What is your DREAM?

So tell me, what is your dream? If you're on my bloglist then you're a writer. I get that part, but that's only one part of the question.

"I want to be a writer!" you say. You're eight years old. We all started then, I know, because any writer who says they weren't a writer and a story-teller from the day the doctor spanked and severed em isn't being honest.

You loved books. You loved movies. You loved plays or musicals or music. From that young age you felt The Spark.

You sang in the mirror and tuned your voice and wrote your songs.

You dabbled in poetry, and did I just say dabble? No, you didn't dabble, did you. While all those other kiddos were filling up their notebooks with pictures of army men and ponies and airplanes and flowers, you were burning page after page of stanzas, releasing this strange voice obsessed with rhyme and haiku and tangential viewpoints on the world around you.

You wrote short stories that your teacher read to the class and everyone laughed when they were supposed to laugh.

You wrote a novel that didn't make one bit of sense but it was this 120k word beast, this thing, this living entity that still breathes in the lowest drawer of that old cabinet in your old house, never to be published but never to be forgotten.

Your practice novel. We all have one of those. You do have a practice novel, don't you?

And inside of all that, you have this dream-fantasy. It's a rattling thing, a kid's shake-toy, something so personal you won't even mention it to your therapist. Not your spouse, not your mom, not your dad, not your sibling.

Maybe your Golden Retriever. I used to tell her all my secrets, and she took em to her much-too-early grave. (God, please throw the ball for Lexi. Amen.)

Me, I had all these dreams. First, I wanted to be a doctor. Yep, a doctor. I worked like hell for it, too, placed 2nd in my HS, but didn't get the right grades in college. Homework and over-education dull the mind, and I'd take a 0% on that 10% homework, knowing I could get an A on the tests, and settle for easy Bs.

Lazybones. I guess I didn't want to go into medicine enough. Maybe that wasn't an honest dream after all.

And I wanted to be a writer.

I knew I could tell stories on the side. No money in writing, is there. You could hit the lottery, sure, but the odds are five-nines against you: 99.999% chance you're either unpublished, or your royalties are just enough to buy food for that Golden Retriever who shares your secrets.

So in high school, for my 17th birthday, my aunt -- and she was more a grandmother than an aunt, far older than my seventh-born mother -- she bought me this Brother word processor and asked for a story.

See, I'd shared that dream already. "I want to be a doctor," I'd say. They all nodded.

"And a writer," I'd add.

Boy, that got their attention! Pluck a living heart from a pig and sew it into a dying man and you'll raise some eyebrows, sure.

But pluck a silent heart from a soul long-dead and burned by life's wildfires, and will it to beat life with nothing more than a series of 27 letters in random order, and you'll gain something far beyond eyebrows.

Because anyone can cut open a pig, see.

I didn't dream of being published. When someone said, "That'd sell a million copies!"

I would shrug. "Maybe."

I guess now I've modified that dream to be published. Sure, I want to get some hardbacks out there. Sure, I'd like to see my name on a bookshelf.

But I look at those shelves and I see plenty of idiots up there. We all do. I hate to say that, but talent and a good story won't get you published. I think of my stories, my babies, my darlings, and I'm not sure I'm ready to put them on the shelf next to these books.

I review my novels and wonder if they're worthy of asking you to read em in the nightlight. Do I really want to put anything on the shelf that is not the most incredible story I can write?

Is that story good enough? Your time is precious to me.

I'm not all about that space, see. I'm not obsessed with my book's number in the Library of Congress. I don't care about the word count or the plot lines.

My dream, if I had to line it up and spit it out, is this: Write greatness. Touch the reader.

That'd be it, I guess. Being published is a form of greatness, I won't dispute that, but my goal is to write stories that not only entertain, but also inspire the reader, and leave a lingering after-taste in their mind.

Which brings up my point on Reader Arcs. Arc the READER, not the character, folks!

I don't dream of 500 followers on my blog, nor of huge lines at my book signing. I'm not dissing those dreams -- that's cool -- but it's like, not my bag, man.

I dream of that one reader who says she cried at the ending.

I dream of that guy who shakes my hand and says, "Man, I get that. I really get that. Good job."

After 9/11, on 9/12/2001, I sent an email to my wife and my cousin. That's it. I started getting email responses from people all over the world, even had a personal note from a powerful business man here in Dallas (my now ex-wife is a CPA). He said he cried when he read it, and thanked me for writing down his thoughts. I got responses from Navy guys all over the world because my cousin was in the Navy at the time. His father still has that email taped to his fridge.

I passed off a short story to my boss dealing with space. He's a space nut. He said the story took him back to his childhood. "They don't write stories like this anymore."

He handed it to his wife and children and they loved it. The story was about a guy named Percy Freebottom -- ironically, soon to be published!

My boss and his wife were at a baseball game and something reminded them of Percy, the stars and the moon.

"Sorta like Percy Freebottom," his wife said.

THAT is my dream folks: Touch the reader. Leave that after-taste!

For me, it's not about profit or word count or fame or anything else. I can get those things -- especially profit -- in easier ways than writing.

This post is a fine example. I'm not trying to write my weekly or daily word count.

I'm writing something personal, hoping it'll touch at least one fellow blogger. I'm writing it because the worms insist it must be written, because this is important, because my squigglies, my slimey loves, they only dig where the soil is feral.

Yes, feral soil. That's where I dig.

See how that works?

Thoughts? What is your dream? Your passion? Your goal wrt writing?

- Eric


PS, I want to be clear: In no way am I belittling other goals, such as obtaining blog followers, being published widespread, or writing strict genre books. Please don't think that.

It is not my intent to come across as one of those belittling ideologues who believe in art only for the sake of art, and consider those who seek profit to be sellouts. No no no. I simply want to state that this is more than profit to me.

I respect your passion, your job, your goal, whatever that may be, and would love to see that shared.

HTML for BLOGGERS!

What the heck is HTML and why do you need it? Because you're a blogger, and if you don't know a little HTML, you're selling your blog, your posts, and yourself short. Here are some pointers.

HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language, and it's the formatting language used to build websites. In fact, http:// stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol.

See how that works!

You use HTML Tags in your editor to generate the HTML code. The browser then translates the HTML code into the visual representation you see on your screen.

Of course you can do the same things in the Compose editor on Blogger. You can even upload from word or another web editor and never worry about HTML tags.

And the readers respond: "What's your point, Eric? You just said I don't need to know HTML to compose my blogs."

You don't.

But what about comments on other blogs? No "Compose" tab there. What if you want to add a link-back to one of your blog posts!

What about adding flair to your sidebar menus. Take a look at my Required Reading and Links and Publications and Works to your right. See the italics? See the web links? See the image of my book? I did that with HTML. No editor there.

In fact, the Required Reading section is entirely composed of HTML, from an editor, because it's the HTML/Javascript Gadget you can add from blogger.

HTML is defined with TAGS. TAGS are enclosed within the less-than and greater-than signs on your keyboard. <open TAG> Your Text </close TAG>

Each tag requires an opening and a closing tag. Note that on the closing tag, a slash / is used.

For example, this is the tag for a hyperlink: <a>link</a>

Text between the tags is displayed on the browser according to industry standards.

In blogger, you can also swap between Compose and Edit HTML to see the markup text and get some ideas there. I do this all the time.

Some BASIC HTML TAGS

---

<hr> Forces a horizontal break point, as above. I didn't find this one in blogger's Compose editor.

<i>ITALICS</i>

<b>BOLD</b>

<u>UNDERLINE</u>

Hyperlinks and Images require a reference inside the tag, href and src respectively.

HYPERLINKS
<a href="http://diggingwiththeworms.blogspot.com/">HYPERLINKS</a>

IMAGES: Height/Width in pixels, or leave blank. Note that this tag has no closing tag.

<img src="yourimage.jpg" width=250 height=200>
or to display without changing the size
<img src="yourimage.jpg">




SANDWICHING
You can sandwich your HTML tags by combining them together. For instance, you want an italicized web link:

<a href="http://yoursite.com/"><i>HYPERLINKS</i></a>

gives you: HYPERLINKS

Going into more detail is beyond this scope. Google HTML Tags if you want more information. My intent is to show a few basic formatting tags that help with your posting and blog management.

For a great post on customizing your BLOG, check out Jon Paul: Sky Blogs


CHALLENGE

---

Add a BOLD HYPERLINK to your comment linking back to your website. Use your preview feature to ensure it is working properly before saving.

Hope this helps improve the look and feel and usefulness of your future posts!

- Eric

Wordle of Walk With Me

From my latest work, inspired by Shelly's blog Stories in the Ordinary, here's my Wordle from my latest work!

Notice how Whiskey is one of my big words! Wanna guess why that is?

- Eric

Try your own here: Wordle.net

---

Baby-Making. Writing. Is there a difference, really?

