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.
    

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.
         

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.

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 from the Prompt

     In college, one of the most important things when it comes to writing is being able to follow directions correctly by understanding what's asked. If a professor states they want a four page minimum and several sources prevalent throughout the piece, then it's best to give them what they ask for; however, essays and summaries are not the only forms of writing that can be prompted.
     I visited the classroom of John Brantingham after work to visit the Creative-Writing Club, a group of writers I haven't worked with before. He wasn't there, taking some time off to recover, but the club was hosted by the president and other coordinators. Walking in late, I slipped into the back, but I found myself added to the activities of introducing ones self and, of course, writing under a timed, prompt restrained setting. We were asked to write creatively, though: fiction and poetry was up for grabs, and I decided on doing the fiction. For the short-story, we had a few restraints written on the board:

•      The Protagonist's name was Amy.
•      Amy worked in a clown store.
•      She was deeply in love with a giraffe handler.
•      Amy had an evil clown stalker.
•      We must use the word "Buck-fumbling" within the literature.

     Once noted, we were asked to write what we could, where we would finish and present our works to the class if we chose to. Pasted below is what I came up with. Buck-fumbling, in the tense I used, is underlined within.

     "Can you tell me why he's following you?" David wiped the sweat off his brow, staring out the bungalow's front window.
     Amy held herself from an unseen breeze. "I'm not sure, but he's everywhere."
     "He can't be everywhere."
     "Yes, he can," she said.
     David turned. The golden giraffe pin, something only given to experienced handlers throughout the year--from what he said--glinted in the young woman's eyes, burning her. It illuminated her split ends into hanging embers of ash.
     "Listen, Amy, you're just tired. You've been working too much."
     She sighed. "And what are you saying?"
     "No one's chasing you out there, is what I mean; no one's hunting you."
     "You don't know. You don't know what I've been through," she said. "The freak watches me sleep. And that makeup."
     David turned to the window once more, palm on the glass with the other hand up.
     "His makeup looks like he buck-fumbled through it."
     "Does it frighten you?" he asked.
     Amy opened her lips, glancing at the handler. She wanted to tell him yes. She wanted to say how she wished David would hold her, letting her cry in his arms, taking away the weeks of hiding in the restroom and tidying a knife beneath her pillow. But, when he turned, her eyes clenched at the reflection of his dulled, misshapen clown nose.

     It isn't much, but it gave me a chance to just let a story come out, and allow the characters to breathe and become their own entities. Working with this novel, The Neptune, has pulled me from that very idea; I feel as though I need to plot so heavily, when I should let the work write itself instead.
     For Mt. Sac students, the club is on Thursdays, 2:30 to 4:00 P.M. and is hosted in 3411 of 26A. I'm personally looking forward to returning. Stop by if you want to give writing a chance!

San Gabriel Valley LitFest & Semester Update

     I've decided to come out of my cave for once. Over the weekend I went to the San Gabriel Valley Literary Festival, which is a new event located in West Covina. I dropped by on Saturday, after having my brakes clunk to junk on Thursday, so I wasn't able to make it to the Friday open-mic events. When I got there in the morning after some trouble, 12:15 to be precise--which I guess is noon--I started by going to a literary magazine's reading. The day continued with reading after reading, until finally I made my leave at three for errands. But it was all fantastic.
     This would be my first literary festival outside of regular fandom conventions, and the same feeling of mutual appreciation was there, but focused devotedly on writing and literature. I wish I could have returned for Sunday, so next year I'll be sure to clear it up, and come April when Mt Sac. hosts their writer's conference, I'll be there to socialize and learn--socialization seems to be my weakest point.
     Learning, however, is something I will continue to be doing until that point, with Mt. Sac returning to school next Monday. I only have Math, Literature, and one training course, but I will be tutoring students within the classroom and I'm excited. 
     And as far as my writing goes, with the bumps and bruises along the way, I have several stories revised and ready to ship out. I've been working on a book, too: It's a sci-fi horror story taking place on a large military ship, called The Neptune. I'm taking it slow, learning the process of writing a much larger story, but I'm having fun doing it (or at least I think I do). My chapters run quite a bit short, but I'm not too worried about it right now; the plot is giving me shivers as I go.
     To all those returning to school, good luck, have fun, and drive safely the first few days; being from Mt. Sac, it's easy to see how a parking lot can become a focal point of trauma throughout someone's life.

