NaNoWriMo Excerpt: Good

Good


I. "I awoke to not one window shattering, but two windows shattering. Opening my eyes was a difficult task, because it had been a long night before, and they were encrusted with sleep. When I finally mustered the strength the open my eyes, I saw a rather skinny woman pacing back and forth between the hallway, muttering multiple combinations of profane words that I'd never think of. Still laying in the exact same position as before, I tried to recall the woman's name. It was either Tracy, or Kim. It didn't really matter though. At least not to me. She would be gone in a little while, after her rampage was finished.

Typical Saturday morning to me. I sat up in my bed, thinking of where I felt like going that particular day. I wasn't in the mood for just hanging around the block today; today I felt like cruising around town all day. Past nightfall.

Only one person [that I was cool with] had a car on the block, and that was K.B., who was two years my senior, which meant he had a driver's permit. But would we be riding with an adult in the car? Hell no. "Just watch the red lights, and respect the stop sign." K.B. would say.

While I was still sitting up in my bed, I heard a rather exaggerated scream, and another loud crash, presumably the living room window. The woman, whom I'd ultimately decided name was Tracy, came back up the stairs, and came into my room. "Whoa there, slow your roll. You can throw my dad's shit out of the highest window you can find, but don't touch none of my stuff. I ain't do nothin to you, no ways." I said, walking towards the enraged woman who was almost foaming at the mouth, her hands palmed around my small portable TV. She stood there, looking as if she were calming down, although I noted her hands never left my TV.

"Bitch, you done?" My father asked with a tone that seemed as if she were taking too long destroying all of our electronic appliances. So much for her calming down. With a scream of an Amazon, she pushed, or at least, tried to push my TV to the ground. Luckily, I caught it in my chest, preventing any damage to my own property.

I noticed my dad didn't just insult the woman with a derogatory term and a tone to match, but he added insult to injury by arriving to the scene with a toothbrush in his mouth. As if this were an everyday occurrence. Which it was, only with a different woman every other weekend.

"Man, control you're woman!" I said, yelling into the hallway at the two who were marching down the stairs, Tracy with a pricey miniature grandfather clock in her hands, my father with a toothbrush. I wish I could say that the scene was hilarious, and I was able to get a good laugh out of it. But I can't, because it was just sad now. It was a little tiring, waking up to something amiss every other Saturday, but by now, it was a norm. You could just ask the small crowd that would collect outside our house every time.

I wasn't exactly up to hearing the old timers outside, murmuring 'poor child', and calling my generation a bunch of heathens. I really had a low tolerance for old people, because of their being stuck in their old ways. It's the 80's baby! Get yours the fast way, is my personal motto. Which I think is a great motto if I do say so myself. It can apply to anything, women, or even money.

I grabbed a random shirt out of my closet, a red shirt with black lettering strewn across it. Since I dislike dressing unmatched, I carefully selected a pair of black jeans out of my closet. A lot of people that saw me in the pants were mystified, wondering why someone would wear such dark coloring in Louisiana. It seemed that they were also mystified as to why someone would wear jeans that weren't blue. A wonder of the world.

Looking down the stairs before I headed to the back den, I could see that Tracy had laid out a carnage that my dad had never seen before. The entire entertainment 'center' my dad had set up was on the lawn, and the VCR was gutted open, with wires and my recording of Richard Pryor's routine.

I crept to the back of the house, into the den. I wasn't supposed to really be back there, but it wasn't a rule of the house either. All he did was smoke the occasional reefer, and talk shit about the L.A. Lakers. The den was pretty messy, along with any other part of the house my dad inhabited.

My father isn't a bad man, although you could be swayed otherwise by my description of the events of the morning. He's just too damn wild. The guy likes to party, but then again, who doesn't? But he doesn't know when to stop. It's party 24/7 in his world, and if you're not taking part in the party well screw you buddy. I supppose the guy wasn't ready for a kid, too set in his college ways. Get drunk, get laid, wake up, rinse and repeat. But trust me, he isn't that bad.

I slowly walked down the dimly lit hallway, I let my left hand slide against the brown painted wall, my fingernails scratching against the peeling paint. The only light that the hallway received came from the bedroom windows, since we couldn't afford to have lights upstairs. Which in turn, meant the doors always had to be left open. Took away from my privacy a bit, but I'm sure I could being shooting up heroin with a naked girl in my room with no repercussions.

Every door was left open excluding the bathroom when in use, and the den, because my father was paranoid about Jeremy, my little brother stumbling in right when he was up to no good. But since he only visited every other weekend, and the den was left open today. I walked straight in, taking care to avoid the red plastic ups littered about the green felt carpet. I grabbed the set of house keys on the black cube that I guessed was supposed to be a coffee table, and walked over to the leather couch that was too common in black households.