Image by Anne Geddes. Emasculates the shit out of me, but it fits, eh.

So this is the morning of conception!

Yes! You read that right. I just conceived. Not a baby -- I'm a dude -- but a story, a novel, a concept I've been working on for a while but just this morning decided to formalize with its own folder. I now I have a file called The_Gladiators_Son.doc and a short concept scene.

And it got me to thinking: Isn't this a lot like sex and baby-making?

See, when you're making babies, there's this run-up where it's something you and your girl talk about, but not something you're actively engaged in on a for-realses basis. You might practice -- hopefully often -- but it's not for keeps, is it.

Sorta like blogging. Safe-writing, hope you're wearing protection.

Then one day, you decide you're gonna start swinging for the fence. That's the fun part. In writing, it'd be the pre-writing phase, where you dream about your story, maybe hash out a character or two in your thoughts. It's fun. It's giddy. You see scenes hodgepodged and smudged and kludged together. You share your Pulitzer and Oscar with your friends and family and thank your dear wife for being so supportive, and then you climb into your limo and head back to the mansion for some baby-making in one of your hot tubs.

It's wonderful!

So's that part of makin dem babies, eh.

But then it actually ~happens~. I mean, your girl takes a pee test, sees two pink lines, that plus sign, or if you're writing, it's that saved first draft with nothing more than a title, a couple of chapter headings, and some vague idea of whether it's going to be first person, third person, or in this case, God help us all, a fraternal twinning of first and third person scenes that hopefully won't be grotesquely joined at the head.

Then the work begins. Funtime's over, folks, pull up your pants and get cracking.

It's time to cut back on spending, think about baby cribs and which room you're going to paint, and oh God what are we gonna do with the carpets?

How many chapters? How many words? What's my target audience? My genre, if there is one, and by goddengolly there'd better be a genre for this baby, because it's a-coming out feet first and sideways if it has to!

Tone. Theme. Plot. Setting. Location. Winter or summer? Where are we? In the US? Planet Earth? Texas? Dallas? What're the timeline and daily-weekly goals?

You give it a name, a working title, and later on, when you see its face and spank its bottom, you'll know what to truly call it.

After nine months -- and funny how that gestation period applies so well to both literary and biological birthings -- you have this little critter, infantile, immature, helpless and beautiful even though you know damned well it looks pretty hideous, covered in afterbirth and wrinkled with pink-red swollen face.

It's up to you as parent, as writer, to clean up the shit, suck out the snot, wipe it and bathe it and tenderize it until that tiny concept, that pairing of single cells, that paragraph, that idea and dream and wishful thinking, is finally ready to pack up and send out into the world.

Then all you can do is wave goodbye, flaws and all, hope for the best, and decide if it's worth having another.

- Eric

The ONE RULE of Writing: Two Magic Words

What's the ONE RULE every writer should know? Here's a hint: It's only two words.

It's not POV, or style, or plotting or grammar or sentence structure.

Sure, those things help, but they're not the ONE RULE.

Character arcs are background singers and bass guitars.

Tone is best supporting actor with only a line or two in our main feature.

Books on dialogue and scene building are assistant managers and vice presidents, all of them bowing and cowing to the ONE RULE that is too often unmentioned.

Forget about spell-checker. That's a tool, not a rule.

Descriptives. Character depth. Proof-reading and revision. They lay at her feet.

She's felt, the ONE RULE, but not heard.

So what's the ONE RULE? What are those two magic words?

Simply:

BE CLEAR

Now why is that so hard?


 - Eric

Blogfests

• Body Language Blogfest – April 24
• Last Line Blogfest – May 1
• Baking Scene Blogfest – May 1
• BAD GIRL BLOGFEST! – May 7
• Deleted Scene Blogfest - May 10
  

From Write Runner

- Eric

All right, how about a BAR SCENE!

Blogfest bar scene for Tara.

This one's from a book I'll probably never publish. It was my first novel, what I consider a practice work, but the bar scene is oddly prophetic. I've lived this scene too many times.

You'll notice the passives, cheesy scenery... lots of ugghishness, semicolons, all those hyphenated sentences.

But hell, you asked for it!

PROST!



- Eric

***

The Keeper
A Bar Scene

O'Leary's was just around the corner. Harold was usually safe with the drinking and driving thing, but not with these shaking hands—he could barely light a cigarette. After a slow, fifteen minute stroll, Harold walked into the sports bar, his pack of Marlboro’s half spent.

O’Leary’s was lit dimly during the week. On the weekends, the lights were lowered even more to add additional social appeal to the bar. Tonight, its overhead lights cast a leathery-brown tinge.

Behind the oak bar, a pretty blonde in a T-shirt and apron poured drinks for the half-dozen people seated around her. Harold had never seen her; must be new.

That settles it, Harold thought. He'd considered playing pool in the game room—maybe some nine ball would calm his nerves—but nothing beats a pretty girl mixing up drinks.

Harold sat on a stool next to a television showing the Ranger's game. Interleague play was this week, so the Astros were in town beating the crap out of Texas' crummy pitchers. No relief in that bullpen, Harold thought. He flagged the bartender, who made her way over after pouring up two beers and a margarita for some folks near the middle of the bar.

"What can I get ya?" she said. Perky. The barmaids were always the hottest, and here was the proof. With innocent eyes and a topless dancer under that T-shirt, she made Harold's mind go blank for a second while he considered whether or not those things were real. He brought his eyes up before she noticed. Too late—and yes, they’re real—she seemed to smile back at him.

"How 'bout a Shiner Bock."

"Sixteen or twenty ounce?" She lifted two glasses.

"Bigger's better, make it twenty." Harold pulled the small bowl of peanuts at the edge of the bar to him. She poured up the dark beer and set it in front of him.

"Wanna start a tab?"

Harold replied with a credit card, which she ran through the machine and stashed behind the bar.

She comes… with the beer. God, I’m going fuckin’ crazy.

Harold tipped the first glass, held it until it stopped pouring down his throat. I miss ya, Pop, but this is nuts.

Harold was afraid to look in the mirror behind the bar, afraid he’d see his father reflected there, shimmering, creaking his lips. Tapping.

Harold hadn’t thought about the tapping. How long had his father been at the window, rapping? At least a week. Why?

Stop it! Stop it stop it stop it Goddammit that was a limb I fuckin' saw it! Order another beer. Don’t think about this shit, think about something else. I ain’t a fuckin’ voodoo nutcase like he was.

The Astros struck out the last Ranger in the bottom of the fourth and headed from the dugout. That deserves another drink. Harold popped another peanut open, threw the nuts to the back of his mouth, eyed the waitress for her attention.

Warm breath on his neck. Harold glanced over his shoulder; nobody there. Christ.

"That was fast. Shiner Bock?"

"Huh? Yeah... 'nuther biggun. Stat."

"'Kay." She wiped her pretty hands on her apron before picking up another chilled glass.

Harold glanced over his shoulder again, checked the door, the booths. When he looked back to the bar, his drink sat on a napkin between his hands. He picked it up and sauntered into the adjacent darts and billiards room; more light there.

Harold adjusted his cap before sitting at a small round table near a group of women playing darts. With pretty legs and nice dresses, they probably were some of the suits that worked in Addison doing indoor business stuff. The brunette hit the twenty and gave two quick happy hops, clapping like a thirty-something cheerleader. She and her partner raised their drinks, tallied their score, stepped back for the other two women to throw. Not bad, Harold thought; they were ahead by almost fifty points.

Harold's eyes drifted across the rest of the bar, but tended to linger on the brunette when they found her. No ring, that's good. Scantily clad biker chicks were obnoxiously losing pool to their wannabe Harley jocks against the far wall—some women were not meant to wear leather halter tops. The ballgame was still on, he saw. Then he turned back to his drink after noticing the brunette had absolutely no panty lines showing through her gray skirt. She drew his attention again when she shook off her matching jacket, threw it over the stool at their table, and blew on her darts for luck before throwing. That pucker made his spine tingle; he almost dropped his glass.

A finger tapped his shoulder. Oh fuck! Harold's glass slipped, hit the carpeted floor, bounced.

A waitress. "Sorry, let me get that for you. Would you like another drink?" the waitress asked, bending down. Barmaids are always the hottest, Harold thought again—she was one of the better looking women he'd seen, although she didn't look old enough to serve liquor.

Her smooth hips calmed his nerves a bit.

"Shiner Bock. I got a tab at the bar."

Harold checked the room again—still not enough light in here—then turned to the brunette in time to see another bunny hop and her small clap. She'd hit eighteen, and they were almost down to zero.

His eyes began burning as he downed his third glass of the thick beer. He pressed his palms, moist and cool from the beer, to his itching sockets.

Harold missed the days when smoking was allowed inside the bar rather than restricted to the alley behind the bar. What he wouldn't do for a cigarette right now. And he sure as hell wasn't going outside. Behind the bar? No fuckin' way.

