Script Frenzy 2010
Script Frenzy 2010
So I'm doing Script Frenzy this year. I actually signed up to do participate last year or the year before, but never got around to actually starting. I take that back. I think I wrote a page. Terribly. Hopefully my Spring Break Story Stub experiment has successfully implanted a writing habit in my psyche that will actually get me to sit down and right every day.
I would like to go back and edit or expand upon the Stubs, and that's currently the plan for May, or possibly April if I abandon all hope with Script Frenzy.
I will attempt to post my dailies here, and would of course welcome any feedback. Script Frenzy starts next Thursday and ends on April 30.
Spring Break Story Stub 7 (Final)
This one was hard, and its the end of this experiment. Most of the stubs up to now have been short, little forays into different genres. This one took up ten pages in my notebook. I both loved and hated writing it, and I hope I get the chance to fix it some day.
"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," intoned the minister, one hand holding the holy book and the other stretched out over the coffin, "we ask thee, Lord, to accept into everlasting peace your servant Nicole Hailie. Carry her forth into your bosom, lord, and let her struggle and worry no more."
John looked around as the preacher continued his resquiet. The chairs on the lawn surrounding the grave had been arranged in a loose circle, and John could see most of the faces of those gathered in memory of the newly dead. Directly across from him sat Nika's family, her mother openly weeping and with an expression so intense in grief that it could not be described with words or painted by any master. Nicole's father clung to her mother absently, his expression the same look of saddened confusion John had seen on his face for most of the day; he looked like a man who had stumbled into a confusing and frightening dream which he kept expecting to wake from.
The rest of Nika's family sat to either side of and behind her parents, their faces all appropriate masks of grief and sadness. John studied a few of them in turn, and wondered if he had become too cynical. He couldn't convince himself that all their grief was real. Too many years in his early life spent living with people who changed emotions like others put on sunglasses had made him skeptic towards most outward displays of emotion. The only convincing performances were those given by Nika's parents, and John believed their feelings were real.
Sitting on either end of the slice of circle that was occupied by Nicole's family were Brian and Daniel, friends of Nika's who had at one time shared a relationship with her similar to the one John had shared. John had met both of them briefly at the service earlier; he had received and awkward greeting from Daniel and a glare of morose contempt from Brian. In the chair next to John sat Luke, staring at the coffin with such ferocious intensity that John wondered in he were trying to bring back the casket's inhabitant by sheer force of will. John paused to study Luke for a moment, then turned his attention back to the rest of the gathering.
"... he restores my soul. He guides me in the path of righteousness for His name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me..."
The service before the burial gathering had felt awkward to John, a strange parody of a wedding service. The bereaved had filtered into the chapel slowly, and without any clear direction had divided themselves into friends on the groom's side and family on the bride's. John had been to enough funerals to recognize the difference between those that celebrated the life of the passed, and those that mourned the passing. He wished Nika's service had been more of a celebration. Later, he would drink to her memory with friends and find some way to celebrate her life, but this particular moment was a dirge. John had willed his body to cry then, but the tears hadn't come; his damnable eyes remained dry throughout the burial.
The minister wound to a close at the grave site, and sat down, bowing his head in contemplative silence. The cemetery crew, previously standing with their tools in the shade of a nearby oak tree, came forward now and began the process of lowering the casket into the earth. John wondered what working in a cemetery must be like, and reflected that it was nearly impossible to look dignified and respectful while your arms were straining with the task of interring someone else's traveling coach to the afterlife. The workers eventually finished and retreated back to the tree. A silence, broken only by the wind through the trees and the singing of far-off birds, descended on the gathering.
After a moment, a woman John recognized from pictures as having been a friend of Nika's came forward and let a bracelet slip from her fingers into the open grave. She turned and headed back towards the waiting line of cars at the road through the cemetery. Others from among Nicole's friends and family slowly followed suit, and soon enough John, Brian and Daniel stood up as if having all come to the same thought simultaneously. The three of them formed three points of a triangle, as if each was trying to be equidistant from the others. John gave a chuckle under his breath at the absurdity. Each man took his turn and left some token of memorium, Brian and Daniel leaving some trinket that John couldn't see. When it came John's turn, he paused, reached in his pocket, and drew out a necklace with a pentagram charm, each side of the pentagram a different word wrought in silver and framing a dark purple gemstone.
"I wish I could've given this to you earlier," John whispered, and he left the necklace fall into the grave. John turned away, and saw Luke drop a ring identical to the one Luke wore on the third finger of his left hand into the grave. John walked towards his car without looking back.