A Bittersweet Return

     After a week of being away in San Jose, I have returned to sunny Southern-California, where the temperature on arrival was eighty degrees and the sinus just punched me in the nose. It feels good to be back in my own bed, with my laptop whirring underneath my fingers. I missed it, and I certainly missed my usual writing schedule.

     The convention went very well. I arrived anxious and stressed, making sure my itinerary was followed to the margin, but ended up relaxing and resting my eyes on the train. Eventually, I met up with a friend's boyfriend in San Francisco. We dropped off our things at the house, then hung around the city until my friend came home from work. Until the late hours of the night, we worked to help prepare her art table for the weekend.

     We arrived in San Jose the next day, and my blood-pressure was through the skylights. The convention takes place within a hotel, and throughout the many corridors, elevators, and the large, adjacent Convention Center next door, the energy of excitement flows through each guest. When the next day came, that feeling was multiplied, and it continued to grow.

     The artistry I see at these events is amazing. Each year, no matter what location, I find myself surprised, excited, and entertained with the things people create, whether in fiction, or digital art and paintings. I look at my friend, Christine Knopp, and constantly question how she does half the things she does. I remember that people the same way about us writers--I don't even know how I do what I do.

     During the day, I met with the folks at Sofawolf Press, the team who has welcomed me to their literature magazine with open "paws." I discussed a bit with Jeff Eddie, and can't wait to work with him on my short-story. I also had to pick up a copy of Divisions, by Kyell Gold--signed, too!

     But with the weekend over, everyone returned home to their family, pets, and loved ones, I'm back to work and writing. My novella is towards the end, and will need heavy revision when the time comes; some of the big plot points need to be looked at and decided whether or not they fit. I have several short-stories revised and edited, too. I'm not sure where to send them, but I'll find somewhere, even if it means I pay Duotropes new fee policy. 

     It's always a hard time returning back to reality, but I plan to return to the convention with high expectations, and maybe with a few more stories published.

     

Why I Write

Today a bunch of us writers are trying out a little experiment; each writer, listed below with their names and blogs, will post why they write, and how they grew into a writer.

