Recognition

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” ― Ernest Hemingway

Julian’s fingers glided across his PC’s keyboard with frantic yet accurate movement. The clack, clack, clacking sound of the keys acted as a background score to the shifting images, sounds and voices inside his head.
He braved a glance up at the clock above his computer but didn’t dare stop his enthusiastic typing as he did so.
“Eleven-thirty,” he mouthed. “I have until midday, right? That’s what the guidelines had said in my editor’s e-mail. I’m sure of it. Bloody deadlines!”
Julian muttered and cursed to himself as he averted his eyes from the keeper of time to his monitor. His lips moved with rapidity as he read over the last few sentences he’d constructed – his chain of thought had been broken by the clock’s distraction.
A smile developed on his face, and he fought the urge to laugh like a schoolgirl. The story he was working on, a noir novel called Neon Ice, was coming along better than he’d wished for.
It would be his best creation yet.
The critics will love it!
Not only would it be his unsurpassed work of fiction to date, but his fifth novel – a landmark he’d thought unachievable when he’d first started writing some twenty years ago. This would also be his first crime story.
Horror fiction was all Julian had ever known, had ever created, but of recent, crime had taken his fancy. And when an idea for a noir novel had started forming in his head, he knew he’d have to undertake it – to push himself and explore different avenues and genres with his writing.
For the first few years at the beginning of his journey, Julian had practice his craft by pumping out short stories one after the other. The ideas had moved around inside his brain as though they were on a conveyer belt. All he had to do was write them down. Back then, Julian had thought his mind was incapable of running dry. Thankfully, it hadn’t.
Julian put this down to the love of storytelling and the admiration he had for the horror genre itself. When he wasn’t writing stories, he was speaking them. He told strangers, family members and work colleagues various lies and fabrications. Why? To garner reaction. Also, he got a kick out of it.
He lies and tells tales.
It’s what he does.
He’s a writer, so he spins yarns.
It makes him smile.
Julian also thrived off deadlines and ate them for breakfast.
To this day, he saw submission closing dates and timeframes for work to reach editors as motivators, or drill sergeants, as he liked to refer to them. Julian loved having them lined up on his calendar like little soldiers on parade. When one objective was finished and scrubbed off his schedule, he liked having another two or three jotted down for later in the year to replace the fallen troops.
Like some kind of Greek mythical monster, he thought. When you cut one head off, six more grow back!
Deadlines get fingers tapping and creative juices flowing. They leave you with little time to think about anything else. A writer does not take a holiday. They are incapable of having such a luxury. When a writer is away from his desk, they are still working. Committing unsolved murders and dreaming, scheming and plotting sex scenes, monsters (real or otherwise), dark places, creepy hangouts, sex-starved maniacs, real-life situations… The list is inexhaustible.
Their mind never shuts off.
When they are with you in a room or on a date, they’re not really there. They might be in body and soul, but not in mind and heart. They’re in their own little world, cheating on you with a person you will never know.
Ever since his schooldays, Julian had thrived off such organization. He found at the time, and to this day, that being governed by a date and time drilled and dieted his creative mind. It kept him trained, primed, focused and the cogs in his creativity machine turning.
That, and the amount of reading he devoured week in, week out.
“Stories to a writer are important. It doesn’t matter if the tales are trash, good or ugly! We need to understand and analyse the use of language and grammar to appreciate and recognize how professional wordsmiths use their tools of trade,” one of his creative writing tutors had told him at University during a semester. “As King points out, ‘If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.’”
An impressionable Julian had lived by those words upon hearing them. King’s quote, along with two from Kurt Vonnegut – “Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college” and “We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down” – were pinned to his wall for inspiration.
The first quote by Kurt always made him smile, as it had enraged many people he’d told it to over the years.

