Bill C. Castengera's Blog

Freedom

I am naked.  Naked and floating above the Earth, the grip of gravity can’t contain me.  The space station is cold.  It’s metallic.  I look through the window at the planet below, the blue hue of atmosphere glances around the quiet cabin.  Sounds are amplified by the silence.  I can hear the faint hiss of oxygen through the vents, the background beeps of the instrument panels.  The silence around each sound is nearly absurd.  

I dangle.  Naked.  I am alone and the frigid cabin is like a cell.  It is claustrophobic.  The counterbalance of claustrophobia in the midst of planetary freedom is an odd feeling.  The vastness beyond feels uncontrollable, the claustrophobia gives me a sense of weird safety, like a baby in swaddling cloths.  So I got naked.  I got naked to feel that rush of uncontrollable freedom.  Naked in space.  No one would ever know.

Only a group of us have ever been inside this freedom, outside our planetary prison.  I will go back and gravity will pin me against the planet’s surface.  I will be trapped inside the closed ecosystem of a giant terrarium.  I will breathe in the carbon dioxide of someone else’s breath.  The pressure of atmosphere will constrict me.  Nothing can be more claustrophobic than that.  But right now, I am loose.  I am not a member of that hot and sweaty prison.  I am naked and cold and utterly alone.

I desperately long to go back.  

The Breakup

“I’m sick of you.  We need to break up.”

“?”

“Yes.  Sick.  You annoy the shit out of me.  I’ve felt this way for the past three months.  I only stayed with you because you’re pathetic.  I felt sorry for you.  Really.  If you don’t have me, you have nothing.  I’m your whole life.”

“….”

“There’s no sense in crying.  You’re an ugly crier.  If anything, it makes me less inclined to want to be with you.  Actually, I take that back.  Seeing you crying right now sort of pleases me.  I mean, I still don’t want to be with you, but thank you for sobbing like this.  It makes me realize how amazing I’ve been.”

“….?”

“Oh my God.  You’re really embarrassing yourself.  Gross.  There’s snot.  I think you need to reevaluate yourself.  You really don’t have much to offer anyone.  You should learn a trade.  You should try to look nicer.  Shit.  I don’t know, but you’ve got to do something.  Remember that time you wanted to go parachuting?  Yeah, that.  You should do stuff like that.  But without the parachute.”

“???”

“Don’t act surprised.  I’ve been hoping you would just end it for a while now.  It’s a good story.  I could get massive amounts of sympathy ass with a story like that.  I could act damaged and these ladies would want to try to fix me, to ‘help’ me understand that it wasn’t my fault that you were a head case.  At any rate, you’re too selfish to do that so that’s why we need to break up.  Frankly I’m tired of waiting you out.  There you go.  Hang your hat on that.  It’s a positive.  At least you have that…fatty.”

“$&@?!”

“Oh!  Now you come to life?  It’s the eleventh hour and now you have conviction about something?  Too little too late, though.  I can’t even understand you through your disgusting fat face.  It’s like you’re talking into a tub of lard and it obscures any semblance of human language.  I can’t understand you at all.  We can’t communicate.  You’re like the adults in Peanuts.  Talking to you is like communicating with an above average great ape.  Minus the above average part, and heavier on the characteristic features.”

“….”

“Okay, yes, sorry, that was out of bounds.  All I’m trying to say is that I love you.  And also, that’s not true at all.  The opposite of that, really.  I would say ‘hate’ but the word lacks the amplitude of my actual feelings.  It’s not a strong enough word.  I’m not sure there is a word that could illustrate the strength of my negative feelings for you.  Maybe it’s your name.  I Stephanie you.  Nope.  I still feel the need to amplify it.  I Stephanie the shit out of you.  It’s closer…”

“!”

The mirror quietly reflected, unmoved.  Practice makes perfect, he thought.  “I’m sick of you.  We need to break up,” he began again.

