The writer who is not an author (a prologue)

If you have checked in on this blog more than once, then you know that I love writing, which is why this page even exists.

I wrote my first real tragedy when I was eighteen. It was a three page glimpse of a man whose wife dies in child birth. When I did it, I just wanted to get this little story out of my rattling cage and for years after, I only managed to squeak out a couple other shorts.

A few years back, I worked at a horribly dead-end job where I filled a little bit more with scraps of anger. Finally, I had to let my anger out and, rather than walk into work with a semi-automatic weapon, I put the pen to paper for a full length novel. I had a fun plot line developed with an equally irate co-worker so I ironed out some characters and let them loose. By the end of the book, my angry little characters had turned into mass-murderers, eliminating the injustices evident in our world by taking out hypocrites and degenerates, they were fictional purifiers that ended up battling the demons I was carrying inside my head.

Once that book was complete, all my little stories ran to the forefront of my brain and saw their big brother sitting on just shy of five hundred pages. A riot broke loose in my cranium, knocking over the establishment and shaking down ideas I shelved away to forget forever. What was I to do with that mess?

I got it out. Next thing I know, I can't stop the stream of ideas, characters, plots, villains, scenes, and general clutter banging around, waiting for their chance to get out. I tried to push it all back and dam it up by focusing on college but the constant rush broke my fortress and made a bigger, sloppier mess in my skull.

Finally, I let it go. For better or for worse, I let all of that disaster flow from my thick head, through my arms, and out onto the keyboard, spilling letters of profanity into the universe. Was it the right thing to do? Most likely not. Is it going to change the way man exists, I sincerely doubt it.

So, why do it then? Why punish the rest of humanity with the garbage inside my mind? Because it just feels good to let it out, to release this built up pressure against my brain plate. My happiness is other people's pain. Besides, one man's trash is another man's treasure and I hope that someone picks up something my mental diarrhea has dribbled out and finds great value in his findings.

With that said, I know writing is the easy part. I would have told you that was bullshit when I almost quit my first manuscript because I wrote myself straight into an inescapable corner (each time I did it). Even now, right now on my third manuscript, where I sit in another corner of no escape (thus the birth of this blog post). Writing is the easy part, at least, for a writer with no published credits to his name.

That's right, I have no cred in the publishing world and that's where the tough part is. Try breaking into the White House or, worse yet, Hugh Hefner's estate without the reputation needed to walk through the front gate. That's me, sitting outside the iron fence, watching the world on the inside. Hell, even the talentless pool-boy can get inside once a week. Thing is, that talentless pool-boy has some cred somewhere.

So, as I continue to write, as I continue to sit in corners, I will begin chronicling the steps I have taken to build up some street rep with the big dogs of an industry I don't yet belong to. Maybe you can journey with me; laugh while I fall on my face, cry at some of the treasure I try pushing, feel the rush of potential success, chug tediously through the 'behind the scenes' garbage I wade through.

We learn socially, so I am here to make mistakes to help you. Who knows, maybe I'll even stumble upon a little bit of success along the way.

Luxuria, Chapter 1

Black emptiness fades to searing white and Harry can’t seem to get his fat tongue to dislodge from the roof of his mouth. As the spike burns through the back of his head, he can’t help but to damn his best friend Chance for another insane night of drinking the night before, though he knows he only has himself to blame.

Harry squeezes his stinging eyelids shut, hoping to evacuate the waste in his face and follows it up with a slow shoving pair of palms. His hands smear the gunk from his eyes and the straggling fingers clutch Harry’s three day beard like they’re falling over a cliff. Then the realization hits the man and the pain is just as sharp as whatever is burning the back of his head. He hasn’t seen Chance in weeks.

Reality’s slap to the face clears Harry’s vision, along with one more rub from his fingers. This helps the white fog to dissipate which reveals the mortifying clarity of the damaged man’s world, a claustrophobic world pressing on him from five sides with beige plastic walls. The light showing him his world comes from circles perforating two sides and from the sixth wall which is a heavy duty wire grid, a cage door.

The weight of reality lands on Harry solidly, crushing his spirit as he comes to the understanding that he’s  locked inside an animal kennel and his head aches from resting crookedly against a clumsy seam. “What the hell?” His raspy voice strains against pain in his throat and while one hand grabs at the sore in his neck, the other weaves through the thin bars barricading his exit.

The other side of his gridded view reveals blistered walls and scarred hardwood floor washed in a blinding fluorescent light. “Hello?” His mouth presses against the small black bars but the room does not reply. Pressing at his throat to push the pain away, he tries again with more volume. “Anybody? Where am I?”

Where am I. These three words bounce from the yellow bubbled walls, daring him to answer his own question but the response he offers is one filled with panic and shaking. His desperate actions rock the kennel and rattle the door on plastic hinges. Harry’s rocking offers no satisfaction so his next attempt is to jam his fingers through the bar in hopes of reaching for the latch on the other side but his hands wedge in the opening, thwarting him yet again.

“Let me out!” He screams, rupturing the tender skin in his air passage and he squirms about inside the kennel. Resting his back against the rear of the plastic box, he throws his bare feet against the resilient bars, jostling the cage but giving no leeway.

With a defeated cough and bloodied spit, he slumps, releasing the air in his lungs and the hope from his heart. “What’s going on?” He whimpers. “Why is this happening?”