Novel Progress and Archery

          Work is starting up, and the goal for this summer amidst work is finishing my book. It's not something like a chore, but it's more of a push as to what will result in the end. Something will come out of the rough draft, and something different will be made in the revision. Beta-readers will look at this for what they see and each find something different. The process is going strong, but I hope that along the way my patience doesn't shrink thin.
          A year ago, I started a novel project that had touched my imagination: what would someone do if they were being called by the dead and supposedly dying via his radio, in the middle of nowhere? EVP, or Electric Voice Phenomena, happens quite a bit in the paranormal community, with individuals finding clear voices telling them ghostly messages.
          But this novel isn't about EVP, at least in my eye. I've worked with the novel for a year, and the focus has changed from a simple question to a character trying to relive a past that he never had through his son.
          The result, as of right now, is a character lying, cheating, and even killing to get home and away from these demonic voices coming from technology. I've written over 48,000 words, and the end is coming sooner than expected, which is honestly more terrifying to me than what I'm writing about. It just can't end yet.
           I've taken time away and back to the novel to help postpone the process. Some ideas come to me easily or feel they come out of the characters themselves, but in other case, pushing through has become a nuisance of what's crap and what's not (Shitty first drafts, Anne Lammott states).  To get away from these thoughts, I've taken up archery, and I've learned that I'm okay at it. I hit the center several times this past Friday, one round being entirely of bullseyes.
          Also, the sport relaxes me. For an hour, I can shoot arrows at a wall, sweating my shirt off in a building with no air-conditioning, yet I leave feeling great, maybe even energized.It's something I look forward to each week.
          I miss the days when my novel really surprised and pushed me, much like archery is doing now.  Things felt easier. I felt more accomplished after a good session, while now I feel accomplished but drained in some form. Is it the work load of my writing(1000 words)? Is it the time of day (Evenings before, afternoons now)? I'll have to take each day in front of the laptop and word processor as a new day, and if I don't get myself going on it, hope or not, no one will.
          
         
         

Learning through Experiencing, Helping

     I finished Stephen King's Cujo a week ago, which pushed me to start The Dead Zone, another novel written in his glory days before his freak accident, being hit while walking along a road. Another novel on my upcoming list is John Grisham's The Firm, which I am very excited to read. This past year has included the most novels that I have ever read, but it's all for good purpose.
     Today, another author asked me to read a shorter piece of his. It was something different, an adult romance, and I gave it a good two hours of me commenting on it and making note of where conflict and scene goals are missing, something I myself have been missing through drafting and creating in revision.
     And that's today's focus. Reading keeps the mind loose, the muse churning even when a writer closes up shop for the night. Like artists, we writers duplicate what we like from genres and writers we love. We throw out what he don't love, and that's that. Is this necessary for one to be a writer?
     In a word: yes. Reading is just as important to writers as being bothersome is to a cuddling cat. The words we peel through in a novel, poem, or short work are what reload our own craft. Think of it like driving a car running purely on electricity, as cars these days tend to do.
     You wouldn't fuel an electric car with water. Student writers try to do this by putting a piece off until the night before it's due. You wouldn't stare at the car and say you were driving it, yet young writers say they write when they actually only think of writing. Who does that?
     A few friends and I had a good laugh, when one learned that a person he knew wrote in a genre he had never read.
     Plain as the sun beating down on Death Valley, writers learn, grow, and feed in their craft by reading, writing, and assisting others through the process. Of course, meeting others and discussing writing can and should be a part of the work. Writing is solely not an activity for introverts. But the meat of what we do, repeated throughout the course of every writing reference you'll pick up, is gained by being a writer and reader.
     Go and find yourself a good book, and start learning.
    

Taking Advantage: Using What You Can, When You Can as a Writer

          I have a problem that I'm still coming to terms with. As much as it would excite me to tell you all it's a cliche drinking problem, it's actually handling the unknown.
          When looked at, one of the biggest fears people carry is the unknown. Death, God, monsters, promotions, relationships; these are all things that scare us in some way or have scared us since we were children.
          This week, I've missed two days of work and class, something that hasn't happened since the start of the semester, and the second time that anything similar has happened throughout my working and college careers. For some, taking a day off for illness or leisure is something the body and soul need, but to me, it's something that I feel changes me as a employee and student.
          I woke up at six A.M., day one, and walked to the bathroom to brush my teeth. For the next twenty minutes, I emptied my body out of every fluid or solid that it had. From there, I fell into shakes, more heaves, and even seconds of sleep. I was infected with a stomach bug, yet I felt as though I was part of the movie Contagion. On day two, I felt better, but I had to call out; I knew that if I didn't, there was a chance that I could infect those around me and possibly make my situation worse. I felt terrible. At that point, I knew I had to do something.
          In order to make myself feel valuable to the human race, I wrote and did homework. Following homework, I wrote more. The muse, if one believes in it, kicked in, and I poured out pages of short pieces and brainstorming exercises. The unknown was still terrifying to me, but I let my situation handle itself and push me into a new direction that helped me in more than one way.
          We have to go with what life, God, or E. coli gives us. Situations are bad--they always are--but it's how we handle the situation that makes us who we are and changes what comes of the situation. Had I gone to work and class, things could've gone wrong, and the thought of staying home terrified me because I didn't know what would happen. But I decided to take the scariest direction, and it worked out by me being honest and knowing what I have to give.
          But man, the stomach flu sucks.