The brunette and her partner beat the other couple. They ordered fresh drinks and sat down at the tall table where she had thrown her coat earlier. She faced sideways from Harold, enough for him to see her slip through the back of her white silk blouse, but not enough for him to see the front.

Harold's intention had been to drink, not chase skirt. He liked to drink. He was good at it. And drinking was the pastime of the gods—what was their nectar? Wine. Not water. Wine. Good enough for God, good enough for Harold.

But hey, God, she looks good. With each beer, the blouse looked thinner. Felt softer. Her ponytail whispered against her neck. The edge of Harold's nerves softened against the brunette's pinker parts.

Two more beers, then I'll be good. Harold stood, sat. Sobriety check still intact. Maybe three quick ones. Or four. Be the beer.

Although God had dealt Harold Glen Murphy a sum of errors, the result was a resemblance to the Marlboro Man's rugged—if dirty—good looks; all Harold needed was a saddle thrown over his shoulder.

But Harold knew the attractive woman had Mercedes taste; prim and proper, she probably preferred doctors to professional weed eaters.

Which was exactly why he needed help from the beer.

Harold's pace sped while he downed the extra beers. He let out a belch, looked into the last glass and drawled "Sexyyyy" into a long and powerful phrase.

The little hairs on the back of his neck jumped up while his nerve took hold. Harold picked up a fresh beer from the waitress and stood. The room took off beneath him, and he grabbed the table to steady himself. Much better. Now I'm good. He sipped the new beer down about a third.

Harold casually made his way to their table without falling or looking directly at them. The strawberry blonde facing saw him coming first; she smiled, tapped her friends with a nod.

"How're you ladies tonight?" His lips were numb.

Silence.

"That's good. Me, I'm just hangin' out, watching the ballgame. Good game of darts there, I saw. You two won, right?"

Thank God he had that extra beer—this was getting ugly. He took a long cold sip. Couldn’t feel his scalp anymore.

"Awright then, so, um,"—he looked at the brunette—"we gonna have sex tonight or what?"

Her eyes went wide. "Um, yeah." Two sarcastic syllables. Rejected.

"Finally, a lady I can respect. How 'bout you let me buy you a drink and we discuss the finer points of a photonic relationship."

She considered what he’d said, corrected him. "Platonic.”

"Huh?"

"Do you know what the word means?"

"What word?"

"Platonic. It means non-sexual."

"I know what the word means, I just used it, didn't I?"

"No, you said photronic or something. It's pla-ton-ic." She said it slow so he would understand. At least she was talking.

"Anyways, would you like me to buy you a drink?"

"I have a drink." The brunette held up a red frozen mix, probably a daiquiri.

"Mmm," Harold nodded. "Well, how 'bout you let me freshen yours up with a new one?"

"You ladies want another drink?" She looked to the table in desperation.

"Nope," was one reply.

"No, it's getting late, I need to get home," said another.

The strawberry blonde shook her head. "Sorry, this is our last round." She looked sincere, and Harold felt he might have had a chance if he'd picked her instead.

"Awright then," he huffed, beaten. But one last effort before he aborted. "Can I get your number at least, maybe take you out for drinks one night?"

The brunette tightened her lips and shook her professional ponytail.

"Awright then, y'all have a good night." Now his eyes felt like white-burning pokers jabbed into his skull. Harold turned, threw back the rest of the beer, set the glass on his table as he passed, and stumbled out the door and into the night.

No words were written on his patio door when Harold passed through the living room, not checking, and fell face-down on the bed in drunken coma.

***

One uh Dem Books: NT

It's still in concept, and has been for three years, so I'll just use its working initials: NT.

My brother and I began working on it together as a joint concept. We worked up plots, characters, I wrote some rough scenes, we talked about settings, where to take it, how to handle the storyline.

It's a futuristic space fantasy sci-fi, and from what we gather, while it's not a 100% original topic, it is a topic that hasn't been as deeply explored as we'd like, nor has it been explored to our satisfaction. Thus the little bit of secrecy on my part regarding the plot line.

A voice from the back: Hey Eric! Get to the fucking point!

All right, all right... fine.

NT is one of THOSE BOOKS!

If you write, and if you've written more than one or two novels (and I don't give a shit if it's published or not, just that you finished the book, and put all your effort into making it great), then you know what I mean. You probably have one of those books in your drawer.

See, I'm 100k words into the dang thing, and haven't even gotten started. I spun circles. Weightless. Battles. Over-blown dramatic scenes I can't stand to read. More corny kernels than Nebraska, more cheese than Wisconsin.

See, this post was supposed to be an EXCERPT from that book, but I can't find a good quote!

It's ~that bad~.

Yes. Truly. It's that bad.

But, I still believe the concept is sound, I just had the wrong voice, the wrong plot, the right characters, the right planet, the right setting, but the wrong storyteller.

My brother and I discussed it the other day at lunch, touched the topic.

You wanna get back to writing NT? I asked.

Sure.

All right then.

But really, I'm still not sure I'm ready to get back into it. Not yet. Maybe later this summer, but not right this second.

It's just one uh dem books, eh, one uh dem books.


- Eric

Some Random Murder Scene

For Anne Riley's Murder Blogfest: Click

All right you knuckers, I have some murder scenes, but they're not fit for public consumption. Since I write emotionally and without apology, I have a tough time toning down the profanity. Blame the worms. They don't always behave as good Christians, and they never, ever care what you think about em.

Sorry.

But I figured I'd practice a murder scene, and so, here it is. It's a take-off from a scene in a short story that's still a concept, maybe even a book, about a New Orleans hit man name Jugs. I probably won't use this scene at all. Or maybe I will. It's not too bad.

WARNING: Profanity and racial slurs, as this scene contains racial undertones. The bad words are not gratuitous, but are well-thought placements where I believe they are needed.

***

Waking Jonah LeRoux

"You hate your old man, don't you boy?" Jugs asked. He turned the Mercedes SUV onto a backroad, really just a big gap in the cypress trees, and was impressed by the way the shocks held up on the road. Not bad, but for 60k, they'd better be holding up, sure enough. He slowed down to thirty.

But Marty didn't answer. Marty hadn't said much the whole trip (never said much as a matter of course, unlike his old man who could talk like a bloody nose bled). He just sat there looking pale and scared.

Jugs put the wheels into a barely-visible rut and flipped on the high-beams. Should've done that a long time ago. "I understand you scared, boy, but I know you got some in you. You know what I mean by some, don't you?"

Quiet Marty didn't answer. Didn't even look at Jugs.

"I mean you got some balls in you." Jugs chuckled and tapped Marty's elbow. "I mean on you boy, not in you! You ever got balls in you then you got trouble if you know what I'm talking about. And you gonna need some balls tonight, my brother. You gonna needs some bigguns."

This road went into the woods exactly 3.3 miles, close enough to hear a big gunshot, but far enough to muffle the little guns, something small like a .38 (under the seat), or even a bigger gun like a 9mm (in Jugs's coat). It was a secluded road Jugs had found back in 1993, the first time he'd needed a quiet place, and he'd used it eight times since then, almost once a year, mostly work for Mr. Lancôme, Marty's old man, except for one job he'd done for his cousin, wasted a bad nigger who'd beat her up good. You don't hit no woman.

"We almost there." Jugs slowed down even more to twenty. "Them trees is getting close to the paint. They hitting me over there? I done got scratched up earlier when I was out here."

"How'd you do it, Jugs?" Marty said.

The sound of the boy's voice startled Jugs. For three hours, Jugs had heard nothing but his own voice and a CD repeating curse words and threats. But he didn't think the boy caught his mistake (earlier when I was out here). Jugs wringed his massive hands on the steering wheel. Didn't the boy understand? "You know I didn't really kill her. She got killed by your old man. He the one put a bullet in her."

Marty rubbed his eyes and looked out the window. "You're okay over here. Nothing's scratching your car."

***

"Now, boy, you get the boat in the water while I get her out the car. You ain't afraid of no snakes, is you?"

Quiet Marty trudged silent to the boat without looking back and without looking at his feet. Snakes were always out here, crawling around where you couldn't see them, those big black cotton mouths, meaner than Mama's boudin. Jugs paid his feet close attention as he walked around the Mercedes and opened the back hatch.

There she was. She'd been a pretty thing a few hours ago, a young mulatto wasted on the white boys and wasted in the end. What a brother could've done with a woman like that.

Even in the tarp Jugs could see the girl's figure. "You're a sick man," Jugs said, meaning not himself, but Mr. Lancôme. That's the one who'd killed the girl. Why didn't Marty get that?

Jugs threw the girl over his shoulder and trudged to where Marty was pushing the boat into the water. "We gonna push out a ways. I got a surprise for you, too, if you're a good boy. That's why I wanted you here, see?"