My Motorbike

The motorbike is stitched together from pieces of other lesser, half disassembled motorbikes.  It’s scarred and dented.  A Mary Shelley bike.  It’s a motorbike, not a motorcycle.  The only distinction between the two that I can make is that this motorbike was once a bicycle.  The motor was an afterthought, probably commandeered from a small lawnmower or weed eater.  The fuel tank is a repurposed water bottle and the cap stays loose.  It has been over-tightened.  There are no EPA regulations to abide by here.

It still zips through the over-crowded city streets.  There are no real, enforceable traffic standards.  The street is a death trap.  It’s also a necessity.  Despite the many lives it has claimed, the people have become desensitized to the danger it poses.  They don’t care, so I am lulled into a false sense of security.  It must not be as dangerous as it seems.  

Seven minutes from home to work.  I somehow make it there intact, the negotiation of my life everyday has become so mundane I don’t even consider it anymore.  The rusty kickstand leans the motorbike to one side.  The angle it leans on seems like a mathematical impossibility, but it doesn’t fall over, counterbalanced by something unseen.

The job is unfulfilling.  Three hours on, twenty minutes of rest, three more hours, twenty more minutes, then three hours, then home.  They make us rest because the labor is intensive.  They tell us it prevents injury and lessens fatigue.  We carry bales of cardboard between large machines.  Back and forth.  Today, my co-worker got fired because the boss saw him lift with his back instead of his legs.  They won’t tolerate that sort of thing.

It’s not quite nighttime when I get back to my rusty and dented motorbike.  I like this moment.  The sky is red and orange on the horizon and fades up into the deep blue sky of falling darkness.  A few twinkling stars shine through, a promise of more to come. 

My motorbike sputters over the hill, just before it rolls down into the maze of chaos below, and in that moment, after the work is done, with the amber view in my eyes, I am free.

Very Simple Tips For Break-Out Blogging

DO…

You’ve got to follow to be followed.

You’ve got to genuinely like and comment on other’s posts.

You’ve got to be actively engaged.

You’ve got to share on every platform you can share on.

SEO. Your tags are important.

Your featured image draws people in.

Inform and entertain. One or both, but both is better.

Don’t…

Follow blogs just to follow and never look at them again. Follow the blogs that interest you.

Have a bunch of spelling errors. You will have a few but at least double check before you post.

Falsely represent what your blog is about. Titles are important, but the title has to accurately indicate what the writing is about.

Link to your blog post gratuitously on someone else’s blog.

The Serial, My Destination

Check this one out over on Fargus Larbis…

Fargus Larbis

So I just revisited a book I read as a young man. It’s called The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester written in 1957. Crazy. The reviews of the book are ultra-polarized. When I read it for the first time, I absolutely loved the story. It had fresh ideas I hadn’t even considered before. The description on the jacket really doesn’t do the book justice, but maybe, just maybe, I forgot about the absolutely brutal rape scene. How did I miss that? I missed the fact that the book couldn’t decide on one major idea. It’s as if Bester couldn’t decide which idea to fully develop and so he just said fuck it, all of em.

Despite that, I still really like the book. I never realized it before, but that single work influenced my writing. It’s funny how reading things at a young age drastically influence what kind of…

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How People Really Decide To Buy Your Book

Check out this article over on Medium….pretty interesting for indie writers…

How People Really Decide To Buy Your Book

The Selection

“Head up, kid.”

The boy was six.  Too young to have been selected, for sure.  From time to time, the selection process went this way, and people gritted their teeth and got it over with.  They watched it happen, hoping that the next selection would be someone much older, to maybe counter balance this one.

“Head up.  Meet this with courage and honor.”

The boy was bewildered, his young mind couldn’t really process the gravity of the situation, but he knew he felt sad.  He thought of his parents, his sister, of never seeing them again.  He worried about the pain of that, the separation.  He worried about the physical pain.  The situation was too big for a mere six year old to understand, but his mind grappled with it, trying desperately for a cognitive hold.

