My Poetry

Fishy, fishy, in the brook.
They look, they look, they look.
All day they swim, they swim all day.
My sister rides a bicycle.


Maybe I should stick with science fiction.

Meet the Captain

Kendrick stepped over Epim’s body and grabbed his cup of coffee from the command console in the center of the bridge. “You’re slacking, Epim,” Kendrick said after taking a sip of coffee. “I warned you about this. I warned you about your procrastination.”

Epim slowly sat up and scooted himself towards the base of one of the consoles that lined the wall. He wiped the blood from his mouth as he looked around the bridge. Kendrick didn’t see any fear in Epim’s eyes and that irritated him. The man would rather die than do what he was told. Kendrick balled his fist, but then relaxed it and took another sip of his coffee. It did him no good to allow his emotions to get the best of him.

Kendrick nodded to Dorsey, his second in command. Dorsey walked over to Epim, leaned down and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. Dorsey was a big man and had no difficulty lifting Epim to his feet and leaning him against the console. Once Epim was standing on his own, Dorsey punched him in the gut. Epim slid down to the floor again as Dorsey took a step back.

“Are you going to do this one little favor for me?” Kendrick asked.

Epim raised his hand as if to ward Dorsey away but didn’t say anything as he tried to catch his breath. Kendrick shook his head slowly. He wanted nothing more than to throw Epim out of an airlock, but he needed him.

“Look around you, you tiny weasel,” Kendrick said as he stretched his arms out. “You come on my ship, enter my bridge, and for what? To entertain yourself?” Kendrick looked around at the bridge crew that had stopped their duties and were watching him. Most of them were young, brutal fighters who would follow Kendrick’s orders as long as they were paid well. Dorsey was the only one, besides Kendrick himself, who had any fleet experience. Each one had proven themselves to Kendrick in one way or another.

Except Brosin. Brosin had a habit of questioning Kendrick. Not as much as he used to, thanks to a couple of beatings by Dorsey. But the boy had a mouth that didn’t know when to stop.

“Do I have to let Dorsey beat you for the rest of the day?” Kendrick asked. “Why don’t you just do what I ask?”

“Because you can’t kill me,” Epim croaked. “You actually can’t even hurt me.”

Dorsey took a step towards him, but Kendrick held out his hand to stop him. He put his cup of coffee on the console and squatted down in front of Epim.

“You lie,” the captain said in a low, soothing voice. “You are lying and you know you are lying. I hurt you with every breath you take. You feel pain with every thought. That pain is because of me.”

Epim squeezed his eyes shut, but Kendrick continued. “I just want you to end your own pain. That is really all I ask of you. Help me end your suffering. We don’t have to keep doing this.”

Epim opened his eyes and stared at Kendrick. “You don’t understand.”

“Sure I do,” Kendrick said. He stood up and leaned against the command console. “You think you can’t do it. No, that’s not it. You know you can do it, but you keep getting distracted by other things. I’m here to help remove those distractions. Dorsey, would  you please help the boy up.”

Dorsey reached down and grabbed Epim by the front of the shirt again. He heaved Epim to his feet and pushed him to the console against the wall.

“Aren’t you tired of being his dog?” Epim asked.

In a single motion, Dorsey pulled a pistol from his belt and pressed it against Epim’s temple hard enough to make him take a step sideways to keep himself from falling. “I’m the dog that bites, kid,” Dorsey said through grated teeth. “Don’t forget that.”

“Now, Dorsey,” Kendrick said with a laugh, “I told you, if you are going to shoot him, shoot him in the leg. He needs his head. And his hands. He doesn’t need to walk.”

Dorsey took a step back and aimed his pistol at Epim’s leg.

“You’re not going to like it,” Epim said to Kendrick. He turned around slowly to face the Captain. “In fact, you’re going to hate it.”

Kendrick clasped his hands together. “I’m sure I’ll love it,” he said.

“No, Kendrick, you’re going to hate it. You’re going to hate every bit of it. I am going to take the single honest and good thing you’ve ever done in your life and turn it into a vain sacrifice. I am going to make you fumble for the first time in your life. For once, you will be put into a situation where you won’t know what to do, what decision to make. And it will kill you. But first, you will watch your crew die. One by one you will watch them die. Then you will know your sacrifice, your last decision, was a complete and utter waste.”