The boat was an old wooden pero. For a decade it had rotted while making the occasional trip to the middle of the swamp. This week, it had made two trips, one two days ago (and wouldn't Marty be surprised by what he'd brought out here), and another trip tonight. Too shallow to use paddles, Jugs instead used a push-stick to maneuver the boat around the cypress knees, pushing farther away from the still-burning Mercedes headlights, the light fading as the trees thickened up behind them. It'd be almost pitch black where they were going. But by then, their eyes would be adjusted.

Marty sat at the front of the boat, as far away from the girl as he could sit, looking away from Jugs and deeper into the swamp. She was stiffening up. The boy probably wanted to remember what she felt like soft and what she looked like sitting on top of him slapping them creamy thighs.

Jugs leaned on the pole and pushed the boat between two trees. "I tell you, boy, you know what I'd do if someone killed my girl?"

Quiet Marty.

"I'd done killed that mofo. Put a bullet in his head -- after I'd done skinned that boy. You know I did that once. Skinning a man ain't easy, not when he's flopping around all like a fish and shit. I know why doctors use that anesthetic, now, wish I'd had me some that night." Jugs pointed as if Marty were looking. "Dropped his skinned ass over by that tree out there, the one with the bark shaved off. I shaved the tree, too. That's poetry, boy, you get it?"

Marty looked back at Jugs. "I don't think I'd have to skin the guy. Dead's dead."

"You got that right. Now how would you do it? I mean, if you had a chance to kill the man that killed your woman here."

"To kill you?"

"No, boy, ain't you listening? I didn't kill your woman. I'm saying your daddy killed her, put the money in my hand that put the bullet in her head. Would you kill your sonuva bitch old man?"

"I'd kill the man that killed her, sure."

"Then I got you a surprise, right up here on the other side of that island." Jugs pointed to a small mushy island that spent the spring under the swamp, but this was the fall, and a good bit of the island poked up like a giant turtle's back. In the middle grew a cypress tree.

"What kind of surprise?"

"You'll see boy." Jugs reached in his coat. He was taking a chance giving the boy a loaded pistol. And Jugs didn't like taking chances.

He handed the pistol to Marty.

"What?" Marty said.

"There he is," Jugs said. "He on that tree, tied up good and tight the way Daddy taught me."

Jugs watched Marty's face change when he saw his father, known throughout New Orleans as Mr. Lancôme, leashed to the tree by a seven foot chain and a metal collar around his neck. Several years ago, Jugs had spent six hours in that very same spot with the chain wrapped around his own neck, the mosquitoes biting, the snakes swimming by, the alligators, testing the strength of the chain and the collar and looking for ways to get out of it. Not even his own giant arms could break it free, and he doubted if a little white man like Mr. Lancôme would have any chance of getting out.

"You're one dead nigger," Mr. Lancôme said.

His hands were either bloody or muddy, probably both. There was a pile of shit to one side of the tree. Guess he couldn't hold it.

"Nossir," Jugs answered. "I got your son here and I do believe he got something to say to you, don't you boy?"

Jugs pulled the hammer back and took the safety off, then handed the gun to Marty. "Go ahead, take it. It's live, boy."

Marty took the gun and looked at his father. Jugs had stripped him naked so the mosquitoes could get at his man regions better. Smearing mud on himself hadn't helped either. Jugs knew that from experience.

"Now you do what you said you'd do, boy," Jugs said. "What would you do to the man that killed your girl here?"

"I said I'd kill him."

"You said you'd put a bullet in his head. Now go ahead, there's his head. You know how to shoot, don't you?"

Apparently Marty did know how to shoot. He aimed the gun quick, right at Jugs's chest, and squeezed the trigger, flinching a little at the expected recoil but keeping the muzzle level. Not that Jugs's chest was a hard target.

And when the hammer fell, there was only the click of metal on metal. Jugs didn't take chances. He hadn't lived this long taking stupid chances.

"You think I'd give you a loaded pistol, boy? You think I'm just some dumb nigger?" Jugs pulled out the .38, the quiet gun though he didn't need to be quiet way out here (though it never hurt to be quiet). "You said you wanted to kill the man that killed your girl. You a liar."

And without flinching and with a steady bead on the white boy's head, Jugs shot Marty in the skull and watched him fall over the lip of the boat. It was shallow here, and Marty's back stuck out of the water, where already the mosquitoes had found a fresh source of blood.

"You son of a bitch," Mr. Lancôme said.

"No, you the son of a bitch. You killed this girl because she black and you're son's white and you don't like em mixing them body juices. Now you get to smell her and your son while they rot and mix it up real good like." Jugs tossed the girl into the swamp next to Marty's body. "Shouldn't take long. The swamp eats things up quick.

"I'll be back for you in a month. If you're still alive, I'll think about letting you out of here. If you're dead, there's still plenty of swamp left to swallow your ass."

***

Sample from The Keeper

Excerpt from The Keeper
c2000, Eric W. Trant

"Michelle's answering service," the man's deep voice answered into phone later that night.

Harold cursed his luck. "Is Michelle around?" he asked the voice.

"Harry?"

"Yeah, is Michelle there?"

"How the heck are you? Haven't talked to you in like two weeks. How's the course looking? Get that new green put in over at, what was it, the ninth hole or something?"

"Seventh. Yeah, it's a little par three, finished soddin' it last week, no big deal. How's the sprinkler business?"

"Fine, fine. Just landed the new mall up on the tollway, big job. That'll keep my Mexicans busy planting flowers once we get the irrigation in. Hey, you wanna talk to your daughter?"

"Yeah, put her on, would ya. Thanks."

The voice boomed “Michelle!” on the other end. After a few moments an out of breath girl clunked onto the other end.

"Hello," she huffed.

"Hey, sweetie, how's it going?"

"Hi, Dad. What's up?"

"Um… nothing. Just wondering what you were doing tonight. Hanging out or what?"

"Actually, Ron's taking us out to eat, I think. Hold on." She yelled the question across the room, was answered with a deep “Yep”, then returned to her father. "Yeah, we're going to eat Chinese, I think. Wanna come?"

"Naw, uh uh, just seeing what you were up to. I already ordered a pizza, should be here in a little while. Still wanna get together this weekend?"

"Yeah—“ The voice in the background cut her off. "Yes, sir," she said without enthusiasm. “Whenever you want to come get me, I'm ready."

Bastard's correcting my daughter, Harold thought. The little hairs on the back of his neck erected as he continued. "Tell Mom I'll pick you up after school Friday."

"Okay," she replied—and got the same correction in the background. "Yes, sir."

Now the hairs on his arms woke up, too. "Pack for the lake, we'll go fishin’ and swimmin’."

"Yes, sir.” An edge of sarcasm. The voice in the background mumbled a small praise.

They said goodbye and hung up.

Harold’s heart hammered into his chest like a boxer into the bag. Ron’s face on the bag. Ron’s face on his fist. Broken nose, chipped teeth. Or at least when Harold got through mangling that pretty face of his. Oh that fuckin’ bastard!

Harold’s stomach knotted from the virtual gut shots the man had just dealt him; it quivered and briefly threatened to erupt. Ron had been around for less than six months, but had Michelle calling him "Dad".

Harold missed hearing his daughter call him Dad every day.

Harold sighed, dropped the receiver into his lap and threw an arm to each side over the back of the couch. His feet were propped on the coffee table, and he resembled a fat, crucified Jesus—which was exactly the way he felt. So much for taking her out in the middle of the week. Guess Fridays and Saturdays are all I get!

After he rubbed the burning rejection from his eyes, Harold jumped up and walked into the kitchen for the number to the pizza place. He pinched his thick belly and said to himself, "Pepperoni mushroom sounds gooood.” He walked back to the couch with a coupon and rang up the delivery person.

Harold Glen Murphy slept in comfortable silence, without tapping, without seeing his father’s face, for the next four nights.

***

FINISHED!

I finished my latest book, working title Dark Woods, final working title Walk With Me Into the Darkness.

Excerpt here

I still need to re-write a bit of it, but my readers so far are giving it great reviews! One reader finished the entire book in one sitting, said she couldn't put it down.

Nice, eh. A grass-fire page-turner of a novel!

I admit that Cormac McCarthy's book The Road had some heavy influence on my novel. See, when I read The Road, I couldn't put it down. Had I not had work the next day, I would have read the book in a single sitting. I loved it.

I loved it.

I cared about his characters. I cared whether they lived or died. I read that book, watched the movie -- which is a dead-on adaptation of the novel -- and then said to my girl: I want to write a book like ~that~!

And so I did. I wrote Walk With Me.

Survival. Isolation. A morose view of right and wrong, although this is not as strong an undercurrent in my book as it is in McCarthy's.

Deadpan descriptives. A woman's point-of-view, which is absent from all of McCarthy's books to date.

And it's been a great learning experience. I believe I may have written my first publishable novel!


