The Chain: Link Eighteen

Timothy wasn’t sleeping, either, although in his case it stemmed from a fear that if he failed to finish his “assignment,” Hannah would body-slam him or do something equally dreadful. His computer was humming, a search program busily aggregating various bits and pieces of data about the victims from their social networking pages, online resumes, and dating site profiles. It was amazing, the amount of publicly available information people posted or allowed others to post about them.

He pored over all the material he’d gathered so far, trying to make sense of it. Jonah and Samantha were friends. Alicia was related to Samantha. But Maria and Pablo remained enigmas, seemingly unrelated to the other three deaths. What did these five people have in common? And, even more worrying, were there other victims that his search hadn’t turned up so far?

You’re out of your league, said a cynical voice inside his head. Stick to funerals. You’re good at that. You like that. This . . . whatever it is . . . is a waste of your time.

Trying to ignore the voice, Timothy glanced at his clock. It was 4:03 AM. Tuesday. If he was correct, the next victim would die less than twelve hours from now.

You don’t really care, though, do you? the cynical voice wondered. This is like a puzzle to you. A game. You just want to figure it out. Whether or not these people live or die . . . it doesn’t matter to you.

“Shut up,” he told himself.

The phone rang, which nearly made Timothy fall out of his chair. He’d forgotten he even had a landline phone in his apartment. It rang again, predictably causing him to jump once more.

“Er,” he said. “Hello?”

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” someone said.

“Incorrect. I am using a phone to communicate with a stranger,” he replied promptly. “If you are a stranger. Are you? If not, please remind me who you are. I often forget people.”

“You’ve never met me and you never will,” the voice said. It was neutral in pitch, tone, and accent, making it impossible for Timothy to tell the speaker’s sex, age, or where he or she grew up.”At least if you know what’s good for you.”

“You mean . . . exercise, healthy food, and good clean air?” Timothy hazarded, clearly lost. He patted around in his pockets absently for some of the notes he’d prepared, titled “Tips on Basic Social Interaction.”

There was a long pause. “You should cease your current investigation of the series of deaths in Chicago.”

“Ah, thank you, that was much clearer,” he said, feeling on firmer ground now. “Why?”

“Because if you’re very, very lucky, the worst that would happen is that you would die.”

Timothy’s mouth was dry. He had to swallow several times before he was able to ask: “And if I’m unlucky?”

The receiver clicked on the other end and the phone went silent.

END OF PART ONE

Why do I write (imaginative fiction)?

I read a post today, oh boy.

(Sorry, Beatles. I couldn’t think of how else to open this.)

Anyway, the post in question was a thoughtful and inspiring piece called “Why I Want to Write” by Maggie, one of my favorite bloggers, who ruminates on the questions of “what motivates your writing?” and “what do you want to achieve by writing?” (You should really check it out.) It made me start thinking.

Thinking deep, deep thoughts . . . did I eat Wendy’s twice yesterday?

My Writing Journey

Even at a very young age, I loved to write. To tell stories. To imagine worlds. I wrote short stories, poems, novellas– even made a few attempts at a full-length novel. I attended the Young Writer’s Workshop, I was a part of Vision 21 (a cocurricular learning group for gifted students), I joined writing groups in middle and high school. Then I went to college, and things changed. I was busy, I was adjusting to a new phase of life, and my writing stopped.

I went through a good five or six years where I wrote virtually nothing creative. I still thought of myself as a writer, though, and talked about it with my friends and family. And then it was finally pointed out to me that, if I keep identifying as a writer, shouldn’t I actually write? So in the summer of 2010 I sat down and wrote a novel manuscript, titled “Candlelight.” I queried it for about a year; it didn’t go anywhere. But the important thing was that process of actually proving to myself that I could finish a project of that length has motivated me to keep going. Since then I’ve written:

-6 short stories
-1 novella (and half of another)
-Roughly half of a second manuscript, “The End”
-45 blog posts, which includes 18 entries in The Chain

Now, when compared to a lot of other writers, that doesn’t sound like much. I will never regularly crank out 2,000 words a day. Heck, I’m happy if I can meet my goals for  500 for 5. But I’m making progress. My first novel manuscript was, in retrospect, not very good. The short stories and novella after it were better, and those that followed better still. My current novel is probably the best work I’ve done so far, and the short stories I’m writing now are pretty darn good.

