Gerald Dean Rice's Blog, page 112

Dry - 15

"My friend," Cazir called to him. "I have to helped your friend. Please hurry."

 

He sounded weak. Something must have happened. It took a little effort and for a moment he thought he'd fall, but Monster climbed atop the crowd. He turned to the fire pit and saw Cazir holding Uncle Bill in his arms. Blue flame licked around his body, but he didn't seem to be on fire.

 

He scooped the both of them up in his arms and almost fell through the fleshy floor beneath him. They seemed not to notice, but he wasn't going to count on that lasting.

 

What's the difference between a crowd and a mob? he thought, thinking of a joke his grandfather was fond of telling.

 

"The first rock," he said under his breath.

 

They made it to the edge of the crowd, collapsing on top of a balding middle-aged man and what he would have guessed to be his plump, blonde-haired wife. Uncle Bill was still shaky, but he could stand on his own, but Cazir was bad off.

 

"My friend, my apologies," he whispered as Monster picked him up again. "This was mistake. This was all big-big mistake."

 

"Shh," Monster said. He didn't know if Cazir had intended anything that had happened tonight, but they were square so far as he was concerned. The man had risked his life to save Uncle Bill.

 

"What the… what the hell is going on?" Bill asked, struggling to keep pace with his nephew.

 

"I'll explain later. Just try to keep up."

 

There was a giant crash just as they made it around the corner. Monster didn't bother turning around. Cazir was able to guide them back to the warehouse before losing consciousness.

 

"All is fine. All is fine," he said before passing out. Monster saw with his own eyes, but couldn't believe it, but the front office of the warehouse didn't have a scratch on it. He'd have to figure out a way to get the U-Haul back on its wheels to drive Cazir to a hospital so he went around the building to where the loading dock was. The door was slid shut like he hadn't driven through it just a couple hours ago.

 

"What the hell?"

 

"What?" Uncle Bill asked.

 

"Never mind. Let's go get the truck." Monster crossed the street.

 

"But isn't the truck in there?"

 

He was going to be in for a lot less work than he'd originally thought if his guess was right. That was fine by him as his head was boiling now and Cazir was getting heavier by the second.

 

Monster spotted the truck in the middle of the hilly lawn, right-side up. He wondered why everything else had returned to normal but Cazir was either hurt or dying and his head was roasting.

Dry - 14

The first person took a boot to the back of the head and crumpled to the ground. They all raised their hands as the fire started in the pit. Uncle Bill seemed to stir. Monster blasted a chubby body in the chest with a left hook and he or she flew into the person next to him. Monster didn't care if it was man or woman, all of them had tried to kill him and were trying to kill his uncle now. Monster had never hurt anyone in his life before and if anything he did now didn't really count there was absolutely no reason to hold back.

 

Not that anyone resisted. The person in front of him went down from a knee to the gut and he choke-slammed the next one. He reached the fire pit and it was hot to the touch. They had Uncle Bill tied to a basketball pole in the middle of the pit. There was no way he could get in there.

 

"You have to get him," Monster said to Cazir. The middle-eastern man's eyes went wide.

 

"But my friend, I cannot." He held up his hands.

 

"Look! This is all your fault as far as I'm concerned. If he dies then it's on you." Monster jabbed him in the chest. It felt weird, like he could have poked a hole in him.

 

"Yes-yes, you are right." Cazir said something unintelligible and Monster realized he'd spoken in his native language. "I will get. I will get," the man said, switching back to his poor English.

 

Cazir floated over the pit and over to Uncle Bill. By now the man was awake and aware, struggling against his bonds. Cazir put a hand to his chest to try to calm him, but Uncle Bill wouldn't keep still.

 

"My feet!" Uncle Bill shouted. "My feet are burnin'!"

 

That wouldn't be all that was burning if Cazir didn't hurry. Monster shifted from foot to foot in the slim space between the pit and the crowd. He was sweating freely, but it wasn't all due to the heat.

 

He really, really needed a drink.

 

There was a truck full waiting for him to get as sloshed as he wanted, so long as he and Uncle Bill could get out of here in one piece. Or would that be two pieces?

 

Monster didn't bother the crowd now that he'd made it up front. He could stand a live and let live policy, but he wondered if this armistice would continue if Cazir got Uncle Bill out. Monster looked out at them and realized there were a whole lot more of them than the ones who'd been chasing him all night.

 

It might have been the whole town.