- Eric

Almost finished!

Almost finished with Dark Woods!

It's a new book, short, about 30-35k wds after I'm finished (assuming no major edits). I'm almost to the ending.

I think I'll get really drunk and write that part. See, it's one of ~those~ endings, where I need to rip out my heart and eat it just to get the right words on the paper.

So, bon appetit! Pass the salt and red pepper, please. Hope to choke it down by Easter Sunday.

Then I have a project with OHP that I'm looking forward to. It'll involve a series of urban fantasy short stories. Fun genre, that. Magic in the back-alleys, baby, total Gremlins and Twighlight and Harry Potter and all those other mod-fantasies you see!

Diggem up some worms and toss me some dirt.


- Eric

Great Writers

Good writers write. Great writers confess.

- Eric

Exerpt from Walk With Me Into the Darkness

Excerpt from latest work. Working Titles:

Dark Woods

Henry and the Whore

Walk with me Into the Darkness

Dirt Don't Talk


~~~~

1

Away from the Light

"Daddy?"

Henry James Jacoby touched his father's boot and said the word again. He could barely reach the boot it was up so high, and when he touched it, his father rocked gently back and forth, suspended by his neck from a doubled-up length of baling twine wrapping the crossbeam rafter in his father's workshop. His father swung next to an overturned wooden ladder, stained with paint and grease and mud caked at the bottom. His pants were damp and smelled of urine mixed into the musky reek of shit and a decomposing body.

Henry righted the ladder and pushed it closer to his father and climbed up and twisted his father around so he could see him and poked his father's chest. Hard and cool as the concrete floor beneath the ladder.

"Daddy."

His father's tongue had exploded from his mouth. So had his eyes from his skull. The man's face was the color of an over-ripe plum, puffed with pungent juices. His lips snarled back in rage or fear. The twine dug a deep bloody rut into his neck, and his fingers clutched near his cheeks at something not there. What hair remained on his father's barren scalp stood out in a cobwebbed mess. The bloated thing hanging by the rope looked nothing at all like Daddy.

Henry leapt off the ladder and climbed on top of his father's workbench so he could reach a machete tacked between the coping saw and the rip saw and the myriad chisels and screwdrivers and wrenches and wood clamps. He tipped over a coffee can full of nails and screws and jumped off the bench.

Henry climbed the ladder with the machete and faced the bloated thing at the end of the rope. The creak of the ladder matched the creak of the bailing twine twisting against the rafter.

Standing on the top step of the ladder and balancing himself against his father, Henry hacked at the rope with three quick machete chops before his father slapped to the concrete floor. The ladder tipped and clattered, and Henry fell with him and landed on his father's chest. It was as if Daddy had dived beneath Henry to catch him. Henry fished out his father's pocket knife and cut off the rope from his father's neck and laid there for a while, his head on his father's belly.

He didn't look at his father's face again, but chose to stare at his boots, scuffed and brown from hard days in the pasture. They were just like Henry's boots, only bigger.

***

The workshop steamed in the summer heat, baking him and his father laying on the floor, and it was after dark when the smell overtook Henry. He recognized the smell. It was the sweet-musty scent of all things dead. Dead calves smelled that way. Dead squirrels and rabbits, too. He'd seen a dead horse once, and when they shoved the corpse into a pit, the horse had expelled a long gaseous blow from its ass, so fierce that they all ran away from it, his father and the man who'd hired his father to do the digging and the other man's daughter, who owned the horse. The girl ran, too, even though she'd cried and thrown herself on the dead horse's neck just minutes before.

Henry felt his father's belly beneath his head. It was tight with that stench, the dead gas so nauseating he'd vomit when it violated his nose. He never wanted to smell it again, not ever. The Death Gas.

Sweating in the summer heat, Henry threw open the shop doors, the double doors that slid on tracks so wide a tractor could fit, and stepped into the pasture. He stood there with his hands on his hips looking at the night sky and the empty black hole of the new moon. None of the stars said a word, and he didn't ask them any questions. Henry and the stars just stared at each other for a while.

***

Random Action

All right, here's an action scene, just for practisimo. This is a true story, by the way. This actually happened to me here in Dallas.

~~~~~~
Rain pounded the windshield as the car swerved left and right. Smooth tires neither screeched nor gripped the pavement, but glided over the road on a sheet of summer rain slick as black ice. He turned the wheel gently into each swing of the truck's rear, resisting the urge to put his full weight on the brakes, and touched a soft toe to the accelerator, hoping he could stabilize before he ran off the road.

Cars blew by him on either side, dodging him, and then a tread found pavement and launched him forward across three lanes of traffic, into the ditch, the deep mud twisting the wheel back to the right and almost yanking it out of his hands. No concrete median rose up to meet him, but he was approaching an overpass and the huge concrete pillars rushed at him. He thought about trying to swerve away from them, between them, back onto the road, but an instant calculation said he was fucked, stay on this path, at least die right-side up and head-on.

He flew under the bridge sideways, almost glancing the pillars that now were to his right when they should have been well to his left, and then he bumped onto the pavement and found himself facing oncoming traffic and a long row of cars throwing up rain-mist and swerving left and right to avoid him.

Still resisting the urge to slam on the brakes and throw himself into a tumbling mess of American steel, he cranked the steering wheel to the left, straightening, slowing, shaving off momentum until he felt all four tires grip the pavement, and then he turned right, hard, avoiding an oncoming truck, and came to a stop on the inside shoulder of the opposite traffic lane, pulling into the median and out of the way of traffic.