Inspiration in Life for Writing

     I walked into my Monday morning study session, eight-thirty. The room sat chilled from an open window and AC vent. Blinds shifted. Light bounced off the stained white-board. A table that looks taken from surgery stands at the end of the room, and I set my greying Disney backpack down.
     After ten minutes, the first student walked in. She sat in the second row, third aisle. "Good morning, John."
     "Morning." I wiped my eyes and drew a slash where her name listed on the attendance sheet. "Do the reading?"
     "I have a question for you."
     I blinked and set my folder aside. "About the reading?"
     She nodded. She looked up at the ceiling and moved her hand in the air, fishing for the words that would soon come to her.
     When I ask people what inspires them in writing, I am told about childhoods, friends, haunted houses, or food. When I tell people what inspires me, the answers tend to vary based on the day that I've been having.
     I started writing in dark times. I didn't have a happy start to my craft. Yes, I grew up as a reader, just as almost every writer did. Many people think that writers are expected to start with a magical moment.
     It's arguable to say that the start of a writer is not important. How did Hemingway begin? What made Stephen King get his first published novel? If you've read enough, you'll surely find out the answers. But one thing that stands a mystery is how these authors and more get started writing each and every day.
     I watched my tutee as she thought about her question. At eight-thirty, not much thinking goes on unless one is used to the mental-stimulation.
    "John," she said, "How does the use of verbs and nouns convey an author's tone or theme?"
     A fly buzzed in the air. Below me, my legs dangled from my risen seat. I looked at her, mouth open, and my heart fluttered just a bit.
     Inspiration comes to us like questions. Sometimes, we might be stewing on our thoughts for a while, waiting to see what comes out clearly. Other times, our ideas line up, and we're able to toss out something great that surprises even those who are prepared for anything.
     I answered that student's question, and she left the session, an hour later, with new ideas to apply in her essay. Four days later, and I'm still pondering the thoughts this student might have, the questions she's waiting to ask. Like inspiration, they might come easy, but we'll have to wait for and see whatever comes out.
    

Traveling in the Mind and on the Page

     The map of California stands in front of me. I drew it, so half of the state looks bent, and crackles of marker roads lead from one blob, San Francisco, to an X, Los Angeles. I stare at the marker trail and hum to myself.
     At the end of the room sits the professor and one student. She's asking for help on her essay, and while privacy is asked, I hear muffles of thoughts over from the white board in the center of the room. In front me, scribbles of thoughts, ideas and musings create noise in my brain.
      I've driven the road, Frisco to LA, many times. On my trips up north, I enjoy the desolation such a drive creates. There's nothing for miles; then highways become loops and drops. After thirty minutes, it's back to driving on a plain for hours it seems. I call it living-in-limbo.
     In a work-in-progess novel I have, one character is driving from the bay to southern California, and the landmarks are just as important as the scenarios the character faces. He's taking the Grapevine, a road that leads up and down slopes steeper than most get to drive in their lives. Half of the time, the Grapevine is closed. Weather conditions are so adverse that travelers must listen to the radio and news just to know what will happen.
     My eyes follow the trail I've scribbled, and I think of the small curio stores, the repetitive McDonald's and diner locations. My family's stopped at most, so I try to smell the grease hanging in the air, the sun beating down on our necks. At night, the hubbles are the only source of light for miles.
     Traveling is something that I love, for it gives me a chance to see new worlds, even if they're only an hour or more away. Family vacations have turned into horrifying, lonely settings for my characters, and desolate locations themselves have turned into themes of hope, promise.
     Americans, I argue, don't do it enough. Vacations are spent at Disneyland, New York, or somewhere so tourist filled one can taste the churros or street hotdogs. But real, American road trips have fallen out of peoples' repertoire.
     I wipe my hand over the scribbled road and destroy half of California. It's ten. I walk to my professor and pass him what I have. We talk, and we leave the room to head downstairs, where his dog and wife wait. We leave, and I'm back on a lamp-lit road, heading home.

Typing under Deaf Ears

      For the first time in my life, I had to miss a day of work due to illness. For me, it's a big deal (obviously), and I'm still a bit nervous about the whole thing. Really, it shouldn't be a big deal at all. Shouldn't it?
     I drove home on the Sixty Freeway, and everything sounded muffled. My eyes darted across the highway as I looked for any trouble. My head pounded. Burning hotter than my truck's heater, my throat lining tasted like onions.
     I got home after ten minutes, and immediately, I went to sleep. The next day came, and I had to call out. But from then on, my time in bed was spent with my typewriter or a book.
    Sick days can be argued to have been made for writers. On a weekly basis, if our schedules are busy enough, we have to fight for a chance to put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard. Writing's a career that promises to torment you if you work a ten-hour job (or are a parent).
      I pounded the keys of my fifty-year-old silent-super typewriter, striking a sheet of printer paper--silently. My ears ached. Everything had grown quieter a day after staying home. Conversations felt like shouting matches. Opening my jaw created a pop that shook my head. In a way, I liked it.
     While writing is hard to get to do on a busy schedule, it's also very hard to have peace-and-quiet.
     It's Sunday, five days after day-zero of my cold. I will be returning to work tomorrow, heavily medicated if need be, where writing will have to take the backseat. I feel better. It's not where I'd like my cold to be, but it's where it has to be. Also, my hearing is back.
     Take the time to enjoy whatever life throws at you. Good or bad, it's how we react that makes the difference. Positivity is created by us, not anyone else. By Thursday, I'll surely miss being able to type under very, very clogged ears.