Success had soon followed in the wake of Julian’s hard work. His short stories found their way into online magazines and physical ones, along with local anthologies and compilations from reputable publishing houses.
Money flowed in dribs and drabs, but what did that matter? Being published and recognised were the only concerns. The house and Ferrari would come in due course, not that he was a materialistic person in the least.
As long as I earn enough to keep me writing I’ll be happy!
Soon after it started coming together for Julian, he gave up his full-time cleaning job and married the girl of his dreams. The blocks of life started falling into place. All he had to do was sit and wait for recognition to register – to push him up the publishing charts and make him a household name among the big guns.
Yeah, but it wasn’t all champagne and caviar! he thought, continuing to smash away at his keyboard as though intended to destroy it. No, there were a lot of… dark days.
On his path to success, Julian had suffered from depression, confusion, self-doubt, self-loathing, and mental blocks, and had found himself lost on the road to glory. All the aforementioned were crippling. When the infamous ‘black dog’ showed up, it would shut Julian’s creativity down for days, weeks or months at a time.
The black dog, whom he’d lovingly named Morose, would attack without warning. He’d set on Julian with a snarl of its flashing fang and robust body, enveloping him in a world of misery and inner pain.
The coffee pot got me through most of it!
A smile creased his face.
But it wasn’t the caffeine alone that aided him.
At his lowest it was Jack Daniels and his good friend Gordon that got Julian through his black spots and banished Morose to his hellish kennel at the back of his brain. When it wasn’t the booze, it was cocaine and pills. It didn’t take long for things to fall apart. His wife and house went, followed by his reputation as a stand-up writer and person among his peers. Some of the bigger publishers washed their hands of Julian when his addictions and wife’s vilification hit the newspapers.
Luckily, his agent stuck by him and steered him back onto the straight and narrow.
Julian had found the fall from grace hard, but got through it.
Recognition. It was the thing he needed. Craved. Without it, he’d seen himself as a failure. A flop. Julian and his agent had tried all the marketing gimmicks to push him into the limelight, which had worked, but not enough for Julian’s liking.
The local rags, as much as they spouted about ‘supporting local talent’, turned a blind eye to Julian and his work.
“We hardly see blood and guts as intelligent, Mr Griffiths,” he’d been told by one journalist. “Our paper will not be associated with such drivel.”
After years of little appreciation, a meagre fan base and a bunch of hit-and-miss reviews (after decades of hard work), Julian had been driven to the brink of obliteration.
His mind had started to come away at the seams.
“Why don’t you leave it there, baby?” his wife had cooed.
His response, after smashing the kitchen up, had been, “How the fuck do you expect me to do that? It consumes me, woman. It is me!” He’d refrained from slapping her.
A cold shoulder is the worst thing you can give a writer! he thought, flashing the clock another fleeting look. I should have this book wrapped up and sent off with time to spare. It’s not like me to let a deadline get so close. I never did agree with that Adams fella. “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” Such a juvenile way of thinking.