“When they tell you to announce yourself, you need to project your voice.  You need to be loud enough for everyone to hear you.”

The boy only nodded.  

“Remember.  This is it.  You will be remembered in this moment.  People need you to be strong right now.”

The boy thought about death.  His hands were trembling and he was terrified.  The selection was random.  It was supposed to be an honor.  But he felt no honor, only fear.  

When he stepped up, he could see his parents and his sister in the crowd.  They openly wept.  His mom had collapsed to the ground.  His father stood hand in hand with his sister, tears glistening on their cheeks, eyes red and glassy.

The boy projected as instructed. “I have been selected.”  His voice trembled, not with fear of the future, but that he might not remember what they told him to say.  “I accept my fate.  I am humbled by the selection.”  He did not understand the words he spoke.  He did not know what ‘humbled’ meant.  He did not know the word ‘fate’ either.  He parroted the words flawlessly.

The man beside him brimmed with pride.  The youth had followed his instructions.  Grown men sometimes could not muster that same courage.  This six year old could teach those men about courage and honor.

Forty-seven minutes later, the boy entered a corner bistro with explosives strapped to his chest and blew it to smithereens.  The selection committee told the crowd that the boy, as his final act of selflessness, had proclaimed the death toll for Allah, but the boy never said anything about religion or politics, defiantly disobeying explicit instructions.  Instead, he whispered quietly to the innocent patrons closest to him, “I’m sorry.”  

Six year olds trust adults not to lead them astray.  Given time, the boy would have found his voice, gained his footing to stand up.  He would have lead the fight against senseless violence to promote a cause.  He would have lead the world to peaceful organization.  Indeed, he could have taught grown men about courage and honor.  

The selection committee saw the danger in him.  They moved swiftly, decisively.  There was no coincidence to their selection. 

Weigh In On Flash Fiction

Flash fiction from over there on Fargus Larbis.  Weigh in on how you feel about ultra short flash fiction…

How do you feel about ultra short flash fiction?

The 50 Best First Sentences In Fiction

It’s a well known fact that I have an affinity, obsession–whatever–for how a book opens…I came across this article and had to share it.  Enjoy!!

The 50 Best First Sentences In Fiction

Kill Your Darlings…

I funnel thoughts through the ether and string words together in a unique way to create sentences. The sentences grow up. They become paragraphs. These adolescents become chapters. The chapters evolve with time and die. These are called books. The life cycle of a story. The arc of existence. Anyone can do it.  

I succession plan at work. I get people promoted. I work diligently and effectively. They are with me, learn the ropes and I push them up and on. Their absence leaves a void. But I’ve had time to plan. The succession plan. Who will step in and fill the void? I’m always two or three deep in that plan. I don’t like voids. I stay prepared. I magnanimously tell myself that I don’t hold good people back for my own selfish reasons. If they’re good at the job, losing them will make the job more difficult to me. But I self-preserve. I know who will be my next up-and-comer. It minimalizes the pain of losing a good worker.

Kill your darlings.  Kill your darlings?  Good advice, but you need a succession plan.  I killed my main character on page 34.  It was just enough space to make the reader care about him.  Just enough.  I created a relevant and interesting backstory for him, gave him a sound reason to exist in the story, then BAM!  I killed him.  The shock of it, the unexpected death, leaves a ripple in the book’s life cycle.  But I had a succession plan.  I knew who my next star was going to be.  I set it up while I was plotting to murder my hard worker.  He put in the time, but he had to go.  It was a shame, too.  A lot of hard work went into figuring him out, grooming him, and making him feel like a flesh and blood person.  But now he’s dead.  The supporting actor must step up and own it enough to keep the readers engaged.

One day soon my supporting actor will meet a terrible fate.  Succession planning.  You can’t kill someone, then introduce the new character.  They need to overlap.  

Kill your darlings.  Sure.  Do it.  Great advice.  But have a succession plan.  Happy killing.