Visualizing Success in Writing and Public Speaking for Authors

         I stand outside with my group of three peers, and we have less than five minutes to make something up. Reading the textbook, I ask my group what success made them think of. Sports, one says, so we talk about fighting and basketball. How do we visualize success, I ask. We stand under the buzzing light of a neighboring portable, thinking about it.
         On Thursday nights, I attend a three hour course on developing career and life directions. We've been discussing what colleges have been looking for, but public speaking came up this past Thursday, when we were told we would need to perform a short, two-minute skit in front of the class.
          Public speaking is the number one fear in the world, not spiders or HIV. On a daily basis, we put ourselves into situations that require us to speak publicly, yet our bodies begin to break into shakes and sweating when we're told suddenly to perform.
          As writers, we don't feel the necessity to speak aloud to crowds of people; our work is solitary. But that's not the truth, for writers are those who sell their books. Writers go to conferences to meet publishers, other writers, and working editors. Your publishers, I argue, do shit of that. We are put on the front lines.
          The professor assigned topics on what builds self-esteem. The professor put us outside in the dark lighting of a parking lot at eight, P.M.. He gave one group determination, another persistence. We got visualizing success.
          Visualization, thankfully, can be used in multiple situations such as speaking publicly and writing. It helps move us forward in our writing. We all start with one word, Stephen King says. One word leads to a sentence, which creates a paragraph after a while. By visualizing this or performing well in front of a crowd, we feel the difficulty of our crafts drop and our confidence rise.
          We're the last group to walk in when the professor presses the door open with his foot. As group one, we go first. We're standing at the front of the class, looking towards football players, adult students, coaches, and a champion softball player. Say your names, the professor says. I say mine first, and we move down the line. One breath. I think about the next, first word, and we start.
         Two minutes become five minutes, and our class looks at us with open jaws. One group gets up and leaves the room.

Stepping into the Past: Using Typewriters in 2014

          My father stopped me from pouring orange-juice into a mason jar. Oatmeal still in the microwave, I set the glass and carton down to see what he wanted. He asked me to lift an orange suitcase. I did, and we set it on the counter near my glass.
          We opened to find that his 60-year-old typewriter had returned from repairs, clean and polished, keys waiting to be pressed. The carbon receipt he was given sat against the roller.
          "Type something," Dad said.
          I tapped a key, but nothing showed from the light touch. I pressed on the I key, and a line of ink appeared after a silver hammer thwacked the ribbon.
          Dad raised his arm and nodded.
          My mind focused on the machine, and I forgot about the bowl of oats waiting for me. Letters became words, and at the end of the line, a bell went off. I slid the roller to the right until the bell rang again, and I typed more.
          We finished and closed the lid. Dad loped to his chair in the dark, and I took my breakfast to my room.

          I tried the Smith-Corona typewriter again today when I decided to write my friend Sawyer a letter. Ze (hir preferred, androgynous pronouns are hir and ze) lives in Washington state, specifically forty minutes away from Seattle. The lines of ink coated a once blank sheet of paper. Because of the pressure needed, I had to backspace and hit the letters again, setting some of the words darker.
          My father watched me from his chair, and Mom sat near him, sprawled out on the couch with chips in a bowl. Each time the bell went off, he smiled. She focused on the television. The Waltons were on, a show she never missed. The thwacks of hammers made her and the cat peek over.
          It's an amazing experience being able to use a typewriter. Unlike laptops, which allow authors to vomit ideas out and fix later, typewriters require patience, perfection. One error means stopping, rolling away the lever, and blotting out letters with correction-fluid. Instead, I let the errors, however little there were, come out, and I told my friend how I am still getting used to it.
          The errors, to me, are part of the magic. My parents found the machine in the garage, a mess with sticking keys and scratched parts. With it working and alive, breathing under my fingers, the errors feel right. Hemingway used a typewriter after he drafted in pencil and paper. Other authors, surely, tried their best to create the next masterpiece. When one uses a typewriter, the music of the bells and clicks are just a part of the meticulous work involved.
           I plan to use the typewriter for letters and nonfiction pieces. The reality and age feels right with nonfiction, and using the typewriter, everything feels cultural. California is full of history, and maybe this is a way for me to experience classic California from the comfort of my living room or foyer. I am sure my friend, Sawyer, will be glad to find hir letter done in real, fresh pressed ink.
          The smell of it on my hands, I am told, is pretty great, too.