 

Monster tried to step back to peak over the top of the fire pit again, but it was too high, the crowd too close. They surged against him just then and for a moment of panic, Monster thought he was about to be crushed. He was able to slip between two of them, but he had a tad of claustrophia as there wasn't really anywhere for him to move.

 

Until they began to rock the fire pit.

Dry - 13

Uncle Bill was strung up to a post over what looked like a fire pit. The people were still throwing kindling into it, but it looked like one of them was attempting to light it. His uncle still hadn't moved, but he didn't know how much time he had left before he woke up or whatever.

 

Everyone's costume had changed. Instead of witches and serial killers and pimps they all wore what looked like burlap sacks, much like the one on Monster's head. He tugged at it and it tore open, exposing his chin and lower lip. Had to hurry.

 

Uncle Bill's limbs and head went limp and he ran out with his bottle in hand. There were so many of them. Sneaking up on them he could probably take down three or four, but there had to be over twenty. There would be two of them over that fire pit if he didn't play this right.

 

"Hey!" he said. No one turned. "I mean, rahrr! Rahrrr-rahrrrrrr!"

 

A man turned and looked. His eyes were glassy as if he didn't understand what he was looking at. Monster tugged lightly at the sack on his head to accentuate that he was the frankenstein they'd all been looking for. The man pointed at him, realization dawning in his eyes. He screamed.

 

Others turned and looked. Five more followed suit, pointing and screaming. For a second, Monster thought that was all they would do until the first man broke into a run. He waited to see if the others would follow him, but by the time the man reached Monster they were all still in place.

 

Monster smashed the bottle over his head and he slumped to the ground. Another began jogging toward him, but the rest seemed to lose interest. They turned back to the fire pit.

 

"Hey, no! Look at me—look at me!" The one who was jogging to him slowed and stopped. She turned around and began walking back.

 

What was this?

 

"My friend," Cazir said, suddenly at his side. He wasn't as transparent this time, in fact, he was barely translucent. "You cannot save him now."

 

"What? What do you mean? He's not… he's not awake yet. The fire shouldn't burn him, right?"

 

"Yes, but sometimes the spirits… they decide to take someone back with them. They wanted you, but they will settle for your friend."

 

"That is not happening."

 

Monster charged the group, ready to fight to the death, if necessary. If these spirits were going to take somebody, then it would be him and Monster would go down fighting. His head was flaming like it had been encased in a giant chili. He wasn't sure if this was Cazir's fault or not, but if he made it he'd deal with it then.

Collaboration or Pact with the Devil

I stole this from Montilee Stormer over at Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers.

 

Partnerships and collaborations for writers can be pretty darn special when two minds managed to meld into one terrific unified voice.

 

King/Straub, Zelanzny/Saberhagen, Callahan/Stormer.

 

*grin*

 

They are also as rare as unicorns in a slaughterhouse and writer collaborations can fail for a number of reasons.

 

Here are some tips (gleaned from personal experience and chatting with other writers) on how to maintain a successful collaborative effort, and probably more important - when to bail.

 

Make sure your collaboration is actually a writing project an not en excuse to fall into bed. Seriously. I've been approached to collaborate on a few projects only to find out a few exchanges through that it wasn't my writing they were interested in.

 

How to make it work

 

