Stouffville, Ontario Canada (647) 962-1997 gwstudios@rogers.com M-F 8:30am - 2:30pm & 8:00pm - 11:00pm

Month: January 2022

Blood for the blood god, and all that jazz.

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on Blood for the blood god, and all that jazz.

I knew I was going to kill him off, and I do hope it was at least a little sad / stirring to read of his ignoble death at the hands of the some unseen interloper. I wanted to show that even though he didn’t know what was being asked of him by the voice, due to his augmentation via neural inhibitors and synaptic implants by The Company while training on Mars. That deep down he kinda knew that he wasn’t always doing what he was supposed to be doing. Far down deep inside he knew he was being used for nefarious reasons. He just couldn’t break the hard wired technology, nor the brainwashing. Only having momentary snippets in the brief moments between reading orders and them being carried out by the hardware inside him. The bottle neck of electrical impulses through meat. A mere glimpse at what was to happen.

Why else keep those of his kind in constant isolation, and be able to use them until they’re almost dead. Are they ghosts because they are essentially the walking dead? Rich beyond measure but no time to ever see the benefit. Huge chunks of their daily lives obscured from their memory. Cast aside on the whim of others. It was sad for me, and I thought him up! I don’t usually get saddened by lopping off characters, left, right and center. This one, as they say – hit a little different.

The last thing he could discern from the voice in the darkness was a blood soaked gurgle.

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on The last thing he could discern from the voice in the darkness was a blood soaked gurgle.

The single source of overhead illumination he is stood under shows a shimmering wave of tiny undulating dust particles drifting limply through the cone of yellow white light. The room is cool, damp and mournful with the lack of activity. The usual sounds of printers and instrumentation is silent. The ghost follows the ebb and flow of the dust waves as they fall across his vision. Tiny points of sparkling light, each has its fleeting moment where it catches the light just so, enough to twinkle, then vanish amongst the crowd. The ghost too, is silent, transfixed by the dust, and the shouted accusations left hanging in the air. The volume of the shouts so loud his ears are left ringing. The sudden shock of the gun fire over the pa was enough to deafen him momentarily. In a daze he stands there unmoving – unfeeling, unmoored. The inky black shadows of the enormous room shifting and changing shape around him. Many heart beats pound in his chest before a single deeply modulated voice speaks aloud. “Mark – tell me, what message did you send out there? Was it a warning? Did you tell them about the plan?” The voice has an edge to it, a level of panic has set in which the voice modulation can’t quite keep out of the audio feed. “I’m sorry sir, I don’t know what you are looking for. I don’t know anything about the message.” Pleads the ghost quietly but earnestly. “I believe you, my son.” A tinge of regret creeps into the modulation. “Damn.” The voice whispers. The line goes dead once more with a pop and a click, and all of the communications terminal lights spring back to life, the doors open in their entirety, and the signal feeds from all of the dishes and read outs begin to scroll across the screens again. The hum of the lights and the general buzz from the cabling vibrates through the ghosts body.

A soft warm tingle flows down the length of the ghosts left arm spreading from the base of his neck. His face is flushed, and a feeling of euphoria engulfs him. A single tear falls upon his gaunt cheek.

In a moment a blinking message on his wrist will tell him to go to the hazardous materials handling depot, where he will be seen to have walked naked into the decontamination chambers for a shower. As the stringent sanitizer oozes from the curved spigot on the wall a warning siren will go off. The gathered crew in the control room will scramble madly to contain the damage. With frantic screaming and wailing, their fists hammering upon the glass partitions in desperate warning. The ghost will stand motionless under the stream of pink sanitizer, his tears unnoticed in the onslaught of the pink scented fluid, as a clear caustic vapor will creep up through the floor vents. The ghost will collapse in spasms as his body begins to break down. A pool of miasma,gelatinous lipids and bone left dripping upon the bare wet floor. The supervisor on duty will shut all of the view ports between the control room and the showers, but not before the staff witness the violent and all consuming death of the naked man in the shower room. What little there is left will be gathered up, sealed in a plastic sack and crated ceremoniously into a yellow rigid polyethylene barrel and ejected from The Dirty Starling, passing right through the backwash of the engine cones to be incinerated. At the ships next stop, a new ghost will join the ranks of The Dirty Starling’s crew – his name will also be Mark.

Part Thirteen: Ghost of The Dirty Starling.

I hurt myself yesterday

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on I hurt myself yesterday

Trying to clear a path for my kids to toboggan down a really good hill at our family farm property. Caught a ski and flipped onto my elbow/shoulder like a forty something out of shape idiot, and now have a sore arm/elbow/shoulder. What’s worse is that I feel guilty for sending my kids back to in person learning. Ugh. It’s been really hard to sleep and it weighs heavy on my mind, all day, every day. No bruising as of yet from my physical fall. Probably won’t be any. Takes a fair amount to make me bruise up. Not as much to make me feel guilty.

Day 41, and what have we learned? Still not very eloquent or graceful with the written word. Feeling less concerned about the quality or quantity of my writing. At this point I’m aiming to have chapters done, not perfect, but a chunk at a time finished and uploaded for all to see. It can be an adrenaline rush once I get on a roll and I can see just over the horizon for something unexpected coming my way. I have a ways to go yet to wrap things up. I won’t give a quantitative answer to chapter count, but I know quality wise where I’d like to hit, and how I think I might wrap the story up in a nice little bow. I believe I had twenty two chapters for the first book, plus various one off shorts, and book two already has a few one offs written and compiled along with the twelve chapters I’ve written for book two.