Speedbumps: A Writer's Nightmare

          The last thing I remember was the plastic mask slipping over my face and the slipping of what felt like a scorpion's tail in my arm. They had asked me to sign one last waiver, and in the reclined chair, one arm hooked to a machine measuring my heart rate, everything went black as they pulled the clipboard away.
          When I woke up, I was sitting in the passenger seat of my mother's Honda Fit, holding a strawberry shake from In n Out with the lid and straw missing, blood on the cup's lip. My head throbbed. Even worse, my cheeks felt punched by the same IV that had been stapled to my arm. I felt happy. I leaned to my driver and told her thanks, that I loved her, and that In n Out was the shit.
         For the next few days, I stayed in bed with pain medicine and antibiotics at the ready. Books were thrown on the floor. I had no interest in Watership Down outside of wanting to hold a rabbit and squeeze it between jaw spasms. My mind was entirely on sleeping off the pain and medicating myself back to sleep. I still wonder if I need a slip of pills just to fall asleep.
          Everything I've worked on until this point has stopped. I have one piece moving around with my beta-readers, but it's due for submission before March. My novel hit 30,000 words a week ago. I posted on Facebook in joy, for it's an achievement I've never thought I would ever reach. Now, it feels like a past vacation that had too many good memories.
          Wisdom teeth or not, there are many reasons why writers pull away from their workload. For me, I can't handle the mix of pain and creation. Creation is birth, and while some argue that birth is pain, this birth is not. For others, the loss of a home or loved one might draw him out of his creative world. It really depends on the person; however, it's not something we surely want to explore.
          My jaws feel tender, but I can sit in a chair and read, now. The words pepper into my mind better than before. I know I should have my glasses on. The steam of a bowl of soup keeps me focused, because my mind is keeping me working for the next spoonful of noodles.
          Work will return next week, and writing will fall back into my life on weekends, days off from homework or studies, maybe. It's hard to say when those days are, but I plan to let them come, and when they do, I'll feel healthy once again.
         

A Hobbit and Several Spiders

          The bathroom is one of the only places in my home where I can escape to read another chapter or sentence without being disturbed. I pick the parent's bathroom, because there's a heater, and even if I've never felt a mid-western freeze, a cold seat is a cold seat with jeans or without. Sometimes, I get through a couple chapters. It really depends on the book.
          Reading allows me to escape. Like many, I find that some books pull stress away better than others. Just recently, I finished J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. This was one book I actually was able to finish in bed. It wasn't because of my family, however.
          Above the toilet in my parent's restroom looms a web that stretches from the window to the towel racks, and changing his place every visit, the spider is a bulb with matchsticks for legs. Flies hang, and dust weighs the web down further.
          In The Hobbit, Bilbo handles giant, menacing spiders with the power of his one ring (which we all know without even having to read the damn thing). The spiders have his friends hang from cocoons, and their noses and toes poke out, letting Bilbo know who's who.
         I didn't even realize this bug of mine was watching me until something fell and rolled down my bare-back one morning. I jumped from the seat, clothed (no, I wasn't doing anything, just reading). Standing, I hit the web. More touches me. Thankfully, the only person awake was my father, and he spends his time in the back, so he didn't hear me yelp like a wounded Old Yeller.
        In comparison, the spiders in Tolkien's novel aren't that scary. They talk and plan, something we don't see from spiders. To me, this humanizes them and makes them no more scarier than the hairy guy in the Big Bird suit on TV. Real spiders, things, terrorize us because we as readers or viewers don't see the mind behind the creature, demon, or spirit. In literature, we see the effect it brings on the protagonists or unlucky side characters, but not once are we told why something does what it does. Worst of all, if our characters are weak or injured, our hearts begin to pound at these things.
       My spider is still hanging over the toilet, but I duck my head as to not disturb him. He's gained some new trophies, and had I caught them, I wouldn't want someone to knock them into a bowl. It turns out this is a new spider, with even thinner legs and larger eyes. My spider, who I knocked and hollered at during those early morning hours, hangs in one corner, bundled up into a sack.

Further Confusion, a Not so Confusing Trip

          Walking to a Safeway started my morning, and already, I had seen several convention goers in large animal costumes and uniforms from various anime shows. The sky was open, free of clouds, and the sun warmed me even with the sixty degree temperature. On my back, I carried my bag with a legal pad, box of business cards, and a copy of The Hobbit. Only thing I had forgotten was my room key.
          Further Confusion (FC) is a convention that takes place in San Jose, California, and focuses on anthropomorphic animals and illustrations, something still popular since the years of Disney's The Lion King. Artists, writers, and costumers network and sell their wares and creations. Taking place in a hotel, the convention allows for parties as well, and even with no sense of smell, I can feel the alcohol radiate from the fox I pass by.
          I reach the Safeway with my two roommates, both who are creators of these expensive suits. We pick up sandwich bread and bananas (non-organic due to price). Also, I take this chance to get breakfast. After a walk back, we collapse on our room's beds. A stack of newly purchased novels lay next to me. No spending, I tell myself.
         Outside of buying stuff, there were panels to attend as well as hold. I didn't make it to any of the writing panels I wished to see, but I was on a panel with Kyell Gold and Watts Martin, two authors who are known around the fandom for their fiction. The panel discussed releasing stories and publishing. I focused more so on magazines, blogging and twitter. Questions were passed around for us until the two hours ended, and everyone went on his or her way.
          For me, conventions and conferences present the opportunity to network, unlike what staying behind a keyboard and screen does. Publishers attend as well as fans, and several of my own friends are artists, like my roommates. They spent their time selling behind desks. I lumbered around when I could and helped if they needed it.
          The most important thing for me, however, is getting grounded, and FC allows that. I get to remember my start as a writer, my stressful growth from where I once was. I attended these events with my partner at the time, more focused on the party aspect, but the real thing that draws myself and others is the passion. The time spent on the works seen crawls with it. When people state they wake up in the morning to write, illustrate, or sing, it shows here. It is inspiring, simply. And the energy pushed around gets me working.
          For now, I'm back home and resting. I have started a new piece, and the novel I have been working through is also under heavy focus still. School is coming up, and work is still keeping me busy.
          It's as though I have stepped out of a dream world, and reality is slowly coming back to me. The memories I've made this FC will stay with me, and I look forward to the next upcoming event on my schedule, The San Gabriel Valley Literary Festival. 2014 is turning out to be a great year, and I couldn't be happier.