Find a good match. This is a lot like finding a good mate, and if you suck at the mate part, maybe collaborations aren't for you. Essentially, writing projects are like making babies, so examine your reasons for doing it and with whom, and be honest. Do you like the person as a writer and as a person? Does this person respect you as a person and a writer? Don't say yes because you have nothing else to do. Collaborations take time and real effort and a healthy dose of compromise. This is a serious commitment. It's not fair to hold back another writer because you're not ready to settle down.Respect for the other's ability. This should be easy, but I've heard tales told of writers getting together for no more reason than someone wanted a coat-tail to ride, but not really liking the coat-tail's work. Discuss what you each of you plans on getting out of it - and realistic goals are the idea. Do you have an idea in mind? A length? How will the work be distributed? Is your partner an outliner and how will that mesh with your more free-style method of sitting down and writing until your fingers bleed? Who's name goes first? Do you trust this person?Know what you're writing. If he's writing a hard-boiled crime thriller and your sparkly vampires don't have much to do - chances are you aren't writing the same book. Go over characters, plots and maybe an outline. How will information be shared? Drives? Google Wave? Google Documents? E-mail? Settling on a method early ensures a timely exchange of material.Decide on a division of labor. Who does the outline, the synopsis, the treatment? My situation is unique since we were going off a screenplay I'd already written. He divided up the scenes, using their natural end points to create chapters. He took the odds and I took the evens. As we finished and handed off we were able to see each other's take on characters and incorporate that into future chapters.Don't blow off deadlines and meetings. If you've got writing meetings planned and either you or your partner are finding things "pop" up, chances are the book isn't a priority and it isn't ever getting done.Be realistic about when it'll get done. Books take time and we all write at different paces. It took my partner and I almost three years to complete Isle and there was an exchange of responsibilities in getting it done. The first three chapters clipped along so fast in the beginning we thought we'd have it wrapped in six-nine months. Hard to believe we were ever so young.Expect to get frustrated, because things happen, life happens, and not everything you produce will be gold. Which leads me to Expect life to happen. My partner and I had been rolling along pretty well until Life happened, and nothing could be done on the work for several months. I can't get mad because he's suddenly working 70-hour weeks and I'm unemployed. Expect to take chances and like them. I wasn't anticipating my characters to be so three-dimensional and I hadn't realized early on how much of a dick my main character was until my partner fleshed him out. And I love it.Expect to say no. Sometimes things just aren't going to work. If the respect is there so will the understanding. Maybe there can be a compromise, as it's a partnership, not a benevolent dictatorship. You're in this together so be flexible.

 

When to bail

Knowing when to bail on a collaboration that just isn't working again is a lot like bailing on a potential mate. Some people bail too soon at the first sign of trouble, potentially sinking what could have been a healthy match. Others languish for years projects that will never see a publisher. If you suck at breaking up with people, collaborations aren't for you.

 

Not getting along anymore

Blowing off meetingsThe division of labor has shifted drasticallyNot actually writing when getting togetherGentle prods for progress go unansweredYour partner has taken on a huge project and there just isn't any time leftYour partner belittles your effort and makes a million changes to stuff you've already written.You realize that this person just isn't into you or the potential anymore.

Partnerships are a big deal and it takes people willing to grow together as writers to make one successful.

TGT on Kindle

Just got the word from my publisher yesterday.  You can now purchase The Ghost Toucher as an ebook on Kindle.  I just looked at it and at least the first 40 pages is up there.  Have a look for yourself!

Dry - 12

He was completely turned around. Where he'd buried Uncle Bill could have been the next block over or a mile away.

 

He had to get back to those woods.

 

It shouldn't be difficult to find the tree that had been chopped down. He could orient himself and work his way back to the yard where Uncle Bill was.

 

Monster splashed some more vodka on his face, but his head felt only hotter. If this weirdness were wearing off, shouldn't he need booze less? He tugged on the sack and felt a few threads pop around his neck.

 

He cleared his throat. "Th' rain 'n Spain…" His voice was still more gruff than usual, but it was sounding more and more like it was supposed to by the minute.

 

Finding the woods was easy. Finding where he came in the first time wasn't. Monster was a city boy and had no conception of how large even a small wood could be. Every tree was the same. What were these, pine trees? And it was dark outside, once he was in the woods, he was really in the woods.

 

Luckily the moon was full and the sky clear. The fall leaves were incredibly loud, crunching underfoot. He stumbled over something and the bottle and shovel went flying as he tried in vain to keep from falling.

 

Monster searched for the items he'd lost, but was only able to find the bottle. Great. He started thinking about things other than costumed freaks that might try to get him. Monster poured the rest of the vodka over his head and scrabbled to his feet, turning the empty bottle upside down, holding the neck in his fist. If a bear tried to rape him it was gonna get a skull full glass first.

 

What had he tripped over? Monster turned. At first he couldn't make it out, but he drew closer and realized it was a felled tree. Was it his tree? He had to hope. Monster followed the length of the tree until he came to the tree top. Wrong way. He turned around and walked alongside until reaching the bottom.

 

He looked up. Monster had no real frame of reference. This was the edge of the wood, but he didn't know which way that was. He could easily walk in the wrong direction and be lost again.

 

There were voices nearby. Monster heard the barking bloodhounds again. A moment later he could see the torches. But they didn't seem to be coming for him.

 

He crept to the edge of the woods on his hands and knees. When he saw what they were doing he knew he had to stop them.

