Kevin Strange's Blog: Strange Sayings, page 5
January 28, 2013
Strange Vs Lovecraft anthology submissions open until March 1st!
We want some whacked out Lovecraft submissions from some more bizarros! 5,000-8,000 words. Must contain elements of the Cthulhu mythos, i.e. monsters, towns, characters etc. deadline March 1st. Payment 20 dollars. Book will have massive online promotion and will see release in both print and eBook formats. We'll take it all across the country on tour and sell thousands. Good exposure for newcomers and veterans alike! We're not looking for high art. We're looking for gore, sex, monsters, and shit that makes us go "WTF????"
Please Send all subs in .DOC format to strangehousesubmissions@gmail.com
Please Send all subs in .DOC format to strangehousesubmissions@gmail.com
January 7, 2013
Do you self-publish your own books?
Ok, self publishing author buddies, check it out. I'm now offering cheap, fast publishing solutions for your new ebook or print book. This is NOT a publishing contract for SHB. This is me offering my services as a layout designer. You provide the COMPLETED manuscript and cover art, I provide you with a print ready layout PDF or .DOC ready for kindle conversion. Prices are: print ready PDF for hardcopy book 50 bucks, add the eBook for just 25 dollars more. Please direct all serious inquiries to strangehouseonline@gmail.com
December 16, 2012
McHumans Excerpt part 3 (Lovecraftian horror)
Last month I started writing a new Lovecraftian horror tale for an upcoming StrangeHouse Books anthology called "McHumans". I decided to serialize the tale and post it here, in its entirety over the months leading up to the anthology. Here's part One
and part Two
if you missed them. This is part 3:
Boss Crab drops the hunk of flesh into the helmet and quickly snaps it shut before continuing. “So we're gonna have a lot of dirty vertebrates coming through here this week. I expect my team to be on your A game. Do I make myself clear?”
Still in shock, we all nod and Boss Crab scuttles away with Fishbowl in tow.
***
That was last week. Now the gang and I stand at the front entrance to R'lyeh, Cthulhu's great sunken city, with handfuls of people we cooked. Behind us, our scuba gear lays discarded on the rim of a gigantic, pressurized moon pool, one of many such pools that the denizens of R'lyeh use to come and go. See, most of the monsters that now rule the planet are amphibious, so these sunken cites are habitable to air breathers. This particular one is about half the size of a freakin football field. And it's a good thing, too. The leviathan fish-frog beast carrying the rest of the food for Cthulhu's party barely fits through the hole. Man, this is going to be a massive feast.
Fishbowl steers the leviathan out of the moon pool, and up the jaw-bridge type thing we stand in front of. We step out of the way so the gargantuan thing doesn't crush us. It reminds me of a monitor lizard wearing a fish-head Halloween costume—the size of a city block.
Twin emerald doors covered in glowing glyphs and runes that ooze a glowing green goo—rising so high above our heads, I have to lean backward to see the very tops—open slowly, allowing Fishbowl and the leviathan to pass into the belly of grand R'lyeh.
“I fucking hate this place,” Ty says, as the leviathan stomps into a spiraling decent across a floor that is sometimes a ceiling, sometimes a wall, depending on how you set your eyes. R'lyeh is funny like that, what with the non-euclidean geometry and all that. Nothing in the sunken city is quite where you think it should be, relatively speaking.
We step through the entrance.
Ty is wearing a blue wig set in pigtails. He wears a matching blue sun dress with black polka dots. A pair of black and white converse sneakers rounds out his outfit.
Chef shifts his bags to his right hand, giving Ty a long, hard look. I know what's coming. “Cracka, you rob the teenybopper section of the Gap when shit went down upstairs, or what? I do not understand where you find those godawful clothes, man!”
We continue walking. I try to keep my eyes closed so I don't notice that my feet are where my head should be.
Ty doesn't flinch. He's heard it all before. He looks Chef right in the eye and says, “They're my daughter's clothes. I grabbed two trash bags full of them when the rivers flooded over into the cities.”
Chef raises an eyebrow.
“We didn't even make it out of town,” Ty says, stopping, turning his body to face the burly black man. The rest of us stop, too. “Remember the... things that burrowed up out of the ground? The things with too many legs and eyes that squirmed? They took her. They ripped her right off my arm and dragged her down into those fetid mud pits—pulverized her body into mush right in front of my eyes. And you know what? Maybe if I didn't have my fucking arms full of her clothes, I could have saved her. If I'd just dropped the bags, I could have pulled her free. But I didn't. I lost my daughter on day 1, and all I have left to show for it is these clothes.”
“Damn,” Chef says, breaking eye contact. “That's fucked up.”
Before the big bear of a man can say any more, three hideous looking things slither their way down the long corridor, right up to us. Down here, everything looks awful. You just have to get used to it or you wont survive. You have to learn to shut off the part of your mind that screams in agony and begs you to find the nearest hole to crawl into when it sees the fucked up monsters that live down here.
These particular horrors, believe it or not, are even more stomach turning than the normal fish-frog, octopoid, monsters. These things have long, slender bodies with six or eight skinny, insect-like legs on either side. The bodies end in what look like a pair of twin scorpion tails, each tipped with with dagger-like stingers. Their heads are just a mess of tentacles with long, sharp hooks on the ends of some, eyeballs on the ends of others. Right in the center of this cluster of tendrils sits a drooling, multi-segmented mouth, snapping and undulating.
Karen cries out as one of the scorpion things skitters up to her and starts grabbing at her bags. She leaps behind me, leaving the thing to squirm its revolting appendages at me. I hold my bags out of reach as another of the monsters assaults Ty in the same way, pinning him up against the wall that was the ceiling last time I looked at it.
“What the fuck is this thing doing?!” he screams, as it plucks his bag from his hand, ripping it to shreds, dumping its contents on the ground at his feet. It tears the cooked human meat apart, shoving huge hunks of it into its writhing mouth.
“Sniffers,” Chef says. “They're here to make sure the food isn't poisoned. Don't worry, just let em do their thing and-”
The Sniffer goes stiff, shrieks, then vomits up all the meat it's just consumed and falls over dead.
“I poisoned the food,” I say, as everyone looks at me with wide eyes and slack jaws.
Before anyone can react, one of the two remaining Sniffers lunges itself at Ty, dragging him down to the ground with its face-feelers. He's screaming bloody murder as Chef runs forward saying, “Aw, hell!”
and part Two
if you missed them. This is part 3:
Boss Crab drops the hunk of flesh into the helmet and quickly snaps it shut before continuing. “So we're gonna have a lot of dirty vertebrates coming through here this week. I expect my team to be on your A game. Do I make myself clear?”
Still in shock, we all nod and Boss Crab scuttles away with Fishbowl in tow.
***
That was last week. Now the gang and I stand at the front entrance to R'lyeh, Cthulhu's great sunken city, with handfuls of people we cooked. Behind us, our scuba gear lays discarded on the rim of a gigantic, pressurized moon pool, one of many such pools that the denizens of R'lyeh use to come and go. See, most of the monsters that now rule the planet are amphibious, so these sunken cites are habitable to air breathers. This particular one is about half the size of a freakin football field. And it's a good thing, too. The leviathan fish-frog beast carrying the rest of the food for Cthulhu's party barely fits through the hole. Man, this is going to be a massive feast.
Fishbowl steers the leviathan out of the moon pool, and up the jaw-bridge type thing we stand in front of. We step out of the way so the gargantuan thing doesn't crush us. It reminds me of a monitor lizard wearing a fish-head Halloween costume—the size of a city block.
Twin emerald doors covered in glowing glyphs and runes that ooze a glowing green goo—rising so high above our heads, I have to lean backward to see the very tops—open slowly, allowing Fishbowl and the leviathan to pass into the belly of grand R'lyeh.
“I fucking hate this place,” Ty says, as the leviathan stomps into a spiraling decent across a floor that is sometimes a ceiling, sometimes a wall, depending on how you set your eyes. R'lyeh is funny like that, what with the non-euclidean geometry and all that. Nothing in the sunken city is quite where you think it should be, relatively speaking.
We step through the entrance.
