this was his suicide note you know; it told the police nothing

He stopped writing the day he realized every story he'd written was a thing of hope, and the world was never that at all.

In the back garden, flies landed on the corpses.

the slow crawl of writing

Sometimes things come fast, sometimes they don't. When you're writing bits and pieces of three projects at the same time, nothing comes fast at all. Not that I haven't been writing, but the end result has been 2-300 words added every day or three to one story or another, which seldom feels like progress. That each story is a very different beast in tone probably doesn't help either. Currently, the following are being worked on:

Boy and Fox, under the title of Falling Toward the Sky, a story about a boy and a fox. Also a werewolf on the run from a prince, a kingdom whose king is going mad, foxes, self and memory. At heart, it's about a Boy who perhaps does a very terrible thing and gets to start his life over, wiping away memories of what came before it, only to discover it's never quite that easy. I consider it YA, but I could be wrong.

The Empty Book is about a failed suicide attempt and the insanity that results once Brodie begins to see more of the world than humans are meant to. It's about gods and religion, madness and family and is very, very dark. I tend to add to it in fits and starts, half when the weather is crappy more than anything else, and take breaks from it simply because it's not all that fun a mindset to immerse oneself in.

The Book of Going Forth by Night is the first book in a quadrology* of stories centred around an exorcist, his friends and allies, and the various situations he gets himself into via being hired by dubious people over the internet in a world where most people don't believe ghosts really exist because the servants of the gods alter their memories. It's very much urban fantasy and the story I'm planning to focus on for the next month or so in an effort to get a working first draft of it done. Again.**

---

* Meaning that 20K exist toward a draft of the second novel and the third and fourth exist as one-line notes in a file somewhere.

** In the space of about six months I've redone this story from scratch over 4 times. The fact that I have not burned out on it surprises me, to say the least.

secret truths. eh?

 Ed comes into kitchen, yawning, taking his coffee with a grunt and raising an eyebrow at mine after he's begun to actually wake up. "Since when do you not take cream and sugar?"

"Since today," I offer with a shrug. "Condiments hide the truth of things."

He snorts, says: "That almost made sense."

"Sorry."

"Sorry?"

"It's far too early in the morning for things to be making sense."

Reasons that can only make sense

The doctor drummed his fingers on the desk, staring down at the boy. "This is the third time you've broken your left leg in four years. This time your were lying behind your car when your father backed up in the driveway. Why?"

"I'm 17 now." The boy didn't smile. "I have to avoid school dances somehow."

Okay, so this might be a little dark

“Of course it’s your fault your parents aren’t together,” the shape in the mirror whispered to Johnny. “Little boys should known to be heard and not seen, not bug daddy after a long day at work, not ask mommy about her new perfume.”

A hand the colour of tears slips out of the mirror. “If you come with me, all the pain will stop and you won’t ever be a naughty boy again. They might even love each other again with you gone.”

hope

they changed without telling me, like everyone does

An hour open, the coffee shop draws the tired and cold, a lonely mecca visited for moments by most of its followers. It has no drive-in; I passed a coffee shop with one on my walk, finding myself wondering when churches would offer those, their world bowing down before the altar of convenience.

Her arrival devours my morbidity, destroys the darkness the coffee isn't touching. I fear she has seen me scanning the door hungrily but she is laughing at someone on the phone, wedding band on her ring finger, face-paint of makeup on. Have they made up? When? How much of their lives do I miss?

She waits in line, talking about children and bill payments. I wait for something real.

not appearing in this novel...

 "Most humans seem content to be stupid," the fox said smugly.

"What about foxes?"

"A fox is quite simple, Boy. You have to get quite complicated to be as stupid as humans manage."

aka stuff written yesterday (all revised and altered), which led to this bit being snipped out entirely.

facebook & google+ status updates part IX (March 1, 2012)

A little known fact: the only people who can become zombies are those who've never been vaccinated.

The heart of North America is dying in a small town no one can find, except by knowing the way to Babylon, according to readings of tarot cards. Some say the town is really Roanoke, others that it's the embodiment of the american west and still other that it's the corroded remains of the american dream held together by the will of a dying saviour with nothing left to save.

In small type, 'psychic pokemon' looks an awful lot like 'psycho pokemon'. Which would perhaps make the entire concept more interesting.

Other uses for your 'Survive the Zombiepocalypse' kit:

1) Survive the coming collapse of civilization as we know it

2) Have interesting gifts to give our new AI overlords in the next century

It turned out to be the phone call she'd always been dreading.

"Mom? How do you get bloodstains out of clothing again?"

Again ... again ... again. She closed her eyes; the world didn't go away.

Little known facts about God:

He has never understood why we don't always smile

The Devil never tells lies about Him, not a one

Sometimes He is sad -- often not as sad as some think He should be, but He is

His ice cream is flavoured with the Higgs boson

Each day the department store has a new window display, the staff vainly hoping people will believe it is some other shop, their smiles red and hungry.

"There is no comfort like ignorance," he says, turning off the tv. "I won't even watch Reality TV anymore, to be safe."

In the notebook, she had written down neatly

'Days when it is not worth getting up:

Today

Yesterday

Tomorrow'

She looked up from making the coffee as I emerged from the room; we said nothing.

Occupy nothing: a singer who refuses to sing in any known tongue, an artist whose canvases are all empty, writers not paid enough to tell you lies.

Sometimes things don't have to make sense. Sometimes it's just the way things are when we're so sad that all we can do is smile.

"Blow out your candles dear, and remember: it's now too late for you to die young. You're going to grow old like the rest of us."

I posted that sign telling people to stand, to watch the world, to pause and breathe and realize how awesome the world is.

I didn't think it necessary to include a warning about watching for my friends behind them waiting to mug them.

Waiting for the other shoe to fall, the sky the colour of a sour melon.

The dog sleep, wakes, eats, goes for walk, wait for walks. His dreams are small things, of happiness; his gods smaller still. Only the unhappy need gods.

"I know I snapped and ran over those two kids, but it's not my fault your honour: I was drinking Serious Coffee and it demanded a serious response to jaywalking."

Ignore the Power Point chart. The page with your name in blood-red on a background that can't ever stay the same is just a glitch. I know you all saw your own names, and a date, but Microsoft assures us it is not the hour of your death. Writing it down might be a good idea, however, to be on the safe side.

For only 30 pieces of silver the local dry cleaners gets souls sparking white.

First Contact was the grill of my car.

Maybe If I'd hit the breaks, they wouldn't have destroyed the city.

Maybe.

"It was true love; I couldn't see anything but you in the room: that is why I tripped over the rug."

"I know," she says, "but you have to fill out the Health & Safety forms anyway. You'll find true love on page four."

A short story. I have only one goal left in life: to hunt down the stork for bringing you to us.

A chain restaurant whose menu lists staff under main courses if they fail to meet their goals.

"Of course there are no miracles these days," she says. "God is too busy with the paperwork to do anything at all. Dark matter is where He hides the forms filled in triplicate."

"Then how is reality TV so popular?"

"The Devil never does any paperwork at all."

"I used to hate you," he admits, studying the table. "Now I hate myself instead. It's … much more productive."

A girl’s teddy stitched up with human intestine, her gaze thin and defiant.

For Sale: 1 cat, 3 lives left.

To understand why she killed him is simple: just imagine Sisyphus snoring.