Golden Age

Okay, you got me.  I like long poetry.  I wrote this probably five years ago or so:

 

O love, this is your golden age,

Let me herald your grand reign,

Cast your great net and

Capture all our shimmering souls,

Let my free-torn heart,

Fly from its moorings and the yoke of my body

And be a harbinger of your valor,

We have been wakened from a sound sleep

And are trepid, gazing up to you with awed faces,

Leave us shackled solely to your every utterance

As the weight of words

Bows our heads and bends our knees

O treasure, pay us no heed,

Ease the plight of mankind

As you weave satin speech

To floss the captive minds of all,

We are your spirited slaves,

We will wear your chains like crowns,

And champion your magnificence

As we run to all corners of the earth,

So begin your dynasty, my love,

This is, this is,

This is your golden age.

 

You shall hold sway so long, beloved,

As the black years are sunk

In a silver sea of your opus

And a new renaissance rises above the horizon,

Those who suffer with stitched shut ears

Will be blinded by your brilliance,

Spit silk and lead us on to glory

We are kittens to milk

Lapping up chunks of heaven

As they fall from your mouth

And you march us on to victory

Your lexis is a symphony,

Your voice a feast to the ear,

You fatten the starving souls of multitudes,

Those who would stand in your path,

Those lovers of nothing,

Shall be trampled by metaphor

And ground into grain,

If we simple soldiers should fall,

O wondrous one, please do not turn back for us,

Continue on, remembering us in verse,

Raise your pen,

Your reign has already begun,

Raise your pen,

The battle is already won.

 

We are under lock and key to your every word,

Betrayed by definitions and held hostage by true meaning,

O czar of minds, we have served you,

You have changed us from soft scions

Into sturdy soldiers set to seize the world

Bonded by faith and steadfastly solid,

But you cut out our unwilling hearts with double-edged words

And heft such scars upon us with a whip of words,

We have endured your tyranny of pages

And suffered under your supreme sovereignty,

Chained to you,

We wilt under your reign,

Our souls stagnating in your steely soil,

You have destroyed your shining sons,

Made headstones of our hearts

And the graves of our bodies are forever empty,

But we shall conquer you with our unfeeling hands,

O overseer of men,

And banish you to memory,

We are senseless slaves feeling freedom

Stop your pen, drop your pen,

For at last, at last,

Your golden age is at its end.

The Hound of Heaven

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

   Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

            Up vistaed hopes I sped;

            And shot, precipitated,

Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,

From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

            But with unhurrying chase,

            And unperturbéd pace,

       Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

            They beat—and a Voice beat

            More instant than the Feet—

       "All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."

   I pleaded, outlaw-wise,

By many a hearted casement, curtained red,

   Trellised with intertwining charities;

(For, though I knew His love Who followèd,

            Yet was I sore adread

Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside.)

But, if one little casement parted wide,

    The gust of His approach would clash it to:

    Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.

Across the margent of the world I fled,

    And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,

    Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars:

            Fretted to dulcet jars

And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon.

I said to Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon;

   With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over

            From this tremendous Lover—

Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!

   I tempted all His servitors, but to find

My own betrayal in their constancy,

In faith to Him their fickleness to me,

    Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.

To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;

    Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.

          But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,

        The long savannahs of the blue;

            Or whether, Thunder-driven,

          They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven,

Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet:—

    Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.

            Still with unhurrying chase,

            And unperturbéd pace,

        Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

            Came on the following Feet,

            And a Voice above their beat—

        "Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."

 

I sought no more that after which I strayed

            In face of man or maid;

But still within the little children's eyes

            Seems something, something that replies,

They at least are for me, surely for me!

I turned me to them very wistfully;

But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair

            With dawning answers there,

Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.

"Come then, ye other children, Nature's—share

With me" (said I) "your delicate fellowship;

            Let me greet you lip to lip,

            Let me twine you with caresses,

                Wantoning

            With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses,

                Banqueting

            With her in her wind-walled palace,

            Underneath her azured dais,

            Quaffing, as your taintless way is,

                From a chalice

Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring."

                So it was done:

I in their delicate fellowship was one—

Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.

            I knew all the swift importings

            On the wilful face of skies;

            I knew how the clouds arise

            Spuméd of the wild sea-snortings;

                 All that's born or dies

            Rose and drooped with; made them shapers

Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine;

            With them joyed and was bereaven.

            I was heavy with the even,

            When she lit her glimmering tapers

            Round the day's dead sanctities.

            I laughed in the morning's eyes.

I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,

            Heaven and I wept together,

And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine;

Against the red throb of its sunset-heart

            I laid my own to beat,

            And share commingling heat;

But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.