Ty is wearing a blue wig set in pigtails. He wears a matching blue sun dress with black polka dots. A pair of black and white converse sneakers rounds out his outfit.
Chef shifts his bags to his right hand, giving Ty a long, hard look. I know what's coming. “Cracka, you rob the teenybopper section of the Gap when shit went down upstairs, or what? I do not understand where you find those godawful clothes, man!”
We continue walking. I try to keep my eyes closed so I don't notice that my feet are where my head should be.
Ty doesn't flinch. He's heard it all before. He looks Chef right in the eye and says, “They're my daughter's clothes. I grabbed two trash bags full of them when the rivers flooded over into the cities.”
Chef raises an eyebrow.
“We didn't even make it out of town,” Ty says, stopping, turning his body to face the burly black man. The rest of us stop, too. “Remember the... things that burrowed up out of the ground? The things with too many legs and eyes that squirmed? They took her. They ripped her right off my arm and dragged her down into those fetid mud pits—pulverized her body into mush right in front of my eyes. And you know what? Maybe if I didn't have my fucking arms full of her clothes, I could have saved her. If I'd just dropped the bags, I could have pulled her free. But I didn't. I lost my daughter on day 1, and all I have left to show for it is these clothes.”
“Damn,” Chef says, breaking eye contact. “That's fucked up.”
Before the big bear of a man can say any more, three hideous looking things slither their way down the long corridor, right up to us. Down here, everything looks awful. You just have to get used to it or you wont survive. You have to learn to shut off the part of your mind that screams in agony and begs you to find the nearest hole to crawl into when it sees the fucked up monsters that live down here.
These particular horrors, believe it or not, are even more stomach turning than the normal fish-frog, octopoid, monsters. These things have long, slender bodies with six or eight skinny, insect-like legs on either side. The bodies end in what look like a pair of twin scorpion tails, each tipped with with dagger-like stingers. Their heads are just a mess of tentacles with long, sharp hooks on the ends of some, eyeballs on the ends of others. Right in the center of this cluster of tendrils sits a drooling, multi-segmented mouth, snapping and undulating.
Karen cries out as one of the scorpion things skitters up to her and starts grabbing at her bags. She leaps behind me, leaving the thing to squirm its revolting appendages at me. I hold my bags out of reach as another of the monsters assaults Ty in the same way, pinning him up against the wall that was the ceiling last time I looked at it.
“What the fuck is this thing doing?!” he screams, as it plucks his bag from his hand, ripping it to shreds, dumping its contents on the ground at his feet. It tears the cooked human meat apart, shoving huge hunks of it into its writhing mouth.
“Sniffers,” Chef says. “They're here to make sure the food isn't poisoned. Don't worry, just let em do their thing and-”
The Sniffer goes stiff, shrieks, then vomits up all the meat it's just consumed and falls over dead.
“I poisoned the food,” I say, as everyone looks at me with wide eyes and slack jaws.
Before anyone can react, one of the two remaining Sniffers lunges itself at Ty, dragging him down to the ground with its face-feelers. He's screaming bloody murder as Chef runs forward saying, “Aw, hell!”
November 26, 2012
How heartbreak leads to great fiction
I, and many authors before me have chosen, after enough time and reflection have taken place, to roll the events and personalities of extremely traumatic experiences, such as a bad breakup, into their fiction. Giving your work that little bit of spice, or oomph by using difficult and emotionally challenging truths can sometimes mean the difference between writing a cool story, and writing a story that just connects perfectly with your audience.
The last time I went through a bad split, I wrote what I still consider to be my most emotionally profound piece. When people read this story, a lot of times they come back to me and tell me they've dated a girl JUST like Jessica, or know someone who has. The character has the life and the vividness she does because I took dialogue straight out of real conversations and situations between myself and my ex girlfriend, and transplanted them into the story. Jessica is the fictional version of a very real girl that I loved very much.
It was extremely cathartic for me to get these emotions down on paper—to use allegory and create monsters out of my fears and insecurities for my main character to do physical battle with. The satisfaction I felt after finishing this story is something I'm still chasing to this day.
Here are the first few pages of “I Killed Jessica Again” for you to enjoy. It's the cover story for my upcoming short story collection “Murder Stories for your Face Meat”. I'll include a link to the entire story as a downloadable PDF. If you like the excerpt, please download the story. If you like the story, please leave me some comments here or on my FB or Twitter. It's a powerful piece. I'd like to know how it affects you.
I killed Jessica Again
by Kevin Strange
I didn't mean to kill Jessica that night, not the first time, anyway. It just sort of happened. I know that sounds like bullshit, but it's the truth. Let me explain how it all went down.
Jessica and I dated for over a year. She was quite a score, let me tell you. I'm not what most people would consider an attractive man. I'm about 5'9", heavyset, bald, and pushing 30.
Jessica, on the other hand, was a platinum blonde, 5'0", hundred pound beauty. She had sky blue eyes and the kind of voice that would melt any man's heart. Toss in a killer bubble butt and a wicked smile, and you have yourself a recipe for disaster, my friend.
What she saw in me, I'll never know. My friends, her friends, they all flipped out when we hooked up, but not nearly as much as I did. I couldn't believe I was fucking that woman.
I wouldn't say that things went downhill quickly. I mean, we had some great times. Jessica was always up for an adventure. Our favorite thing was to pick a random campground from the internet and just drive to it to spend the weekend fucking, sucking, canoeing, hiking, cooking meals over the camp fire, swimming in lakes...you get the idea. Man, those were good times. Too bad good times don't last forever.
Things started going bad for us when I began to talk about marriage and kids. I was ready to settle down, but Jessica was still right in the middle of her twenties, still wanting to party, flirt, and raise hell. She started lying to me about where she was going and who she was going with. I got jealous. Really jealous. We fought all the time. I caught her cheating on me. Twice. But was I going to do? Leave her? I'll never land another piece of ass like that. Not with my glory days behind me. So instead, she left me.
I'd be foolish to say I wasn't devastated. One day she was there, cooking dinner, talking about bills, and the next she was gone. She had all of her stuff moved out while I was at work one day. Just like that. Within a week, I heard she was hooked up with some hot shit bartender from the city who was 6 years younger than me. I, on the other hand, was hooked up with a fifth of Jack in each fist and a stack of pictures of Jess and me.
I don't think I came out of the apartment for a month. I lost my job, 20 pounds, and most of my friends, who got sick of my near-hysterical drunken phone calls at 3am begging them to call Jessica for me and talk some sense into her.
My life sucked for about 6 months, for real. But, like most heartbroken losers, I eventually picked myself back up, burned all those pictures, and started to put my life back together again.
That's when Jessica came back. It started as a phone call. She wanted to tell me that the bartender had hit her and that she'd left him, but he wouldn't leave her alone. She asked me if she could crash at my place for a few days until it blew over. Like the chump I am, I agreed. I, of course, thought she missed me, missed us, wanted me back, wanted to come back to my place to make up...I was wrong.
The first night, I tried to talk about what went wrong with our relationship, but she told me she just wanted to take a hot bath and relax after the fight she'd had with Mark (that's the bartender). The second night, before I could even get a word in edgewise, she asked if she could borrow some money from me, then went out all night. She didn't come back 'til the next morning. The third night, I killed her.
I had no intention of doing it, I want to be clear on that point. By now you should understand that I loved Jessica. I was captivated by her. Under her spell. That morning, when she came in, I was angry. I started yelling at her, but she ignored me and went to bed in my room. In my bed. She looked like she'd been rode hard and put away wet. She probably had. Sometime after dark, she got up and took a shower. After that, I guess, is where it all started to go to shit.
Jessica came out of the bathroom looking ravishing. Rare is a woman who can look that stunning with no makeup whatsoever. But that's Jess. The smell of her cherry shampoo reminded me of better times. My heart ached for her as much as my cock did. She stood in the doorway, letting me stare at her, with that half-smirk, half-grin on her face that she always had when she was getting what she wanted (in this case, my lustful, heartbroken gaze). She was eating this up.
She got dressed and, a short time later, joined me on the couch. She flopped down next to me, tossing her thick, juicy thighs up over mine.
