a sympathetic ear for a passing stranger wanting to empty their head of whatever ailed them.  I have a bad habit of always taking it farther in my head, however.  I don't just listen, i hear what is really troubling between the outpouring of minor worries.  I don't just read the daily casualty reports, I wonder about the families behind the names, parents outliving their children,  children losing a parent they never really knew.  If i didn't have such a solid hold on what is important in my life, the problems of others would surely suck me down into the murky depths of depression.

       Some cases you just can't seem to let go.  Take a young soldier recently, coming in from an EFP blast while pulling convoy duty.  I sat nearby and listened as this 19 year old single amputee calmly described a short moment of what must have been the closest thing to Hell on Earth that i can think of.  His voice never wavered, his gaze never dropped, he almost seemed to be relating an interesting anecdote remembered from his past.  Despite his outward demeanor, I could imagine the nightmares and and the pain in this poor kids future when the shock wore off and what he had actually experienced finally began to sink in.  People like this one make me wish i truly could do more than just make him comfortable in bed and make sure his pain meds were on schedule.

        But of course with every sad story has it's opposite number.  We had a foreign soldier on our floor for several months lasting through Christmas of last year.  Another amputee, he had lost everything from his shoulder down on the right side, having taken the brunt of an IED blast while riding the turret of a patrol vehicle.  When he first arrived on our floor, I took one look and decided he probably wouldn't make it through the night, let alone the normal 2 days between medical flights.  He surprised me by recovering into a quiet, yet vibrant man, reserved, yet not so much that he couldn't burst into a full bodied laugh at a good joke.

        One night, sitting outside smoking with him, i couldn't help but ask how he coped with the whole incident, missing limb and all.  "This?"  he said, "This is nothing.  I am alive.  That is all that matters.  I have wife.  My wife is strong right arm.  With her, this not a problem. "  And with that, he looked and me and laughed.  "Young man is too serious.  Need to smile more".  And this time i laughed with him.  Because sometimes, it's all you can do
Logged

SonofZ3

  • The German Chancellory building
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 489
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #16 on: 20 Aug 2008, 19:48 »

I’m reading too much. Like a junkie I inject Kierkegaard, Brautigan, Hesse and Shakespeare into my collapsing veins. I’m going to OD, to be so full of understanding that my ego will be pushed crying and cold into the street like an orphan, and when I trace my fingers over the bare skin of her back I won’t feel the currents of electric euphoria, but just stare at my cranes and try again to say “The only thing that bothered me was the poverty of the dead" in a way to make it sound like I invented it.
Logged
I've gained nothing from Zen.

jimbunny

  • I'm Randy! I'm eternal!
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 662
  • I'll show you the life of the mind!
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #17 on: 21 Aug 2008, 02:40 »

First person present tense is triiiiiiicky. Why is it so attractive?

Anyway, another bit about music. A tad "chicken soup"-y, but there you go.

Grass shoots up from the ground of our campsite that is the country uncle of the posh grass of our suburban baseball fields - grass that makes wearing your Birkenstocks feel like a bad idea that would have succeeded if only the world weren't so tough and spiny. And campsite is definitely a misnomer; what we have pitched our tents in the middle of is not land meant for sleeping, it is land that has been set aside for the cars of those who did not plan on sleeping anywhere tonight but in their warm beds, far away from here. This is Lot F. F stands for Fitting, and a number of other things besides. We are at a small folk music festival in northern Michigan in the middle of summer, experiencing what life has agreed to throw down, a hardy, four-strong group of college students. At the moment, that which has just been thrown at us is innumerable and wet, and our temporary respite from the rain is peppered with threats of another burst. The night has been long and full of the contemplation of cheap tents. The cheap tent is now full of more than just the contemplation of rainwater. As we painfully greet the day, we wear the dazed looks of the sleep-deprived and deeply uncomfortable. A short conference confirms that this particular life, as it is currently being lived, is obviously unbearable, and that warmth, food, and an escape from the pervading dampness - in just about that order - are all necessary. We require a restoration, and it is not to be found here. However, before we depart, we make the trek to main stage one more time and are rewarded for it with a set from similarly weather-wearied musicians who play in spite of the damp and the chill. After a few moments of tuning, brave smiles, and banter, they start in on their first song. Recognizing it, I grow just an inch taller and lean in just a little more towards the stage. "If you are weary and trying to find your way home,/ don't give up my friend, 'cause you are not alone." These are words I can gladly hear. "In a world full of trouble, you know trouble may find you./ I've got your medicine, baby, this is what you do:/ You've got to rise up, rise up singing./ In time this too shall pass./ You've got to rise up, rise up singing./ You know, this trouble ain't built to last." I sing along.

After the band leaves the stage, we head back to Lot F. We pack our sodden things and throw them into an adorably cramped vehicle, throwing ourselves in on top of them. Pictures are taken, wry smiles committed for later reflection, and we search for a nearby restaurant. We end up sitting around a table in a small-town eatery, above which there has been erected a giant chicken. It is warm, and the food is warm, and the eventual conversation is slow to start but warm nonetheless. We drive for forty minutes and arrive at a home, resting mostly alone along a beautiful country road. Inside is a tumble dryer, a nap, and enough hope for the rest of the weekend.

« Last Edit: 21 Aug 2008, 02:49 by jimbunny »
Logged

Jimmy the Squid

  • Vulcan 3-D Chess Master
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3,543
  • Feminist Killjoy
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #18 on: 21 Aug 2008, 03:36 »

I lay on my back and looked up the stars. I had forgotten to bring my glasses and so I couldn't really see much except for a dull yellow circle against a black backdrop spattered with grey. I tried to look like I was counting the stars, or maybe thinking deep, sad thoughts, half hoping that someone would ask me what I was doing, half hoping that nobody noticed me. A rustle of grass and a soft moan alerted me to the fact that there was a couple making out underneath the trampoline I was lying on. I stayed very still and tried not to alert them to my presence. I didn't want to listen to them, I'm not much for voyeurism, I just didn't want to interrupt them; at least someone was having fun that night. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small, metal rectangle. I pushed some buttons sunken into it's flat surface, plugged in my earphones and closed my eyes. I tried to be interested in the music, tried to lose myself in the ebb and flow of the songs but it wasn't working and I was pretty sure it had something to do with the fact that the battery of my mp3 player was dead.
Eventually the happy couple move back into the house, pausing to look at me, wondering if I knew what they were doing. I ignored them, staring blindly into the sky, refusing to acknowledge our awkward moment together, the only time someone will notice me for the entire night. I suppose it's probably better this way though, it's not as if I was invited to this thing.
Logged
Once I got drunk and threw up in the vegetable drawer of an old disused fridge while dressed as a cat

ThePQ4

  • Asleep in the boner patch
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 789
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #19 on: 21 Aug 2008, 09:09 »

First person present tense is triiiiiiicky. Why is it so attractive?

Why is it tricky?? I prefer first person actually. It helps me keep my characters straight (...that just me smile; I am a horrible person). When I write in a 3rd person perspective, I tend to forget who is where doing what when I have a bunch of them together in a situation. Or not really that I forget, but I just write the wrong thing down and when i read over it later, I'm just like "Whoa, that's not right..."

Anyhoo, here's a little snip of what I was working on last night.