Dorsey looked at Kendrick’s shocked expression, unsure what to say or do. Kendrick opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it quickly. All he wanted was for Epim to write his story and bring him and his crew to life, but he never expected this. He felt confined in only existing in someone’s mind and needed to escape. But if this escape meant the death of his entire crew then he would rather live in confinement.

He tried to reach for his pistol, but his arm wouldn’t move. His entire body refused to obey his commands. He tried to yell out, but no sound came out of his mouth. He saw that Dorsey was also frozen by some inexplicable force.

“That’s right,” Epim said as he stood up straight. “You forgot you only exist because I made you exist. And, oh boy, are you going to fucking hate this.”

Epim walked to the command console and activated the screen. Kendrick could see the white glow out of the corner of his eye and watched as Epim typed the first line:

Kendrick watched as his crew died.

~*~

I read somewhere that a writer should take their characters on a “test drive”, to write something totally unrelated to the story of the novel with the character. Simple, yet extremely valuable, advice. Meet Captain Kendrick and his crew.

Pets

He watched as the creature tore the pages from his book. It was a small, hideous creature with patches of matted fur covering its gray, slimy skin. It looked up at him and growled as it shredded the pages between its claws.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, clenching his fists. He had to calm down before he killed the creature but in moments such as this one he found calmness eluding him. It wasn’t the first item of his that the creature had destroyed and he was sure it wouldn’t be the last.

But he couldn’t kill the creature. It was one of her beloved pets. Killing the creature would mean losing her love, and he didn’t want to think about that.

It was his love for her that kept him only partially sane. She made him feel whole. Having her in his life gave his life purpose. He couldn’t imagine her not being there, not seeing her when he came home, not feeling her presence throughout the house.

His life had been great throughout the years. It was a simple life as he wasn’t famous nor rich. But he thought of it as a good life. He had everything he wanted and a few things he didn’t know he wanted. There was a calmness in his life that came from her. That calmness made him love her all the more.

But he despised the pets with a depth that no other human could possibly understand.

At the beginning of the relationship he was taken aback by the pets, but the new love allowed him to overlook his repulsion. As the love grew more mature, he learned that to love her meant he had to live with the pets. In his youth this wasn’t a problem, for feeling her love was an addiction that he knew he would never overcome. As the years turned into decades, his loathing for the pets burned in his heart.

The creatures were hideous. One had uneven eyes and gnarled fur on half of its body. Another had no fur, only bare skin covered with boils that oozed pus. A smaller one had three and a half legs and two tongues.

Every couple of years another pet arrived. Sometimes the new arrival would replace one that had died. Other times she would simply bring home another pet for no reason.

They destroyed furniture, left feces, vomit, and blood wherever they roamed, and left other dead creatures inside the doorways. Over the years he learned to hide his repulsion and anger, for upsetting his love would risk losing her. Instead, he purchased new furniture and carpets and other objects destroyed by the pets. It was the physical cost of his love.

He was subtle in his requests to her to own fewer pets, but his requests were ignored. He watched as she loved the pets, patting them with affection and kissing their hideously misshaped heads. She let them sleep in her bed, something he couldn’t do any longer due to the smell, stains, and shed skin the pets left behind.  

He cowered in his own room at night, listening to the pets roam the house. He kept the door closed so they could never enter, but that didn’t stop them from trying. They mocked him, thought of him as a weaker animal.

They weren’t wrong. It was his love for her that made him weaker. It was his fear of losing her love that made him endure the pets and their destructive nature.

As he clenched his eyes shut in a vain attempt to calm himself, he came to a simple realization: her love was so great that he, alone, couldn’t fulfill it. She needed the love of the decrepit, sickening, and disgusting creatures because she needed more love than any single person could provide.

He couldn’t have her without the creatures. He could never tell her how much he hated the creatures. He had to lie to her, make her think that he loved the creatures. He had done this with little success over the years, but now he either had to lie harder or he would kill the creature.

And if he could lie to the woman he loved, he could lie to himself.

He opened his eyes and looked down at the grotesque creature that was shredding his book. It growled at him again, which caused it to cough up something that was once living but now only partially digested.