"I'm bored!" She whined in that sing-song little voice she always used when she was in a playful mood.
I resisted the urge to ask her what "Mark" would do to entertain her. Instead I said, "Uh, well, there's a new zombie flick playing right now down at the Drive-In. You wanna check it out?"
She rolled her eyes. "Zombies are fucking boring." Then she smiled. "There's supposed to be some super rare lunar eclipse tonight. I guess there hasn't been an eclipse on the summer solstice in hundreds of years or something. The Drive-In would be the perfect place to watch it! Let's get some booze on the way and trip out on that shit while we get hammered!"
It was a fight, instantly. I said, "Jessica, you know damn well I don't drink. I'm seven years sober."
She didn't buy it. "Then what are all those empty bottles of Jack under the kitchen counter, Chris?"
She'd gone through my shit. Typical Jessica, probably looking for something to get fucked up on while I was asleep. "I just don't think it's a good idea, Jess. I just want a relaxing night out, just the two of us, OK?"
She made her annoyed face. "Ugh! You're no fun, Chris. That's why I dumped-" She stopped, looking at me to see if I'd react. I didn't. "That's why we broke up." She finished.
I looked at her for a few moments before responding. "Fine, Jess. Let's get fucked up and go to the Drive-In. Maybe if I'm lucky, you'll get a car full of college girls to flash you again."
She grinned at me. "That sounds fucking fun!"
We never made it to the Drive-In.
********
If you liked that, read the rest at http://www.strangehousebooks.com/file... Again, if you enjoy the story, please return here and post some comments about it. I'd love to know what you think.
The last time I went through a bad split, I wrote what I still consider to be my most emotionally profound piece. When people read this story, a lot of times they come back to me and tell me they've dated a girl JUST like Jessica, or know someone who has. The character has the life and the vividness she does because I took dialogue straight out of real conversations and situations between myself and my ex girlfriend, and transplanted them into the story. Jessica is the fictional version of a very real girl that I loved very much.
It was extremely cathartic for me to get these emotions down on paper—to use allegory and create monsters out of my fears and insecurities for my main character to do physical battle with. The satisfaction I felt after finishing this story is something I'm still chasing to this day.
Here are the first few pages of “I Killed Jessica Again” for you to enjoy. It's the cover story for my upcoming short story collection “Murder Stories for your Face Meat”. I'll include a link to the entire story as a downloadable PDF. If you like the excerpt, please download the story. If you like the story, please leave me some comments here or on my FB or Twitter. It's a powerful piece. I'd like to know how it affects you.
I killed Jessica Again
by Kevin Strange
I didn't mean to kill Jessica that night, not the first time, anyway. It just sort of happened. I know that sounds like bullshit, but it's the truth. Let me explain how it all went down.
Jessica and I dated for over a year. She was quite a score, let me tell you. I'm not what most people would consider an attractive man. I'm about 5'9", heavyset, bald, and pushing 30.
Jessica, on the other hand, was a platinum blonde, 5'0", hundred pound beauty. She had sky blue eyes and the kind of voice that would melt any man's heart. Toss in a killer bubble butt and a wicked smile, and you have yourself a recipe for disaster, my friend.
What she saw in me, I'll never know. My friends, her friends, they all flipped out when we hooked up, but not nearly as much as I did. I couldn't believe I was fucking that woman.
I wouldn't say that things went downhill quickly. I mean, we had some great times. Jessica was always up for an adventure. Our favorite thing was to pick a random campground from the internet and just drive to it to spend the weekend fucking, sucking, canoeing, hiking, cooking meals over the camp fire, swimming in lakes...you get the idea. Man, those were good times. Too bad good times don't last forever.
Things started going bad for us when I began to talk about marriage and kids. I was ready to settle down, but Jessica was still right in the middle of her twenties, still wanting to party, flirt, and raise hell. She started lying to me about where she was going and who she was going with. I got jealous. Really jealous. We fought all the time. I caught her cheating on me. Twice. But was I going to do? Leave her? I'll never land another piece of ass like that. Not with my glory days behind me. So instead, she left me.
I'd be foolish to say I wasn't devastated. One day she was there, cooking dinner, talking about bills, and the next she was gone. She had all of her stuff moved out while I was at work one day. Just like that. Within a week, I heard she was hooked up with some hot shit bartender from the city who was 6 years younger than me. I, on the other hand, was hooked up with a fifth of Jack in each fist and a stack of pictures of Jess and me.
I don't think I came out of the apartment for a month. I lost my job, 20 pounds, and most of my friends, who got sick of my near-hysterical drunken phone calls at 3am begging them to call Jessica for me and talk some sense into her.
My life sucked for about 6 months, for real. But, like most heartbroken losers, I eventually picked myself back up, burned all those pictures, and started to put my life back together again.
That's when Jessica came back. It started as a phone call. She wanted to tell me that the bartender had hit her and that she'd left him, but he wouldn't leave her alone. She asked me if she could crash at my place for a few days until it blew over. Like the chump I am, I agreed. I, of course, thought she missed me, missed us, wanted me back, wanted to come back to my place to make up...I was wrong.
The first night, I tried to talk about what went wrong with our relationship, but she told me she just wanted to take a hot bath and relax after the fight she'd had with Mark (that's the bartender). The second night, before I could even get a word in edgewise, she asked if she could borrow some money from me, then went out all night. She didn't come back 'til the next morning. The third night, I killed her.
I had no intention of doing it, I want to be clear on that point. By now you should understand that I loved Jessica. I was captivated by her. Under her spell. That morning, when she came in, I was angry. I started yelling at her, but she ignored me and went to bed in my room. In my bed. She looked like she'd been rode hard and put away wet. She probably had. Sometime after dark, she got up and took a shower. After that, I guess, is where it all started to go to shit.
Jessica came out of the bathroom looking ravishing. Rare is a woman who can look that stunning with no makeup whatsoever. But that's Jess. The smell of her cherry shampoo reminded me of better times. My heart ached for her as much as my cock did. She stood in the doorway, letting me stare at her, with that half-smirk, half-grin on her face that she always had when she was getting what she wanted (in this case, my lustful, heartbroken gaze). She was eating this up.
She got dressed and, a short time later, joined me on the couch. She flopped down next to me, tossing her thick, juicy thighs up over mine.
"I'm bored!" She whined in that sing-song little voice she always used when she was in a playful mood.
I resisted the urge to ask her what "Mark" would do to entertain her. Instead I said, "Uh, well, there's a new zombie flick playing right now down at the Drive-In. You wanna check it out?"
She rolled her eyes. "Zombies are fucking boring." Then she smiled. "There's supposed to be some super rare lunar eclipse tonight. I guess there hasn't been an eclipse on the summer solstice in hundreds of years or something. The Drive-In would be the perfect place to watch it! Let's get some booze on the way and trip out on that shit while we get hammered!"
It was a fight, instantly. I said, "Jessica, you know damn well I don't drink. I'm seven years sober."
She didn't buy it. "Then what are all those empty bottles of Jack under the kitchen counter, Chris?"
She'd gone through my shit. Typical Jessica, probably looking for something to get fucked up on while I was asleep. "I just don't think it's a good idea, Jess. I just want a relaxing night out, just the two of us, OK?"
She made her annoyed face. "Ugh! You're no fun, Chris. That's why I dumped-" She stopped, looking at me to see if I'd react. I didn't. "That's why we broke up." She finished.
I looked at her for a few moments before responding. "Fine, Jess. Let's get fucked up and go to the Drive-In. Maybe if I'm lucky, you'll get a car full of college girls to flash you again."
She grinned at me. "That sounds fucking fun!"
We never made it to the Drive-In.
********
If you liked that, read the rest at http://www.strangehousebooks.com/file... Again, if you enjoy the story, please return here and post some comments about it. I'd love to know what you think.
November 21, 2012
McHumans *A story Excerpt* Part 2
If you missed the first one, you can check out the first thousand words of the new Lovecraftian Bizarro tale I'm writing for an upcoming anthology through StrangeHouse Books Right Here
I don't know how many of these I'll do, or if I'll post the whole story here on my blog before it comes out in the antho. I guess that's entirely up to you guys. Do you want to see more? Here's part 2:
The killing room always stinks, no matter how thoroughly we scrub it. There's just a permanent stench attached to it, like a slaughterhouse splashed with copious helpings of guilt and fear. Terror echos off the walls. Or maybe it's just the shit smell that never quite goes away. Everyone shits when they die, and our drain sucks.