"So, are you going to tell me what's up?"
There was that goddamn look again.
I sighed, "Look guys, if it's good news, it's probably going to brighten my otherwise shitty day. So, just out with it, okay?"
"Well, honey," Mom glanced up at dad with a little smile. I looked down at their folded hands. Obviously they were happy about whatever it was. "While we weren't exactly planning on this..." She started to blush pink, "There's not an easy way to say it, but --we're pregnant!"
I felt like the world had stopped. This was probably the last thing I had ever expected. Out of the dozens of things they could have told me...a baby? I was seventeen and now they were adding to the family? My first instinct was shock and then anger.
"What do you mean?" It was a stupid thing to say. "How?"That was even dumber. I knew how it happened.
"Sweetie, are you okay?"
"I'm fine," I shook my head. "Just...wow." I wanted to be supportive, but my inner dialogue was on a rampage --how could they do this to me? But this wasn't about ME. And now I felt selfish."I'll be right back." That dirty feeling just jumped me. They didn't say anything as I made my way through the tables of the restaurant to the bathroom.
Logged

allison

  • Bling blang blong blung
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,182
  • i really want a mustache
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #20 on: 21 Aug 2008, 12:34 »

Thanks for the praise on my last piece. As I said, I really don't write a lot...and it's nice to hear that I'm not awful!

--

Emily turns off the television. There are no lights on and without the blue glow of the screen, she is in the dark. It’s refreshing, because she can't see a thing and for once, she isn’t evaluating herself and everything around her. She is alone in her mind and it’s perfect. She is sick of calculating every move, losing sleep over stupid things, pretending to have it all together when all she wants to do is cry. She’s sick of wanting to cry, because weakness is not acceptable. She's never been allowed to be weak. She remembers the only comforting words offered to her. "Things happen. Life goes on."

So she tries to go on with her life. Routine is the best way to make it seem all right. Predictability is her last defense, and she’s sticking to her guns. Some people drink, some people exercise, some people write stories to get away from their demons. Emily has never liked alcohol, or running, and was never very good at poetic imagery, so she just pretends.

Then, of course, something changes. She meets new people and the routine is different. People are not Emily’s thing, because she speaks before thinking, and then thinks for hours about what she said to someone and what they think of her now. She wonders about what her life was like before she forgot how to be a friend. She obsesses about the look she got on the subway this morning. Things like this pick away at her brain and it makes her anxious.

Suddenly, everything comes to a peak, and like Krakatoa, she explodes because it’s impossible to hold it all in anymore. She cries and screams and throws things. She rages for nearly half an hour, the pressure of a thousand things she's never allowed herself to feel coursing through her and she escapes for a few minutes from that shell that she's kept herself in for years.

When she's done, her chest hurts from sobbing and yelling and she collapses onto the couch, breathing slowly and deeply, and it isn't long until she drifts to sleep. Emily dreams every night, but usually it’s not this vivid and most of the time she doesn’t remember it in the morning. This dream is different. She remembers the feeling of his hands as they hold hers, the smell of his leather jacket as she leans against his shoulder, the perfect sound of his voice as he says that he cares.
Logged
Quote
[00:30] KharBevNor: Crawling undead terrorcocks

Scrambled Egg Machine

  • Bizarre cantaloupe phobia
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 248
  • Of course you realize this means war.
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #21 on: 21 Aug 2008, 12:56 »

The continuation of my earlier piece.

    The train pulls in at the sole remaining platform at the Castle Rock firebase, and all soldiers aboard are made to depart before the trains reverse and lays tracks back to Colorado Springs. I am one of five hundred freshly trained soldiers. The obvious place to go is a cratered bunker surrounded with conspicuously new air raid sirens, radar trailers and two anti-aircraft emplacements. They neglected to scrub the bloodstains off of the concrete, though. I step inside and am handed a large pack of gear after having my tags scanned, and then step back outside to get a quick look at the area. I get cut short by a few barely audible metallic coughs in the distance. Every grungy looking veteran immediately dives into the nearest shell hole. When the mortar rounds begin to impact, I follow suit. Pronto. The rain of sixty millimeter death abates a little and I get a chance to book it into the trenches to find my unit. Hurtling into the small roll-out that will be my quarters for the foreseeable future, I land on a pissed looking salt holding a flamethrower.
    " Damn FNG, get your act together." He and two others stare at me. "Welcome to Lone Tree."
« Last Edit: 21 Aug 2008, 13:10 by Scrambled Egg Machine »
Logged
Not so sure about these things anymore.

jimbunny

  • I'm Randy! I'm eternal!
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 662
  • I'll show you the life of the mind!
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #22 on: 21 Aug 2008, 21:37 »

First person present tense is triiiiiiicky. Why is it so attractive?

Why is it tricky?? I prefer first person actually. It helps me keep my characters straight (...that just me smile; I am a horrible person). When I write in a 3rd person perspective, I tend to forget who is where doing what when I have a bunch of them together in a situation. Or not really that I forget, but I just write the wrong thing down and when i read over it later, I'm just like "Whoa, that's not right..."

Without implying anything negative about your writing, I meant that it is tricky to sound good using first person present tense. In my experience, it's a whole lot harder to vary your sentence structures and get a good flow. If I could hazard a guess (and perhaps answer my own question at the same time), I'd say that writing that way makes people feel as if they have to constantly account for their primary subject, which leads to an overuse of "I do/think/feel this"-type sentences. It can get a little claustrophobic. At the same time, it's probably what the writer feels most comfortable expressing, which might explain its popularity.
« Last Edit: 21 Aug 2008, 22:04 by jimbunny »
Logged

imagist42

  • Bling blang blong blung
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,196
  • more post-coital, less post-rock
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #23 on: 22 Aug 2008, 16:18 »

This is a weird little thing I did for a competition at another forum. I called it "Capturing Truths" but that is a pretty lame title. Also I recognize that I have developed a really nasty habit lately of injecting music the average person (read: not you guys) has never heard of into my writing, but I can't help it.


The digital 2 on the clock morphs into a 3. It is now 6:33 A.M. Voxtrot bursts from the speakers: “I know that you’re in love with her; I can tell by the way you never touch her or look at her.” It incites thought.

Was it wrong to make you love me if you’d never know love on your own?

A soft click wipes her off the screen. It is almost a noticeable progression, as first the sheen of her deep red hair, then the line where her crooked smile meets her dimple, then the mole on her chin fade into a shot of shadow-casting clouds outside an airplane porthole. In reality all is instantaneous, but instants rarely seem “real” in that sense, anyway.

What good is capturing a moment when it’s a posed lie?
If you don’t want the truth, why try remembering at all?


Several more images captured through that narrow window pass by, all with equally fascinating and landless landscapes. One appears as a floating glacial plateau, another as a dark, stormy tsunami overtaking a bright, calm ocean.

We aren’t meant to fly, but when we do, we might as well make the most of it.

Many more are nothing but blurs of light and shadow. In sight they would send a man into a stupor, but in memory they are flat and lifeless. Something of the immediate impression is lost in the eternal incarceration. It is difficult to place.

I always preferred Monet’s take to photorealism anyway.
If I wanted to see how things looked I’d go
look at them.
It’s the impression that lasts long enough to care about.