--
The reception was held at the house Nika shared with Luke. John felt no appetite, and so wandered past the plates of food laid out in the dining room and quietly explored the house. He saw little signes that indicated Nika had spent some time in this place, the splash of color in a drab setting, or the twinkle of the sun's rays through a crystal hanging in a side window. Moving slowly but purposefully John tried to familiarize himself with the place where Nika had spent some of her last days. He felt he was missing something, as though he only had part of the story that was Nicole Hailie, and that he could not lay her to rest until he was satisfied with the ending. He passed an open doorway and saw what could only be Nika and Luke's bedroom. John stood as memories of other bedrooms with Nika washed over him, but quickly turned and continued down the hall until he found a door with a familiar symbol of figures and shapes painted at shoulder level.
The cut glass knob was cold under his hand as he opened the door, and the old wood creaked. A glance around the room told him he had found what he was looking for. Pens and papers and pencils and books and dried flowers and dozens of other wonderful things filled the space, the floor, the desk, the walls. Beanbag chairs and throw rugs were the dominant furniture features, as Nika was rarely one to be confined to a chair. John moved over to the shelves, eyeing new additions to Nicole's library wedged with old favorites, before he noticed three large binders prominently set aside on the desk. Realizing what the binders must be, John nearly tripped on a throw rug in his rush towards the desk. Flipping the topmost binder open, John breathed out slowly as he reveled in the confirmation of what he had hoped: here lie the collected writings of Nicole Hailie. The collection had grown since last John had seen it, and he hunted through the binders with absolute focus, noting the new material as well as edits to the old. So engrossed was John in his exploration that he did not notice the figure standing in the doorway until it spoke.
"She never got any of it published you know." Luke stepped into the room and gazed towards John and binders with a faraway look in his eye. "She never thought it was good enough."
"I'll never understand why," John responded, closing the binder and looking towards Luke. "I kept expecting to walk by a bookstore and see her name on the cover of a bestseller."
"She never thought she was finished." Luke let his gaze wander, taking in the organized chaos that had been Nika's sanctuary. "It was never quite perfect enough."
John nodded in sympathy and returned his focus to the binders, wondering what was inside that Nicole had never shared. He heard footsteps approaching and turned towards the door. Daniel and Brian, both contriving to look as if neither was aware of the other's presence, poked their heads around the door and stepped into the room.
"So here's where you both are. I noticed you left the group and couldn't stand to be trapped any more. So I thought I'd find you. " Brian spoke to both of them without paying any real attention to the words, his eyes roving over all the little details of the room. "This room was hers, wasn't it??
"Yes," replied Luke. "Yes it was."
"And those?" Daniel asked, pointing to the binders. "That's her writing, right?"
"Yes. Why?" Luke cast a suspicious glance toward Daniel.
"What were you planning to do with them?"
"Hadn't really thought about it yet." John cast Luke a look, That had sounded like a lie. "Again, why?"
"Some of that was written while we were together," said Daniel. "I feel I have some say in what happens to it."
"Me too," Brian added.
"Why should either of you have any say over anything of hers? Luke demanded angrily, fire flashing behind his eyes.
"Some of us here have known her a lot longer than you." Venom dripped from Brian's words.
"Oh? And what vows did you make to her before your family and friends? When did you swear undying love and adoration for as long as you both shall live?" Luke was near yelling now, and there was rage and pain in his eyes.
"Gentlemen, let's face it." John spoke quietly from the corner near the desk. "We forfeited any claim to Nicole the day her and Luke exchanged rings. You're dishonoring her memory, on today of all days."
"Fine," Brian growled. "Well, Luke, what are you going to do with those binders?"
"Nika left instructions, actually," replied Luke. "The binders are supposed to go with John."
"What!" John, Brian, and Daniel exclaimed in tandem.
"The binders go to John with the stipulation that he get Nika's work ready for publishing and perform due diligence on getting it published, due diligence to be judged by me. If John is found slacking in any ureasonable way, money is set aside to sue him for gross negligence of property.?
"What if I refuse?" inquired John.
"Then there are a few pieces I am allowed to keep, and the rest must be burned."
John stared for a second, then gave a little giggle, which became a roaring laugh and then settled down. John sighed.
"Ok. I'll do it."
--
Seven years to the day after John had sat on this hill and watched them lower her into the ground, he returned to Nika's grave. He had done so previously to see if it had been time yet, but the feeling had never been right. Today he returned with a package in hand and thought he just might be able to see how the story ended from here. He stood in silence for a moment, searching for something to say. He could only think of one thing.
"It's done, Nika, and you were amazing. Be at peace, love."
With that, he unwrapped his package and laid it at the foot of the headstone. Glancing at the flower-within-a-pentragram on the stone, he smiled and thought of the neckalce of words under his feet with Nika, the same words on the book now lying in front of him.
Live As Only You Can
Vol. 1
By Nicole Hailie
John turned, and walked away.