The room's too small for all of us to fit, so Chef, Ty and Karen stand just outside the door. Boss Crab looks like he just saw an elephant climb into its own asshole. Sam is on the floor, totally confused. Hovering over him is Boss Crab's right hand man. His “muscle” as he likes to call him. The thing—if it is even a “him”—is called Torgen-something-something-something. We just call him Fishbowl. Boss Crab breathes air, so he's fine running around inside McHumans screaming at us and whatnot. But some of the horrid beasts, like Fishbowl, are strictly water dwellers.
We don't even know what the hell Fishbowl IS. He's all stuffed inside this black suit that looks sort of like one of those deep sea diver contraptions. The body of the suit is always damp and sweaty. It's one big piece with connecting gloves and boots wrapped in rusted chains and covered in rotted seaweed. It even has a diver's helmet on top. Only this helmet is more like a fish bowl. That's why we call him that. Anyway, his helmet-thing, it's completely full of water. Black, fetid water. Vague, horrid shapes swim around in that murky gunk. I can't stare at it too long or I start to think I can see faces forming in the swirling darkness. Creepy shit.
So Fishbowl's got a hold of Sam by the shoulders and Sam's crying cause he knows he's about to die when Boss Crab starts swinging around this fire-ax with his little shriveled hand, yelling in his crab language. Once he sees we're utterly clueless as to what's going on, he switches to English. I hate when he does that. If you've never heard a crab imitate human speech, trust me, you don't want to.
“This little shit thought he was going to break out of here!” Boss Crab says, waving the ax in Sam's face. With his big claw hand, he throws a stack of paper on the ground. “Escape plans! He really thought he could outsmart ME!”
Chef snickers. “Crazy Cracka,” he says under his breath. I scowl at him.
We're fucked. I know what's coming next. I'm so fucking scared I can't feel my feet.
Boss Crab turns the ax on me. “You were in on it, too, weren't you? Explain yourself.”
“I-I don't know what the hell you're talking about, man. I'm not in on anything,” I stammer, totally full of shit. I'm an awful liar, and it's about to get me killed.
Boss Crab raises the ax as if to hit me with it. I flinch back and he continues screaming. “Shut the fuck up, monkey! You think I'm stupid?! You think I don't know what goes on in my own restaurant?!”
“Just tell him, Ricky.” Sam whines. Now my eyes bulge like Boss Crab's. I make a slashing motion with my hand at my neck. He ignores me. “Tell him what we were gonna do and maybe he'll let us live!” Sam's really crying now. Just blubbering like a little bitch. I guess I would be too if I was in his position. If he says anything else, I probably will be.
Boss Crab scuttles around to face Sam. “I know what you two idiots were going to try to do!” He motions his big claw at a pair of scuba tanks sitting on a table in the corner. We have to use them to go from the restaurant back to our slave quarters down in the human district. The only compensation we get for our jobs is oxygen for the tanks. We're literally paid in air.
Boss Crab continues his rant, and I try my best not to shit myself.
“You do realize I only keep enough air in those things for a round trip to and from the slave camp, right?”
Sam breaks down completely at this point. He's all sobbing incoherently, gasping for air between his cries. “H-he put me up to it, boss! I swear! He said we were gonna go back to the surface!”
“What surface??? The whole world is flooded, you fucking retard! Even if you did manage to break out, even if you hid air up your asses, once you got up there, you'd just float to death!”
Boss Crab turns back to me. “Anything to say for yourself, monkey?”
I just put my arms up and shrug, clueless as to what to say next. Finally I stammer out, “Sorry?”
I can't tell if Boss Crab is genuinely surprised at my lack of defense, or if he's just staring at me. Then he thrusts the ax out, not in a killing blow, but with the handle facing me. Totally confused I take it from him. He says, “Not as sorry as your friend, here. You cook a mean brain souffle. Him? He couldn't even burn a brisket to save his life. Kill him.”
“What?” I ask, sure that he's just fucking with me for a second before he snaps my face off with his claw.
“Prove your loyalty to the restaurant. Kill this one so we can get on to the business at hand. Murder your co-conspirator and NEVER try that shit again. Do I make myself clear?”
“Aw, shit,” Karen says from behind Chef.
“That ain't right,” Ty says, walking away from the doorway, back to the kitchen.
I look at them all for a brief second, hoping they have some brilliant plan to keep me from chopping up my best bud. They've got nothin'.
Reluctantly I turn around and prop the ax up on my shoulder. “Sorry Sam, this fuckin' sucks,” I say, with total sincerity, raising the blade above my head.
There I stand in the only shirt I brought down here with me, a faded, ripped up Dio Holy Diver shirt, my curly brown shoulder length hair matted to my pale forehead about to murder my friend, and all I can think is, Damn, I wish I could take his Ozzy shirt before it gets blood all over it.
Sam struggles, mumbling shit I can't understand through his snotty nose and tears. Fishbowl holds him tight.
Chef covers Karen's eyes as the blade comes down, cleaving poor Sam's face open. A wet thunk—sort of like when you cut open a pumpkin—resonates throughout the small killing room. Sam's cries abruptly end as what sits behind his face slowly oozes out onto his shirt.
He slumps over. His body thrashes a few times and then he goes still. At least he didn't suffer. Before I can even register that I've murdered my best friend, Boss Crab snatches the ax away from me and starts yelling again. “Get the fuck back in here, you warm blooded sacks of shit!”
Karen, Chef and Ty had tried to creep away. They sulk back into the doorway as Boss Crab shoves me toward them.
“Listen up!” he says, scooping up a bit of Sam off the floor. “We got a new contract this afternoon. A big one. Pretty much the biggest.” He starts to unscrew the knob sealing Fishbowl's helmet in place. A loud hiss followed by a pop signals the release of the pressurized lid. Boss Crab flips the top open. “Cthulhu his god damn self has requested us to cater a party he's having next week. He wants us to provide the food.” The black, fetid water looks like calm oil slick until Boss Crab dangles bits of Sam over the open container. Then the rancid shit begins to slosh around inside the helmet. Karen dry heaves and covers her mouth as the reek overwhelms us. My eyes start to water and we all put our hands up to cover our mouths.
Little pincer claws, suction cup laced tendrils, and pointy tipped legs that look like they belong on a tarantula burst forth from the brackish ooze, snatching and grabbing at the fresh flesh.
I don't know how many of these I'll do, or if I'll post the whole story here on my blog before it comes out in the antho. I guess that's entirely up to you guys. Do you want to see more? Here's part 2:
The killing room always stinks, no matter how thoroughly we scrub it. There's just a permanent stench attached to it, like a slaughterhouse splashed with copious helpings of guilt and fear. Terror echos off the walls. Or maybe it's just the shit smell that never quite goes away. Everyone shits when they die, and our drain sucks.
The room's too small for all of us to fit, so Chef, Ty and Karen stand just outside the door. Boss Crab looks like he just saw an elephant climb into its own asshole. Sam is on the floor, totally confused. Hovering over him is Boss Crab's right hand man. His “muscle” as he likes to call him. The thing—if it is even a “him”—is called Torgen-something-something-something. We just call him Fishbowl. Boss Crab breathes air, so he's fine running around inside McHumans screaming at us and whatnot. But some of the horrid beasts, like Fishbowl, are strictly water dwellers.
We don't even know what the hell Fishbowl IS. He's all stuffed inside this black suit that looks sort of like one of those deep sea diver contraptions. The body of the suit is always damp and sweaty. It's one big piece with connecting gloves and boots wrapped in rusted chains and covered in rotted seaweed. It even has a diver's helmet on top. Only this helmet is more like a fish bowl. That's why we call him that. Anyway, his helmet-thing, it's completely full of water. Black, fetid water. Vague, horrid shapes swim around in that murky gunk. I can't stare at it too long or I start to think I can see faces forming in the swirling darkness. Creepy shit.