The skyline of San Francisco from the bay now looms in the distance, with Pier 39 engulfing the foreground like an overgrown gull. The scene appropriately reflects in a half-empty glass of water, the only visible body on the large vacant desk other than the luminous screen itself, as a vague and hazy notion of the city rather than the city itself. Within the reflection is something faint, an almost-echo of the sea lions undoubtedly barking off stage left, but no—it is nothing more than Meric Long's haunting cries as The Dodos’ “The Season” breaks down into its conclusion.

For the sea lions there's a time and place; why can’t we be the same?

The pop of uncapping the bottle, the gulp of swallowing aspirin with a sip of water, the clink of setting the glass back down. The errant twang of a guitar as The Dodos bang out the beginning of “Walking.” A quick succession leading to, “You can fight the fire that’s in your head...”

But it would take hydrant or two...

Suddenly the brilliance of the screen dims as the next shot portrays the city under cover of night—and of fog. The viewpoint is reversed, looking out on the bay from an intersection of roads somewhere nearby, but with the misty, gray veil lying thick, hardly the light from the streetlamps is distinct, much less the flash of fireworks in the distance. Only she is clear; her back turned as she studies the sky in wonder, bundled up heavily in the leather jacket that isn’t hers, her skirt swaying slightly to her right as the breeze complicates the calculations for the show over the water. And something else—a slight gleam to the left, as of light reflecting off metal, a metal that shouldn’t be there in the cordoned-off street.

A car?
Wait...

The car?

The bumper and a portion of the front hood are a blur of motion, but still clearly visible, inching their way into the picture. But with all eyes focused elsewhere, and not even gunfire audible under the din of bursting rockets echoing in all directions, there was no notice that a jet-black sports car had broken the police blockade, and even less chance that its frantic and distracted driver would spot the girl directly in front of him.

Maybe there are some truths worth forgetting, some lies worth remembering.

The digital 5 on the clock morphs into a 6. It is now 6:36 A.M. A dialogue box appears. It warns that to continue with the action of cropping could result in a loss of information. As a dotted line intended for selection outlines a slender portion of the left-hand side of the screen, the dialogue box questions whether this is really the intention. The cursor hovers over the button marked “Yes.”
Logged
Hopefully it goes without saying but you should always ask before sticking things in people's butts

Jimmy the Squid

  • Vulcan 3-D Chess Master
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3,543
  • Feminist Killjoy
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #24 on: 23 Aug 2008, 04:11 »

The days crawl past just like they always have but for him every day is a new miracle. He sits in the park every morning, breathes deeply the clean morning air, cold and crisp. He listens to the birds waken before the sun pushes itself past the horizon, their song a sweet greeting to each new day. He walks along the flagstone paths, humming a half remembered tune, wishing he knew how to whistle. He smiles at the early morning joggers but their eyes slide past him, if they look at him at all. Unpertubed he trundles along, enjoying the feeling of the cold in his bones being washed away by the warmth of the sun. He stops to talk to his friend as he has every day since he can remember. He tells his friend of the things he sees and what he thinks about them and his friend listens, patiently, quietly. His friend is very tall and he cannot reach the man's shoulder so he places a hand on his friends knee. Hard. Cold. Unyielding. He pats it by way of saying goodbye and walks away, smiling to himself. Sometimes he wishes his friend would talk back to him. Maybe tell him of what the world looks like from up on his pedestal or whether he minds when birds perch on his shoulders or whether he gets cold, standing in the middle of the park day in, day out. But today he is happy for a kind ear.
In the evening he walks through the streets, feeling like a part of the crowd. Passers-by sometimes stare at him but he doesn't notice. He is too entranced by the flashing neon signs, as if he has never seen them before. If you asked him he would tell you he hadn't. If you asked him.
Once night has properly fallen, once the sky is an inky black peppered with pinpricks of silver light, he goes home. He sits in his favourite spot and thinks. Tiredly he looks down at his hands, his fingernails are dirty, his skin is rough. One day, he thinks, he will clean them. His eyes are heavy and his body aches for he is very old. He breathes deeply as he closes his eyes, drifting into sleep.

In the morning he sits on his bench in the park. The birds sing but today he doesn't listen. The early morning joggers go past, barely turning their heads at the old man but today he doesn't smile. His friend stands alone, unblinking in the morning glare. Eventually someone will notice him. They will bring others to come see him. They will wonder what his name is and if he had a family. They will lie him down, clean him and say a prayer. The days will crawl on as they ever have. The sun will rise and the birds will sing. Life will continue exactly as if nothing was different.

Well, almost exactly.
Logged
Once I got drunk and threw up in the vegetable drawer of an old disused fridge while dressed as a cat

jodizzle

  • Scrabble hacker
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,253
  • Stairs will tear us apart
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #25 on: 23 Aug 2008, 22:34 »

Jimmy that was sad :(  I liked it alot!  You are good at this!
Logged
Quote from: Hannah in Meebly
you it be the mics taht are broked?
Quote from: ViolentDove
But then again, I used to dress like the bastard child of a drug-addled punk and a shrubbery.

Oli

  • Cthulhu f'tagn
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 549
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #26 on: 26 Aug 2008, 15:38 »

I just wrote this, but I'm not 100% happy with it. I will post it anyway I suppose. One bit I am not really happy with is the switch between the first and second paragraph. There's supposed to be a noticeable difference in the writing but I think it is maybe too obvious, or maybe the first paragraph is too short for the difference to be effective. I don't really know.

Title.


When I was eight years old I wanted to be a detective. I set up my own dectective business in my bedroom, with a desk, some pens and a copy of both The Young Detective's Handbook and Secret Codes - the latter came with an incredibly handy invisible ink pen. No dectective's office is complete without a brown detective's jacket hanging from the door so I bought one, easily twice my size, from a jumble sale to hang from the door while I sat and waited for the inevitable crime wave that was set to sweep the countryside.

   And now I write bad poetry and worse stories and I read too much into everything and I don't want to do anything aside from work for myself and live off what I love. Of course you knew that already. I don't think you knew me when I was eight, so maybe you don't know that I wanted to be a dectective. Maybe all you know is that I want to write bad poetry. I probably won't mention it though. Not tonight.

   We're almost ready to leave and I can't help but think; but I don't have time to think because we're out the door and on the stairs and we're out the door and the street is cold. I put on my jacket. The air is sharp. There's a broken corona bottle at the corner of my block. I stop.

"Why is that there?" I ask and you turn, quickly, and say.

"What?"

and I say "it doesn't matter" but it does. There's no lime.

   So we get to the club, which is only a ten minute walk from the corner of my block, and there's no queue. £5, because it's after midnight, and we're in. Another £1 to put my jacket in the cloakroom. The ticket goes in my wallet, I think. I go to the bar and I order a vodka and coke and a jack daniel's and coke. At least, I ask for a jack daniel's and coke and she asks if Louisiana Pride or Mississippi Pride or something Pride is okay and I nod, she pours and I take the drinks. £1 each. I'm walking back to you carrying the vodka and coke and the jack daniel's, but not really jack daniel's, and coke when I see a guy drinking a corona with no lime. He's about my height. a little skinnier and with shorter and darker hair. He's wearing a white polo shirt with a brown stripe, the collar popped up, along with some dark pre-faded jeans and some chunky white adidas shoes. So I sit down next to you, give you your drink and sip mine while watching this guy. The club is fairly dead, but everyone's paid £5 to get in so no-one is quite ready to leave.