When I made it over to the couch, I stood up on it, and attempted to open the window. But for some reason or the other, it was locked [ probably in a vain effort to detour Tracy's rampage. He probably thought she would open the windows and throw his shit out. I guess he didn't think she had the balls to smash his windows. ] so I had to recall which key belonged to the windows. I went through at least seven out of twenty keys before I found the correct key.

I lifted the heavy white paned window and with one more look behind me to make sure I didn't leave anything behind, and then I left the house.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


A/N: I'm semi-pleased with how this first part of the short story turned out, and the way I have it mapped out, I have about four or five more parts to do. I'm still debating certain things in my mind, but I do know: The stories place takes place in Miami, and the main setting will be a Ocean Drive esque area.

Now, to go to sleep.

Better Days [Life is hard...writing...girls...getting waves..]

Okay, so I've pretty much blown off the concept of NaNoWriMo [finishing 50,000 words before Dec.], although I do use it as a small motivation when I'm in one of those 'I'm finally at the computer, but now the words aren't flowing' moods. So now that I've done some serious thinking, I do believe that this is the final idea/outline for the first 'storyline' that I'm dealing with.

Better Days

I. Good.

- Plot [Simplified] -

Lemon [main character] awakes to a rather loud & obnoxious commotion going on in his home on a Saturday morning. However, there is almost always something negative going on in his house at any given time frame. Nothing new really, except this particular Saturday morning, on July the 23rd, Lemon decides to hit town with his older 'brother' and learns all about 'pumpin the brakes, and drivin slow'.

II. Crash.

We open at a scene of a devastating crash on the Davison Fwy. It appears, from the detective's who are investigating point of view, that a drunk driver lost control and ran over the fence of a bridge and fell straight into oncoming traffic below it. But the reader luckily gets a chance to discover the real story, from beginning, to after the end. The twist is, the reader has already been introduced to the unlucky driver.

III. Statistic

Charles Altar & his rolling buddy Courtney Ad,are ganged affiliated, 1.8 students, and one of them live in a crack house. And to top it all off in Charles' words, "and we black".
Obviously, they've been dealt bad hands.
The two are sent to juvie prison Warwick for a crime neither committed [to the readers knowledge] and aren't warmly welcomed by staff nor cellmates.