So Fishbowl's got a hold of Sam by the shoulders and Sam's crying cause he knows he's about to die when Boss Crab starts swinging around this fire-ax with his little shriveled hand, yelling in his crab language. Once he sees we're utterly clueless as to what's going on, he switches to English. I hate when he does that. If you've never heard a crab imitate human speech, trust me, you don't want to.
“This little shit thought he was going to break out of here!” Boss Crab says, waving the ax in Sam's face. With his big claw hand, he throws a stack of paper on the ground. “Escape plans! He really thought he could outsmart ME!”
Chef snickers. “Crazy Cracka,” he says under his breath. I scowl at him.
We're fucked. I know what's coming next. I'm so fucking scared I can't feel my feet.
Boss Crab turns the ax on me. “You were in on it, too, weren't you? Explain yourself.”
“I-I don't know what the hell you're talking about, man. I'm not in on anything,” I stammer, totally full of shit. I'm an awful liar, and it's about to get me killed.
Boss Crab raises the ax as if to hit me with it. I flinch back and he continues screaming. “Shut the fuck up, monkey! You think I'm stupid?! You think I don't know what goes on in my own restaurant?!”
“Just tell him, Ricky.” Sam whines. Now my eyes bulge like Boss Crab's. I make a slashing motion with my hand at my neck. He ignores me. “Tell him what we were gonna do and maybe he'll let us live!” Sam's really crying now. Just blubbering like a little bitch. I guess I would be too if I was in his position. If he says anything else, I probably will be.
Boss Crab scuttles around to face Sam. “I know what you two idiots were going to try to do!” He motions his big claw at a pair of scuba tanks sitting on a table in the corner. We have to use them to go from the restaurant back to our slave quarters down in the human district. The only compensation we get for our jobs is oxygen for the tanks. We're literally paid in air.
Boss Crab continues his rant, and I try my best not to shit myself.
“You do realize I only keep enough air in those things for a round trip to and from the slave camp, right?”
Sam breaks down completely at this point. He's all sobbing incoherently, gasping for air between his cries. “H-he put me up to it, boss! I swear! He said we were gonna go back to the surface!”
“What surface??? The whole world is flooded, you fucking retard! Even if you did manage to break out, even if you hid air up your asses, once you got up there, you'd just float to death!”
Boss Crab turns back to me. “Anything to say for yourself, monkey?”
I just put my arms up and shrug, clueless as to what to say next. Finally I stammer out, “Sorry?”
I can't tell if Boss Crab is genuinely surprised at my lack of defense, or if he's just staring at me. Then he thrusts the ax out, not in a killing blow, but with the handle facing me. Totally confused I take it from him. He says, “Not as sorry as your friend, here. You cook a mean brain souffle. Him? He couldn't even burn a brisket to save his life. Kill him.”
“What?” I ask, sure that he's just fucking with me for a second before he snaps my face off with his claw.
“Prove your loyalty to the restaurant. Kill this one so we can get on to the business at hand. Murder your co-conspirator and NEVER try that shit again. Do I make myself clear?”
“Aw, shit,” Karen says from behind Chef.
“That ain't right,” Ty says, walking away from the doorway, back to the kitchen.
I look at them all for a brief second, hoping they have some brilliant plan to keep me from chopping up my best bud. They've got nothin'.
Reluctantly I turn around and prop the ax up on my shoulder. “Sorry Sam, this fuckin' sucks,” I say, with total sincerity, raising the blade above my head.
There I stand in the only shirt I brought down here with me, a faded, ripped up Dio Holy Diver shirt, my curly brown shoulder length hair matted to my pale forehead about to murder my friend, and all I can think is, Damn, I wish I could take his Ozzy shirt before it gets blood all over it.
Sam struggles, mumbling shit I can't understand through his snotty nose and tears. Fishbowl holds him tight.
Chef covers Karen's eyes as the blade comes down, cleaving poor Sam's face open. A wet thunk—sort of like when you cut open a pumpkin—resonates throughout the small killing room. Sam's cries abruptly end as what sits behind his face slowly oozes out onto his shirt.
He slumps over. His body thrashes a few times and then he goes still. At least he didn't suffer. Before I can even register that I've murdered my best friend, Boss Crab snatches the ax away from me and starts yelling again. “Get the fuck back in here, you warm blooded sacks of shit!”
Karen, Chef and Ty had tried to creep away. They sulk back into the doorway as Boss Crab shoves me toward them.
“Listen up!” he says, scooping up a bit of Sam off the floor. “We got a new contract this afternoon. A big one. Pretty much the biggest.” He starts to unscrew the knob sealing Fishbowl's helmet in place. A loud hiss followed by a pop signals the release of the pressurized lid. Boss Crab flips the top open. “Cthulhu his god damn self has requested us to cater a party he's having next week. He wants us to provide the food.” The black, fetid water looks like calm oil slick until Boss Crab dangles bits of Sam over the open container. Then the rancid shit begins to slosh around inside the helmet. Karen dry heaves and covers her mouth as the reek overwhelms us. My eyes start to water and we all put our hands up to cover our mouths.
Little pincer claws, suction cup laced tendrils, and pointy tipped legs that look like they belong on a tarantula burst forth from the brackish ooze, snatching and grabbing at the fresh flesh.
November 13, 2012
McHumans *A story excerpt*
Hey Gang, I'm writing a new story for an upcoming Lovecraftian Anthology for StrangeHouse and I wanted to share the first thousand words with you because I think it's a pretty hilarious little tale. I'm excited as hell to put this out early next year. So here we go, the first thousand words of "McHumans":
Synopsis: After Cthulhu awakens and destroys civilization as we know it, humans are used as slaves and food by their new slimy, submerged masters. One such young man, Ricky, works at an undersea fast food joint where he's forced to kill and cook other humans for the Deep Ones to eat. But he has a plan. His restaurant caters to the Big Man himself, and if Ricky's plan works, he could pull off the unthinkable: Killing Cthulhu.
McHumans
by
Kevin Strange
An Excerpt
I'm Ricky. I'm a human being. A slave. Food for my watery masters. How those masters came into power is anybody's guess. All I know is, one day I was jacking off to videos of the pink Power Ranger, and the next, the whole planet was flooded, and giant monsters were dragging those of us lucky (unlucky?) enough not to die in the initial onslaught down into the icy depths below.
They call themselves the Deep Ones. No two of them look exactly the same. They're evil, vile things, but they can talk and think just like you or me. I guess because they're aliens from another dimension—at least that's what people say. But people say all kinds of crazy shit now, and it's not like we have an internet down here or anything to fact check. So you just sort of take people's word for it most of the time. These aliens hate us and want us all dead. Why they hate us so much, I'll never know. But they do. They love to torture us and eat us. They're real sadistic fuckers.
Take my job, for example. I work in one of their subterranean cities beneath the ocean. How these cities existed without our knowledge before the great flood? Another question I can't answer. There's a lot of those now. Questions. And not many answers. We're all too busy surviving...
Oh yeah, my job. I work at a fast food restaurant that specializes in fresh flesh. Fresh human flesh. As in people are butchered here and then we garnish their meat with little pieces of seaweed and coral and shit. As a joke, those of us who work here call it McHumans. And guess who they make kill people? That's right. Me.
Last week I had to kill my buddy Sam. He used to work here, too. In fact, he was the first person I met after I was dragged down into the murky depths. Everybody else that works here told us not to get emotionally attached to anyone cause this sort of shit happens all the time, but we didn't listen. We both liked comic books and death metal. And what else is there to do but talk to each other when you're living in a waterlogged death camp just waiting for your number to come up, anyway?
Three other people work with us on the night shift in the kitchen. Karen, a smokin' hot little redhead who tells the best poop jokes in the joint. She has Cerebral Palsy, or whatever. It's not that bad. It doesn't fuck up her face or the way she talks. Her hands are kind of curled up and one of her legs bows in when she walks. Her spine and neck are curved all funky, but other than that? Top shelf pussy. Sometimes when the others think we're off having a smoke break, I fuck Karen in the walk-in cooler. It's kinda weird, fucking a crippled girl, the whole cooler full of dead bodies, but hey, you take what you can get in this hellhole.