Four drinks later I say "When I was eight..." and you say

"Hang on I'm going to the toilet." and I say
   
"Okay" and keep watching that guy.

   You come back from the toilet, via the bar, about 5 minutes later. I've not moved. You hand me a drink and I ask what it is and you tell me it's jack and coke but I know it's not jack and coke. Unless she lied to me, which after all is possible so it might well be jack and coke. You've got a bottle of Corona. There's no lime. You normally have lime in your Corona , don't you? I'm fairly sure you do.

"Don't you normally have lime in your Corona?"

"Uh-huh, but there's no lime."

"Oh." and then "So when I was eight..."

   By the end of the night I've lost my cloakroom ticket so I have to describe my jacket to get it back. I can see it on the rails behind the counter so I point towards it and say:

"It's that long, brown, beat up overcoat."
Logged

KvP

  • WoW gold miner on break
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6,599
  • COME DOWN NOW
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #27 on: 26 Aug 2008, 17:39 »

Paging ZJGent to this thread

ZJGent, to this thread.
Logged
I review, sometimes.
Quote from: Andy
I love this vagina store!
Quote from: Andy
SNEAKY
I sneak that shit
And liek
OMG DICK JERK

Patatat

  • Guest
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #28 on: 26 Aug 2008, 18:23 »

My hands shook aflutter as I sat there, staring at the food I had previously eaten. The dry sands soaking up the warm liquid as if the land was thirsty. A strangle smell floated through the air, and the stench crawled its way through my nostrils. The vile smell making me recoil back, as I tried to shake it out of me. Snapping forward as I gazed onto the blazing fire, and slowly I crawled back into reality. My hands fell into the sand as I tried to stand, and couldn't just yet. Taking a deep breath, forcing myself to stand. Looking on, at the vehicle I had just been in illuminated the dark night. I stumbled forward towards it. I don't know what guided me forward, or what brought my hands into the flame trying to pull them out. They were ,but silhouettes in the red, and orange. With all my strength I tried to tug them out, not that I hoped I could save them, but I felt like I had to. I kept pulling, and pulling. Till I was pulled, straight back down to the ground, and away. What was dragging me away, why were they dragging me away? I need to be there, I needed to get them out. My body was flung forward, falling hard into a ditch.

"They're dead Corporal!" A large shadow screamed at me. Who was he? Was he death, why was he telling me they were dead. Was I dead too, and just didn't know it. Was this hell?

As more shadows surrounded me, and water splashed my face. I realized this wasn't hell, this was Iraq. I looked down at my hands they were burnt, and some of the sleeves of my uniform were singed and blackened. Slowly the events that had just occurred were piecing themselves together. People were talking to me, but I was lost. It took me a second to realize that the medic was bandaging my hands.

"Hey! Stay with me, man. You gotta snap back into reality." the medic said as he slapped the top of my helmet. Bright lights started flying over the top of us, they were beautiful. Then I remembered what they were.

"Whe...where is my rifle?" I managed to spit out the sentence, as one of my brethren handed me the cold black weapon. I clinched my teeth in pain, as I gripped it, then put the pain in the back of my head. I had to, I had to forget about the pain. I had to keep moving. With help, I stood up and nodded: "I am... I am okay now."

It was a lie.

Three months later, I stepped off the airplane. Family waiting for me elated with joy for me to be back. They hugged me, and kissed me and sung my praises. It was all bullshit, aside from my Mom none of them wrote me. None of them cared how I was for the past year. They probably never even thought of me. My friends were the same, when I met them at the bar later that night. They all talked about how they missed me, and it wasn't the same without me. It was a lie, all of it was a lie. They all told me how sorry they were about Annie, and how it was wrong that she left me. I didn't even know about it till then. To think I had kept her picture with me always to keep me safe, and keep me happy. While she was naked in some other guys bed. That fuckin' whore.

After I left the bar, and a friend dropped me off. I sat in my room, a place I hadn't been in what seemed an eternity. This place hadn't skipped a beat with me gone, in another world. I wonder if it was the same for the guys I left behind in the humvee. Jimmy's family, and friends they cared. They always wrote to him, they always talked to him, his wife must of sent him a million letters. We would always give him a hard time for it. I left him behind in the humvee, just like Carterson, Matthews, and Eric. I am sure their families, and friends missed them. Why was I the one that sat in the rear passenger seat, the one that was flung out of the humvee when the IED went off. I was spared, and they all died in the fire.

There was a loud popping sound, and my Mother rushed in. She was crying, I knew she would be, and I felt bad for her, but I knew no one else would care....


-------------------------

Hm, I just kind of started writing that right on the spot. I kind of started with a basic idea, and it just kind of mutated into something completely different. I kind of like it. I actually wrote a totally different story, and then erased everything up to the "I am okay now" part, and just kind of did something else from there.
Logged

Leinad

  • Pneumatic ratchet pants
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 363
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #29 on: 26 Aug 2008, 18:35 »

Hmm, that is actually a nice bit of work right there. I like the general flow and the tempo, while different, is nice. It is something of a used up story line, featured in a lot of writing, but I guess it is pretty damn relevant these days, so it can be excused.

The whole idea of "soldier returns home to family who don't understand" but with a twist, a twist of "no one really cares" is different, in that I haven't read too much of that, and I like this piece. Sure it is depressing, but I have had friends go away, and I can relate to the "this place hasn't skipped a beat with me gone". I noticed that too, people always say they miss people, but humans have a way of separating those feelings from everyday life and moving on, prioritizing and just keep rolling. Sad, and I think you captured that very nicely.

Also the mom caring, crying, writing to her son, but the son still taking his life, that is another interesting element. It suggests that in Iraq he brewed a sense of detachment, not a sense of "no one cares for me." I think a lot of people think "they'll regret it when I am gone" but he knows for a fact at least one person will, yet he takes his life anyways. Maybe this was influenced by his girlfriend leaving him? He feels that women don't really love him, simply use him as a depository for their affection, possibly explaining why he disregarded that his mother wouldn't want him gone, would miss him? He says he felt bad about that, but not bad enough to stay alive, apparently.

All in all it seems like you captured a lot of different emotions in a compact piece of work, good job!
Logged

ZJGent

  • Beyond Thunderdome
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 561
    • Night Talk at Harvey's
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #30 on: 26 Aug 2008, 19:37 »

Lionel sat, giving off the upmarket parfum of an Eisner-designed yuppie, on an italian leather sofa shinier than his brilliantined hair. The party carouselled around him - Daily Mail writers doing all the naughty things you read about in, say, The Daily Mail. Evidently, the party's aficionado (a crumpled and decrepit rock orang) had bought in the gross national product of a small South American country... lines of dubious snuff were being cut and tucked and huffed and fucking fucked people were laughing everywhere. Lionel looked at his fake Rolex for a further six seconds than necessary. The hyena cackles cascaded at points too close to the back of his head. He could feel a scotch migraine eating at the pit of his cerebellum. Another six seconds spent staring at the diamante dial of his watch face.