Kyell gold is the author of Out of Position, Green Fairy, and other anthropomorphic texts. His work can be found on Sofawolf.com.

Information for The San Gabriel Valley Literary Festival can be found at SGVlitfest.com.

2014: Steps to a New Path

          Something dripped out of my nose, and crawling out of bed felt like stepping from a cliff. It was Christmas, and, like many years before, we had to wait for the family to arrive before anything could be eaten or opened. Snorting, I tried to keep positive as my cat prevented me from anything more than a shuffle under the covers.
          I had slept most of the day. When I woke at six, hungry, my sister had arrived; she had woken me up by slamming the door, shouting about how her tire had exploded and she had to be towed home.
         The evening went well with the nephew opening his new favorite toys, a Hot Wheels Car Maker and Disney Infinity video game, and the rest of us getting things we each can use and cherish for the next upcoming year: 2014.
         In our family, we don't exchange resolutions or stories. Our New Years Eve is spent with pizza, and that's about it. After Christmas had gone, we would fall into our own spaces and hibernate or, if we're lucky, clean. But the rest is needed just as much as the organization. For me, January marks the start of back-to-back conventions, conferences, and hours of work tutoring.
         2013 was an amazing year outside of the threatening belief of rapture and Earth destruction, but it's time to step out and progress further into this new decade. Rather than continue the current path I'm falling, I plan to write more with the time I have rather than wait to spend my time on one day of writing; to step outside my comfort zone and make a difference for others, if not myself, while taking school more seriously.
          I want to thank all the friends and family, whether related or not, for the year of publications, hours of work, months stressing and worrying, and moments of breath and pause. Each day is a new experience, and each moment spent with each other is a new direction. 2014 is the year of the horse, and like Equines, the only thing we can do now is stride towards a new adventure.

Writing Horror and Leaping from Chairs

          When I was five, or some age around then, my father showed my brother and me one of our first movies, Steven King's IT, starring Tim Curry. I screamed and hid my face, but I also watched in curious fascination. No, I didn't want to become some murderous clown. I like clowns, but I don't like those clowns. What interested me was how such a simple idea could tug on my fears and leave me shaking.
          Writing eerie, spine-chilling prose brings its own excitement, which is just as good as reading or watching horror. Watching IT, I had no idea what the characters were going to do or what Pennnywise was going to do. I was victim to the director's finished product. In writing, I find myself getting just as scared. Why?
          As a writer, one experiences some things for the first time much like the reader. We feel the startles and lures before the reader. We see what it's like to be in the situation the characters are in, deciding whether to take the stairs up or to jump out the suddenly unbreakable window and be dragged into the closet. Readers only experience the end result, which only takes one direction.
          We also experience nightmares like our readers, but ours are much more real: failure. There is not one author out there who does not worry whether his or her work will be the best he/she can do. We are writers because we have a certain amount of OCD in our DNA, but we embrace it with our editing and revising skills. We basically clean a closet until it's perfect for the eyes of others before moving to the next cluttered nook.
          My friend made me leap out of my chair when I was finishing my most recent piece. I had begun to pull out of the climax point, and the character is on her bed, crying. She hears the spiritual force knocking around the house then run down the hall, out the door, and possibly take her SO with it. This ending was one I didn't see coming, and I was worried if it was even the right ending to take.
         A pinging sounded screeched through my ear-bud headphones and into my ears.
         With a quick breath, my body rose from the chair and shuddered, and I cried out. I clicked the Facebook tab (which shouldn't have been open in the first place).
         Christine had sent me a photo of her cats with Santa. He couldn't hold them, so the jolly-man held their small paws. She laughed after a good scolding from me, and she told me to get back into my story.

Campus History That Lives

          Not so long ago, The Conjuring, a film based off an actual paranormal investigation and exorcism during the 60s, came out on DVD. The story is changed a bit just to keep audiences watching as usual, I believe, but the recreations of paranormal activity are pretty similar to the real thing: wall banging, hair pulling, skin biting and clawing, and item throwing can happen. It was just the other night, during a class of mine, that I felt my school might actually be haunted.
          It was a lecture during my Novel course, and I had my yellow legal pad out for me to take notes. We were discussing plot. I tried to think on how I could incorporate certain aspects into my current novel without pulling the fun from the characters.
          The sound of a desk moving came from the room's left corner. There was a projector, table, and leaning poster of Pulp Fiction sitting against the wall, but they hadn't moved.
          It had came from the other room, where the school's newspaper was made and edited. I read the newspaper whenever it comes out, and asides the occasional  grammar error, it's pretty strong. Their room is placed next to the computer lab I was going to use for work, before I changed rooms due to lacking keys.
          The Novel class would go until ten, and I asked myself what if the school was haunted like The Conjuring. Mt. San Antonio College (Mt. Sac) used to be a military hospital, first army then navy, during World War II. Not many students know this, and when they learn, it's a surprise.
          Locations such as Mt. Sac are prone to paranormal activity. The history is right, and the constant construction changes the landscape every year. When a location is changed from what it once was, spirits tend to be disturbed. This is mostly seen in homes and hotels, but if a location is carrying enough emotion in the walls, anything can happen.
          Which is why I wouldn't be surprised if Mt. Sac was haunted. While the desk could have been moved by a staff member, student, or custodian, it's easy to see where energy can be focused enough to yank an object for a couple of feet. The sound of boots clapping down an empty hallway would not be anything too far from real.
          The lecture finished at the hour. I stayed behind to talk with a couple of classmates and our professor. We talked about movies, the ones people have to watch. After ten minutes, I looked at the clock, said goodnight, and walked the empty but lit corridors to a supposedly empty parking lot.