In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek.

For ah! we know not what each other says,

            These things and I; in sound I speak—

Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.

Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;

            Let her, if she would owe me,

Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me

            The breasts o' her tenderness:

Never did any milk of hers once bless

                My thirsting mouth.

                Nigh and nigh draws the chase,

                With unperturbèd pace,

            Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;

                And past those noised Feet

                A voice comes yet more fleet—

            "Lo! naught contents thee, who content'st not Me."

 

Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke!

My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,

                And smitten me to my knee;

            I am defenceless utterly.

            I slept, methinks, and woke,

And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.

In the rash lustihead of my young powers,

            I shook the pillaring hours

And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,

I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years—

My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.

My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,

Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.

            Yea, faileth now even dream

The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist.

Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist

I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,

Are yielding; cords of all too weak account

For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.

            Ah! is Thy love indeed

A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed,

Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?

            Ah! must—

            Designer infinite!—

Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou can'st limn with it?

My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust;

And now my heart is as a broken fount,

Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever

            From the dank thoughts that shiver

Upon the sighful branches of my mind.

            Such is; what is to be?

The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?

I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds;

Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds

From the hid battlements of Eternity;

Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then

Round the half-glimpséd turrets slowly wash again.

            But not ere him who summoneth

            I first have seen, enwound

With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned;

His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.

Whether man's heart or life it be which yields

            Thee harvest, must Thy harvest-fields

            Be dunged with rotten death?

 

                Now of that long pursuit

                Comes on at hand the bruit;

            That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:

                "And is thy earth so marred,

                Shattered in shard on shard?

            Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!

            Strange, piteous, futile thing!

Wherefore should any set thee love apart?

Seeing none but I makes much of naught" (He said),

"And human love needs human meriting:

            How hast thou merited—

Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?

            Alack, thou knowest not

How little worthy of any love thou art!

Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,

            Save Me, save only Me?

All which I took from thee I did but take,

            Not for thy harms,

But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.

            All which thy child's mistake

Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:

            Rise, clasp My hand, and come!"

    Halts by me that footfall:

    Is my gloom, after all,

Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?

    "Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,

    I am He Whom thou seekest!

Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."

 

Francis Thompson (1859-1907)

Dry - 11

Monster had worked a hole in the sack where his mouth was. The air on his face was cool.

 

He'd tried to tear the whole thing off, but the thread wouldn't budge after a point and began tearing into his fingers.

 

Cazir had vanished again, but he had all he needed. The gloves were off. If they wanted a Frankenstein, he'd give them one. Whatever these evil spirits were, he'd had enough.

 

"Car," he managed to say to the woman as they stood in the kitchen. She blinked her big blue eyes at him as he rummaged through her cabinets for booze.

 

"I don't drive," she said, lifting her chin at him. He wanted to belt her, but he wasn't sure whatever it was hadn't worn off of her.

 

He checked in the fridge and came up with nothing. This woman just couldn't be a teetotaler. Monster opened the freezer and his eyes went wide.

 

Vodka.

 

Bingo!

 

He grabbed the unopened bottle and screwed off the cap. It felt so good pouring over his head. The fairy stared at him, a look of confusion on her face. He capped the hooch with half of the contents left. This was coming with.

 

Monster looked at the fairy. There was nothing he could do with her. He hadn't seen anything to tie her up while he was looking for liquor. She would probably intentionally slow him down if he took her with him or call out to the others. He had to leave her.

 

"On floor," he said, leading her to the garage. "Close eyes."

 

She did as she was told, for the most part. He could see her peaking at him as he picked up a shovel.

 

"You may have stolen my wand, Frankenstein, but the others… the others will get you yet."

 

"Ready," Monster said, gripping his shovel.

 

He turned and ran with it in one hand, the vodka in the other. He wasn't halfway down the block when he heard her screaming. Let them come. Now that he knew it wasn't real people he was dealing with, but weird spirits it was time to let loose. He had to get to Uncle Bill before whatever this was had lifted.

 

"Argh!" the pirate said, popping out from behind a bush. His eyes went wide as Monster lowered a shoulder and barreled into him. The peg-legged man bounced off him and smacked onto the concrete, sliding across several tiles of sidewalk.

New Idea...

My publisher approached me about something he's working on.  We got our wires crossed, but I got a good idea from it.  It's too late to turn back, I've already begun basic research and I have my main characters.  After I finish up with the next 2 blog stories I'll begin in earnest.