Then, beautifully, she entered. A strip of black cotton teased into the shape of a dress around her - lines curving in perfect prospect - ribbons of chestnut curling about an elfin face. Evilly delicious. Lionel smiled something vulpine. She weaved her body (christ what a body, Lionel thought, utilising that part of the brain somewhere behind the belt buckle) through the debauched and adulterous crowd like a seamstress cutting a regal robe. The party slid about her - a seasick fiasco to which the only sea legs were hers... the legs, Lionel thought... those legs.

Being a patient man, Lionel waited until the hyenas waned and tired, now dripping off the mirrors that fed their cavernous conks in ailing fatigue. He stalked a path through living chaise-longue corpses and they met by the door to the hall.

"I felt I should say something, at least..."

"Shh," she whispered, lazy as a cigarette, "I
Logged
[02:29] Danosaur: I'd Spektor your Regina.

jodizzle

  • Scrabble hacker
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,253
  • Stairs will tear us apart
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #31 on: 27 Aug 2008, 02:05 »

Man Roddy, you fill me with joy.
Logged
Quote from: Hannah in Meebly
you it be the mics taht are broked?
Quote from: ViolentDove
But then again, I used to dress like the bastard child of a drug-addled punk and a shrubbery.

Tom

  • Older than Moses
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4,037
  • 8==D(_(_(
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #32 on: 27 Aug 2008, 02:10 »

 :-D
Logged

jodizzle

  • Scrabble hacker
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,253
  • Stairs will tear us apart
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #33 on: 27 Aug 2008, 03:41 »

Lullabys and Lollipops

You were a skeletal wisp with scarred wrists and a lollipop heart.  Fragile candy sucked down by strangers beat on your ribs, leaving only hollow echoes.  You looked at me with lullaby eyes, a nursery rhyme reflection disengaged.  “I’m God’s most fuckable angel”, you’d told me, spread out on the floor staring at the empty ceiling. “I’m counting His heavenly hosts” you said.

When I found you, you were floating facedown in your own bathtub, the dried blood and white powder from your nose dissolving in the soapy water.  I sat on the windowsill curling my toes and wondered if they named stars after you in heaven.



Man, why did I decide to be the one to follow Roddy. To follow Roddy with somethign way below par.  Whatever guys, I'm out of ideas and now I feel lame.  I write too abstract for the real world.
Logged
Quote from: Hannah in Meebly
you it be the mics taht are broked?
Quote from: ViolentDove
But then again, I used to dress like the bastard child of a drug-addled punk and a shrubbery.

schimmy

  • The Tickler
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 924
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #34 on: 27 Aug 2008, 03:48 »

(I have neither the intelligence nor attention span to write prose. However, here is one of the few poems I have written that I am proud of.)

Hands

My hands are full of hands with drinks
and they're dry for once.
My mouth is full of tongues that speak
and all they do is babble, babble,
about my way down.

I'm semi-formed and semi-slurred,
Oh, what am I to do?
Hold my hand and I
won't drop you if you're quiet.
Please don't say a word while waiting
For him? For Why? For What?
We can be in love tonight.

When all ourselves are out to chat,
and looking at the past
can we find somewhere there to live
without someone there to hate?

Some of them remember me.
All forget to ring.
Never get to hear me trying
maybe to sleeping, maybe talking.

Though we know what we won't like
we can't tell what'll come
singing songs and finding rhymes
I've not heard before
but when I close my eyes remind me
I'm never going to know.
Logged

fatty

  • FIGHT YOU
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 446
    • the Notorious F.A.T.T.Y.
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #35 on: 29 Aug 2008, 16:14 »

I picked a song to accompany this post. I think this is better than reading in silence. Maybe I should do this for all my posts. You might get to sample some of my music tastes.
Fat Freddy's Drop - Ray Ray

I noticed that a number of my favourite albums have a song towards the end that have a few minutes in the middle of a song where the music peters out and it’s just silent. It is an experience which echoes other period of reflection and introspection.


You’ve been listening to this album, letting the music sink into your subconscious. It plays in the background of your thoughts or attention directed elsewhere. Then you realise that the actual music has stopped, and for longer than usual period. The echoes of the music you can still hear, but then they get softer and suddenly you realised how loud the silence is. Of course it’s not actually silence; it is punctured by background noises which you didn’t hear before. Time slows. Soon it is creeping forward like glass sliding down its own surface, pulled by gravity.

By this point, the memory of the music is almost gone, it’s bouncing around but you can’t quite piece it together. Then it returns. Within moments, you are swept back up into the music like no time had passed.


I find travelling home on the train a similar experience. I guess this a very personal response to travel and it is also reflected in other situations.


After a busy day of moving yourself, going places and doing things, you’re now resigned to being moved down an arbitrary route at an arbitrary pace. There is nothing new to look at, nothing surprising or unfamiliar. The comfort of home is in the distance, but you can’t hurry towards it, you can merely sit and wait till you get there.

Maybe the chaos of the day is still bouncing around your head. Even here you can not get a break from the noise and movement, turning thoughts over an over idly until you fall asleep. Other days, you might use music to drown out everything else, something with a strong bass and fast moving, to shut out the rest of the world.

When all the chaotic thoughts die down, collapse from exhaustion much like your body feels like doing, and when the music slows or bores you, you start to hear the loud silence.

You realise that the background noises are deafening. The whir of the air conditioning, the bumpy click-clack of the train over the tracks and the rattle of carriages are cacophonous. Your ears aren’t the only sense being bombarded. The smell of food, McDonalds, coffee, old newspapers, pee, and sweat lingers. The vinyl seat is slightly sticky; the plastic and chrome surfaces are suspiciously smooth. A draft moves around your legs. At each stop inertia pulls you back and forward, the cold dry voice comes over the loudspeaker, and the automatic doors beep as they close.

Don’t concentrate on the landscape; it’s drab and dark, the backs of houses and shops behind chain-link fences. Don’t count the stops, it just makes you realise how many of them there are. Don’t count the minutes, each one slides past slower if you do.

This is when your thoughts turn to the ups and downs of the busy day; you take stock and put things back in perspective. If you were driving or moving yourself, you would have current events and occasions to be concentrating on. When these are gone, you have to listen to the silence for a brief moment.

Suddenly, it’s your stop, you stand up; move quickly into the cold air and off home. Dinner is on your mind and your heavy feet hurry to bring you there. And you’re swept back into the speed of life, barely remembering the trip.
Logged
est: she is basically an ass to everyone

Cartilage Head

  • Only pretending to work
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2,182
  • Do Me Baby
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #36 on: 29 Aug 2008, 22:38 »

 I'm pretty out of it right now, and I am going to try to sum up my most recent wacky-dream.

Basics

Too tired to stand, too tired to sit, too tired to lay. Golden boy throwing pennies in your direction, cackling through reddened lips and crooked teeth. Sitting still, can't concentrate. TV blares cartoons, news station, history channel, mouse advertisement? No roof on the hallway, stretching to the playground. We get soaked on our way to the car. Car is vomit colored, purple and green, then yellow and blue and violet. We get asked to make the centerpiece, we choose a piece of bread. She begs us to please please please pay attention and I just smile and think and sleep and wake and wander down the hall to the office, to the mail room. Fake plants and chairs. She screams that she wants us gone and so we go. We came home. We get soaked on our way to anywhere.
Logged
Hate, rain on me

Mobius_Logic

  • Emoticontraindication
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 60
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #37 on: 31 Aug 2008, 14:42 »

poetry! yes!