Nanowrimo and the Invasion of the Body Snatchers

          On November 1st, precisely at twelve A.M. when everyone is to be asleep, select individuals are wiped clean of their existence. They are not the same person anymore; their name is a vague look back to the previous person who used to control the body. When they wake up, several hours later, they will get up, wash, and be changed forever.
          It sounds like a thrilling Science Fiction film, but it's Nanowrimo, the latest craze to hit the literary world since hardcover books. Nanowrimo is an annual event where writers promise to finish fifty-thousand words of a working novel draft within a month, and each day is a contest to complete the much needed word count goal. It illustrates the ongoing challenges authors go through while expressing that anyone can write if they sit down, silence everything, and write.
           But writing this much in a day is inhuman, alien even. Students, hobbyist, parents, and others take this challenge and become someone new. Their minds become driven to find the next plot point, the next story direction. Their fingers wriggle out in a flurry of typing. Even when away from a keyboard, the victim cannot control his or her hands as they wait to cling to a writing device. The host becomes, dare I say it, an author.
          Nanowrimo is great because it sets a goal for these new authors. Its no weaker than a manuscript deadline an editor might give, nor is it weaker than one an author would put on himself alone. Individuals can finish fifteen-hundred words in an afternoon and say, hey, I'm really doing this.
           Being an author is very difficult. While society might dictate that writing is simply play, it's not. We are paid little money, with little hope, to play the lottery with ourselves. Will this turn out as great as I thought? Who knows. Will I make it big? Why is this even a question? We writers write because we enjoy it, love it even. The rush of words coming from what feels like nowhere is cathartic, and we have to constantly fight ourselves for free time, something that is a luxury.
          That's what Nanowrimo gives us: a helping hand. You must get through your first draft without looking back, you must write this within thirty days, and you must enjoy yourself. That's it. It will not make you an award-winning author, nor will it make you the next Stephenie Meyers. However, it will change you, make you into a new being that's determined, creative, inspired, and perhaps even a future author.
          If you start talking about a spaceship or next big invasion, however, you're on your own.

Using Journalism as a Form of Character Creation

          It's been a while since I last posted here. School is in session, and work has me making sure students are on their game most of the time. This leaves little room for me to write anything out of my Novel course's required chapters (the class being taught by John Brantingham himself).
          When I'm free, however, I do find the time to draft short non-fiction pieces. I'm a huge fan of travel writing and watching a landscape come to life with just a few words. It's magic--the same magic which brought me into writing creatively. Even without traveling to my favorite city up north, I can at least describe it.
           There's another purpose to being a fictional reporter. As a writer, I find myself constantly squabbling over how important it is to give a strong, detailed character illustrated by his or her actions. The mind can only see so much, so I have to put the character to work, just so everything becomes clear to the reader. In a recent, featured article in The Writer, Patrick Scalisi discusses how a writer can form stronger characters just by treating an exercise as if a professional, journalistic interview. It doesn't require the author to be a professional in journalism, as Scalisi argues, and it allows the writer to express any ideas while letting the character have his or her way.
          Interested in non-fiction, I decided to give it a try with my latest character, Paul, a narcissistic cheater living two lives.. The interview piece is short, but I was able to see more so on the first layer of my character, Paul Greer, while understanding what he has to hide deep inside. Here's what came out:

          The ferry roars into the docks and when settled, its gates open to let out dripping tourists and locals, each with cameras in their hands. Their ponchos glisten against the muted background of San Francisco's bay, and I watch them peel the layers away until they stand in jeans and sweaters.

          One man stands in a polo-shirt and pair of slacks. In his hand, he has a cell-phone and pair of bug-eyed sunglasses.

           Paul Greer works in Los Angeles as an attorney and public speaker. For him, traveling up north is just another day to add to his resume. We sit down on a bench in front of the clock tower standing over Market Street, with sandwiches in our hands, warm.

           “My trips are usually centered on wealthy businessmen, divorcing families, land owners.”

           “Do you ever feel the drive's too much?”

            He smiles and I can see lettuce stuck between his teeth. “It's worth it.”

           For him, the cool winds overlap into his burning world down south, where his family lives and works without him. He brings them food, souvenirs, and portraits they cannot get unless they spend the salary on traveling, something he says is an arguable approach.

            “My wife has a kid, and there's another one on the way.”

           “Does that upset you they'll be growing up only seeing you half of the time?”

