Victims of the Knife: The search for Ms. Wildstar

Xander peers at the slowing stream of brain jello seeping down the side desk. "Quick! Our writer must be falling asleep. We need to get to her computer to search for that Indian's story."

"Thanks for the recap." Nekar rolls his eyes.

"Sorry, I though we might need one since it's been several days since our last entry. I tried to keep it subtle and quick."

"You call that subtle?" The older man shakes his head. "Whatever. We have work to do. Gather up all pins and thumbtacks you can find. We're going to need some footholds."

Xander nods and dashes off. Nekar sits on the paper-lined path, pondering the few glimpses he's had of the computer high above them. A scrap of paper catches his attention. His heart beats faster.

Xander rushes back up the path, his arms full of colorful tacks and a few bent straight pins. "What are you smiling about?"

Nekar points to the paper. "She loved me once. Ms. MC and I, we really had something."

"Yeah, and as I recall, you ended up wanting to kill each other, and at one point, you plucked out her eyes."

"She got new ones. Better ones."

"I know, they're around here somewhere. Locked away in a box, I hope." Xander shudders.

Nekar scowls and yanks a handful of tacks from Xander's arms. He slams the first one into the side of the wooden desk at waist height. "I can't believe our writer cut me so effectively from my novel. Every single scrap of me." He rests a booted foot on the first tack and reaches up to plant another. "I added conflict, tension and some excellent fight scenes, if I do say so myself."

"You're uhh, going to run out of tacks before you get much farther. Not to mention, how are you climbing upward and inserting tacks one handed? You would have taken them all, maybe put them in a bag of some sort, or even a pocket, so you had both hands free. Ever consider that this lack of planning issue you have might be part of the reason you got cut?"

"It wasn't my lack of planning." Nekar jumps to the ground. Paper flutters away from the immediate vicinity. "It was hers. It's all her fault. If she'd used any sort of outline, she would have seen-"

"That you were unnecessary from the start?"

Nekar's face turns red and his eyes narrow. He grabs Xander and throws the lanky youth to the ground, pinning him there with his much larger form. "Ever consider that you making random insults to instigate conflict was the reason you got cut?"

"It was an innocent observation!" Xander squirms.

"That's weak. You're a weak character. That's why your here."

"Yeah, well, we're both here. And it sucks. So unless you plan on plucking my eyes out too, we should concentrate on getting up that desk and saving Ms. Wildstar."

Nekar gives him one last long glare and lets Xander up. "Fine. Get me a bag for these damned thumbtacks, Plan-ahead-boy, and let's go."

to be continued

Where did monday go?

Not only monday, but I seem to be missing the past five or so days. I've been so busy I don't even have time to be distracted from writing, let alone write anything. Too much work, oodles of kid obligations, now we've added track practice to the onslaught of driving to and fro, weasel prototype creations, work, cleaning out flowerbeds, firepits and picking up a billion sticks (ok, so I stopped counting after about fifty, but I swear it was a lot of sticks) and more work. On the plus side, my creative wells have been filled and characters are talking to me again. Maybe it's just the voices because I'm so darned tired and delusional because I'm not able to eat lunch until 3pm, but I'm happy to hear anything beyond tumbleweeds bouncing around in there. I see some suspicious looking characters milling around under my desk. Goodness only knows what they're up to, but here's to hoping I have enough time to formulate a second post this weeks so we can find out.

What is our dear writer doing?

Nekar taps his foot on the paper lined path and glares upward. "We've been standing here, waiting and waiting for a month and half. What the hell is our dear writer doing?"

"She's at her computer a lot, she'd got to be writing, right?" Xander peers above the piles of crumpled paper to the desk looming above them.

"You'd think, but no one new has arrived since that indian that took off with Ms. Wildstar meandered toward us. I think she's working and that ooze flowing down from the desk is brain jello flavored."

"She's gone?"

Nekar shakes his head. "Uh, yeah. That indian is a zombie, a free-agent. You know, not bound to stay in place, frozen, just waiting for the next scene to be written."