And that's it. I'm done. Next stop: Script Frenzy.
Spring Break Story Stub 6
In the spirit of honesty, this may be the worst one I've written so far. I really like the concept, but I don't think this execution works.
On the outward edge of a lonely galaxy adrift in the sea of the cosmos, an event unique from anything that had ever happened in this universe occurred on a fabricated chunk of metal floating through space. This piece of exploratory iron, the culmination of technology from a society that had started with twigs in the desert, was launched from a speck of a planet with skies red as fire and seas the color of dark wine. The metal hunk represented the hopes and dreams of the people on the red planet, hopes of finding new worlds and new life beyond the infinite abyss of space.
The newly extraterrestrial craft sent a constant stream of data back to the hopeful species planet-bound, and it was in the midst of this data stream, with the satellite now halfway between its origin planet and the center of the lonely galaxy, that the previously un-heard of event occurred. An atomic particle in the satellite's computer system changed its state.
This would not on the outside seem like an event of such enormous importance. Atoms of varying types change their states with more frequency than is possible to visualize, and the changes largely go unnoticed to the rest of the universe. This atomic event was unique; its timing, location, and cause coming together to result in the most fundamental change in the civilization's history. While normally this most minute of events would go unnoticed by anything larger than an electron, this state change caused a chain reaction that forever altered the course of two histories.
The end result of all this miniscule wrangling was this: the hunk of metal whirling through space sent back a message saying it had found life on another planet. Back on the planet of origin, the computer designed to monitor the satellite's transmissions beeped, and turned on one of the hundreds of lights in the instrumentation panel that showed the casual observer, with years of training on what the lights meant, exactly what was going on.
"Ah, sir?" An unwitting recruit had been assigned to watch the lights and report any changes. He had no idea he was about to change the world. "This light's turned on."
The commanding officer glanced at the light panel, and did a double-take. They had been monitoring the satellite's output for years, and that light had never come on in its whole history. He approached the panel, and tapped the light to check for faulty wiring. When the light did not flicker, a cold sweat began to break across his forehead. The next few chapters of his personal history were about to get very interesting. "Did you mess with the instruments in any way, private?"
"No sir! Why? What does it mean?"
"Go and fetch the scientists, the engineers, the higher brass... hell, get everybody. If this means what I think it means, we're going to need a whole lot of witnesses. If I'm right, this light is saying we're not alone."
Feel free to tear this apart. Its... not my best.
Spring Break Story Stub 5
I love heist movies. Always have. I'd like to write a heist novel. Hopefully it'll be better than this.
In various locations around the city, six watches beeped in absolute precision as a pocketwatch in the hand of a man standing on the balcony of a house on the hill overlooking the city chimed 7pm. If a woman could be in multiple places at once, she would have seen a tableau of seve little smiles on the faces of those holding the watches.
There is a unique smile to those in the midst of observing a perfect moment. It is not the quiet smile of pride at a job well done, nor is it the head-tossed-back laugh of exhilaration. It is akin to, but not quite, the smile shared between lovers in a moment of intimacy. Capturing the essence of the perfect moment smile requires a bit of all three, for the creation of such a moment requires work well done, an intimacy only known to few, and the desire with every fiber of your being to live each day as your last.
A spontaneous perfect moment does not exist in this world. Hard work is required to achieve perfection, and harder work to achieve it with the effortlessness afforded to spontaneity. Surely for the seven, basking in the glow of what the ringing of the hour stood for, perfection was the result of weeks, months, and, in one case, years of struggle. There had been lifetimes of training and dedication before the seven had come together, and months of drills and practice before this time on this day. Perfection had been expensive as well. There had been spaces to rent, equipment to buy, palms to grease and identities to create. All of these took prodigious funding, and all the money needed had been provided by the man with the pocketwatch on the hill.
There is always a man of this type associated with these ventures. He is the Man with the Plan. The other six expected this kind of man, and he did not disappoint in stature or action. He appeared to all the world like someone's wealthy grandfather; gray in his har belied his years while his tailored suits seemed to contain a physique strengthened by a lifetime of training. He never met with the six all at the same time, always preferring twos or threes, but this was also expected. It was he who set the watches to ring at 7pm. It was at 7pm that the first explosion shook the city.
The six were not themselves bad men. Most of them had done something that could qualify as less than upstanding, but none of them had ever deliberately caused harm on a personal level. Harm against organizations as a matter of course, but they were for the most against harm against the individual. They all considered themselves some variation on a rogue; they were not evil, just outside societal norms. They had been gathered by the man with the pocketwatch to steal the most valuable item in the world.