Then there's the huge, fat, black dude we call Chef. You know, like the dude from South Park? Only this Chef isn't all full of inspirational speeches and joy, no this guy is a miserable, hate-filled racist. He's got a gigantic, oily nose that looks like a brown pickle and he's missing one of his front teeth. He's worked here the longest and he says he loves it. Says he couldn't think of a better place to be than in a kitchen chopping up white people all day. But we know he's lying. He was a preacher in Detroit before all this happened. He just puts on the angry black man routine to keep from losing his shit. We all have our ways of dealing with the stress of death and misery hanging over our heads every second of every day.
Like Ty, the final member of our crew. He deals with our living nightmare by dressing up like a woman—wigs, makeup, the whole thing. But the weird part is, he's still got a big brown beard and doesn't talk with an effeminate voice or try to make us call him by a woman's name. No, he just dresses like a chick. He's called a Transvestite. I only know this because my sister used to be in a Rocky Horror troupe. Now my sister's dead.
So anyway, one minute me and Sam are swapping stories about fucking chicks back in our other life while we strip the skin off a pair of arms in the kitchen with the rest of the gang, and then bam! In comes our boss, a really funky looking crab-thing with a huge white spiral shell covered in nasty barnacles. The way his big eyes sit on top of their stalks, Boss Crab, as we call him, always looks like he's surprised or in a state of shock. He has a name, hell, they all have names, but fuck trying to pronounce those multi-syllable, too many consonant things. We have nicknames for all of them.
Well, he storms right up to us, gives us both the once over with a look of astonishment, the whole time his little crab mouth parts moving a mile a minute—his disgustingly long, thin tentacle whiskers waving around, tasting the air, or whatever it is they're used for—when he reaches out with his enormous red claw, grabs poor Sam by the neck, and drags him into the back room. The killing room.
A couple seconds later, Boss Crab screams for us to come back there, too.
Click Here to read part 2!
Synopsis: After Cthulhu awakens and destroys civilization as we know it, humans are used as slaves and food by their new slimy, submerged masters. One such young man, Ricky, works at an undersea fast food joint where he's forced to kill and cook other humans for the Deep Ones to eat. But he has a plan. His restaurant caters to the Big Man himself, and if Ricky's plan works, he could pull off the unthinkable: Killing Cthulhu.
McHumans
by
Kevin Strange
An Excerpt
I'm Ricky. I'm a human being. A slave. Food for my watery masters. How those masters came into power is anybody's guess. All I know is, one day I was jacking off to videos of the pink Power Ranger, and the next, the whole planet was flooded, and giant monsters were dragging those of us lucky (unlucky?) enough not to die in the initial onslaught down into the icy depths below.
They call themselves the Deep Ones. No two of them look exactly the same. They're evil, vile things, but they can talk and think just like you or me. I guess because they're aliens from another dimension—at least that's what people say. But people say all kinds of crazy shit now, and it's not like we have an internet down here or anything to fact check. So you just sort of take people's word for it most of the time. These aliens hate us and want us all dead. Why they hate us so much, I'll never know. But they do. They love to torture us and eat us. They're real sadistic fuckers.
Take my job, for example. I work in one of their subterranean cities beneath the ocean. How these cities existed without our knowledge before the great flood? Another question I can't answer. There's a lot of those now. Questions. And not many answers. We're all too busy surviving...
Oh yeah, my job. I work at a fast food restaurant that specializes in fresh flesh. Fresh human flesh. As in people are butchered here and then we garnish their meat with little pieces of seaweed and coral and shit. As a joke, those of us who work here call it McHumans. And guess who they make kill people? That's right. Me.
Last week I had to kill my buddy Sam. He used to work here, too. In fact, he was the first person I met after I was dragged down into the murky depths. Everybody else that works here told us not to get emotionally attached to anyone cause this sort of shit happens all the time, but we didn't listen. We both liked comic books and death metal. And what else is there to do but talk to each other when you're living in a waterlogged death camp just waiting for your number to come up, anyway?
Three other people work with us on the night shift in the kitchen. Karen, a smokin' hot little redhead who tells the best poop jokes in the joint. She has Cerebral Palsy, or whatever. It's not that bad. It doesn't fuck up her face or the way she talks. Her hands are kind of curled up and one of her legs bows in when she walks. Her spine and neck are curved all funky, but other than that? Top shelf pussy. Sometimes when the others think we're off having a smoke break, I fuck Karen in the walk-in cooler. It's kinda weird, fucking a crippled girl, the whole cooler full of dead bodies, but hey, you take what you can get in this hellhole.
Then there's the huge, fat, black dude we call Chef. You know, like the dude from South Park? Only this Chef isn't all full of inspirational speeches and joy, no this guy is a miserable, hate-filled racist. He's got a gigantic, oily nose that looks like a brown pickle and he's missing one of his front teeth. He's worked here the longest and he says he loves it. Says he couldn't think of a better place to be than in a kitchen chopping up white people all day. But we know he's lying. He was a preacher in Detroit before all this happened. He just puts on the angry black man routine to keep from losing his shit. We all have our ways of dealing with the stress of death and misery hanging over our heads every second of every day.
Like Ty, the final member of our crew. He deals with our living nightmare by dressing up like a woman—wigs, makeup, the whole thing. But the weird part is, he's still got a big brown beard and doesn't talk with an effeminate voice or try to make us call him by a woman's name. No, he just dresses like a chick. He's called a Transvestite. I only know this because my sister used to be in a Rocky Horror troupe. Now my sister's dead.
So anyway, one minute me and Sam are swapping stories about fucking chicks back in our other life while we strip the skin off a pair of arms in the kitchen with the rest of the gang, and then bam! In comes our boss, a really funky looking crab-thing with a huge white spiral shell covered in nasty barnacles. The way his big eyes sit on top of their stalks, Boss Crab, as we call him, always looks like he's surprised or in a state of shock. He has a name, hell, they all have names, but fuck trying to pronounce those multi-syllable, too many consonant things. We have nicknames for all of them.
Well, he storms right up to us, gives us both the once over with a look of astonishment, the whole time his little crab mouth parts moving a mile a minute—his disgustingly long, thin tentacle whiskers waving around, tasting the air, or whatever it is they're used for—when he reaches out with his enormous red claw, grabs poor Sam by the neck, and drags him into the back room. The killing room.
A couple seconds later, Boss Crab screams for us to come back there, too.
Click Here to read part 2!
November 5, 2012
How NOT to write a novel
So, it's National Write a Novel in a month, month. I've been seeing this thing posted all over the internet. Basically, a bunch of amateur, non-writers attempt and mostly fail to write a novel in 30 days. There are widgets and social networking plug-ins to allow you to show all your buddies your progress as you race against the clock to write a book.
This is not how you write a book.
I understand the sentiment. Why should anyone nay-say a fun exercise in writing that can only lead to more literacy and awareness of reading and writing?
Because it's a fucking stupid way to promote literacy.
I tend to liken everything to fighting or building. Disciplined skills practiced over time lead to meaningful results. You don't say, “I can't win a kickboxing fight” without first training kickboxing. You can say you WON'T or don't want to win a kickboxing fight, but not that you can't. You are just as capable as any other healthy human, if you're willing to master the discipline.
Same goes for building a house, which is the more appropriate metaphor for writing a novel. Both writing your own novel, and building your own dream home are American Dreams. Things any self-respecting American plans to do at some point in their lives.
Only most Americans don't have clue one how to do either, and will fail miserably when and if they finally muster up the gumption to give it a go. And here's why:
We're a group of self-entitled, nancy-pants, adult children who believe that things are just supposed to happen for us, without any hint of discipline or craftsmanship on our part.
I used to say, back in my film days, that 80% of indie films die in production. Every horror fan wants to direct a horror movie. And with digital technology, any horror fan can. A lot try, most fail. Why? Because they don't know how to build a movie.
And most of these people who participate in this nonsense novel writing month thing, they don't have clue one how to build a book. If you decided tomorrow that you were going to build a house, just cause Grandpa built the one you grew up in, and whatever grandpa can do, you can too, just because—well, you're gonna fail miserably.