           “We get used to it, and my son knows a trip means toys, bread.” He takes another bite out of his sandwich. “He's fond of those shaped bread loaves, from Boudin's.”

            As we're talking, a group of students rush to a halted street-car, the F-Line. The bell rings and the back door opens. Passengers get out, and Paul watches. We wait for the door to close and the tube of chrome to screech away.

            “I never get used to this city. I call it the city of love, and each drive up here is a new experience, new dream.”

           My sandwich begins to get cold as a pelican waddles up, head turned and eyes watching me. “What does an attorney dream of?”

           He holds for a second when the bird moves up, and his right foot lifts, scaring the pelican away.

           “I've asked the same thing with the Boogeyman, and I still haven't found an answer. I go where the money is.”

           “And is the money always in San Francisco?”

            He nods his head, bites the steaming pastrami once more, and doesn't wait to speak. “Sometimes,” he says. “Sometimes.”

John Brantingham is an author teaching in Southern California. His work can be found at johnbrantingham.blogspot.com.

The Writer is a monthly publication, which can be found online at Writermag.com.

"Character Profile," written by Patrick Scalisi, can be found here, http://www.writermag.com/2013/09/30/character-profile/

 

Things That are Warm in the Night

           My twin-brother opened my door and told me that there was something wrong. He looked surprised, and even if it did jolt me, I took a second before turning my chair to look at him. He was dressed, and the light from his room glistened in the hallway's mirror.

           I asked him what was wrong, and he told me that something turned the fan on. Both him and his girlfriend were in bed, napping, and it just turned on without anyone pressing the button. It was his girlfriend who woke up first, then she turned over and shook him awake to see.

           Electricity can do that, though. If the device is used repeatedly after some time of service, energy can move through and power the device without having to be turned on. Think of it like a congested highway tunnel emptied of the rush hour crowd, ready to be used by locals.

           I did think of the times I felt someone in my room, however. Also, after returning from a trip to the gym, I found my pair of dumbbells stacked on top of each other, waiting for me on my desk chair. My blankets have even been pulled from me one night, too, but that's just what it felt like. It could've been me kicking them down.

           So I didn't say anything, and I just listened. When he was finished, I let him know to tell me if it happened again. The fan would turn on one more time before they left to his girlfriend's home, startled.

           It's always best to be a skeptic when anything supposedly paranormal occurs, whether at home or not. The fact that something as such happened is interesting, but nothing too much to raise an eyebrow for. Years of being a paranormal junkie have desensitized me to the littlest things, such as when I went to a haunted tour in San Francisco, and when the tour guide said we might've caught orbs, I simple shrugged and said, "it could be dust."

           He wasn't too happy that others grew discouraged.

           I've gone into my brother's room to see if the fan will turn on for me. It hasn't yet, but when he's gone and the Xbox is open for me to play, I'll go in and sit for a while, with Minecraft on the screen, waiting to see if the fan will turn on without one press of its controls.

Summer Time Blues: The Itch of Music

          It was 2010 when I had last marched. When I moved to Chino in 2006, my new high school was known for its award-winning marching band, and my parents wanted my twin and me to join immediately. Music became a part of us, and I sit here in my room thinking back on when I marched in a Drum Corp, an elite group of musicians working only towards the best--that was in 2009.
          The corp and I were in Wisconsin, and the streetlights had just turned on out in front of the school where we were rehearsing and housing. Crickets, frogs, and unseen creatures orchestrated the darkness, but our arc of standing musicians kept us confident.
          I held one of the larger horns, an instrument somewhere between a trumpet, tuba, and trombone--the euphonium. For my size, I was able to carry it well, and I felt my playing gave one of the better sounds in my section. We were a small corp, so there wasn't much competition if there was competing.
          Our instructor moved in front of us holding a plastic block and a chiseled and chewed drumstick. His eyes moved over us, and with a hit of the block we swung our horns up. He hit the block again, counting, and we began to play.
          Notes echoed out into the empty streets behind, bouncing from the trees we were aimed at. The sounds of nature had died as we grew louder, and to us, nothing was more important than perfection. Our twelve-hour days were nothing but back-to-back playing and running. Our legs were the gears working to form symettrical and intricate shapes to the sounds of drums and our horns. We were tired, but we wouldn't go take anything but the best.
          At the far corner of the arc, however, a trumpet player threw down his horn from his lips and slapped his neck. Then, he slapped his arm.
          I could feel the entire arc stop at look at him even as we continued to play to the beaten counts.
          Then, a mellophone player dropped their horn and smacked their leg.
          A tuba flinched and nearly toppled over.
          Two more trumpets spasmed and turned their heads. Finally, the beat stop as the conductor cried out and dropped his stick.
          For minutes, we passed around a silver can of bug spray. The mosquitoes buzzed in our ears and dug their sharp faces into our warm skin at any point they could find. I had placed my horn on the ground; the bugs forced me to move like a schizophrenic boxer, scratching and itching. We never went on, and it was decided to just go in and rehearse in a gym somewhere. When we found no such thing, the directors simply scratched their swollen pockmarks and called it a night.
        