At 710pm precisely the lid of the pocketwatch was snapped shut and the man walked back into the house on the hill. The six went their separate ways and never saw nor heard from each other again. The aftermath, in the days that followed their theft, would haunt the six for the rest of their lives.
Comments, please!
Spring Break Story Stub 2
So this one was tossing in my head. Inspired by a drive I took today.
Tuluk soared. An ocean of verdant forest sailed underneath him, the varied shades of the trees seeming to roll by like waves as he sped towards the coast. His teryl Dactylos beat its powerful wings, each longer than a man standing tall, with ferocious grace; it flew as if trying to push the earth away out of disdain for all creatures not graced with flight.
Making a series of clicks with his tongue Tuluk urged Dactylos faster, and the great beast responded with a burst of speed that pushed Tuluk deep into the leather saddle. Rider and teryl flew over an endless blur of green reveling in the brilliance of the sunlight and the freedom of flight. They passed from the sea of forest over a thin stretch of cream-colored sand, and were suddenly surrounded by a vast expanse of sapphire; the sky seemed to rest on the sea like a robin's egg on a nest deep blue twigs.
As Tuluk flew over the off-white middle ground between water and earth, he could not help but see think of the beach as a neutral territory in the war between ocean and forest. The land was always trying to take more of itself from the water and the water was was always trying to recover the ground that had been raised from the depths.
Tuluk pulled the lower reins, and Dactylos dove towards the ocean's surface. The teryl's powerful wings kissed the tops of the waves, and sent up a bursts of spray around the pair. Dactylos huffed his dislike at being so close to the water, and Tuluk pulled at the upper reins.
Basking in the freedom of the air Tuluk could feel his cares and worries slip away, as if they were too heavy and slow to keep up with the Teryl's speed. Tuluk felt the wind against his face and the sun on his shoulders, and tried to lose the disquiet he had been feeling in recent weeks. He closed his eyes and let his other senses tell the story of the world around him. His skin told him of the wind created by Dactylos' speed. His ears told him the story of the sea and the sky, the crash of the waves and the call of the birds almost overpowered by the whoosh of air past teryl and rider. His nose told him of fresh, clean air with the barest trace of sea salt.
Opening his eyes Tuluk saw the small island he had discovered with Dactylos weeks before and claimed as a place of retreat, away from the troubles of the world. He saw the clearing in the forest towards the center of the island, and pulled Dactylos lower reins bringing them down to this peaceful jewel in the sea.
Feedback appreciated. Thanks!
Spring Break Story Stub 1
My Spring Break has officially started. Here's a quick thing I threw together.
There was a feeling in Sam's stomach that threatened to eat her alive. It seemed to be a ball of snakes coated in hot wax, snakes which bit her and and made the tortuous sphere grow every time she mentally prodded it. The ball sat in her stomach like lead heated red-hot, and the sickness it caused in her gut threatened to make the take-out dinner in her stomach re-appear in front of her.
Worse still, Sam knew the feelings were all her creation. She had not been poisoned, she was not sick in the medical sense. Sam's mind had made her own feelings toxic, feelings for him, and she could find no way out. The many-headed hydra of jealousy, rage, and confusion was slowly eating through her thoughts until it felt like she was drowning in a sea of her own anger and panic. Why was she here? What cause did she have to feel this way? Why could she find no way out?
The first snake egg had been laid months ago, and its true origina had been lost in Sam's memory. She was sure only that the egg was laid by some thought she had of him, or from something he'd said to her. Sam had slowly recognized the feeling of the egg's growth for what it was, but it was too late. The egg had hatched, the snake was biting, and already more eggs had spawned. The good times with him kept the brood from growing, but the bad times revealed that only a single head had been cut from the hydra, and more had grown to take its place. Sam felt betrayed, but whether in actuality or from her own imagination she could not say.
As a child, Sam had once tried to start a garden. She had no idea what she was doing, but plunged ahead, trying to make a corner of her world more beautiful despite her initial mistakes. Sam loved the garden, and remembered the good feelings she had had tending it, feelings of peace of wholeness and fascination. he remembered the day she had come to find the neighbors had picked her her garden clean, and had started passing her flowers out around the neighborhood. Sam was heartbroken. Though she tried to grow flowers again, she never recovered the same feelings of wonder she had when the flowers first bloomed for her. Sam thought about him, now, and remembered the flowers.
Negative feelings are a virus. They invade through the tiniest cracks, ans use their host's own mind to replicate and grow. Like an intelligent parasite, the feelings in her gut swarmed every time she thought about talking to him; they prevented Sam from trying to find a way out of the situation. Sam felt the snakes in her stomach fight, and felt confused. Trying to find a happier place, Sam did the only thing she thought would help. She began to write.
Possibly slightly depressing and angsty. Any and all appropriate feedback appreciated!