He closed his eyes and took another deep breath. When he opened them, the creature had transformed into the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Its white flowing mane partially hid its big blue eyes. The pet stepped forward and he picked it up and hugged it.

While carrying the beautiful creature he saw another pet. It stood on its hind legs and let its hair flow to the floor. He reached down and picked up that pet, too, and carried it up the stairs.

Both of the pets licked his face and he smiled as he looked around the room. He saw the carpet without the stains and the furniture without any damage. He sat on the couch and let the pets come to him. If he didn’t concentrate very hard, he saw them as beautiful creatures. A tear fell from his eye as he had finally found peace.

His love entered the room and the sight horrified him. He remembered her beauty and the aurora she exuded, but it was gone now. What he saw was something roughly the shape of a human, but with extra partial limbs. Her skin was a pale gray and there were areas where the skin simply didn’t exist, exposing the blood and muscle underneath. She gave him a wide smile, exposing her toothless gums.

“You finally see me as I have always seen you,” she said as she sat down in a chair. One of the pets jumped onto her lap and started licking her face.

He closed his eyes and ran his fingers through the fur of the pet that stayed on his lap.

Guilty

“Do you want us to believe it wasn’t on purpose?” the lawyer asked. He was baring his teeth as his head jerked between the defendant and the jury. “I know, it was all a big mistake, wasn’t it?”

The defendant lowered his head. “I didn’t know," he said softly.

The lawyer took three quick steps to the witness stand and clutched the wooden railing that separated him from the defendant. “You didn’t know?” he asked. “You didn’t know the carnage you would cause? You didn’t think about the outcome?” Spittle sprayed the defendant as the lawyer spoke. He stepped back and threw his hands up and twirled in a circle, mimicking a girl dancing. “It was all a mistake," he said in a high pitched voice. “I didn’t know how many people it would kill. I’m just innocent.”

The prosecutor stood up from his chair. “Objection, your honor," he said. “He is badgering the defendant.”

The judge looked at the prosecutor then at the lawyer, who stopped twirling. “It is his defendant," he said. “I suppose he could badger him all he wants.”

The lawyer loosened his collar and stared at the defendant. He was breathing heavy and his mouth opened and closed as if he were about to say something but decided against it. He finally stomped back to his chair and flopped down in it, crossing his arms across his chest.

“You can have at him again," he said to the prosecutor.

The prosecutor looked down at his notes, then approached the witness stand slowly. “So you claim you started when you were a child, but only took your activities seriously about six months ago?” he asked.

The defendant ran his hand through his short hair. “Yes, sir. I had some luck in high school. I tried again when I was in the military, but it didn’t work out. About six months ago I started dedicating time to it.”

“Was anyone injured when you ‘had some luck in high school’?” the prosecutor asked.

The defendant turned his head from side to side. “No. No, sir. I never even thought of someone getting hurt.” He lowered his head and brought his hands to his face. “It never occurred to me that something that like would happen.”

“What was that?” the prosecutor asked. “We can’t hear you when you’re covering your face.”

The defendant quickly put his hands down and snapped his head up to look at the prosecutor. “I said it I never thought anyone would get hurt."

The prosecutor started pacing back and forth between the jury box and the other side of the judge’s bench. It reminded the defendant of a predator. “You mean to tell us in all of your time doing this, you never saw a single negative reaction?” he asked.

“I’ve seen negative reactions," the defendant said, then his stomach dropped as he realized his mistake. He tried to correct himself but it was too late. The predator attacked.

“So you are now claiming that you have seen negative reactions?” the prosecutor asked. He stood in front of the jury box and looked into the faces of each jury member. “You have seen negative reactions, but continued anyway, didn’t you? You kept at it, practicing and practicing, until you perfected it and, when you did, people died.”

“No. No, that’s not how it happened," the defendant said. “I had to keep practicing, but I wasn’t trying to kill anyone. I never thought anyone would die. Who would have ever thought-“

“You would have," the prosecutor said as he pointed towards the defendant. He did not lower his extended arm with the accusatory finger pointing as he stepped towards the witness stand. “You thought of a way to kill people. In their own homes. While you were nowhere near them. You thought this through since you were a teenager. And you kept practicing and practicing until you got it right.”