Nobody honked.
~~~~~~

- Eric

Where I'm weak

I just realized something about my writing. I do that, you know, analyze my style, constantly learn, try to re-invent myself and challenge myself.

I do a good job of dialogue, I think. No, I know I do a good job at it. The dialogue's real, genuine, easy-to-read, flowing, and well-spent. When I hit a dialogue section, I bang out 1,500 words an hour, easy.

I do a decent job of moving scenery. Heck, I don't know what you'd call it. Descriptive prose, perhaps. I keep it simple. In some ways I'm a minimalist. I keep it simple. I try not to over-describe. I try to describe in pieces, small bites, rather than stuff one huge bolus of description down the reader's gullet!

Gag.

I do all right with humor. I can hold someone's attention.

I can think of original topics and unique perspectives.

I can write and write and write. That's called being verbose, prolific. I have a substantial word count under me, now. I'm a ~writer~.

I avoid cliches. I avoid weasel words and abuse grammar sparingly.

I proof-read. I re-read. I re-write.

All these things I'm good at, but let me tell you my weaknesses.

Actions scenes stump me. I don't know why, but they're a weakness in my repertoire. I need to beef those up, find me an action author and chip out how they do it.

So many action writers are cheesy, though. I'm not a rat, and I don't like cheese in my words. I'm self-conscious about my action scenes. I should practice some. Maybe I'll write one this week and post it, see how it goes.

I'm also weak on plotting.

Did I say, Weak?

Nay. I suck. I'm terrible! Plotting ~destroys~ the worms. They can't dig when I think too far ahead, or if I write it down in advance. I have an idea of where I'm going, sure, but if I write it on flash cards, I can never stick to it.

That's how I got stuck on New Texas. I had this Excel spreadsheet with character lists, plots, sub-plots, settings, details, maps, the whole shitful in a ballcap.

I'm also pretty good at making up new -isms. Shitful in a ballcap. That's a good one!

Anyway, I stink at plotting. I've decided that's just something I cannot have in my writing. It's too constrictive. I'm like a worm in a potted plant -- I can't dig dig DIG! Not with the restrictive walls of a plot!

And God help me if I hit an action scene. I got stuck for a week on one action scene last week. Stuck. 500 words, and I could NOT bang them out.

On the action, I need practice.

On the plotting, though, restricting my characters to a predestined path... well, here, wear this ballcap.


- Eric

When do you write?

When do you write?

Some authors need noise and chaos and tend to write in a public place, such as a coffee shop or a restaurant.

Some write at night. Some write in the evening. Some write nine-to-five for a living, only during business hours.

Me, I write in the small hours of the morning. I drag my ass out of bed at 4:30AM, take a piss off the back patio, let the dog take a piss, and then the dog and I cuddle up on the couch and write until everyone wakes up that morning.

I can't write with the television on, or with other distractions. For me, writing is a sleep-disease, from which I must fully suffer before I can write anything of worth. It's those wee-hour writings that resonate the best for me.

But, that's just me.

- Eric

Lemme sniff your crotch: A random meandering

If you could see black with shades of gray, would you say you can see? Or would you call yourself blind?

If you could hear a single note at a single tone, would you say you could hear? Or would you call yourself deaf?

That's how we smell, compared to a dog, that is.

See, a dog's sense of smell is 10,000 times more acute than a human's. For instance, if this were sight, then you'd be able to see one foot away, a dog would be able to see two miles away.

Get it? Still think you have a sense of smell? You're and idiot if you do.

A dog can smell an ounce of cocaine anywhere in your house, yet seventeen cops overlook it.

They can smell a person buried a dozen feet beneath a building when it's crawling with workers and their dead-ass noses full of snot from this season's allergies.

A dog can smell if you're pregnant, smell if you're sick, and they can even smell cancer.

Yes, a dog can smell cancer. Look it up. They do all this without an x-ray, MRI, catscan, or one day in medical school.

Two day trails through the woods, no problem. A deer can smell you from two hundred yards away. So can a bear and so can a hundred other animals. A shark can smell blood in the water, can't they.

And what can we smell with our little shnoz? Not a goddamned thing. And yet, we count sniffing as one of our senses!

Please tell me you're not still thinking you have a sense of smell!

We're such idiots. We don't have a fucking sense of smell.

Watch a dog next time you meet one. What's the first thing that dog does? He sniffs your ass! Puts his face right in your bunghole and takes a good whiff, doesn't he?

And if he sees some shit on the ground, what does the dog do? He stops and sniffs it out.

Why do they do that? Because that's how the world smells to them, that's how you smell to them. That's why a deer turns its head in the woods, why a dog runs when you fart, and why animals the world around shit to mark their territory.

You smell like shit. I smell like shit. We all smell like shit!

Believe me, that's the most odoriferous part your nasty-ass body, yes it is, yes it is.

Maybe that's why God took away our sense of smell.

So we can all walk around and act like our shit don't stink.

- Eric

How writing is like woodworking

Yep. This here post is about how writing is like woodworking.

I haven't already posted this, have I? I know I've thought about it. If it's redundant, well, shit, you'll just have to live with it. It's important, I guess.

Now, any damned fool can write a story. That's what we all believe.

And any damned fool can build a box. That's what we all believe.

But let's address that fool, and say this to him: Can you please build me a box?

The Any Damned Fool (ADF) says, Sure, I'll build your box, and they run off and cut up some plywood, hammer it together, and hand you your box.

Can you see your box?

I can't.

The ADF (Any Damned Fool) builds the box in the same way I built that description of the ADF's box: slipshod. Nondescript. Simple and without vision or attention to function or durability or quality. ADF's box can be of any size or form, made from a long list of components.

An ADF writer would build a story the same way. See what I mean?

Now, bring in the carpenter, the woodworker, the writer and author. Let him build you the box!

Say to the woodworker: Build me a box.

The woodworker doesn't run off and start hammering! Nope. He says, How big?

I need a 3'x3' box, you say.

Is that inside storage capacity of 3'x3', or do you want the outside dimensions to be 3'x3'?

Inside storage dimensions, I guess.

How much weight do you want it to handle?

I don't know. Sturdy enough to fill with rocks, I guess.

All right. That means using strong joints, maybe even dovetailing them. That's the strongest joint, you know, a dovetail with glue. Don't even need nails or screws! Now, what about a lid?

Um, yeah, I guess a lid would be nice on my box.

All right. You want it hinged, or do you want the lift-off kind with a handle in the middle.

Dang, I don't know. A lift-off lid is fine.

What sort of handle do you want? I can buy a knob, cut a hole in the top, use a piece of wood for screw-on grip.

Just cut a hole, I guess, keep it simple.

Nothing simpler. Now what about material? MDF won't hold your 3'x3' volume of rocks. That'll burst. I'll probably need to use 3/4" plywood, maybe with an external 2'x4' frame or brackets. You don't mind an external frame on your box do you? I can make it look real pretty, like trim, or just slap on some wood.

... and so on.

Do you see the difference? Do you see the comparison between writing and woodworking, between the ADF and the professional in each field?

The difference is in the details, in the attention to what matters, and in how they approach the problem!

Like an experienced carpenter, a seasoned author will approach their story with premeditation, and take small, deliberate steps along the way, constantly going back over what they've built so far to ensure it meets either their original vision, or changing their vision based on how it's coming along so far. In the end, they have a highly polished, quality piece of work!

And there's nothing slipshod about it.

It's easy to say Any Damned Fool can write, or build a box.

But when you start cutting wood, or hammering out words, you'll find it ain't so easy, now is it.


- Eric

What about Reader Arcs?

You've heard about character arcs, right? That's a tried-and-true writing technique that uses the 1-2-3 plotting approach.

Take for example A Christmas Carol.

Part I: Scrooge is a lonely, stingy miser.

Part II: This is the meat of the book, where Scrooge is educated of his wrongful ways.

Part III: Scrooge realizes his wrongs, corrects them, and becomes a generous man, and finds himself no longer lonely.

See the arc? It's a common practice to preach the character arc in literature and writing classes, along with the ol plotting techniques.

But what about the reader arc?

Huh? Reader arc? What the hell is that?

It's the arc that the reader has going into a book and coming out.

When I write, I think not how to arc the characters in the book, but how to arc the ~reader~ of the book, of the story. I think, What will the reader remember about this story? What will I tell Dear Reader that they haven't already heard?

How will I change Dear Reader's view of the world?

I don't think much about the character arc at all, because that's not the point of good literature, now is it.

The point is arcing Dear Reader, folks, not your characters.


- Eric

Excerpt from "The Dark Woods"

January 7, 2010. The Dark Woods by Eric W. Trant, a Novel (-ette, maybe)

4

Jake Murphy slung his legs off the bed. Cold wooden planks creaked as he walked through the bedroom, through the living area, and into the kitchen. He sat, pulled on yesterday's socks, his coveralls, and tugged his boots around his feet. Except for the low glare from the microwave clock, the kitchen and the house were dark as tar pitch.

The boards through the living room whispered. From the corner of his eye, Jake saw two bare feet, toenails painted red, though they looked black without light.

"How long you gonna be?"

Jake didn't look up at her voice. "Dunno."

"Should I wait up on you?"

"Nah, you and the boys go on sleeping. I'm just gonna go see how things look."

"Are you taking your gun and vest?"

Jake stood, stomped his feet to snug his boots tight, and crouched and pulled the legs of the insulated coveralls over the boot tops. "I'll bring my vest."

"You'll wear it?"

She was a ballerina in a crystal globe. Jake picked her up and shook her and kissed her lips and set her down and smacked her rear. "Vest is in the truck. I'll put it on just for you."

"Be careful, okay," she said. She squeezed his rear and patted it, looked up at him. She barely reached his chest. Such a huge woman in a tiny body. "You said somebody's shot, so be extra careful. You're a civilian now, remember."

"I'll be all right. I got my vest."

She didn't smile.

Walking down the steps, before the door closed and locked behind him, he called over his shoulder, "I'll be back later this morning, probably. Now come on dog, hop up in the truck and warm up that sniffer of yours."

