Tag: fiction

The Knot

G. Derek Adams4 Comments

Talitha ran through the cargo bay singing. A simple tune, she skipped to the beat and spun around a rail and danced around the engine’s console. She passed right by a narrow alcove, in between two bays. She didn’t notice anything hanging in the shadows — only crinkled her nose absently at the foul, acidic scent.

A lump of bone and dissolving flesh hung there, that had once been … many things. A squire, a traveler, a hero, a monster, a murderer, an uncle, a terror, a friend.  A knot at the center of him was all that remained — holding out against the decay, the rot. The knot heard the song, and finally began to unwind.

But, he did not die. The shadow poison fell away, washed clean by a little girl’s song.

With the poison gone, his flesh remembered and returned. Green sparks sizzled and popped.

Izus rose from the tatters of fabric and twine.He patted his chest experimentally, and looked around for a moment.  He snapped his fingers, and a brown cloak jumped to attention. It wriggled down the hallway, the steps and across the cargo bay, and into the little alcove where the villain had lay dying. It folded itself neatly over his arm, and Izus tossed it over his shoulders, fastening the clasp without a thought.

He could still hear the girl’s song.

“Goodbye.” he said, and stepped through the world and was gone.

Jumpers jump, painters paint.

G. Derek Adams9 Comments

Here’s one of the ways I feel like a fraud.

I follow a lot of writers — here on WordPress, and across several platforms and internet spaces — and I have a handful of friends and relations that are writers as well.  All of them have one unifying statement, when asked “How do you know you’re a writer?”.

They say, “I have to write.”

Then they crush brick with their bare hands, and it turns into a glimmering red jewel.  They place it on their brow, and a diadem of pure light and awesomeness appears.

[Okay, that only happened once.]

You know what I mean — the type of artist that knows in their bones, that they will continue to make their art regardless of any discouragement, regardless of outside factors. Steven King is a good example — that man has retired, what – eight times now? Then a few months pass, and another 1200 page tome appears on bookshelves across the globe. The man literally can’t stop.

Since starting the blog — and for better or worse, publicly defining myself as a writer – it’s something that I’ve grappled with a little bit.

Because I can stop. Because I don’t have to write.

I’m a slacker by nature — I just turned 32 recently, and this blog, Lodestar, and THAT THING are the longest sustained creative projects of my life. I’ve always been more comfortable with art that had a clear expiration date. You finish the painting, you close the show, you crack the joke.

I think that’s why I’m so focused on my weekly deadlines for page counts on That Thing — I have a deep sinking sensation that if I miss a deadline — It’ll be that much easier to miss the last one, then I won’t be even a faux-writer anymore. The endless minutiae of life — plus abundant other creative projects would pull me away, and I’d never come back — never finish.

So if you have a compulsion in your bones to write — I envy you. But if you’re like me — if you have to continually crack the whip, and keep yourself on task — if you’re more than a little scared that you’re not going to make it to the end — I know your pain.

 

Haiku on Demand?

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The beard of pain falls.

A meteor ends the foul

bug-eyed shinobi.

 

 

The famous  red can

is my soul’s mate and lusty

metal sin. Chomp chomp!

 

 

 

 

 

[Kind of a cop-out, I know — but they’re haiku!  You have to like them, or you are disrespecting thousands of years of Japanese culture. With regrets for H.N. and Jeremy.]

Sticking to the schedule.

G. Derek Adams9 Comments

Hit my word count mark for the week –despite the negativity and pressure from all directions. JUST LET ME WORK PEOPLE.

Ha — it’s fun channeling your inner angsty tween. [Is there any other kind of tween?]

I’m getting into a bad habit of waiting until Friday to do the bulk of my week’s allotment. It’s mostly been other work/life factors that have contributed to this — but still. STILL. Putting myself on notice — for all the good that will do.

The pages I wrote this week, were something of an experiment. I decided to write a side chapter/villain interlude — then go back and plug it in somewhere earlier in That Thing. A little nerve-wracking, honestly. I’ve been so focused on keeping forward momentum with the plot – that it felt very much like leaving my security blanket at home for my first Big Boy sleepover.

I’m pleased with the results — and after some constructive criticism from my beloved, the villain interlude improved markedly.

Two more villain interludes – then back to the fray with …oh wait, you don’t know the names of my protagonists.

AND ITS GONNA STAY THAT WAY, NOSY. GET OUT OF MY ROOM, DAD.

Can I just say that I hate you?

G. Derek Adams11 Comments
The face of pure hatred.

All of the lovely writer blogs that I follow, posting up your daily/weekly/hourly/minutely word count – making my draw drop.

It looks like this!