The defendant’s heart raced. “That’s not how it was at all," he said. “I thought it was good. I thought someday, I would be able to support myself. At least make a little extra money. It was never to hurt anyone. I never meant for it to kill someone.”

“Do you deny practicing it until you got better?” the prosecutor asked.

“No.”

“Then you practiced it, saw the effects, and continued anyway.”

“Nobody ever died when I was practicing it.”

The prosecutor stepped up and clutched the wooden railing of the witness stand. “That you know of," he said slowly. “I bet if we go back we will see a trail of dead bodies.”

“No, you won’t," the defendant said. “There were no other dead bodies.”

“So that’s why you kept practicing," the prosecutor said.

The defendant sat forward so his face was close to the prosecutor’s face. “You keep practicing law, don’t you? You keep practicing at it so you can eventually get better. The difference between me and you is that you are trying to perfect it so you can take somebody’s life away.”

The prosecutor stared into the defendant’s eyes and paused. The moment seemed to last an eternity and, in that time, the defendant could saw the prosecutor start shaking. First it was his arms, then his chest was shaking. Finally, his head started shaking slightly as he tried in vain to hold back the rage.

The prosecutor grabbed the front of the defendant’s shirt with both hands and took a step back, dragging the man with him. “I only expect to take your life away," he yelled as he started punching the defendant in the face. “You are the one that needs to pay for you did.”

Two bailiffs grabbed the prosecutor and pulled him off the defendant. The defendant pulled himself back into to the witness box. He tried to sit down, but slid off the chair. He wiped the blood from his face, then used the wood railing to steady himself as he raised himself to the chair.

The prosecutor was forced into his own seat by the bailiffs. He composed himself as best he could before apologizing to the judge.

“Your honor," the defense lawyer said. “I must point out there is no actual law against what my client did. As much as I hate to admit it, there is no law against bad writing.”

The prosecutor tried to stand again, but one of the bailiffs forced him back into his chair by putting his hand on the prosecutor’s shoulder. “There may be no law against it," he said, “but his writing killed everyone who read it.”

“There is no real evidence that is what killed them," the lawyer said. “Yes, they were all found holding his book. But there is no proof that the writing itself was the cause of death.”

The prosecutor picked up a book from his desk and tossed it at the lawyer. It landed on the floor with a loud thud at the lawyer’s feet. The lawyer jumped out of his chair to back away from it. “Then you read it," the prosecutor said. “Go ahead, pick up the book and read it if you think it wasn’t the murder weapon.”

“Enough," the judge said. “I’ve heard enough.” He looked at the jury. “There is no need for the jury to deliberate on this case. I have made my decision.”

The judge looked at the defendant. “I find you guilty. Guilty of bad writing. Guilty of violating every grammar rule ever established. Guilty of not understanding plot structure, not knowing the difference between an idea and a concept, not knowing how to define your theme, and not knowing how to develop three dimensional characters. But worst of all, I find you guilty of not finding your writing voice. Your writing has killed people. It has torn families apart. You are guilty.”

“I… I didn’t know…”, the defendant’s voice trailed off.

“GUILTY!”, the judge yelled while banging his gavel against his desk. “Guilty as charged. Bailiffs, take this sorry excuse for a writer out of here before I let the prosecutor have at him again.”

The bailiffs removed the defendant from the witness stand and handcuffed him. The courtroom became alive in chorus of jeers and cussing. Someone threw a book at the defendant as he was lead toward to the exit.