Once he’d knuckled back down to his work, cleaned himself of drink and drugs, and cleared his name of wife-battery in court, his fortune started to turn for the better.
Sales picked up. His fan base grew.
“Even bad press is good for business!” his agent had said.
His money stack started to grow, along with his dream, and it wasn’t long before Julian had it all, and more: dream house by the beach, a horde of readers who gathered outside his home daily, interviews and guest appearances on TV shows.
I have to keep it up. Stay focused, continue to crank the work out – my editors, publishers and fans expect nothing less! Who knows, maybe I’ll get film rights one day?
“Maybe,” he muttered, adding the last few sentences to his novel. “I could see this being played out on the sliver screen!”
He wrote ‘The End’ under the last paragraph.
Looking up, Julian noticed it was ten to twelve.
“Perfect!”
He opened his e-mail and created a new message. In the address bar, he typed his publisher’s address and added his agent’s in the ‘Cc’ section. Once he’d written in the body, Julian attached his novel and hit ‘send’.
“Ah!” he huffed, collapsing in his chair. He felt spent, drained, but also relieved, as though a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. “Good to have the bugger finished.”
Now for the waiting game.
It would take Paul, his publicist, a few days to reach the e-mail, what with it being a bank holiday. However, it didn’t matter. Not to Julian. Now that his deadline was filled, he could spend the next few weeks relaxing and writing return e-mails to his fans.
Before getting up from his roller-chair, Julian rotated his head, stretched his arms and arched his back – everything seemed to click into place. I need to see my chiropractor next week, he thought. I don’t know. Who’d be a bloody writer?!
He then busied himself by organising his work space and replacing his notebooks, pens, pencils, eraser, Tip-ex and sharpener. If it was one thing Julian hated, it was a messy desk.
Slowly, he stood. The joints in his knees cracked.
“Ooh! That’s better,” he said, turning to look out the window. Sunlight slanted in through the glass. “A room with a view. No. An office with a view!”
Julian walked over to it and looked outside, seeing Alejandra tending the flowers. “I have it all, right down to the female Mexican gardener,” he uttered, his eyes darting from her arse to her tits. “Mmm, my buxom burrito!” He smiled and waved at her.
She didn’t return the greeting.
“She’s a moody one, all right! Maybe a pay rise will perk her up? Or possibly a threat to deport her Spanish–speaking arse?” he said, laughing. “No, I kid…”
Julian placed his hands behind his back, stood on tip-toes and cast his gaze across the plush garden. He half expected to see copies of his books littering the lawn and neatly trimmed hedges: Some of his fans had thrown their editions over the wall in hopes he’d sign and toss them back over.
“Madness,” he mouthed, his breath fogging the glass before him. Julian glanced over his shoulder and saw it had gone midday. “What about a bite…”
His words slurred and trailed off.
A bout of dizziness washed over him, causing him to stagger to his left, pin-ball off a wall and stumble to his right. He collapsed to all fours and closed his eyes. His thighs trembled.
“What the?!” Julian put a hand to his face. “Jesus!” A fog clouded his brain. “No, I don’t have it all,” he muttered, removing his hand before standing up and turning to the window again. “There is one thing in my life I’m missing.”
To his amazement, there were now more than a dozen people wandering around the garden.
“Who are these people?!” he yelled, and slammed his fists against the glass. “Get off my lawn! This is private property. Where in the hell is…”
What’s the one thing we’re missing, Julian? his mind asked, startling him.
“I can’t remember! Why are all these people in my garden? Who are they?”
Think, Julian. It’s important you remember. Think!
He turned from the window and faced his desk, but there wasn’t one. All that remained was a small plastic toy in the shape of a PC. His writing equipment – pens, pencils and the rest – was nothing more than a stack of safety crayons. Their once fat nibs had been shaved down to needle points.
“What’s going on?!”
Julian rapped his knuckles against his head as he rocked back and forth. “Whose white gown am I wearing?” Tears rolled down his cheeks.
Information dripped into his drug-addled mind.
Julian had been a writer, but wasn’t any longer. He had been tried and convicted for the murder of seven people, two of whom had been his publicist and agent. When he had crashed into his black hole the last time, he had taken on a more sinister personality. He’d killed in the name of recognition.
He had slaughtered people in ways he’d killed characters in his novels in an attempt to garner him a bigger readership. The idea had meant to look as though he had a crazed fan on the loose, one who had a deranged obsession with Julian’s novels and other works of horror fiction. It had worked too, until the police had finally linked the murders to Julian.
“Whacko Wordsmith Slays Seven!” one newspaper article had read. “Writer Wrecks Havoc for Ratings!” said another. A third: “Modest Author Murders Many.”
Julian brought his trembling hands to his face. “Who am I?”
Catherine Tramell, a voice inside his head whispered. It was the name Julian had started penning stories under.
“Who?!” The name rang a bell. “I got it from a TV show. No, a film! But why?”
Because we thought it was funny, Julian!
Julian shook his head.
He was more scared and confused than he’d ever been in his life. The walls around him were padded, and closing in.
“As long as he thinks he’s still a writer and dosed up on his drugs, we shouldn’t have a problem with him,” he remembered someone important-looking saying.
“We could give him this? When he’s up to his eyes on meds, he won’t know any different!” another had said, displaying a Fisher Price toy in the shape of a computer.
“I killed my ex-wife!” he blurted. “Oh, God!”
Focus, damn it! What’s the one thing we’re missing?
Julian’s eyes frantically flicked from left to right, right to left. “Freedom…” he whispered, his gaze coming to rest on the crayons with the vicious ends. “I sharpened them with my thumbs.” He looked at his digits – there were coloured filings underneath his nails. “I remember now! When the drugs wore off the last time and I was free to think in a rational state, I’d planned to kill my nurse and make my escape the next time my medication wore off...”
By pretending he was not a danger to himself or anyone in Castell Hirwaun, home for the criminally insane, Julian had got them to move him to a less secure part of the hospital.
When he heard the turn of a key in his lock, Julian grabbed the crayons and hid them behind his back. As the door edged open, the young nurse greeted him with a “Good morning”, to which he calmly replied.
She had with her a tray filled with needles.
You’re not making the rational-thinking Julian go night-night this time, bitch!
“I’m telling you, my characters came to life! They’re roaming the real world! You have to do something!” a bearded man screamed in the hallway as he was dragged off by two male nurses who looked as though they ate bullets for brunch.
“Calm down, Mr. Hughes,” a female said soothingly.
Then the door closed.
Julian pounced, raising the crayons high. She dropped her tray. The needles and bottles of serum smashed against the floor.
“Whore!” he bellowed, stabbing the children’s playthings into the young woman’s neck. When he retracted them, blood sprayed up the pristine walls. As she gargled and held a hand out to him, he stabbed again and again. The crayons ripped out one of her eyes and slashed and tore the flesh from around her mouth, nose and cheeks.
Gore showered Julian.
“Die, die, die!” he screamed in her face.

Breathless, he stood over her. A pool of blood spread rapidly beneath her.
“My keys now!” He sniggered, plucking them from her pocket and making his way out into the corridor…