The point is not to brag, but simply to demonstrate that, the more I write, the better I’m getting. So is that why I write? To become better at my craft? In other words . . .

Why do I write at all?

Part of it is about becoming a better writer. I love learning (as evidenced by my pursuit of a Ph. D.), so learning how to write better is a motivator. I like sharing my stories with others, and hearing what they think, how they felt. I also have fun writing. It engages my brain and makes me feel a sense of accomplishment. But that’s not all of it.

I want to be published.

I know, I know. Wanting to be published is passé. Self-publishing is the way of the future. I’ve read the arguments in favor of self-publishing, some of my favorite blogs are those of self-published authors, and some of my favorite stories are found in webcomic format, which is, almost without exception, self-published. I have thought about compiling some of those short stories/novellas I’m writing/have written into an anthology, which I will probably self-publish.

But still. I wanna be a producer.

Wait, sorry, that’s wrong. I want to be published. But why?

Money? Yes, it would be nice to make some money, but most authors don’t make that much. Recognition? I could get that by self-publishing. Fame? I’ve always wanted to become a famous writer, but that’s more of a daydream than a real goal. Marketing? That is more compelling. While budgets aren’t what they used to be, large publishers have more resources to commit to backing a project than I do, as well as more experience. I’m not particularly good at self-marketing, first because I have no experience, and second because it’s somewhat counter to my inclinations as an introvert.

This is incredibly anticlimactic, but this leads me to conclude that my desire to be published may simply be a confluence of pragmatism and an irrational id-type voice screaming: “I want!”

All this explanation, however, still doesn’t get at the question of my choice in subjects. So:

Why do I write imaginative fiction?

The short answer: I’m a geek.

If you were to combine everyone in this picture, I would probably still be a bigger geek.

What? Is my short answer not good enough for you? Oh, fine. The long answer:

I enjoy stories of a lot of different kinds, but the ones that excite me the most are those that are the fantastic, the wildly imaginative. I’ve always had a vivid imagination, and nothing stimulated it quite like science fiction and fantasy, which remain my favorite genres to this day. So it’s no surprise that when I sit down to generate story ideas, they tend to be fairly, well, geeky.

When I write, I don’t like constraints. I like to be able to say “What if . . .” without having to stop and ask whether something is realistic. I write, in short, not thinking of what my audience would like to read, but what would be fun for me to write. Maybe that’s the wrong way to do it. Maybe that will keep me from being published. But as long as I’m enjoying myself while I write, I don’t see the need to change.

The Chain: Link Seventeen

Hannah couldn’t sleep.

She tossed and turned in her bed, twisting this way and that to try and find a comfortable position. After two hours of fruitless struggle, she sat up in the darkness with a sigh. If she was being honest with herself, she knew it wasn’t her anything to do with her body that was causing her insomnia.

It was the faces. Jonah, Alicia, Maria, Samantha, Pablo. Hannah kept seeing them even when she shut her eyes so tightly that multicolored patterns bloomed on the inside of her eyelids. She had been trying to keep a burgeoning anxiety attack tamped down ever since she read Timothy’s file, but it appeared her self-control was finally wearing out.

With an almost clinical precision, Hannah noted her rising heart rate, nervous twitches, and shallow, labored breathing. There was nothing for it now but to try to ride it out. She pulled her legs up close to her chest, chin between her knees, and wrapped her arms tightly around her shins. The fear subsided, but only a little, so Hannah began reciting her litany, first in her head, then out loud.

“Swyc, swyc, swyc, swyc,” she repeated, over and over.

S. W. Y. C. Sailors Without You Crying. Sometimes We Yip Coolly. Serpents Winding Your Clocks.

Save Who You Can.

And Hannah intended to do just that.

What Inspires You?: Music

A few updates

First, those of you poking around will notice a few changes to the site. Minor ones, but ch-ch-changes nonetheless. There’s a new blurb up for The Chain, and the About page has been expanded.

This also marks the beginning of a more structured approach to my blogging. Specifically, I want to introduce a few recurring types of posts in order to make my format more orderly. This will include Reviews, where I will review specific works of IF, Profiles, where I will profile IF creators and their body of work more holistically, Techniques, where I will discuss the use of different writing techniques in the context of IF, and a few others.