Before you build a whole freakin house, you've got to remodel your basement. Add a few rooms down there. Learn how to build door frames, lay carpet, run wiring, add a bathroom and learn plumbing. Maybe turn your garage into an extended family room. Then build a nice work-shed out back. It wouldn't hurt to hang out with some carpenters and help them build a few houses, too, before you decide to tackle the job yourself.
Sounds like common sense, right? Well then why don't people use this same basic logic when it comes to writing a novel? I think the answer is two fold. First, the markets for short stories have all but evaporated, and most adults that now want to write a novel, have rarely, if ever, seen a short story collection or anthology in a bookstore, and therefore don't understand that any novel writer worth his/her weight in words, started off writing butt-loads of short fiction first.
Secondly, much like indie film making, the advent of Kindle/eBook self-publishing allows for any dim-wit with a word processor on their laptop to think they're the next Charles Dickens.
All of my fellow writers out there understand exactly what I'm saying. In a lot of ways, I'm preaching to the choir, and regurgitating what's been written thousands of times in self help how-to-write-for-dummies books. But I'm not writing this blog for you guys. I'm writing it for all the people out there who struggle, and fail, time and time again, to write their first novel.
I've only just now become aware of just how MANY of you there are out there, as posts about national novel month spring up all over the social networking sites. I'm seeing things like, “I don't know what kind of book I'm writing. Suspense maybe? We'll see as I get further along.” And, “I've been planning my novel for 6 months, I don't want to just puke it all up in one month!”
What? What?
Just like kickboxing, or house building, there are disciplined elements that go into novel writing that must first be recognized, then learned, then mastered. Elements like plot, pacing, character development, subplots, climaxes, conclusions. These elements don't just appear as you write. They must be understood in advance.
I don't outline to the extreme that some people do. I think over-outlining can lead to writer's block, or just a general loss of enthusiasm for a project, if all the fun has already been laid out clinically before you've even put your first paragraph to paper. But some form of outlined structure has to be present before your book can become anything except another 75,000 word rant left to fester and die in an obscure folder on your desktop.
Everyone writes differently. There is no “right” way to write a novel, just as there is no “right” way to build your house. It's art. Take liberties. Think outside the box of tradition. But if you're failing over and over again, year after year while playing Hemingway for National Write a Novel Month, then you need to really think about learning the rules before you decide to break them.
For me, I like to know my title, my first line, and my ending before I'm comfortable digging in to a book. You may write completely differently. But if you don't even understand what kind of conflict your main character is facing,--or how they will change as people because of it--before you start your book, you're destined for failure. And for you over-planners who are afraid to write too fast? You can't master a breath-taking spinning back kick by sitting around thinking about doing it for 6 months. You have to kick that bag every single day. Over and over again until you're throwing kicks in your sleep.
A good writer who writes every day will know what I'm talking about when I say that after a really good day of writing maybe 5k or more, I'll dream in prose. I'll narrate my own dreams in paragraph form. You'll never be a good writer, or probably ever finish a book, for that matter, without practicing every single day.
The best way to do that, to learn these elements, to recognize plot structure and the elements of good fiction is to write short stories. Instead of trying to write a novel in one month, try writing ten short stories in ten months. Make them no longer than 10 thousand words. Then, by the end of the ten months, you'll have 100,000 words. A novel's worth of characters, plots, antagonists, beautiful landscapes and shocking conclusions. Do that for two years. Get yourself 20 shorts stories written and you might find a weird thing happening.
Your stories will start to bust out of that 10 thousand word cage. Now your stories are pushing 15k, then topping 25k. Your plots are becoming more intricate, your characters are practically jumping to life, right off your page, and best yet, you're actually getting good at this! You go back and read some of your most recent shorts and you realize that they're not half bad. Somewhere along the way, you've become a pretty decent fiction writer.
What's that? It's National Novel Writing Month again? You only have to have 50 thousand words? Well your last short was 27k. You can do that. Hell, you've already got an idea in your head for a great story. This time? This time you're going to finish.
This is not how you write a book.
I understand the sentiment. Why should anyone nay-say a fun exercise in writing that can only lead to more literacy and awareness of reading and writing?
Because it's a fucking stupid way to promote literacy.
I tend to liken everything to fighting or building. Disciplined skills practiced over time lead to meaningful results. You don't say, “I can't win a kickboxing fight” without first training kickboxing. You can say you WON'T or don't want to win a kickboxing fight, but not that you can't. You are just as capable as any other healthy human, if you're willing to master the discipline.
Same goes for building a house, which is the more appropriate metaphor for writing a novel. Both writing your own novel, and building your own dream home are American Dreams. Things any self-respecting American plans to do at some point in their lives.
Only most Americans don't have clue one how to do either, and will fail miserably when and if they finally muster up the gumption to give it a go. And here's why:
We're a group of self-entitled, nancy-pants, adult children who believe that things are just supposed to happen for us, without any hint of discipline or craftsmanship on our part.
I used to say, back in my film days, that 80% of indie films die in production. Every horror fan wants to direct a horror movie. And with digital technology, any horror fan can. A lot try, most fail. Why? Because they don't know how to build a movie.
And most of these people who participate in this nonsense novel writing month thing, they don't have clue one how to build a book. If you decided tomorrow that you were going to build a house, just cause Grandpa built the one you grew up in, and whatever grandpa can do, you can too, just because—well, you're gonna fail miserably.
Before you build a whole freakin house, you've got to remodel your basement. Add a few rooms down there. Learn how to build door frames, lay carpet, run wiring, add a bathroom and learn plumbing. Maybe turn your garage into an extended family room. Then build a nice work-shed out back. It wouldn't hurt to hang out with some carpenters and help them build a few houses, too, before you decide to tackle the job yourself.
Sounds like common sense, right? Well then why don't people use this same basic logic when it comes to writing a novel? I think the answer is two fold. First, the markets for short stories have all but evaporated, and most adults that now want to write a novel, have rarely, if ever, seen a short story collection or anthology in a bookstore, and therefore don't understand that any novel writer worth his/her weight in words, started off writing butt-loads of short fiction first.
Secondly, much like indie film making, the advent of Kindle/eBook self-publishing allows for any dim-wit with a word processor on their laptop to think they're the next Charles Dickens.
All of my fellow writers out there understand exactly what I'm saying. In a lot of ways, I'm preaching to the choir, and regurgitating what's been written thousands of times in self help how-to-write-for-dummies books. But I'm not writing this blog for you guys. I'm writing it for all the people out there who struggle, and fail, time and time again, to write their first novel.
I've only just now become aware of just how MANY of you there are out there, as posts about national novel month spring up all over the social networking sites. I'm seeing things like, “I don't know what kind of book I'm writing. Suspense maybe? We'll see as I get further along.” And, “I've been planning my novel for 6 months, I don't want to just puke it all up in one month!”
What? What?
Just like kickboxing, or house building, there are disciplined elements that go into novel writing that must first be recognized, then learned, then mastered. Elements like plot, pacing, character development, subplots, climaxes, conclusions. These elements don't just appear as you write. They must be understood in advance.
I don't outline to the extreme that some people do. I think over-outlining can lead to writer's block, or just a general loss of enthusiasm for a project, if all the fun has already been laid out clinically before you've even put your first paragraph to paper. But some form of outlined structure has to be present before your book can become anything except another 75,000 word rant left to fester and die in an obscure folder on your desktop.
Everyone writes differently. There is no “right” way to write a novel, just as there is no “right” way to build your house. It's art. Take liberties. Think outside the box of tradition. But if you're failing over and over again, year after year while playing Hemingway for National Write a Novel Month, then you need to really think about learning the rules before you decide to break them.
For me, I like to know my title, my first line, and my ending before I'm comfortable digging in to a book. You may write completely differently. But if you don't even understand what kind of conflict your main character is facing,--or how they will change as people because of it--before you start your book, you're destined for failure. And for you over-planners who are afraid to write too fast? You can't master a breath-taking spinning back kick by sitting around thinking about doing it for 6 months. You have to kick that bag every single day. Over and over again until you're throwing kicks in your sleep.