“I didn’t know it was that bad," the defendant said repeatedly, but nobody listened. They continued their jeering as he was led from the courtroom.

 ~~~

Whenever I sit down and write I think to myself, “Well, if I screw this up, at least nobody will die." Hopefully, I’m not wrong.

The Blinding Sun

In the depths of his own despair he continued walking through the desert. The dry air and blowing sand made him thirst for something – anything – that would sustain him. He looked up at the blinding sun and felt the pain of the brightness in the back of his skull. He did this once every few minutes, the pain reminding him he was still alive.

As he drudged forward one step at a time he thought about the events that led him to the desert. It seemed so meaningless now, the arguments, the anxiety, the hatred. The world wasn’t his to control, so why did he have to fight? What was the use of arguing with those in charge when his opinions wouldn’t matter anyway?

He watched his feet as they sank into the sand. Each step became more difficult than the last. The sand engulfed his feet as if it were trying to swallow him. He imaged the desert devouring him one leg at a time. The thought made him laugh. He looked back up at the blinding sun to feel the pain again.

Those in charge had destroyed the world with their own ignorance. Thinking they were wise, they failed to see the obvious. Solutions to simple problems became complex endeavors. Each task that was accomplished created a slew of additional tasks to correct.

They congratulated each other, believing the decisions they made were correct and saved resources. The reality was there was nothing further from the truth. Even though many attempted to tell them their errors discreetly, they would not listen. They were too drunk in their own celebrations to listen to any naysayers.

He looked up at the blinding sun again to experience the pain. He had no illusions that the world would change back into the lush green gardens that it once was. He didn’t have any desire to delude himself into believing that the wasted world in which he walked was anything other than a disaster. He continued walking towards his goal, intent on achieving it.

The sun didn’t move across the sky as time went on. They had even destroyed that simple, universal law. Instead, the sun continued beating down on the world, withering anything that grew. Even the clouds stopped trying to block the sunlight. There was no use. Even if the sunlight was blocked, they would still claim that it was shining.

He finally made his way to the top of the dune and let himself fall to his knees. He fell forward and dug with his hands. When he didn’t find what he was looking for, he crawled forward a few feet and dug some more. It took him an impossible amount of time but he finally found what he was looking for.

He dug frantically, uncovering an old wooden chest. The sun beat onto the back of his neck, burning the skin and making each movement painful. He didn’t care about the pain; it was just a sensation. His hands burned as they dug into the hot sand, but he didn’t care about that, either.

When the chest was half unburied, he looked around him to ensure there was nobody watching. His eyes scanned the horizon, but he saw nothing but the burning sand. He leaned forward and opened the lid of the chest. His head quickly turned aside as he didn’t dare look inside. He knew his heart couldn’t handle to look upon what the chest was hiding.

He cupped his hands in front of his mouth and whispered. Even though the dry, arid wind swept around him, he didn’t dare raise his voice louder than a whisper. He spoke quickly into his hands and, when he was finished, he closed them together tightly.

Slowly and deliberately, he put moved his hands over the open chest. His heart raced as he prepared himself and he rocked back and forth slowly on his knees. He looked at the blinding sun one more time to feel the pain of the brightness in the back of his skull. He readied himself for what he had to do.

With a single motion he opened his hands and quickly slammed the lid of the chest down. He heard nothing over the thumping of his beating heart as he rested his head on the chest. Tears streamed from his eyes and caught the blowing sand. He trembled and felt his heart grow a bit colder than it already was.

After a long time he finally looked up and realized mourning, like physical pain, was just another sensation that could be ignored. He quickly buried the chest, using both arms to scoop the sand back over the lid. When he was satisfied that the chest was hidden again he stood and started his journey back.

He smiled to himself, feeling just a bit more alive than he did earlier. He had hidden another idea from them in his chest full of ideas. He wouldn’t allow them to corrupt the idea, or any of the other hidden ideas, even if that meant the destruction of the world in which he lived. 

Baboon Fart Story

There appears to be an ongoing feud between self-published authors and authors who get published through traditional methods by an established publisher. Self-published authors believe that they can earn more money by publishing their novels on their own and they do not like getting rejected over and over again by publishing firms and agents. Those who get published traditionally believe that self-published books are trash as they have not been vetted through agents, editors, etc.

I can see both sides of the argument. There are many self-published piles of manure. There are also piles of manure that are published by the Big 5 publishers. Granted, they are well edited piles of manure, but they still stink.

Chuck Wendig wrote on his blog, Terrible Minds, the following statement about self-published books:

This usually sounds something like “The only real choice is either self-publishing your work or submitting to the gatekeepers,” where the gist is, understandably, that self-publishing is like getting to jump right onto your flight and go wherever you want to go, and traditional publishing means submitting to an invasive colonic cavity search before you’re even allowed near the gate.
 This is true-ish, in that I can literally write the word “fart” 100,000 times and slap a cover of baboon urinating into his own mouth, then upload that cool motherfucker right to Amazon. Nobody would stop me. Whereas, at the Kept Gates, a dozen editors and agents would slap my Baboon Fart Story to the ground like an errant badminton birdie.

Within 24 hours, a writer only known as Phronk took up his challenge and self-published Baboon Fart Story and was selling it for 99 cents.

This fine tomb was the word “fart” written 100,000 times. It was actually formatted as you would expect, with paragraphs and chapters. However, only the word “fart” was used. The book even had a baboon urinating into his own mouth on the cover.

The reviews for this book were awesome. But, alas, it appears that Amazon has gatekeepers of their own and removed the book. Shame, too, as I am sure it was a much better read than 50 Shades of Dumb.

According to the author, the book sold 21 copies before Amazon removed it. This was the email he received:

We’re writing to let you know that readers have reported a poor customer experience when reading the following book: Baboon Fart Story: An experiment inspired by Chuck Wending. As a result, we have removed the book from the Kindle Store. Indicators of poor customer experience are surfaced through a variety of methods, such as customer refunds, customer reviews/star ratings and direct customer feedback. Per our KDP Content Guidelines, we reserve the right to determine whether content provides an acceptable experience for customers.

This experiment proves a couple of things…

First, you can publish anything you want. Anything. This book, with 21 sold copies, was ranked #9 under the Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Books & Reading > General category on Amazon.

Second, you can publish a book quickly if you want to. This book was up on Amazon within 24 hours of the original blog post.

And third, there will always be gatekeepers. Whether it is an agent, a publisher, or the cry of a multitude of unhappy readers to Amazon, bad books will be banished.

When It Is Right

In my journey of self-discovery as a writer (that’s a nicer way of saying “my feeble attempts to write”), I am amazed at the emotional roller coaster ride. I am discovering an entire plethora of emotions while performing the simple act of “writing”.

Fear – every writer feels this. I found this the easiest to overcome with one simple statement: what is the worse I can do, write a crappy story? Surprisingly, fear is the simplest emotion for a writer to conquer once you realize a simple fact about humanity: haters are gonna hate. There will be more people displeased with your writing than those who like it. Accept that and your fear will vanish. You aren’t writing for those people. You are writing for yourself and for those who enjoy the way you write.

Confusion – yes, writing can be confusing. Grammar and spelling confuse the hell out of me. The English language is the least logical concept ever developed by mankind.

Anxiety – wait, what? Yes, anxiety. The feeling that is born of fear, but I am not referring to the fear of writing. Anxiety sets in when you don’t know what words to put down next. Planning and outlining resolve this emotion.

Obsessiveness – OCD waiting in the corners of your brain. All it takes is one small, seemingly insignificant, unresolved detail that will turn the sanest person into a completely neurotic obsessive compulsive freak. In my case it was the title for my first book. Every time I sat down to write the fact that the title I had chosen was wrong would cloud my thoughts.

Exhilaration – complete and utter bliss. This normally occurs after you conquered one of emotions above or achieved one of your goals.

The original title for my book, Duality, was born from a scene I envisioned between the protagonist and one of the antagonists.  After completing the outline, the antagonist in the envisioned scene wound up being a minor character and the scene that occurs actually is a minor event.

For three weeks I agonized about the title. I needed something dark as that is the theme of the entire series. Book two is titled The Dark Legions and book three is The War for False Hope. Those titles are set in stone. Both of those titles describe a character or an event. The title for book one needed to describe a concept.

I believe that there should only be three types of titles: an event, a person or group of people (or even an organization), or a concept that the story conveys, such as a motivation. It’s the third type that is tricky. If the concept is described too thoroughly by the title, then the reader will not experience the ride associated with learning of the concept through the story. If the concept is not thoroughly described through the title then the reader will not understand why the title is what it is.

The concept title should be completely revealed near the end of the book and articulated fully for the reader. It could be a phrase used in one of the final conversations, preferably right before the final climax of the novel.

This is what makes the concept title so difficult. Easy to do for the names of individual chapters, but for the whole novel it is difficult.

But when it hits, you will know it. You will know it because it is right. Then you will experience exhilaration.

The title for my first book is The Gods That Punish. The full title is The Arkkaim Prophecies Book 1: The Gods That Punish.

It is right because, in retrospect, that is the only title it could be.