     I grew up in East Los Angeles with my grandparents and younger brother. My parents, living in Chino where I reside now, were always busy with work, and had no time to take care of us. My father was a trucker, and Mom was, and still is, a supervisor for the Southern California Gas Company. We would visit them on the weekends, but during the week it was just me and my twin-brother with the grandparents.
     We didn't have much to do there, and the internet wasn't out. My brother was very much into scary stories, and I was into the discovery and study of Paranormal activity (great kids, right?). The house had its own weird happenings, so on occasion we would stay up, in pitch darkness, and just watch for anything. Of course, we would get too scared to stay up past twelve, and School was something we did, so we would never go past ten at the latest. But it was exciting.
     I grew up with a bunch of kids who, like me, had a huge imagination. They weren't into the Paranormal like I was, but we enjoyed the same television shows. Eventually we got tired of playing these stories on the School's yard, and we moved onto our next big adventure: comics and stories. I wrote the dialogue, stories, descriptions, and dabbled a bit in drawing, but I was never as good as the others in art. These were the kids who spent hours drawing, and could turn out a new masterpiece within minutes (masterpieces, however, were restricted to the use of crayons and markers). We moved throughout our years continuing to create stories together. Eventually we passed on out of Middle School and had to move on.
     After the loss of my Grandfather, and missing the nights we would tell each other stories, my brother and I was asked to move to my parent's home in Chino by the state. We followed, and ended up going to the High School just around the block, but we were horrified. The years of scary stories and Ghost-hunting led to us dressing up as punks, and we were forced to attend a School where we had no friends to compare with. Of course we were the outsiders, but it didn't stay like that for long.
     My brother was known for his crazy ways and long, feminine hair. I gained friends thanks to my imagination and creativity. I joined the Japanese Animation and Art club, and hours after school, for four years, were devoted to Marching Band. I wanted to do theatre, having done acting as a child growing up, but our parents grid-locked us into making music. The years went by so quickly, and I had lost my spark in creating stories.
     After a few years I went into a medical scare--Cancer. I had gained an odd lump in my throat, and the mole on my chest was seen as an oddity to the doctors. They removed both things for testing, but I was traumatized; days were spent in bed, crying, and I was eventually forced onto anxiety medication. I fell out of an abusive relationship at the time as well, the person not helping me in the slightest, so things were grim.
     I started to attend therapy on campus for free. My mother was against it, saying my anxiety and trauma was nothing at all, but I was tired of the nightmares, crying fits, and general sulking that went on. The therapy didn't help much asides giving me someone to talk to, which was good, but I needed answers, solutions, and for my problems to just "fuck off." Then I found a book.
     The Tools, by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels, is what I'd like to think saved me. There I found techniques, tools, as they called it, to help combat my fears. I was amazed that books could do this for me, and while I grew up reading stories, novellas and novels, this was something incomparable. Immediately I talked with my friends, and told them what was inside. I was a missionary trying to tell of the Lord's graces. Then I began to write.
     And I wrote more.
     And I wrote more.
     Things were pouring out, and my grades in English were soaring high. Immediately I wanted to do this; immediately I wanted to write something that could change someone's life, or show them that they're not alone--no one has to go through this alone. I started writing dramas, romances, and even realistic, horrifying thrillers. I was hooked.
     I moved on to the next level of college, where thanks to my professor at the time I met my now mentor, John Brantingham. I awkwardly called him one day and told him I just wanted to writer--to know how to do the things these people did. We met up in his office and I showed him a trio of stories I threw together. He talked with me on what I was doing well, and not-so-well, but encouraged me to continue whether it be through our School's writing club, or the class. Again, I was hooked.
     I now tutor English and Writing at my School's Writing-center. My writing schedule takes over my entire day, as I make sure to write no less than 500 words (my goal, however, is to keep at 1000 words a day). I write and read every day, and make sure not to drop off the ball. If I can't write anything up to that amount, I keep it to a 500 word essay, or journal.
     Literature is a great thing, and in some way has influenced me throughout life. While it also might have saved my life, it's pushed me forward into a new, positive direction, where I can actually see a future for myself (majoring in acting or Italian were some of the silly things I thought of during my first years in College). Moving forward, I want to become an Editor as of this point, but continue to write encouraging, thrilling, or just plain horrifying stories that show the wonders, troubles, and accomplishments of real, every day life.


Below are the links to the other authors who are writing about their appreciation of this wonderful craft. Feel free to visit, and give writing a chance yourself!

John Brantingham 

http://johnbrantingham.blogspot.com/

Kyle Van Sant http://pkvansant.blogspot.com/

Charlotte San Juan charlottesanjuan.wordpress.com

Marta Chausee http://martachausee.blogspot.com/

John Daniel http://johnmdaniel.blogspot.com/.