***

Two deputies paced outside the church in front of two police cruiser, swinging flashlights back-and-forth and occasionally leaning down and placing markers on the ground between small steps. Their headlights turned the gravestones to white plaster slung to sharp black shadows stretching into the woods.

"Howdy, Jake," said one. He stepped forward holding his hand out.

Jake shook it, turned to the other deputy, nodded, shook his hand, and then stuck both hands in his pockets. He should have worn gloves. It'd only get colder as the morning drew on from the night, and dawn was yet four hours east of here. "They get that girl out of here okay?"

"Sure did. They beat the shit out of her and raped her good, looks like, then shot her in the shoulder. Taking her up to Lufkin, I think. That ain't the least or most of it, though. Come look. Watch your step, we're still marking it out."

The deputy turned and led Jake toward front of the church, where a Mexican boy lay face-down by the steps.

"I'll be damned," Jake said. "That the shooter?"

"Nope. Come look. Mind the cones. We're running out of markers, you didn't bring none, did you?"

Jake shook his head and clicked on a 4D Mag light. The deputy swung his light at their feet and the two of them baby-stepped along the line of orange and yellow markers.

"Mind your step," the deputy said. "Either he dragged hisself, or somebody dragged him. Can't tell. But his hip's shot to hell. Looks like a deer rifle, that's my guess, come out from the woods, hunter maybe. Entry wound's a finger hole, but the exit wound's big as my fist and took most of his hip bone with it. Look here's pieces of it, marked here, and here, and down yonder. Little bits of flesh and bone, looks like to me.

"And now looky here. We got another one lost his skull. We'll never identify this guy unless we get prints, but he's the shooter, had a little Ruger .22 rifle. What you think took his head off? Thirty ought six?"

"Something like that. Thirty-thirty, maybe, but a good sized rifle. Definitely not a shotgun." Jake painted the body with his flashlight and followed the exit splatter to the wall of the church.

"Got us some modern art there, don't we," said the deputy. "Maybe we'll get a ballistic out of it in the morning."

"Maybe." Jake's flashlight traced a line from the church wall to the body and into the graveyard, out toward the woods. "You been out there yet?"

The deputy shook his head. "We still ain't got all this marked out. Only been here fifteen minutes, and the ambulance just left not five minutes ahead of you. There's more though, and I bet we'll have one hell of a scene by the time we're through pacing it out.

"Look over here, behind the gas tank. We found this old boy's hand, most of it anyways, gun and all and some of his fingers. I bet he ain't got but a thumb left. Roland's coming around from the other side of the church, see his light there. We ain't found no more bodies, but we also haven't been out to the graveyard yet. Girl said she had a sister run off through the woods, that's why you're here. Mind your step. Them there's one of his fingers, looks like to me."

***

At the truck Jake lowered the tail gate and patted his hip and the dog jumped over the tailgate and onto the ground. Jake pushed the tailgate back into place and squatted in front of the bluetick hound. He clipped a long nylon lead to her neck and rubbed her ears. "You got any of the girl's stuff?"

The deputy pet the dog's head and said, "I ain't seen nothing of hers, yet. Think you can just pick up the scent?"

"Dunno. Without a starting point, she could pick up near anything, be off chasing a deer or a rabbit for all I know. Make some noise up here, I guess, maybe she didn't run off too far. Run those sirens every couple of minutes, see if she shows back up, or maybe we'll hear something out there."

"We got on the bull horn earlier. We'll do that, too." The deputy straightened and leaned into the radio on his shoulder. "Tabby, Davis here, you get a hold of Jackson, yet?"

The radio cracked. "Still not picking up. I'm going straight to his voice mail, now. Bet he turned off his cell."

"Figures. Lemme know soon as you hear from him."

"We'll be at lunch fore we hear from him," said the radio.

Deputy Davis shook his head at Jake. "Finally get something worth sheriffing, and we can't drag his lard ass outta bed."

***

The dog paced back-and-forth, side-to-side, inhaling snorting, doubling-back and then stopping. She sneezed, took a few steps and stopped again. She looked up at Jake.

"You got it, girl, you got something?"

The dog put her nose to the ground and took a few more steps into the woods and looked at Jake.

"Go on, good girl, you got it. Go on, now, whatcha got?"

She chuffed at Jake. She agreed. She put her nose to the dirt and began winding through the trees and underbrush with the confidence only a dog can muster.

They soon met a barbed wire fence, overgrown and bent to the ground in alternating posts. Jake played the flashlight down the fenceline, saw nothing of interest, and stepped over.

An old lawn mower handle stood up out of the waist-high underbrush. Small chunks of wood here and there, and cinder blocks and stacks of bricks on the ground, and a high-back chair buried up to the seat. The flashlight lit up the remains of the old colored church fifty feet from the graveyard. A live oak sprouted sharp fingers from the main sanctuary, the walls folded inward on the lower trunks.

Behind him, Jake heard the siren, followed by the bullhorn. The dog stopped and cocked her head back toward First Baptist, her flop ears raised. He let the dog listen, and then in the following silence he listened, too. He heard nothing more than the sounds an empty patch of woods should make.

***

Re-Writing in General: Do Word Processors Kill Us?

Cormac McCarthy's old typewriter recently sold for $250,000 USD. Wiki Link

Why's that a big deal to me? I mean, besides the money, that is.

Because it was his typewriter.

Nobody's gonna pay the equivalent of $250,000 USD in 2050 for my old laptop, which by then will have long been sent to reclaim.

It also got me to thinking on the topic of re-writing. See, with the advent of the word processor, and worse still, the computer, re-writing becomes somewhat obsolete.

Used to be, you thought out your story and wrote up a "first draft."

Remember those?

Then you went back and RE-WROTE the story. And by re-write, I mean you re-typed, re-scribed, re-WROTE every ever-lasting word!

You, the author, re-WROTE!

You didn't go back and spell check, tweak a few words with your thesaurus, add some chapter headings, and call it a novel.

You didn't send in your first draft to the publisher, or your agent!

No, you read it, made some hand edits, and then RE-WROTE YOUR STORY!

Now, when I write a story, I'll chug through a bit of a first draft.

Then I save it, and create a new document, and re-write. Most of the time I delete some or all of what I previously wrote.

Then I save it, and create a new document, and re-write. Again, I delete some or all of what I wrote, but usually keep some.

This process goes on. I may have fifteen or twenty cuts of the story in my story folder. I read the first cut, and it is NOTHING like the final revision!

This is how the old authors used to write. This is how they created magnificent pieces!

The blogs, and online, sure, I post my first draft. I crank it out, run spell check -- maybe -- and then walk away.

But my works, the fiction, the journals, the things I take seriously, those I re-write, over and over and over.

McCarthy said he'd written well over 5 million words on that old typewriter of his. He doesn't have 5 million words published, though. His books are about 50kw, ten published, far short of even one million words.

See what I mean? Those other words were drafts, practice pieces, brainstorms and cut-it-toss-it writings.

He threw away 4 million words, and then some. The rest, he kept, and they call him genius.

Me, I'm well past a million words. And I don't mean cut-n-paste words, I mean the hard-pecked type-it-out words, and the even harder earned hand-written pieces.

But I don't have a million words worth of final works.

Get it?


- Eric

Re-Writing: Purge the "He wondered if..." Blurbs

So it's New Years Day, January 1, 2010.

It's a new year, and I'm up this morning, enjoying the Friday off, sitting on the couch with the Pomeranian sleeping next to me, listening to Puddle of Mudd, and working on my next novel, The Dark Woods, working title.

And I'm looking over yesterday's work and I found a section that originally went something like this:


Henry wondered what the girl would look like when the dog found her. He imagined her covered in mud and blood and whatever sin she'd seen back at First Baptist. He wondered if she would be terrified when the dog found her. A steely blue-black crossbreed of blue heeler and border collie, with one glaring blue-white eye, the other a chestnut brown, the splotchy colored dog blended into nothingness at night. Maybe she wouldn't see the dog at all. Henry thought she might be better off if she didn't see him. She might think the dog was a ghost who'd followed her from the graveyard.


My eye caught all the Henry wondered and Henry imagined bullshit -- and that's what it is, bullshit, thick and steamy and good for nothing but fattening the worms and fluffing your flowers.

So I went back and edited to this:


She'd be a filthy mess when the dog found her, covered in mud and blood and whatever sin she'd seen back at First Baptist. Although well-intended, the mutt dog would probably terrify the girl. A steely blue-black crossbreed of blue heeler and border collie, with one glaring blue-white eye, the other a chestnut brown, the splotchy colored dog blended into nothingness at night. Maybe she wouldn't see the dog at all. Probably better off if she didn't see him. She might think the dog was a ghost who'd followed her from the graveyard.


Do you see the difference? I cut out all that Henry wondered shit, and transformed it into a more punchy paragraph.

I hate when characters stand and wonder, or imagine, or sit in place and introspect. I'm a reader, and I don't like reading a still-framed character with a voice overlay ticking off their thoughts.

As a writer, sometimes I need to get a paragraph out of my head in whatever form it will extract itself, but it's the editing process, and the re-writing process! that many writers forget to embrace.

Go back, and in your re-writing, purge yourself of those pointless introspections.

Be punchy! Punch the reader in the face, the gut, and drop them to their knees, and don't let up until you sign your name at the end of the book.

Readers like it that way.


- Eric

Dialogue: Another Lesson from Arthur Conan Doyle

Yep, you read that right: A lesson in dialogue from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who dredged up Sherlock Holmes from the depths of a quiet, unassuming genius mind.

Dialogue brings life to your characters. When you're writing descriptives, or going into plot details, the reader is listening to you, the author, rather than the characters. The reader is watching the characters silently move about the scene, advancing the story, interacting with their world, but the reader cannot hear the character, or listen to the character. In these scenes, the reader interacts with you, the author, and not with the character.