    

I want to go to the arboretum

our best features are things we've stolen
from books we liked, send away this heartless generation,
it's photographers are depressing me, i want to get my fingers
dirty and colorful and paint your face so thick
that you can only smile when you really mean it

last night i dreamed we had to send a cat to hell
we buried it by the school and you couldn't stop crying and
i think this says a lot about why we keep some photographs
for so long till they've faded to white again and it's like
a picture of heaven or the ceiling of a hospital

i will only love you until you tell me all of your secrets
and then you will burst at the seams and a thousand tiny birds
will come forth from inside and carry
what is left of your soul to beautiful places
where everyone is afraid to talk too loudly
and i will spend the rest of my life looking for them

i think our lives are mostly lost if we never go
insane i drive past cemeteries and imagine
a thousand decomposing grandmothers and lovers
crying quietly and i lay down on the back seat
and give up on enlightenment and ever having clean skin
and trying to find the heart beat of a thousand tiny birds

newborns make the best poets but accountants understand
god the best, I am a horrible card player because I'm much
too scared to loose anything and I look at the kings and queens
and I wondered how many fractured souls are hiding in the corners
of castles and i go to the beach and count
all of the fatherless princes swallowing gun powder
let us die pointless heroes

we have become creased like the favorite pages of our favorite
books and there are days where none of my pens work
and the paint is heavy on all of our faces and the man in the back
of the bus was giving away cigarettes last night and he used to be
six years old and so did I but sometimes it's hard to remember and sometimes
I just go over the numbers in my head like an alcoholic accountant

and sometimes when i sleep i dream i'm in a space as big as
the house my parents got married in and there are trees everywhere
and you can't hear the cars on the freeway for all the singing of all the tiny birds
Logged

Patatat

  • Guest
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #38 on: 31 Aug 2008, 14:51 »

Hmm, that is actually a nice bit of work right there. I like the general flow and the tempo, while different, is nice. It is something of a used up story line, featured in a lot of writing, but I guess it is pretty damn relevant these days, so it can be excused.

The whole idea of "soldier returns home to family who don't understand" but with a twist, a twist of "no one really cares" is different, in that I haven't read too much of that, and I like this piece. Sure it is depressing, but I have had friends go away, and I can relate to the "this place hasn't skipped a beat with me gone". I noticed that too, people always say they miss people, but humans have a way of separating those feelings from everyday life and moving on, prioritizing and just keep rolling. Sad, and I think you captured that very nicely.

Also the mom caring, crying, writing to her son, but the son still taking his life, that is another interesting element. It suggests that in Iraq he brewed a sense of detachment, not a sense of "no one cares for me." I think a lot of people think "they'll regret it when I am gone" but he knows for a fact at least one person will, yet he takes his life anyways. Maybe this was influenced by his girlfriend leaving him? He feels that women don't really love him, simply use him as a depository for their affection, possibly explaining why he disregarded that his mother wouldn't want him gone, would miss him? He says he felt bad about that, but not bad enough to stay alive, apparently.

All in all it seems like you captured a lot of different emotions in a compact piece of work, good job!

Thank you! I just started kind of writing, I am happy with how it turned out. I think it could of been a lot better if I actually sat there, and planned it out more.
Logged

WriterofAllWrongs

  • Vagina Manifesto
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 685
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #39 on: 31 Aug 2008, 18:52 »

Proximity Dilemma

A coppertop tired of powering the system
It melts to release these signals
what are run through in the auxiliary channel
overandoverandoverandover
for lack of a computational comprehension
in hopes of boiling down the components
to more compatible lines of digits and faux-phonics
The mechanical dismay in beeps and chirps
For lack of a more articulate form of noise
sounds a subtle alarm to primary
in morse code: ALERT POWER DOWN IMMINENT STOP
That tap dance hits hard on the main monitor
whose facility for interaction drops sharply to keep up the quota
Steam is emanating from the core
The circuitous mess of copper wires and input/output
Shorting in minor faculties and losing the cognizance
and the sensory and the basic orientation
Directional analysis shows basic solitary stations
All umpteen thousand yards away





Logged

The extra letter

  • The German Chancellory building
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 487
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #40 on: 02 Sep 2008, 02:24 »

I find myself floating down a busy footpath, slalom between souls too aware of themselves to be self-aware. I pass men with lightbulbs and cash-registers behind their eyes and women in three quarter length jeans who used to Have Career but became born-again housewives. All the stores I ignore dangle desire in their windows trying to lure you in so they can sell you sex and other people's second hand ideas but you wouldn't be able to find a Clue in any of them. I dodge a beard with a nametag trying to sell a tax-deductible way to help the children in need today or the cancer cure of tomorrow but really to salve a guilty conscience. I stop at the banks of an asphalt Acheron where cars that cost the earth race buses with imported culture pinned to their sides like butterfly wing brooches race taxis driven by the unhygienic and carrying the impolite, never mind the sods that try to wade through at the crossing. I'm finally swallowed by a bus and stammer a destination at the robot behind the wheel. I cross his palm with a fistful of silver coins and a fortune of familiar streets later I'm belched out onto gum studded concrete. I buy a thirst quenching style choice in a greasy spoon from a girl wearing a reliquary locket that could contain the Holy Prepuce or a pinger for Saturday night or are they the same thing?
Logged
Hush, may I ask you all for silence? The dreamer is still asleep.

Eris

  • Duck attack survivor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,919
  • bzzzz
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #41 on: 02 Sep 2008, 19:05 »

Well Diary, today has been… interesting, to say the least.

I felt like death warmed up this morning. I pried my eyelids open only to slam them back closed when assaulted by the ridiculously cheerful sunlight streaming in through my window. I really need to get those blinds fixed. I must have had a bigger night than I realised, if the pounding in my head and fuzzy taste in my mouth was anything to go by, plus I couldn’t remember what actually happened last night. I remembered meeting up to celebrate Richard’s birthday, but other than that there was a big black gap in my memories.
   
Now that generally isn’t a good sign, but I figured I might as well get the embarrassment over with as quickly as possible. I managed to drag myself out of bed and stumble into the kitchen, growling complaints to Amanda who replied with equally suffering mutters, and ate whatever was available in the fridge before making my way to work

I paid no attention to the strange looks people were giving me as I walked down the street. I am sure I looked pretty rough, with my hair all over the place and remnants of my makeup smudged on my face. Plus I hadn’t had a coffee yet, so I didn’t really have the mental capacity to do anything other than shuffle forward and croak out small words. I was more put off by a guy across the street eyeing me suspiciously while resting his weight against a cricket bat.
   
I finally got to the café and ordered my coffee, zoning out while I waited. John commented that I must have had a wild night, and that was when I realised that my clothes were covered in dirt and ripped in places. Playing with a hole in my jeans I tried again to remember what had happened, but still no luck there. I thanked him for the coffee and lurched out of the shop to go get myself some lunch. I had a craving for steak.
   
It was only when I found myself gnawing on a strange man’s skull that I realised that something may not be quite right. Now people’s odd reactions made more sense; it’s not every day you see the undead walking around in broad daylight. I must admit, though, that guy’s brain was delicious.