Cora Ramos http://coraramos-cora.blogspot.com/

Melodie Campbell http://funnygirlmelodie.blogspot.com/

Lesley Diehl http://anotherdraught.blogspot.com

Jim Callan www.jamesrcallan.com/blog

Chris Swinney http://clswinney.com

Stephen Brayton www.stephenbrayton.wordpress.com

Carole Avila  http://caroleavilablog.wordpress.com/

Augie Hicks http://augiecorner.blogspot.com

Eastmont University

     I've been busy for the past few weeks working on a collection of short stories. My goal every day, when writing in general, is to hit 1000 words or more. Some days this comes easy, while others it can be a constant struggle. Tired of just writing random stories, I e-mailed the editor of Sofawolf Press, a publishing company focused towards fans of anthropomorphic animals.
     Looking into it, I did find the interests of Sofawolf's literature focused on more relationship topics, but as well as a number of drama stories. I was given notice they would be interested in a collection of short stories, if provided with one, so I've taken the helm to write one.
     It's still in the first process currently, and has four main stories, and one vignette so far, but I plan to include more. The word count is up to 19,765. I wasn't given a specific range (though I should probably ask!), so I'm hoping to get it close to 25k-30k words. Once that's done, I'll focus on the editing process, then move on to beta-readers once I'm proud of it.
     The stories take place around Eastmont University, a large campus with no prejudice towards specific breeds and species. It contains stories on love, cheating, revenge, suspense, mystery, and the general lives of students; however, there are strong topics such as prejudice, rape, loss, and plagiarism in school, showing all the dramatic things that happen throughout life. With branching out towards other genres/fandoms, I'm hoping this will only build me as a writer.
     It's no where near complete, but this project is giving me room to grow as I push forward, and even if it's a little different, discussing normal issues with walking, talking animals, it's helping me break my boundaries and experiment a bit. I do wonder, though: could a relationship end over the loss of a thrown tennis-ball?

PS: The title's a work-in-progress, too. Titles would have to be my Achilles' heel.

Hook

     When I write my stories I always enjoy starting off right into the story, with some sort of action, reaction, or dialogue that throws us in. Tutoring writing, it's common to work with many different levels of students who are all trying to start their papers off in the same way, wanting to lure the reader in and keep them engaged.
     I always tell them they need to capture the reader's attention, and to write it as though they were reading it for the first time--what would they want to read? My example of a hook, for a short-story, would be the following:

     "Stephanie flung from her bed when she heard a crash next door, through the cardboard thick drywall--it came from the baby's room."

     How would you start off a story? Would you give some background to the world, and paint a picture that the reader can go off of, or do you want the reader snagged in by unending suspense?

"Best Friends Forever" -Short Story

      “Why do we have to put him down, Dale? Why can't he just live with us on the farm?”

      “Because that's what happens to horses, Mitch. Once their leg breaks they're no good.”

      “Just because their leg breaks doesn't mean they're broken!”

      “Sorry, Mitch, but we have to do it.”

       Mitch pulled on the rifle in Dale's hand. It clacked with its broken strap and loose hammer, but still worked well despite its age. That wasn't what Mitch was hoping for, though. He didn't mean to hurt his horse; he didn't mean to try and jump a fence without training, and when Dale came home to find his younger brother's face torn up bloody with mud in the wounds, he learned what had happened. He got all the mud out of Mitch's face.

     “But I need him, Dale!”

     “You don't need him, but we needed him. Without a horse we won't be able to plow the fields, and if we don't plow we'll starve, or lose the farm, even.”

      The younger boy yanked hard on the weapon. “But momma said he would be my best friend forever!”

     “Horses don't live forever, Mitch. I'm sorry to tell you that, but they don't.” With a tap of his foot Dale shoved Mitch to the ground.

     The boy began to sob and with the bruises and scars he looked like quasimodo had fallen from the bell towers. Shades of black, blue, and violet scarred the upper half of his torso. Momma would be upset to see him like this.

     “I'm sorry, Mitch.” Dale said.

     “No, you're not. You never let me have a best friend!”

      Dale flinched with tears in his eyes. “That's not true. Remember when I bought you the fish, and then the gerbil?”

     “It is true, and your stupid cat ate all of those!”

    “What about me; aren't I your best friend?”

    “You never let me play with you, and I can't even sleep in your room!”

      Dale sighed. He looked down at the gun. It wasn't easy taking away a life. The tears, running past his brother's cheeks and bruises, crushed him inside, but with this horse injured, ruined, the only option was to save it from misery and go buy a new one. Papa would find Mitch a new, good horse. He was sure of it.