A good writer who writes every day will know what I'm talking about when I say that after a really good day of writing maybe 5k or more, I'll dream in prose. I'll narrate my own dreams in paragraph form. You'll never be a good writer, or probably ever finish a book, for that matter, without practicing every single day.
The best way to do that, to learn these elements, to recognize plot structure and the elements of good fiction is to write short stories. Instead of trying to write a novel in one month, try writing ten short stories in ten months. Make them no longer than 10 thousand words. Then, by the end of the ten months, you'll have 100,000 words. A novel's worth of characters, plots, antagonists, beautiful landscapes and shocking conclusions. Do that for two years. Get yourself 20 shorts stories written and you might find a weird thing happening.
Your stories will start to bust out of that 10 thousand word cage. Now your stories are pushing 15k, then topping 25k. Your plots are becoming more intricate, your characters are practically jumping to life, right off your page, and best yet, you're actually getting good at this! You go back and read some of your most recent shorts and you realize that they're not half bad. Somewhere along the way, you've become a pretty decent fiction writer.
What's that? It's National Novel Writing Month again? You only have to have 50 thousand words? Well your last short was 27k. You can do that. Hell, you've already got an idea in your head for a great story. This time? This time you're going to finish.
November 1, 2012
Being a prolific Artist
I'm not sure when being prolific became a goal for me. Growing up, even after high school when I first fell in love with cinema while managing a chain of porn shops, I never paid attention to the fact that some of those filmmakers had made dozens of films over long decades.
Sometimes my partner, D.F. Noble, jokes about writing some shitty young adult novel so we can retire.
I have no interest in retiring.
So when did that become a thing for me? When did the idea of creating continuously until my body breaks down and prevents me from creating anymore come about?
I'd been aware of Stephen King's long career. Of Woody Allen's insane work rate. Of Bob Dylan. But none of that meant anything to me until I sat down and wrote my first script.
I hated it.
I sucked. I felt like a kid trying to draw a full color comic with crayons. So I bought a bunch of books on writing. I learned what everybody learns. To be good at writing, you have to write. A lot. All the time. And you have to read. Everything. So I wrote another short film script and actually produced a short film. Hated it. So I made another. Sucked, but not as bad. So I wrote a feature film script. God awful.
As of today, I've written and directed nearly 20 short films. I've written and directed 5 feature length films with another half-dozen film scripts that remain un-produced. I've written a short story collection, three novellas and two novels. And I still learn every single time I sit down at my computer and start a new story.
My friends who grew up with me --the blue collar, small town folk who think people like me are just stubborn idiots who won't grow up and get a real job-- slowly started to notice there was something special going on when month after month, year after year, I was still churning this shit out.
I've never had writer's block. My biggest enemy is staying focused on one project to completion before the next movie or book jams its way into my brain and takes over my focus. And I had no forethought or intention of creating in this way.
I know filmmakers who are still selling a movie they'd made five or six years prior. I know authors who wrote one book, one time, and that was it. They were done. That's crazy to me. Maybe it's about self doubt. The idea that I still haven't made “The Movie” or written “The Novel” that defines me as an artist, that will live on beyond my natural lifetime. Maybe these folks have and did.
But I don't think that's the case.
I think George Carlin wrote a new comedy album every year because he was always endlessly trying to find new ways to communicate his ideas to people. The whole notion of quitting any form of work once you've acquired a certain amount of money is a nasty idea to me. It's loathsome, it's the product of lazy minds, or of people who choose to do work they hate, just for a paycheck.
Carlin didn't need the money, Steve Jobs didn't need money at all when he was dying and still worked at Apple until three days before his death. Stephen King has famously sold the movie rights to his manuscripts for a dollar. That's not wealth motivation. That's a personal yearning for communication.
And somehow, completely unbeknownst to me, I possess it.
As I push forward through my third novel, I'm already outlining a fourth and fifth. I've already come up with a title to a new short story collection that may not see the light of day for another year. I'm bouncing ideas for new anthologies off my partners. I have unfinished business in my film making life that keeps me up at night. There are still scripts that beg me, deep into the long dark hours, to be shot and edited into real movies.
When does that stop? Does it ever? I hope not. I hope that overwhelming monetary success (should I ever be fortunate and lucky enough to see such a thing) doesn't kill the hunger inside me to create better, stronger art, faster and faster.
The list of prolific authors is endless. There's no way that, at 32 years old, I'll ever catch up to, or match the output of authors who've been at this for twenty years longer than me.
But I can work every day, every month, every year at becoming a better author, at putting out more books than the previous year, of topping my fastest novel turnaround. These things drive me, they excite me, and they exist inside me without my permission.
Being prolific isn't a choice. You either are, or you are not.
Sometimes my partner, D.F. Noble, jokes about writing some shitty young adult novel so we can retire.
I have no interest in retiring.
So when did that become a thing for me? When did the idea of creating continuously until my body breaks down and prevents me from creating anymore come about?
I'd been aware of Stephen King's long career. Of Woody Allen's insane work rate. Of Bob Dylan. But none of that meant anything to me until I sat down and wrote my first script.
I hated it.
I sucked. I felt like a kid trying to draw a full color comic with crayons. So I bought a bunch of books on writing. I learned what everybody learns. To be good at writing, you have to write. A lot. All the time. And you have to read. Everything. So I wrote another short film script and actually produced a short film. Hated it. So I made another. Sucked, but not as bad. So I wrote a feature film script. God awful.
As of today, I've written and directed nearly 20 short films. I've written and directed 5 feature length films with another half-dozen film scripts that remain un-produced. I've written a short story collection, three novellas and two novels. And I still learn every single time I sit down at my computer and start a new story.
My friends who grew up with me --the blue collar, small town folk who think people like me are just stubborn idiots who won't grow up and get a real job-- slowly started to notice there was something special going on when month after month, year after year, I was still churning this shit out.
I've never had writer's block. My biggest enemy is staying focused on one project to completion before the next movie or book jams its way into my brain and takes over my focus. And I had no forethought or intention of creating in this way.
I know filmmakers who are still selling a movie they'd made five or six years prior. I know authors who wrote one book, one time, and that was it. They were done. That's crazy to me. Maybe it's about self doubt. The idea that I still haven't made “The Movie” or written “The Novel” that defines me as an artist, that will live on beyond my natural lifetime. Maybe these folks have and did.
But I don't think that's the case.
I think George Carlin wrote a new comedy album every year because he was always endlessly trying to find new ways to communicate his ideas to people. The whole notion of quitting any form of work once you've acquired a certain amount of money is a nasty idea to me. It's loathsome, it's the product of lazy minds, or of people who choose to do work they hate, just for a paycheck.
Carlin didn't need the money, Steve Jobs didn't need money at all when he was dying and still worked at Apple until three days before his death. Stephen King has famously sold the movie rights to his manuscripts for a dollar. That's not wealth motivation. That's a personal yearning for communication.
And somehow, completely unbeknownst to me, I possess it.
As I push forward through my third novel, I'm already outlining a fourth and fifth. I've already come up with a title to a new short story collection that may not see the light of day for another year. I'm bouncing ideas for new anthologies off my partners. I have unfinished business in my film making life that keeps me up at night. There are still scripts that beg me, deep into the long dark hours, to be shot and edited into real movies.
When does that stop? Does it ever? I hope not. I hope that overwhelming monetary success (should I ever be fortunate and lucky enough to see such a thing) doesn't kill the hunger inside me to create better, stronger art, faster and faster.
The list of prolific authors is endless. There's no way that, at 32 years old, I'll ever catch up to, or match the output of authors who've been at this for twenty years longer than me.
But I can work every day, every month, every year at becoming a better author, at putting out more books than the previous year, of topping my fastest novel turnaround. These things drive me, they excite me, and they exist inside me without my permission.
Being prolific isn't a choice. You either are, or you are not.
October 27, 2012
New interview
Hey Gang! Check out this brand new interview I did with Mike over at (Re)Searchmytrash.com!
http://www.searchmytrash.com/cgi-bin/...
http://www.searchmytrash.com/cgi-bin/...
Strange Sayings
Pontifications of one Kevin Strange, cult film director come Hardcore-Bizarro author.
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