It's only during the dialogue scenes that the reader hears the character's voice. The reader interacts with the character here. The reader listens to the character. The reader is a willing participant, now, being dragged into the story via dialogue!

And it's amazing how few authors master dialogue. Even successful authors prefer their own voice over that of their characters. The author launches into page after page of descriptives, often referred to as Purple Prose, hogging the reader's mind and time for their own selfish needs.

Even authors who are good at dialogue often interrupt the dialogue with a constant barrage of items such as these:

o "Oh, my," she said, moving through the door and out into the yard, which was ...
o "No, it's over here," said Doug. Then he picked up the ...
o ..., etc.

You see how the author nags the reader with descriptives?

And don't get me started on adverbs and creative dialogue tags. For example, if you want me to throw your book across the room, add in this fluff:

o "I'm not going!" she exclaimed. ** Redundant! Your exclamation point means she exclaimed. **

o "I'm so tired," he exasperated. ** Same thing. Redundant. Tired means you're exasperated. Stop it, please God in Heaven, stop it. **

o "You're what?" she asked quizzically. ** Again, redundant, and in this case, irritating. Drop the adverb. **

So, I've just highlighted two bad dialogue habits:

1) Too many descriptives interrupting your dialogue. Let the characters talk!
2) Creative dialogue tags. They are fine in small, small doses, but limit yourself to "asked" and "said" as much as possible, or better yet, drop the tags altogether!

But, back to Doyle. Why did I mention him?

Because he was a master of dialogue!

Here's a fine example from The Man with the Twisted Lip:

'Now Watson,' said Holmes, as a tall dog-cart dashed up through the gloom, throwing out two golden tunnels of yellow light from its side-lanterns, 'you'll come with me, won't you?'

'If I can be of use.'

'Oh, a trusty comrade is always of use. And a chronicler still more so. My room at the Cedars is a double-bedded one.'

'The Cedars?'

'Yes; that is Mr St Clair's house. I am staying there while I conduct the inquiry.'

'Where is it, then?'

'Near Lee, in Kent. We have a seven-mile drive before us.'

'But I am all in the dark.'

'Of course you are. You'll know all about it presently. Jump up here! All right, John, we shall not need you. Here's half-a-crown. Look out for me tomorrow about eleven. Give her her head! So long, then!'

He flicked the horse with his whip, and we dashed away...

Freaking GENIUS!

Do you see it? You, the reader, are standing next to Holmes and Watson, climbing into the horse carriage with them and dashing away!

Doyle didn't constantly repeat "..., said Holmes" and "..., said Watson" over and over.

Doyle didn't interrupt the dialogue to describe the setting. Instead, he set up the scene, ran his dialogue, and then concluded the scene.

He used the dialogue to do these things, specifically:

1) Determine where Holmes was lodged, and where it was located.
2) Determine the distance of the drive to his lodge.
3) Set up the next scene, which will be a description of the case.
4) Release the carriage driver, John.
5) Set the horses for the fast trip.

So not only did Doyle use dialogue to let the reader interact with the characters, but he used the same dialogue to advance the story, fill in the scene, and add a sense of urgency to the story.

When you're looking for a fine example of a master of dialogue, look to the Holmes series, and minimize your dialogue tags. Dialogue is a powerful tool. Learn to use it!


- Eric

Backstory

Backstory should be felt, not heard.

Let me give you an example of one of the finest authors to ever tell a backstory: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

I bet most of you haven't read Doyle. If you haven't read any Sherlock Holmes stories, do as I do, and with the movie coming out soon, take advantage of some of the re-prints of the Sherlock Holmes series.

In Sherlock Holmes, Dr Watson is constantly referring to outside cases, as well as his extensive list of notes on Holmes's cases. For example, here's the beginning of The Five Orange Pips:


When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes cases between the years '82 and '90, I am faced by so many which present strange and interesting features, that it is no easy matter to know which to choose and which to leave. Some, however, have already gained publicity through the papers...


And etc. See how he makes you feel the backstory, without telling it. Reading a little further along the same story, we see another volley of backstory:

Among my headings under this one twelve months, I find an account of the adventure of the Paradol Chamber, of the Amateur Mendicant Society, who held a luxurious club in the lower vault of a furniture warehouse, of the facts connected with the loss of the British barque Sophy Anderson, of the singular adventures of the Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa, and finally of the Camberwall poisoning case. In the latter, as may be remembered, Sherlock Holmes was able, by winding up the dead man's watch, to prove that it had been wound up two hours ago...


And again, etc. Do you see what Doyle did? Do you FEEL the backstory?

He didn't tell you all that happened. He didn't detail each case, nor did he dwell on any case in particular. Dr Doyle -- he was a doctor, like Dr Watson, who originally wrote his Holmes stories while waiting for patients to arrive -- touched his pen on the backstory of Holmes, building a huge and wonderful past for the detective and his loyal secretary, Dr Watson, all without ever telling the reader about the backstory.

JRR Tolkein did this in his series, constantly poking the reader with a backstory that was never fully revealed.

JK Rawlings does this with the Harry Potter series. Her backstory is a feather tickling the back of your neck, just below the brain stem, touching you in places so primal you don't even realize you're being backstoried.

You turn the page, feeling the history, unraveling the past, wrapped in a backstory you didn't even realize you'd read.

Remember these authors when you write. Let the reader feel the backstory. Don't cram it down their throat. Don't dwell on the backstory.

Yell, "ACTION!" Not, "BACKSTORY!"

Let it be felt, not heard.

Study Doyle. There's a reason Dr Doyle was knighted into Sir Doyle for his writing. It is because of his wonderful instinct for backstory that Holmes is one of the most beloved and well-developed characters in all of literature.

And he did it all without telling you a damned thing about Holmes! You just felt it.

See how that works?


- Eric

Percy Freebottom: From Novel to Short Story

So I've been working on this story about a guy named Percy Freebottom. The story's been brewing since May of 2009, when I finished my last book.

Originally, Percy was just a scene. A scene is fine for short story, but it's not enough for a full-on novel, which needs a storyline, plotting, more characters, tons of scenes, deeper descriptions, and so forth.

But all I had was this scene.

I described the scene to people, and they loved it. "I want to read that!" they said.

Which got me to thinking: Cool fucking scene! That'll make a cool fucking novel.

And for the past six months, now, I've been trying to stretch out the scene into a novel. You ever try to stretch out a scene into a novel?

Ever tried to stretch a turtle? Same thing, only people don't think you're insane for trying to stretch a turtle.

So the other morning I woke up at 4AM -- that's when I write, 4AM -- brewed some coffee, and sat on the couch and banged out Percy. I got to 2100 words and stopped, and this afternoon, I polished it off with another 2100 words, making it a decent little short story.

And it's just the scene! Jump in. Describe some shit. Jump out. It's the perfect short story!

But the point of all this ranting is that I tried to make a large something out of a small something. Stretching that short story into a full-length novel consumed a ton of my mental capital, stalled me out, and frustrated me.

I mean, do you know how many times I started the novel! I must've written 50k words just trying to get ~started~ on Percy Freebottom. Plots. Characters. Research. Talking to people, getting their opinions, proof-reading, test-reading... and I threw it all away!

So the lesson is this: If it's short story, make it a short story. If it's a novel, make it a novel. If it's a novelette, or a poem, or a haiku, or a blog post, or an email, leave it as such!

Don't fuck with the worms! They know what's best. Trust em.

Let em dig, and don't question why they only dig a few feet, or why they want to wiggle their slimy little bellies all the way to the core of the Earth.

It's just what they do.

Let em dig. Dig dig dig!


- Eric

Some Pet Peeves

Every author, writer, storyteller has pet peeves. So does every reader, for that matter.

For instance, the simple things peeve me, such as its v. it's, and your v. you're. Compliment v. complement, and so forth, you get the picture. Usually a simple edit will take care of these sorts of errors, but you run into them in emails and blogs quite often.

Also, quit and quite and quiet. Gotta be careful with those boogers!

For writing, one of the most common peeves is the "had" placement. When the author needs to flashback, place a few "hads" in the beginning, and then drop the rest.

He had gone, he had run, he had bought, he had left, etc. Drop the had. After the first couple, I get it, we're in flashback.

Another peeve is the "like" analogies.

"She had hair like a bird's nest."

Ugh. Come on, let's do better than that!

How about, "Her hair was a bird's nest!"

Or, "Her hair looked better suited for holding bird eggs than a hat."

Or so forth. Some "like" analogies are okay, but some authors use them far too many times. A general rule, for me, is no more than one "like" per page, and I try to avoid them altogether, unless I'm feeling lazy, or it just sounds better that way.

In any case, "like" is sloppy and lazy. Drop it when you can. I do.

But, then again, who am I to judge anyone's writing but my own!


- Eric

Music and Writing

Someone said to me, "Music speaks to your soul."

Maybe it does. I guess it does, on some level. Music can hypnotize you, inspire you, put you to sleep or rile you up. Music can be soothing, irritating, loud or soft.

Music can be anything your mind imagines. Sing. Whistle. Tap. It's all music.

And your soul listens.

Now, what the hell does this have to do with writing? I'll tell you: Writing is the soul speaking.

That's right. When I write, I'm responding to the music.

Do you hear it?


- Eric

Vote and Buy!

All right, the book is here!

It's got a lot of fun short stories, some from first-time authors, others from veteran storymakers.


WEB SITE: http://ahlvol1vote.debrincase.com/

I've been stuck on my novel "Who the Hell is Percy Freebottom," working title, and can't seem to dislodge myself from that point where I'm wedged. I've plotted, written, chunked, re-plotted, re-written, chunked, and re-re-plotted until I'm nauseous.

So I'm going back and writing some new short stories, and finishing up some shorts that were previously unfinished. One of them is called "Melvin Gee's Short Trip to Hell." Lemme know if you want to read it! I'm almost finished editing it, and clinching the finishing scene.

Now go vote for me!


- Eric