     “I don't ever mean to upset you, Mitch. You're my little brother, and I love you, but I need to put Maple out of his misery. You hear me?” He said.

     The boy looked down, still crying.

    “He was the best horse for what he was—”

    “Is! For what he is!”

    “Yes, he's a great horse. We can't just let him hurt so bad, though.”

     Mitch sniffed, wiped his face, but screamed when he touched the bandaged, torn skin.

    “Please don't be mad at me, please.” Dale lowered to one knee and placed his hand out. “I love him just as much as you do.”

     He didn't take his hand. Mitch looked into the young man's eyes with a fire that could've burned the house down. His attention turned to the hand, which was wet with tears and mud—the mud from Mitch's wounded face.

    “I don't want him to go, Dale.” He said.

    “Neither do I.”

     The grandfather clock ticked by the door. The house let out a groan as it settled in place.

     A tear ran from Dale's eyes.“Come on; think you can say bye to him one last time?”

     The stables were filled with the stench of manure and blood. Horses, cows, and two of the herding dogs each rested on a pile of their own hay behind the seperate doors. Whimpers escaped from the dogs, and the horses figited and nickered with quick, moving eyes.

     Dale pulled Mitch in past the door as it creaked open. Before they moved any further, the young man nudged the door closed with his boot and lifted the bolt handle on the rifle, loading it.

    Mitch flinched from the loud clack of the gun.

   “Easy there, kid.”

   “Sorry.” He said. Tears still dripped from his chin.

    The boys walked in further, but were stopped when the smell of putrid meat hit them in the nose. It wrinkled their faces, and Mitch began to choke when the sweetness hit the back of his throat.

   “It's infected; that's how it smells when a wound's infected.” Dale said.

   “What does it mean when it's infected?” Mitch asked.

   “Bad news.”

    They turned, and Mitch ran over to a stable door's lever. He lifted and slid it out from its slot, allowing the door to swing open.

    Rested on its side, in a pile of ruby hay, was a colt. The white socks on its feet were torn off with strands of fence wiring clung on. Its body, once covered with brown fur, had been stained black with blood and dirt, with rocks and thorns still poking out from the stomach. The young horse's chest lifted in swift breaths, and it cried out whenever it moved too much.

   “Jesus, Mitch. Where were you riding him?”

   “I saw that show where they jump horses over fences, so I wanted to try jumping him over the garden fence.”

    He winced. “Momma's going to be mad when she sees her roses.”

   “Please, please don't tell her.” Mitch said.

    Dale moved close to the horse, and kneeled down to look him over.

    The colt bucked and thrashed in the hay, and screamed when pain flared through its bandages of flesh.

   “Easy, boy. Easy there.” He said.

    Mitch stayed at the door, crying. He didn't notice the tears falling from Dale's eyes, or the way his hands, glued to the withered varmint rifle, shook with pale knuckles.

   A mare looked over the side of the stable, and winnied out when Dale would move in too close.

  “Mitch,” he said. “I want you to say bye to him, then go stand outside of the barn. You understand me?”

  “Yes, Dale.” He nodded his head. Try to be a big boy, his momma always would say. He walked up to the colt and gave a wave.

    The colt, its eyes wide and frantic, looked up to him with another cry.

   “I love you, Maple.” He said. Mitch turned around and ran out the stable door.

     Dale waited for a minute until he could see over the fence and watch the large, barn door swing open from above, then close. He aimed the gun at Maple.

     The horse looked up to him.

     Dale peered in the deep, black eyes and saw his brother: he saw the days spent feeding the young colt; he saw when Maple snuck into the garden to eat the apples, and Mitch was there to protect him; he saw the day the young horse was born, a day when they had pancakes for breakfast, and Mitch demanded they named him after the syrup.

    “I'm so sorry,” he said.

     Mitch ran from behind the stable wall, crying, towards the horse. “Maple!”

     Dale jumped, and fired a round into the colt's long face.

     Mitch screamed.