         California is much different in that our evenings aren't so hectic with insects. The news mentions something about mosquitoes once or twice every two or three months, but bug spray sales suffer in comparison to other states.
        I've aged out, finally, and the music has died in me from where it last was. My parents still bring it up, the music, and I can find my mother watching old videos of rehearsals, performances, or going through a stack of photos unrecognizable to me.
       In my top left drawer, beneath the stacks of legal paper, pencils, and dried up sticky-notes full of ideas, I have a small black box. It's dirty, and the sticker label on it is warn out with a crust of dirt and oil. Sometimes when feeling down, however, I open it to find a glistening silver mouthpiece with one dent on the lip and grease stains at the stem from where my horn once held. That's when I feel the itch the most.
     

Handling Rejection: Advice for the New Writer

          When I first started writing, rejection was a weight in my stomach that never went away. Even today, it's still there, and with each story I send out, the weight grows stronger. But that's not what writing's about, I tell myself.
          Yes, rejection is a natural part of the writing process. Some stories work with some magazines, and other stories need to be placed somewhere else--that's how the business works. However, we write because we have a story to tell, something that someone out there must know. For myself, it's the common struggle that minorities face every day as they work towards equality or a higher form of understanding. To others, it might be an action filled, horrifying tale of what happened during vacation. Now, in what part of these is there rejection?
             It's crazy, but being a writer is all about, you guessed it, writing. Publishing is only a gold coin that adds flavor to our passion, so if one magazine doesn't accept our story, we can look at the story for what it is, maybe revise it a bit more, then move to the next magazine and see where it goes--that's it.
          Writers carry such a burden with rejection, however, because it's their work--their children. To see our offspring be rejected is hard, and it does hurt. Writers need to remember, however, they are not being rejected as a person.
          In Catch! A Fishmongers Guide to Greatness, Cyndi Crother and the World Famous Pike Place Fish crew discuss that when working, they carry a short motto that allows them to remember everything's not as bad as it seems. Their phrase is "it's all over here," meaning that whatever negative ideas that are thought are not from others, but from ourselves (16). When I first started writing, I felt that I would never get published. At the time, I felt that in order to be a writer, I needed to be published. Writing stories became difficult because I would want them perfect, and the pieces eventually just ended up in my laptop's recycle bin. However, once I let go that editors and publishers were out to destroy my work and mood, writing and submitting became easier.
          And that's the most important thing: submitting and being rejected is easy. When someone asks if we would like a glass of water, and we say no, the other person hopefully is not hurt by our rejection. The same thing applies here, but editors feel that our work is not fit for their magazine. Well, what do we do after a rejection, then?
          Send to another magazine and keep writing.
         It takes courage to continue to send out stories, poems, and novels with the idea rejection could be there, but rejection is not a way to destroy us. Publishers and editors want our stories; they want someone to hear what we have to say. As writers, our job is to enjoy our passion and see who else possibly would like to tell our story.
          It's been a year since my first story was accepted, and for twelve months I received a large amount of rejections. Instead of letting them burden me, I printed the first rejection I received and posted it on the wall, telling myself that it's just a piece of paper ("It's all over here"). As authors, our job is to tell a story, and someone out there wants to hear it. It might take time to find that person, but when we do find them, it's the best feeling ever.
          Until then, we just keep writing.

Writing Tutoring and the Future

          As a writing tutor, I get an experience of both being a student and a teacher. It's an odd mix as I have never thought of myself as a teacher, but I've been told by students that's how we--meaning tutors--are seen as. That's not the reason I tutor, however. For me, tutoring is a way to keep myself busy and talking and thinking about writing. Some would argue that's like doing homework every day, but I find it play-time.
          This semester was different for me as I actually had a professor mentor over me while I tutored in her classroom. It was a new form of work I have never been given, and it brought many challenges along the way. But I ultimately learned a lot, such as how to handle the different types of learners further, how much planning goes into a lesson, how flexible a professor/instructor must be with the tasks at hand and how the students digest it, and how many ways writing can be looked at. Not only did this help me as a tutor, but this affected me in my writing.
          The structures and tones I witnessed opened my eyes, and the stories some students told me gave me a further glance into human nature and the conflicts that can occur. One student, an older woman, told me large stories of her day-to-day concerns and accomplishments; then she proceeded to discuss how if something happens on a small scale, it can affect her and the day in its entirety. Story wise, this gave me the opportunity to apply ideas on character direction in impossible, stressful situations.  Even in non-stressful situation, a character could react horribly, putting them into a new conflict (though, the student I speak of never did such a thing, I must add). The position didn't just affect my fiction, but it changed how I viewed my own future and direction.
          Two years ago, I would have never thought of becoming a professor in anything, but I fin myself thinking towards the idea every day. Being payed to help others and push them to a new level with writing, something I'm passionate for, sounds amazing even there are those who are obviously less passionate. Furthermore, my own studies have revealed that I'm heavily interested in focusing on female literature and feminist arguments even more so than I had thought before. I plan to see a counselor next week and announce my major in English, so I'm excited, but as the semester wraps up, My plan is to dive heavily in fiction.
          As a student, it's difficult to find free time that works with class, work, and fiction writing. The same can be argued for anything: being a professor, parent, business-person, police-officer, etc. But these next few months will allow me to tackle my writing skills at the same level I had previously, and I will be able to read as many books as I want to assist. The students laughed when I stated I would be writing all summer, but they didn't realize how much this is a passion for me. That, or maybe my thriller stories are really starting to affect me.