-----
This was an assessment for my Creative Writing class; I had to read it out to the class. Everyone else had written such serious pieces, so I figured I might as well have some fun.
Logged
Quote from: Drunk Pete
MACHINS CON ESFU EPETE

jodizzle

  • Scrabble hacker
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,253
  • Stairs will tear us apart
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #42 on: 02 Sep 2008, 21:52 »

Heee Hannah, I enjoyed that.
Logged
Quote from: Hannah in Meebly
you it be the mics taht are broked?
Quote from: ViolentDove
But then again, I used to dress like the bastard child of a drug-addled punk and a shrubbery.

Ballard

  • Older than Moses
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4,211
  • This is my happening and it freaks me out!
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #43 on: 02 Sep 2008, 22:14 »

This is a segment of the prologue to a novel I am attempting to write.

I really, really like this. Please write more.
Logged
I'm like the boy who cried "you guys are faggots"

Scrambled Egg Machine

  • Bizarre cantaloupe phobia
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 248
  • Of course you realize this means war.
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #44 on: 03 Sep 2008, 13:49 »

Wow, thanks. I have more but it smell really bad at the desk right now and can't sit here much longer. Tomorrow I will deliver some more. Thanks though.
Logged
Not so sure about these things anymore.

schimmy

  • The Tickler
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 924
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #45 on: 13 Sep 2008, 15:14 »

Bumping because, hey, writing is pretty cool.
Mobius! I really like your poem. There are parts of it where I'm not crazy about the way you word it, but overall I think it works very well.
I'm trying a new way of writing poems where I write several simultaneously, and go back to them once or twice a day, and do a new draft. I think it's working out pretty well so far! Here is one that I shall call Tenderness:

-

There's a moment of abrupt tenderness when we realise a few too many things
amongst these things we know I no longer love you.
It's you and me and I don't care.
And whatever it was, it's not any more.

I'm indecisive and fake buy when I try honesty
it means arguments beyond my resources and care
I have told myself that I've tried more than enough
I have been told that same fact,
but despite all these efforts once a month we'll give up.

I can't stand being in love with you, even though that's what they say I do.
I tried to explain. I said it. I said it. I said it.       I said it. I said that.
I said that we're through though it's not what I want.
It's a forgone conclusion; we're talking again.

We give more blame and take more blame than either of us is worth.
We give more blame and take more blame than either of us deserve.
You insist I'm wrong. I insist you're not the only reason I'm discontent,
but I hate you anyway.
And you use your fragility as another reason not to work or help me out, just like your insecurity.

Without a doubt we'll forget all our problems we've had.
And if we remember, we'll forget again.
But I'm sick of cursing your name every time.
So I want to try something new. Go somewhere new. Be someone new.
I can't decide for the life of me if it's going to be with you.
Logged

maxusy3k

  • FIGHT YOU
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 436
  • Lurker of Lovecraftian proportion
    • Obligatory Social Networking Page
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #46 on: 13 Sep 2008, 23:57 »

There's a lot of really nice stuff in here I enjoyed reading, I sort of want to contribute something too but now I am all like "hurrr but my stuff is trash". With that in mind, this is something that was going to be a blog post on MySpaz but I ended up kind of going off on a tangent and it became not really about real life anymore. This is also why it's first person when I pretty much only ever write in third person. I might come back later and post the sort of opening to my current writing project.

--------------------

Everything is about pros and cons. For, against, plus, minus. For me the lack of any kind of 'morning after feeling', at least, no hangovers, sickness or anything to generally ruin the 24 hours after an alcohol fuelled night out has always been the big plus thing. It's like 'why not?'. Most I can worry about is aching from dancing too hard, which is as dependent on the music as it is the amount of alcohol I consumed.

Sometimes though I should think things through more. There's reasons I don't get utterly wasted on a regular basis. Sinking a few shots here and there to supplement my normal progression isn't exactly a world-ending scenario and, the way things have been recently, I'm in no doubt that the warm blanket of alcoholism is one I could wrap myself in to make things so much easier... but still, there comes a point where I should realise enough is enough, it's time to pay for water instead.

I don't remember lastnight. Maybe it's a good thing, maybe not. I remember starting the 'night' at about 2pm. I remember that my drinking buddy only had 3 shots of Jager, yet the bottle is nearly half empty. I also know I was the only other person drinking from it. I think there were cocktails? There was a bar I've never been to, and there were people I didn't know. I think it was mostly fun, but honestly... I can remember snippets, blurred images in the corners of my mind like old graffiti in a bathroom stall... there but infuriatingly impossible to translate. This amnesia worries me, because it calls into question how much I drank, why I did it, and why I didn't think stopping would be a good idea.

It's not like I've ever had a problem before, though. I'm a 'happy' drunk, even if recently I have just been doing it to mask or forget my own problems. It's easier than dealing with it though, it's easier and it's sure as hell a lot better for me to be drunk and blissfully ignorant of my own life, while having fun with my friends, than being conscious of a hundred weight of bullshit bearing down on me like a planet destroying comet, having to constantly mutter excuses and lies to the oft repeated 'are you ok?' sentiments of those around me.

Which leads me to start wondering, do I have a problem? Is drinking to escape the start of a spiral or the end of it? Is it too late or am I being melodramatic? I can't be an alcoholic, not yet, surely. Besides, I don't even end up putting myself in ridiculous places or having unexplained and embarassing black patches afterwards, it's not like I'm ruining my life. I'm young, right? I'm allowed to have some alcoholic fun once a week. Three times a week. The odd drink on a day that ends with a 'y'.

But here, curled beneath the bed of a girl I've never met before, while her father screams about desecration, impurity and being late for church, wearing a pair of painfully tight panties that sure as hell weren't made with me in mind, the taste of lipstick thick enough to know I'm actually wearing it... I can't help but think maybe, just maybe, I could do with laying off the drink for a while.
Logged

ZJGent

  • Beyond Thunderdome
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 561
    • Night Talk at Harvey's
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #47 on: 14 Sep 2008, 22:00 »

The tunnel was jet - an electric stain from the building behind me cutting planes from the bare stone corners... and not much else.

Don't assume stupidity, I do understand the multitude of dangers bequeathed upon a lone traveller by dark under-bridge pathways. It hadn't been my intent to cross the railway in quite as poorly lit and nerve-piquing a fashion. A cavernous and sodium-bright route lay a mile or so to my east that night, but my primary concerns tended more towards haste and in a spectacularly dismal decision I opted for the sinister erosion of tunnel that sat darkly before me. It is due to the events that this choice engendered that I am a wiser man today. Wiser... but ten shades more weak of mind and body. Better that I not shed the final chapter early though - as a warning, I urge you, listen closely:

At a mid-point in this labyrinthine blind spot of an underpass, I understood a second tributary to cut away to my left. Noticing a spider's finger more light there than in the direction I currently faced I - foolish as I was - inclined towards this urban will-o-the-wisp like a moth to its own neon cremation. Luckily (though luck is hardly the word) I was not heading to any kind of mortal incandescence. What I found, as this new-found light grew stronger, was a widening architecture. Soon I found myself standing in a reddened cave, before a bebarrelled fire, in the company of a quite singular man. It was quite evident that he was a vagrant of some kind, yet his clothes were, in style, at odds with this assumption. He wore a jewelled waistcoat of an archaic style and his faded and ripped trouser ends held gaudy tidbits of gilding reminiscent more of the aristocratic fashions of our recently passed century than of any street vendor or pavement artist. Nonetheless, this man smelt as rancid as a Parisian sewer - much fouled were his sleeves and shirt cuffs... and the odour of cabbaged fish permeated the cracked brickwork like a viral plague. He beckoned me forth, and I, being at the time an overly curious fellow, approached cautiously.