One of these others is the subject of this post, namely: what inspires you as a writer? In my case, I’ll be referring to things that inspire me to write IF, but readers are welcome to comment on things that inspire them to write whatever it is that they like to write.

What inspires you to write?

So, with that out of the way, let’s talk inspiration. Thomas Edison is often quoted as having said that genius is “1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” While I don’t want to downplay the importance of persistent work, I do think that Edison may have been understating how important inspiration is, especially to writers. We can force ourselves to write, to grind out words, but the best work comes when we feel something burning inside us, a fire that prevents us from sitting still until our ideas have been released into the world. Or at least a word document.

Inspiration can come from many sources. I’ll try to cover some of the major ones in these posts, but I certainly won’t get them all, so feel free to mention others in the comments and I’ll try to work them into future installments of What Inspires You. Also, what inspires one person may fall flat for others, but I think that there are times when all of us need inspiration, and just maybe something that worked for something else might help get us jump-started. For this post, though, I’ll be talking about music.

I’ve written before about using music as a tool to aid in writing, but I want to talk here about music that doesn’t just help to block out noise, but actually sends sparks flying in your brain as new ideas are generated. Sound, like sight and smell, has special access to parts of our brain that may not be activated otherwise. Music in particular, for whatever reason, has the power to profoundly affect our mental state. So it is no surprise that music can inspire us to write.

These are some of the pieces of music that have inspired me to write imaginative fiction lately. Feel free to share some of your own below!

The Chain: Link Sixteen

“I should probably be getting back.”

Hannah stood up to leave, but she was moving slowly, hesitantly, like someone in shock. Timothy, ever astute in his social interactions, tried to grab her shoulder to stop her. The next thing he knew, he was lying flat on his back. His head hurt. His everything hurt.

“Ow,” he said, for the second time since Hannah had arrived, although this pain was more evenly distributed than the last one.

“Sorry,” said Hannah a bit sheepishly. Timothy tried to get up and failed.

“Once again, ow,” he said. “I think I shall relinquish my efforts to return to an upright position.”

“I don’t like being touched,” offered Hannah by way of explanation.

“You grabbed my arm,” accused Timothy, but his tone of righteous indignation was hampered somewhat by the fact that he was staring at the ceiling.

“That’s that, and this is this.” It sounded like she was quoting someone or something, but Timothy was unfamiliar with the reference. He was unfamiliar with many things, come to think of it, although now he could scratch “having someone use a jujitsu throw on you” off that list.

“I think this is the time when I leave,” said Hannah.

“The point I was trying to make before you- is ‘floored’ the correct terminology?- before you floored me, was that you can’t leave,” said Timothy.

Hannah’s eyes gleamed dangerously as Timothy continued, speaking rapidly: “WhatImeanisthatnowwehavetosolvethemysterypleasedon’tthrowmeagain.”

“Mystery?” Hannah snorted.

“Well, then what do you suspect is going on here?” said Timothy, feeling somewhat calmer now as his feelings of imminent danger subsided.

“I’m not sure what I suspect at this point. Our data is still too small to test any hypotheses,” she said, her tone becoming clipped and precise. “We need to find out what, if anything, connected these individuals, before we start asking why they all died at 3:15 on a Tuesday. We need more data.”

“Yes . . . yes, of course,” said Timothy

“What?” asked Hannah. “I’m a scientist, and we operate under a specific set of principles, which in this case necessitate additional research. You expected I’d just show up and say: ‘Clearly, this is a case of so-and-so, which I deduced by applying the principles of blah-blah?’ “

“No! Certainly not,” said Timothy, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

“Hmmmmm,” she said, peering down at him. “Alright, here’s your assignment.”

“Er, assignment?”

“You brought me into this, so now you’re going to have to deal with my methods. So yes, your assignment.”

“Very well,” Timothy acceded. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to get together all the information you can about each of the individuals. Try to find out what they were doing in the week leading up to their deaths,” Hannah said as she gathered her things to leave.

“How do you expect me to find that out?” asked Timothy.

Hannah paused in the act of closing the door and called back: “Well, you’re the one who figured all this out in the first place, weren’t you? Be creative.” She shut the door.

“Be creative,” repeated Timothy. That was going to be a problem.