IV. Climbing

Cleo Sullivan is a ever rising diva, singing her way to the top. But her rise to fame is suddenly interrupted by a dangerous & not to mention creepy fan. Along with the fact that she is battling a terrible addiction to drugs, and trying to take care of a child? Her climb to the top might be held to halt by a simple faux pas.

~~~~~~~~~~~~`

I really can't wait to start working on 'Good' because I really like the idea of it, and I have to give some props out though. Mainly to Kanye West [RP to his moms too], P. Wall, GLC, Toni Tone, and T.I. for that banger 'Drive Slow'. It's the main inspiration for that story, along with my 18 year old brother, Mike. It seems like this story will set the tone for all of the others, since each tale is dependent on the previous, and the next.

Sadly, it's getting hard to balance writing, my grades in a college prep school, and girls, and myself. My knee is getting better, after I fractured it earlier this fall. But I still can't play any sports til next year because of my doctor not giving my clearance, so I'll probably have a little extra time on my hands.

But if my grades don't improve, I see no girls, see no Mac for christmas, and see no outside world. I do suppose this is the trial and error of writing though, so til next time. Peace.

[Word life son.]

NaNoWriMo: The ritual for us all.

What is this NaNoWriMo? Well if you're asking that, you're either not a dedicated writer, or you've been hiding under Jabba the Hutt's folds.
The abbreviation stands for National Novel Writing Month. Something I've known about for the last two years, and not once coming close to the 50,000 mark. Why? Because my writing isn't evolved enough, and I'm not stressing it to evolve to soon either. You can never outgrow writing, so I'll take my time.

Besides, it is now the 6th, and I don't have 1,000 words yet. But I do suppose that NaNoWriMo isn't about reaching the mark, and having complete garbage; it's about getting something down so you can work at it. Which I'm going to take my time with. I know one particular writer who got a entire book out thanks to NNWM, and now this time, she's rewriting the first book although she's in the midst of writing the second. I however, am not a novelist. Maybe I have a good solid novella in me, but a novel? Please. I am a short story(ist?) writer, and I believe that my first syndicated published work will be a collection of intertwined short stories. Which is exactly my focus of this NNWM. Like my soon to be publishing house, (in seven or eight, or fifth teen years) it'll be called Catatonic Reading. It will be a 'collection' of sorts of intertwined stories.

Since my task is to get out ten stories, I'll write down the first few, minus a synopsis, because I've been advised not to do so.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Yearbook
- Big Brother
- Author
- Matriarch

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have a lot of interesting ideas floating about, and the flaw with having ideas run amok in your brain is the fact that they are all so great in your view, you want to pound them all into one great story. But that usually ends up in your trashcan the next day.

I've been working on not letting my first few ideas get the best of me, and right now I'm juggling whether or not to have two stories Protagonist and Antagonist included, as they seem to be very good ideas. Protagonist handling the families difficulties after the lost of an loved one, and Antagonist revolving around the growing insanity of the killer, who's going crazy with guilt.

Don't get me wrong, these stories will have a mix of fantasy [unlikely though], drama, humor, horror, and suspense. But can I do it? Well I need support, and maybe even a mentor of sorts.

Remember to feel free to drop a line anytime on my blog,
and stay breezy.

The Top 5ive: News Stories for the Water Cooler

New to the Top 5ive?

Well if you are, know these few things:

Only number 5 of the Top 5ive will have a synopsis for right now; and the rest will only have my 'Two Cents' and you'll just have to look them up.

* 5. ORPAH Winfrey's South African school involved in sexual abuse scandal


Little Known Fact- Oprah's name, on her birth certificate, is Orpah; sister of Ruth, daughter of Moabite king Eglon.

Anyway, back to the short synopsis in my words:

Oprah's school in South Africa was created to protect and educate South African girls from the regular dangers that are all to familiar in their surrounding land. Now, a woman who worked for the big 'O' known as 'Tiny' has been accused of physical and sexual assault. Oprah has recently spoken about this during a press conference which you can surely find on CNN.com that she's shocked and appalled [not her actual words]. And has visited the girls and asked them to speak out and vent to her about the recent goings on.


My Two Cents



New to the Top 5ive?

#5

Something Shady is going on in the Motherland. And with Oprah having had a bad childhood dealing with abuse, doesn't it seem strange that something like this is just coming to life? Why hasn't she been down there lately? Neglecting her chores is she not? I have respect for The Big O, but as my friend Jamie said earlier, money corrupts people, so is there a chance Opera has known about this sooner than the media has? Money is the root of all evil, anything can happen.




# 4.Hollywood Screen Writers Guild declares strike.

I have very little to say: All you aspiring screen play-ists, screw the union and send your script in now.


#3. Maryland Teen busted during meeting for 'hit' on parents

We've all been through that 'OMG, I effin' hate my parents...lol, I wish they would die' phase. But this guy has taken it to a new level. First we loss the privilege of saying what teacher needs to die in the bathroom stalls, and now we can't even talk trash about our parents without a federal case being dropped on us? This demented kid actually consulted a hit-woman. Wow. Someone needs an asswhoopin. Let this be a lesson to you parents: Listen to what your kids are saying while their storming upstairs after you've 'ruined their life'.


#2. Barack Obama wins over Republicans & makes SNL appearance

I'm not to savy in politics, but he was surprisingly mediocre-ly funny on SNL, though I prefer MADTV.

# 1. Exploding comet visible to the naked eye

Uh...Google is your friend. This just seemed interesting to me.



For any information on any of the stories in my Top 5ive, you have fingers, so type in google.com It's your friend.

What is Catatonic Reading? [Language] [Pt. 1]

If you're familiar with any of Bruce Willis' work, or any of S. Jackson's earlier work, you're all to familiar with that scene. But I'm not here to discuss films with you. But rather to introduce you, the reader, to Catatonic Reading.

Catatonic

adj. Describes a condition of suspended animation in which something is so wedged or hung that it makes no response.

Now, is this not the goal of all aspiring writers & artists? Do we not every night before we settle to bed, dream and drool over the day where we create that highly prized portrait or that novel that is the definition of page turner?

Well the above video is from the 1994 film, Pulp Fiction which was highly praised and still is to this day. The film, in my own (very impressionable if I might add. I know; it's funny how I tip my own hat) opinion was gripping, funny, and a run away hit. It got you in one spot and you didn't want to move until the last credits were off the screen, in fear you might miss something important [like in Pirates 3; where they had a 'secret' scene].

That is my goal every day when I pick up the laptop, or the pen in some cases, to write. I realize that there are millions of unread literary works that go unread, and are never published that have the power to revolutionize the world. But that's where my second plan comes in. To begin my own powerhouse in the publishing world.

Let me be the first to say, I don't know squat about publishing, but I'm going to start reading up on it; which is the answer to everything. If you're reading this, and you know a lil something about the publishing world, let me know.

I suppose this concludes Part I, since I'm hungry, and I smell porkchops. But next time, I'll discuss my current work, a collection of short stories.
____________________________

P.S.-

This blog isn't just about my writing, I'll have other thoughts about other writers, my two cents on politics and many other things.