"Oh crap." Xander glances down the path to the spot he'd last seen Ms. Wildstar. Empty. No visible tracks in the dust.

"Exactly. Who knows where he's taken her." Nekar takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "We need to find some pages of whatever story he came from. We don't know if he's a murderer, a savage or one of those misunderstood emotional wrecks. He could have killed her by now."

"Right. Pages. But his story isn't down here. It's up there." Xander points to the faint glow of the computer high above them. "We'll have to search the hard drive. Do you know how to do that?"

"We'll figure it out together. Our writer has been falling asleep at her computer late at night. We'll wait until then and move in."

"Got it. Now, I've got to piss."

Nekar frowns at the younger man. "We don't talk about that. It's something everyone does but no one wants to read about."

"I know, but it's been six weeks. It's going to be an epic stream. I'll meet up with you later."

to be continued...

rewriting deja vu

As I waited for my car to get fixed the other day, I was trapped in a tiny waiting room with my laptop, no internet connection, and a mental decree that I wouldn't sneak over to play solitare instead of writing. I had critiques of one of my wounded short stories staring at me and a big blank space indicating where I'd left off over a month ago on my editing efforts. I didn't go back a reread anything, I just started up where I'd left off. Then there came a paragraph that several people had comments on. It needed some tweaking.

My usual method for tweaking is to read all the comments then go to a blank page, and using what I remember of the area (I hadn't read in over a month) see how I could write it differently. Then I paste the new effort in and compare the fresh one with the original. Creepy thing was, they were almost word for word. I'd managed to tighten a smidge, but that was about it. I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday but that's apparently because my brain is too busy remembering entire stories word for word. Not that I could recite it if put on the spot, but give me a keyboard and it spews out. The mind is a mysterious thing.

Dexter: my newest addiction

So I missed my usual monday post. I have an excuse. It's a good one, or not, depending on how you look at it. First, work has been absorbing all my creative juices so trying to write is like staring blankly at the monitor and drooling dust while my brain gasps and sputters. Then there's the fact that I've moved on to watching Dexter. How did I never hear of this show before? Oh yeah, I don't have the movie channel package on my already overpriced cable service.

Several writer friends mentioned that this show was made of awesome so I had to check it out while I was stuck in my brain candy binge, gathering inspiration, whatever title I give my distraction today. As in many other things, my distraction enabling friends were spot on. Since I also have a MC who is a killer, I'm finding it interesting to see how sympathetic one can be for a person who enjoys killing others. There isn't a whole lot in common between Dexter and my MC beyond that, and I've previously tried to tone down the enjoyment level of the killing as far as my novel goes. But in viewing, its still educational to watch--a good example how to keep the plot hopping and even if the MC isn't a sympathetic guy most of the time, he's damn interesting. Cops, killers, sex, a MC with serious emotional damage, drug users, relationships on all kinds of levels... lots of aspects to check out and take notes.

I admit, I'm disappointed that I called the big twist of season one early on, but that doesn't keep me from plunking myself down in front of my computer or tv every night and at lunch and during breakfast... This show is like crack. I swear. Not only is the MC a killer, but there are so many levels being juggled at once. He's works for the cops, he's in a relationship (two actually, atm), there are kids involved (not his directly) his female boss has a thing for him, his sister has as many issues as he does but of a different sort, a co-worker hates him and is on to his dark side, he's performing his own level of justice on the dregs of society and working hard not to get caught, he's got severe emotional family baggage, and now he's in NA to try to help his addiction to killing (which is rather hilarious in its comparison to drugs as far as addictions and the descriptions go) and did I mention the FBI is trying to solve his murders and his own sister and best friend are on the task force?

This is the stuff must-find-out-what-happens-next!?! plots are made of. Must take notes.

On the writing front, I'm going to be stuck in a waiting room with no internet access while my car gets fixed tomorrow for who knows how long. I'm not bringing a book and I can't work. That means I'll be trapped with my two half edited shorts that have been glaring at me for a month and some now. Eek!