Craig Terlson's Blog, page 14
August 17, 2012
Bent Highway: Chapter Five
Truth
So chalk girl had a name, or an initial at least. I ripped the note off the steering wheel, slammed the truck door and cranked the engine. What the hell else was I going to do? Lately, driving was the only constant in my life.
I thought back to that day I'd cut out from Harold and his Lime Green Slurpee. Or it might have been a Gulp, who knew? I'd being living in the same town, same hockey rink, same bar with the same beer on tap, and the same shoe leather pizza. I stayed in the same plac...
August 9, 2012
Bent Highway: Chapter Four
Tequila
The Spireton was more shack than bar, and shack might have been a compliment. Six scarred tables that would have been at home in a bingo hall were placed haphazardly in the room. A row of red vinyl stools lined up against the bar, only one wasn't ripped. Water dripped from a crack in the ceiling into plastic pail. It wasn’t raining out. A yellowed sign behind the greasy haired bartenter read Occupany:54. Between us and the other patrons we still had 49 more to go.
"Do you have Tequila?"...
August 7, 2012
The Noir Inside Me
A friend gifted me a set of Jim Thompson paperbacks the other day. I've read Thompson before and love the movies The Grifters and The Getaway (Peckinpah and McQueen please, let's not even talk about the other one). I know how dark Thompson is, and to be honest I do like the dark. In my bookclub, I have the reputation of bringing the darkest and bleakest books to the year's reading list (introduced them to The Road, American Pastoral, and DeLillo's, Endzone to name a few).
But here is what I ha...
August 5, 2012
What can you get for six bucks? (Or: Boots and Books)
I did a lot of research when deciding on the price point for my novel. Like anything on the internet, you are going to find a wide variance of opinions. As an unknown author (and that is surely what I am), some have suggested to go low, and go for volume – kind of a Walmart approach. Incidentally, I don't shop at Walmart. The place bugs the hell out of me, both for its business practices and the low level crap it sells. Tangentially, one of the ways of choosing to live simply is to buy someth...
August 3, 2012
Bent Highway Chapters
If you missed the previous chapters of Bent Highway, you could scroll through Woofreakinhoo, or you could just click below.
New chapters will be posted every Friday.
I hope you are enjoying is so far.
Right now M is pretty damn confused, he knows that his perception is being altered, and that chalk girl and the black sedan have the answers. But in Chapter three, he mainly wonders how is pants went missing (!). Okay, well more than that.
See you next Friday.
Doc
I awoke staring into a clipboard that hovered above my face. The guy wasn't wearing anything that would identify him as a doctor but I figured he had to be – he had that look of someone that studied your personal areas. A curvy woman with horn rimmed glasses and a rat’s nest of hair stood next to him.
"I said do you often have this loss of conciousness?"
"Sorry?"
He looked at the woman, she grimaced, he said something under his breath.
"I see. You have had another one. Do you remember coming in h...
July 30, 2012
Canada (Richard Ford) review
Canada by Richard Ford
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
If you are looking for a fast paced narrative, full of suspense and robbers on the run (r.o.r. - okay, just made that up), then look elsewhere.
But if you know Ford's elegant, stripped down prose and amazing ability to capture the intricacies of human beings better than any other writer alive (stolen quote form Globe and Mail), and you have the time to immerse yourself in a slow exploration... then this book needs 6 stars, or maybe more.
I know it wo...
July 27, 2012
Bent Highway: Chapter Two
Arrow
The half-ton’s engine stalled, but I didn’t turn it over again. I sat in the ditch thinking about those bowed lips. I remembered asking the question.
"What was your name again?”
No response.
I tried again. “Last time I didn’t catch it. We talked in that bar in Yellowburn.”
"I didn't give it," she'd said.
I’d met her more than once. I closed my eyes and pictured a smoldering house trailer, then bursting into fire, her running into the field, me after her, then that big beast toppling over me....
July 26, 2012
Coming up tomorrow.
Another segment of Bent Highway.
M tries to remember how he knows chalk girl.
Read segment one, below this post.
July 20, 2012
Bent Highway: Chapter One
Zippo
I clacked open my Zippo and held it under the bent coffee spoon. I watched the thin blue flame dance, not thinking of anything, just following the reflections and the metal turning colours. Did I have the guts to put the hot spoon to the barely scabbed over gash that grinned at me like it was about to break wide open and gush red ants – I was going to cauterize the mother.
Crazy shit like that had been going through my brain for over a month, or maybe longer. For me, time was a dog’s brea...