   “You shot him in the face!” He fell to his knees at the young horse's side. “You shot him in the face!”

   “Damn it!” Dale said. “I told you to wait outside. Why didn't you go outside?!”

   “You shot him in the face!”

    The small boy screamed when Maple's head flung up and caught his arm in the jaws of its snout. Blood coated his lower arm, and the colt cried out in pain, pulling and tugging on him.

    Dale watched as Mitch was dragged about from the cheekless, deformed creature, screaming. 

Writing: Getting Started

     Writing always comes off as a difficult, however, rewarding craft. Many youth and students start with the occasional class poetry, short stories, and the academic essay. College seems to focus more on proving your logic and arguments through a series of given evidence and background on the subject. Other classes, more advanced, of course, focus on the analyzation of modern literature, or even the bible, and its effect on the mind and society. These all are things people struggle with when it comes to school--let's not even get started with math--but how would a student even get started with writing? After having attended several classes, and working with students in the Writing Center on campus, it has come to my attention that there's the biggest question of all: "how do I even get started?"
    I started a new position at my College's Writing Center as an english tutor. A majority of the students who visit want assistance on grammar, punctuation, and simply to "just write the damn thing for me." Asides from my work, I spend my Thursday nights in a creative-writing class, led by John Brantingham (link provided below). John spends three hours with students, including myself, to explain the writing process and mind frame of a writer; furthermore, the class forms into a workshop setting, where all students are required to show their best respect to others, be professional, or they will get a swift kick out the door. I can't help but imagine what would actually happen if someone was disrespectful enough. The class has many questions of course, and the students range from basic to publishing in their skills. He explains that Character, conflict, and desire are the three major points of story (Brantingham). From there, a student writer could move the story forward.
    Essay writers are less understanding when it comes to this idea. Academic writers don't want to jump in. They know that in order to construct a strong argument, research and good sources are needed. They are afraid that once they get started, everything will be chiseled permanent into a block of granite. If you tell them to just start, they will look at you as if you just dropped a cat several stories. Essays are planned to the bricks, while fiction is all about what happens next. So, what happens next? Just like John Brantingham mentioned, character, conflict, and desire are all very important. From that point on, in my mind, it's all up to the characters what they wish to do next. Let them run free; let them fuck up their lives. You as the writer must only show us what happens, and the characters are what drives this baby forward. If there's a murderer on their heels then show us how they hide in the closet with their sniffles projected past the door, and if they just lost their wife, well, show us how they fight against alcoholism and understand that they are better than that. Not only does this feel spontaneous, but it is spontaneous--that's life. Even with the use of CCD (conflict, character, desire), many argue that inspiration plays a big part--not so, says others.    
      In his book On Writing, Stephen King describes that "'read a lot, write a lot' is the Great Commandment [of writing]" (151). "I used to tell interviewers that I wrote every day except for Christmas, the Fourth of July, and my birthday. That was a lie...I write every day, workaholic dweeb or not" (King 153). When starting to write fiction, the best way, that I've learned, is to just start writing. Start with the action or drama; start with the tears or fears; start with the arguments, but whatever you do don't wait around for your inspiration to save you. Matching that phrase from a popular video-game, the muse is a lie. Reading every day allows the writer to learn from others: the greats and masters. They play a role as your instructor, and can ease any misunderstanding such as how to write dialogue well. Writing every day allows the creativity to flow; with your mind constantly in creative drive, it's easier to write your next upcoming stories than waiting around for them to come.
     Of course, there are many ways for writers to get their stories down on the page. Outlines and plot summaries, with the assistance of research, help some while others keep away from the outlines like it's a rabies infected hornets nest--I choose the latter to an extent. In reality it's what works best for you and gets you working. Don't wait for the muse to sweep you off your feet; the muse is a gold-digging-hussy, only stealing your precious time. 

Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft--Tenth Anniversary Edition was used in this essay.

John Brantingham's website is http://johnbrantingham.webs.com/    
He also has a blog, here, at http://johnbrantingham.blogspot.com/