“Oh, I just wrote 10,000 words this afternoon — still plenty of time to go work at the homeless shelter before dinner!”

“Hmm, stuck in the elevator — better crank out three chapters…..”

“3 minutes for the popcorn? Great! I can do that 30,000 word backstory for my second protagonist.”

Consider me very jealous – and full to the brim with green-colored Envy Bile.

 

Quest Complete.

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There! All three Stories on Demand completed — I hope to some sort of satisfaction.

I don’t know what it was, but I had a hard time with these three — and I’m not doing my normal level of self-back-patting.

But, there’s a value to delivering a product, even when you’re not in the mood, or feeling inspired.

Right, Gurney?

"Mood's a thing for cattle and loveplay, not fighting" -Gurney Halleck / DUNE / F. Herbert

Most troublesome.

G. Derek Adams1 Comment

I killed him.

My quill almost snaps in my haste to write it down.

I turned into a mist, slipped under the door and stabbed him fourteen times with my claws. I cracked a nail on his sternum.

It was most troublesome.

He was a Nai-Elf — a mighty shaman of his tribe — come to meet with my employers. He plead his case most eloquently – the poison in the seas, the lowered birth rate of his tribe, the incalculable destruction of the natural world. The glowing tattoos in his blue skin, and the elaborate mirrored earrings and and bangles at his wrists and ankles made him savage and strange to the board — but it reminded me of home.

Clarke Peters and Dominic West in OTHELLO. Holy crap, how come I didn't already know about this?

His breath stank of sardines and aged cheese. I hated to watch him wring his hands, so nervous and uncomfortable. My employers smiled, and laughed behind their hands at him — then nodded and said soft words. It made me angry to see this wise old elf disrespected. I rushed over as he stormed out, determined to salvage some measure of good will from the shaman – Mistress Karis’ derision and anger was a risk, but I couldn’t let him leave totally empty handed.

He was angry, but he heard me – the lines in his face softened. He thanked me for my concern, and placed both of his hands out in front of his face, in a Nai-Elf gesture of respect.

I saw his eyes casually look into the tiny mirrors at his wrist. Then widen, then dart to my face.

Shit.

I whispered the word, completely surprised. He realized that I didn’t have a reflection.

The shaman left , keeping his eyes on me as his hands reached for the door. He knew what I was — which meant his fate was sealed.

I felt regret looking down at his corpse — even as I fed on his strange blood. Just a taste, our of principle.

In short order, the body was discovered , and the captain — a good, decent man himself – put the ship on lockdown, seeking the murderer. My employers were annoyed by the inconvenience, completely untouched by the shaman’s death.

I had guarded my secret for too many years to let if fall now — my sire’s commands ring in my ears as loudly today as they did a hundred years ago.

I am the spawn of Zed – the Neclord himself, and I will not fail.

There is a commotion on deck — apparently a small ship has come alongside, a group of investigators perhaps?

I sit in front of the mirror, and imagine my face — a picture held in my mind. I make the picture smile kindly, I make the wrinkles fade.

A knock at the door – I leave to go make myself helpful.

– The Journals of Enton Blake, 21st of Arrowspan – 1179

 

[Story on Demand for Steven.]

Suddenly, Mermaid.

G. Derek Adams3 Comments

The white porcelain shone in the yellow-bulb light. Mark looked down at his hands, they hung over the edge of the tub – the tips of his fingers were white and bloodless. He slapped his hands against the sides, trying to awaken his flesh.

Mark didn’t know where he was. The tub was an older style, all white and round — but the room appeared to be a middle-range motel of some sort. The tub was full of ice, a brittle square line right below his nipples.

He felt his stomach turn. He’d heard the stories. Mark forced his hands down below the ice, feeling glacially for the fresh stitch marks, the gaping bloody hole.

There was no hole. Also, there were no legs.

Unbroken blue scales, starting from below his ribs running down into a  trim point — three massive flapping fins at the end.

Mark screamed, hurling grocery-store ice all over the floor. His new tail spasmed, making even more of the cubes fly through the air.

He rocked back and forth in the tub, and finally managed to flip himself out onto the cold terra cotta floor. He could just spy his laptop bag through the cracked doorway, and he wriggled toward it. His new tail was difficult to control — he finally realized that the tail bent the opposite way of his old human knees, and then he was able to scooch more ably.

Mark clawed at the bag, blood and pain returning to his fingertips – and he fished out his cell. With the screen an inch from his face, he updated his status.

Mark Cotton – Best birthday ever!

Mark sighed happily, and pulled the tin of sardines he’d prepared from the side pocket.

[Story on Demand for Jason.  As old comedian’s say — ‘It can’t be Christmas every day.’ Sorry that this was the best by beleaguered brain could manage.]