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Flash Fiction: “Finals Week”

davy — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:45:33 +0000

In an effort to improve my short fiction skills, I’m going to start randomly doing flash fiction and posting it up here. They will be silly, indulgent, and disposable, mostly intended to be an exercise. To start things off, I wrote this when I was bored early yesterday morning:

Finals Week

Three questions in,
and I knew I was going to fail this final.
Took,
well,
snorted some Adderall last night to aid my studying,
but it only fucked me up too much to concentrate.
Chain-smoked cigarettes outside the library through a cloudy dawn.
Now I’m exhausted,
eyes blurry,
head heavy,
toes twitching.
Time for a metric fuck-ton of guesses.
Hope I get lucky.

Done! Done! Done!!!
As soon as I walk in the door, roomie hands me a bong.
Took too big, too many rips.
Zombiefied.
Reach in the fridge and grab a can of High Life.
Before I can finish it,
the couch’s gravity overwhelms.

Two fingers clasp my nipple and squeeze.
“What the Fuck!?!”
It’s the other roomie.
“Wake up bitch. Here.”
She hands me a bottle of cheap vodka.
“Gross.”
After brushing it aside and sitting up,
I see darkness lurk outside.
“We’re heading to the bar in fifteen. Get your fat ass up.”
“Hand me the bong.”

Before I could reach the physical bar,
four rounds of shots were fired.
Desperately, little boys spooged ounces about in every direction.
They only knew one form of celebration,
mating ritual roulette.
Took a shot I preferred, and kicked back a PBR.
A scan around the room reveals the usual suspects,
albeit slightly more sloshed than normal,
but only slightly.
Time twists around several beverages.
Several beverages twist around inside me.
Then,
He shows up,
with her,
the coke-nosed, makeup-encrusted skank.
“I’m leaving.”
“What?”
“He’s here. With her.”
“Where?”
“Over there.”
“Fuck them.”
“I’m leaving.”
“Okay, let’s go smoke.”

We walk in the door and pour into the couches.
The bong spins,
over and over again.
Traces of bodily fluids circle around,
dispensed and absorbed by our lips,
a hygienic sacrifice to community,
and to getting really fucking stoned.
After trying to smoke away the memory of the bar,
I opted for a different approach.
“I have to get out of this town.”
“Where do you want go?”
“I don’t care. Somewhere.”
“Fuck it, let’s go. How about the beach?”
“Wait, we still have beer left.”
“Alright, tomorrow then.”
“Tomorrow, the beach.”
A nod, a cheers, a gulp.

Reading Practice

davy — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 07:20:34 +0000

Photo by Stephen Dimmick

Home Park Represent

davy — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 07:08:29 +0000

Final Draft Finished

davy — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:46:01 +0000

I just completed the fifth and final draft of my first novel. After 16 years of imagining this story and 16 months of writing it, it’s hard to believe this fucking thing I’ve played in my mind a thousand times since I was little kid actually exists as a novel. Really fucking crazy.

I have to transfer each chapter from Google Docs to one, big Open Office document, which will be a bit a pain because of formatting quirks, but I can do that over a few hours. I’m going to have a few people proof it and give me some final feedback, and then I’ll do one more last proofreading and formatting myself before I start sending this off. I still need to write a synopsis and work on query letters, but other than all of that, this thing is done, so the hunt for a publisher begins.

But first, it’s time for an epic end of novel/summer bender…

Command Center

davy — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 21:16:04 +0000

Inception Pwned

davy — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 08:04:12 +0000

Found this awesomeness here.

Kill Your Darlings ATL

davy — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 09:28:14 +0000

I’ve recently joined a writing group called Kill Your Darlings, and so far it’s been a great experience. In addition to having a resource to workshop my own pieces and learn more about writing by editing other people’s stuff, it’s been very nice to be around other writers. While I don’t necessarily need help to motivate myself these days, I do find it quite energizing to be in the proximity of creative and ambitious people. Also, my mind is almost entirely occupied with what I’m working on, and it’s good to have people with whom to talk about writing who won’t get bored to death instantly.

Kill Your Darlings ATL Blog

Last week I performed my first ever reading at WonderRoot’s open mic. I wanted to do a trial run, so I didn’t really tell anyone I was doing it. I had expected there to be only a handful of people, but when I went on, WonderRoot’s whole basement was jammed full. I was so nervous that I started sweating and shaking, and I raced through the first half of the reading way too fast, but other than that, I feel like the experiment went pretty well. I used some audio samples and a delay pedal to enhance the reading, and those elements seemed to work as well I hoped they would. I’ll probably start doing readings a lot more often so that when I do have my novel ready to support, I’ll have my performance sharp and polished.

I’ve been on a roll lately with the novel editing and I really believe I’ll have this thing just about as good as I can get it by the end of this month.

Heinlein via Sawyer

davy — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:52:18 +0000

I’ve never read a novel by Robert J Sawyer, but his personal website has been one of the most informative caches I’ve discovered in advice towards becoming a commercially successful science fiction writer. It’s sort of the way he has marketed himself, to be the guy who gives as much help to young writers as possible. The following three videos are a thirty minute speech where Sawyer explains Robert A. Heinlein’s five rules to writing. It’s a bit dry, but I think anyone who has the slightest desire to be a writer should be required to watch this:

Rober J Sawyer How To Write Index

Vote For BasilMarceaux.com

davy — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:49:49 +0000

Read this website after you watch the video

Summerology

davy — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 22:09:51 +0000

I’m back at the novel editing yet again after taking the longest break since I started editing in January. With fresher eyes, I’ve identified a few somewhat major components to the writing that need repair, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to do so. It’s simply a matter of erasing some novice mistakes that I now have the capacity to overcome. I’m thinking that within a week I should almost be done implementing significant changes to the manuscript, and I am imposing a new deadline for completion on myself, set for a month from today. At worst, I should have it 99.9% done by then.

I’ve realized that my hopes of launching my Internet series before the end of summer are beyond unrealistic now that the novel editing has dragged on for so long. I’m hoping to have it ready sometime in the fall, but I’ve already accepted the fact that it may not be ready until as late as the beginning of next year, though I aim to get it rolling sooner.

After I finish the novel and take another break to celebrate, I’m going to start typing up the Internet series, as well as attempting to write some short fiction. I’ve got an idea for a series of short stories which will be set in the present day, or at least very close to it, in a fictional Atlanta-like city. Unlike the sci-fi series, this will lean a lot more on personal experience, specifically the time period in my life when I was consuming exuberant quantities of drugs. I won’t spend too much effort on this series, as I only intend to occasionally write a short story here and there, but I wanted something that starkly contrasted the science fiction stuff to indulge myself with when I get burnt out on what I’m working on.

As you might have noticed, I’ve freshened up this website a tad, and I plan to post more here, but obviously this glorified journal is low on the list of priorities.