"I'll sell you my house for a button. A bean! I'll sell it to you."

I was bemused. His accent was remarkably polished. No shred of dialectic twang hung about it. It was, if possible, the voice of a learned man. But how was he in such a state of disrepute? My curiosity grew as the Olympian monolith, so I replied in this way:

"Why so cheap? With so grand a house? Surely not!"

I looked about me in mock marvelment, chortling internally at my immodest waggish wit. The bizarre maverick estate agent before me leaned under a cracked porcelain urn (I recoiled despite myself) and withdrew three pieces of yellowing paper, with printed type scattered cleanly over them (the only cleanliness present, I hasten to add). The writing was some small prose to the effect of natures of contract and such, with demands for the keeping of the house I assumed. I instantly, in my own individual humour, determined to sign and retain this little facet of my evening, if only for its curio value amongst my friends at Crossford's. Leaning again upon my lickerish wit, I asked for the "house's" beneficial features. The diminuitive dealer in habitations before me smiled a terrifically nausea-afflicted grin toward the area of my necktie, and declaimed three words which shrivel my spinal faculties to this day...

"No Questions Asked."

------
(to be continued in Part 2!)
(bonus points to anyone who can guess the inspiration)
Logged
[02:29] Danosaur: I'd Spektor your Regina.

Eris

  • Duck attack survivor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,919
  • bzzzz
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #48 on: 18 Sep 2008, 00:32 »

He was there when I woke; looking down at me huddled in the corner, his hands in his pockets. A small sigh escaped his lips as I tried to push myself further into the corner; trying to make myself as small as possible.

He crouched down so he was closer to my level and with his hand under my chin he forced me to look at him properly. “Are you hungry?” He asked simply, not letting go as I winced at his voice making the pounding behind my eyes worse. He stood, not waiting for a reply, and walked to the door, waiting as I clumsily followed him.

We walked down an old shabby hallway. There was something wrong with my eyes; the colours were too bright and the details too clear. I stumbled along with my eyes half closed, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. He waited patiently whenever I got distracted by the print of the ragged wallpaper, or the pattern that somehow appeared in the cracked paint on the walls. It was a slow process, but we finally stopped in front of a door. It was no different to all the others we had walked past, but for some reason I knew that I wanted whatever was behind it. I started fidgeting as we stood there, not noticing him place a shackle on my wrist or the chain that led from it to his hand. All I could focus on was the pull I was feeling.

He opened the door casually, the chain stopping me short as I rushed in ahead of him. I struggled against my restraints, my instincts stopping me from thinking clearly. The sound of him clearing his throat made my head throb again, bringing my back to my senses. I spun back to face him, annoyed as he stood there so calmly; stopping me so easily from getting to the food. He had his hands in his pockets again.

He pointed across the room, ignoring me as I strained against the chain. “I caught him especially for you.” He stated, and I looked where he pointed, where I wanted to go.

The man was tied to a chair with his mouth taped over, his eyes wide and unblinking. I could hear his heart beating erratically and see his chest heaving in fear. The urge to go over there intensified. I looked back at my captor and silently pleaded to him. “Do you smell his fear?” He asked, watching me closely. I closed my eyes and groaned with longing as the metallic tang filled my head. I moved as close as I could to the tied up man, the chain stretching taut, but I was still infuriatingly far away.

“Do you want him?” Asked the voice from behind me. The ‘yes’ hissed from between my gritted teeth, making the man’s eyes widen further and his heart beat faster, pumping out adrenaline and making him smell even more delicious. I growled in frustration and scowled at the man holding me back. He raised an eyebrow at me, unfazed by my anger.

“Well go get him then.” He dropped the chain and I was there in an instant. He watched as I devoured my meal, unperturbed by the muffled screams. I drank him dry, feeding long after his heart has stopped beating, until I started sucking air. I was dully reminded of the feeling of annoyance when you finish a drink too suddenly and your throat is still scratchy and dry. I looked at the body of the man I had killed, searching for the blood I could still smell, eventually realising that it was all over me. I wiped the blood off my chin and licked it off my fingers, crouching next to the knocked over chair, eyes darting around for something else to eat. Slowly the urge to kill anything near me lessened, though the back of my throat still burned. I noticed the corpse's eyes were staring blankly into space, which made me laugh. I stood, straightening my bloodstained dress the best I could and looked around for the man who had brought me here.

The room was empty except for me. An impatient sigh huffed out of me and I stalked towards the door, gathering up the chain so it didn't make so much goddamn noise. I threw open the door, ready to storm off until I found the man, but he was leaning again the wall in the hallway, obviously waiting for me to finish. A smile tugged at his face as I stopped abruptly, making me sniff with disdain. He pushed himself off the wall and stood properly, putting his hands in his pockets.

"Are you ready for more where that came from?" He asked, and my slow smile echoed his.

"Definitely."
Logged
Quote from: Drunk Pete
MACHINS CON ESFU EPETE

0bsessions

  • Born in a Nalgene bottle
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3,242
  • Change Is Taking the Seventh Dick
    • Quiki
Re: Writtin' Thread
« Reply #49 on: 18 Sep 2008, 08:10 »

We join our protagonist, one Frank Johnson, on a day much like any other. The sun is in the sky, the birds are chirping and coffee is brewing in the corner kitchenette of the office. Unlike his typical routine, however, Frank is locked in a battle; a battle he is not sure he can win.

The office is quiet and still, it is yet early in the day, scant minutes past ten in the morning. His coworkers go quietly about their business, barely cognizant of their own duties, much less the drastic struggle with which Frank is wrestling this fateful morning. Wrapped up in their own little worlds, unaware of the stern consequences that could arise should Frank falter in the mighty task before him.

Sweat drips down his brow, yet he feels a sudden chill as he feels the goosebumps tingle upon his arms. He breathes deeply, struggling with what effort he can muster to compel him toward his goal of conquering his ever increasingly powerful foe.

As he fights seeming inevitability, he thinks back on how he could have prevented this. He has no one to blame but himself for the position he finds himself in this morning. After all, everything in life is a choice and was it not his own series of choices that led him down this road? Still silent, the morning calm of the office is unimpeded by Frank's anonymous efforts.

Alas, he feels his convictions waver. He senses his fortitude begin to give. His muscles contort as he feels all hope leave him with a sudden rush of almost uncomfortable warmth and hopelessness.

As the consequence of his failure permeates the air, the silence of the office is broken. All know now of the valiant battle Frank has fought and quite clearly lost. Though none know precisely who fought this battle, it will drastically impair all those who encounter the result.

As the faces of those surrounding the epicenter that is Frank's cubicle contort almost in unison, one oblivious onlooker stands and queries:

"Alright, who cut one?"

Frank sank deep into his chair in a vain attempt to avoid notice and retain his anonymity.

The End!!!

Dedicated to Taylor, for providing me inspiration for this story.
Logged
I've decided to give up psychology and become a peacock
Quote from: Tommydski in Gabbly
JON MADE ME GAY
Pages: [1] 2 3   Go Up