I wonder if I’ll try to do something similar in another universe or if I’ll keep coming back to this well repeatedly. All the best to you for 2022! Keep on writing and sharing!

The Chronic-What!-cles of the suburban dad.

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on The Chronic-What!-cles of the suburban dad.

Ha. No, nothing that cool or awesome I’m afraid. Just me and my thoughts to keep us warm. Like a nice pair of wool socks but for your brain and eyes. We’ve had more snow, of course. Not the massive dumping of a week ago, but enough I’ll need to shovel out the driveway, walks and back patio areas to try to stop the basement from flooding during the February and March thaws. That’s the fun time of year when we get snow, then ice storms then heavy rains and a weird heat wave in the span of a week two months in a row, and it will wreak havoc on everything. But not there yet, still clearly in the midst of sub zero temperatures, wind chill, ice and the occasional snowfall. The wind chill also brings us great hits such as snow drifts on major roads, white outs, the nauseating feeling of traveling without moving when driving at night, and the snow is blowing through your head lights like stars as you jump to hyper space a la Star Wars. The only reason we suffer through it is that it kills off many warm weather bugs, spiders and snakes and such. If we still had Australia’s selection of deadly bugs and reptiles plus this bitter cold I’d have left years ago!

I think I may be closing in on forty continuous days of writing. Which at first seems like a lot, but most likely has accumulated little more than a few thousand jumble letters. I’m willing to bet that because I write on my phone rather that at a computer the process is slower than it could be, but if I’m at my computer I am usually working on paid stuff, so that isn’t a fun position for me to write in. That’s for working, writing is for fun.

I like to be able to curl up on a couch or chair and write at will. Perhaps my next step would be to set aside a specific time of day to write but I feel that as long as I am writing something I don’t much care when I do it. I also find that after I get my initial post put down on paper (such as it is – electronically) all of a sudden the pressure is gone and I can day dream about which in the current roster of characters can advance the story in a fun, or interesting manner.

The rest of this sunday will be spent preparing for my kids school week. Waiting on responses to work projects, either feedback or approvals and releasing work to commercial printers or external vendors and suppliers.

“Hey! Shush… keep it down…”

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on “Hey! Shush… keep it down…”

“I can’t hear what’s coming in over the radio.” Fusses the plump man in yellow coveralls. “Jimmy? Jimmy Wu is that you in there? Why is it so dark? What are you talking about?” Whispers the petite woman crouched down at the door beside Jimmy, in a the dark broom closet in an unused portion of the HR office on deck 19 of The Dirty Starling. Jimmy is hunched over his wrist communicator trying to dial in the frequency of his remote audio transmitter. “I told you Janice, I hid my negotiators recorder and broadcaster in the specialist communications bay after that mechanic got cut in half from the containment breach. The place was a mess, and had some seriously weird activity going on. Plus I heard from Jones, the director that they had an actual ghost in their department. I took a nose around but didn’t see one though.” He pouted. “Oh, that’s a shame. I’d have loved to have met one.” She too scrunched up her face in disappointment. Her heavy lids almost closed with the contortion of her lips. “Well, as I was meandering around I deployed my audio unit and have been surreptitiously recording the conversations from inside, over the last few months. It’s getting wild Janice! Bonkers even.” He shuffles from his squat position to instead sit directly on the floor and place his back against the cool wall. Taking the hint that they’ll be there for a while Janice sits down on the opposite wall. Their feet overlap in the middle of the small unused supply closet, littered with brooms and empty musty boxes. Jimmy cranks up the volume so they can both hear it. Janice says “Why don’t you just broadcast the signal to my communicator?” Looking aghast Jimmy says “Don’t be a silly goose – Janice, if I broadcast it there will be an official log of the recording. I’ve got to do this on the down low, otherwise it’ll be re-education for the both of us.” Janice smirks at Jimmy and waves the comment off. They both readjust themselves and wait while the audio begins to build again. At first there is only a smattering of small talk, and some quick bursts of spoken activity. The line eventually goes dead. “Don’t worry about that.” Says Jimmy. “It can be hit or miss. But the reason I called you here was I had an Omega level code orange flagged to my attention regarding a debrief with the ghost. It’s here! Today. Supposed to happen any minute now.” He gesticulates wildly and his ankles knock against Janice’s. “Ouch, watch it Wu!” Janice exclaims.

A kilometer down the hallway, on deck 19 of The Dirty Starling a gaunt and exhausted skeleton of a man in fresh beige coveralls is lumbering towards his debrief in the cavernous communications terminal. The massive doors are closed tightly, there is no one to be seen in the halls within several hundred meters. The lights are a startlingly bright blue white. The cables and pipes that run under the floor grates are the only colorful things in sight. It’s all very drab and serious, and grey. With a loud thunk, and a ratcheting click the doors peel open slowly. With a thud they come to rest about eighteen inches apart. The ghost must squeeze through the large metal teeth that maintain the registration of the doors. It is an awkward and claustrophobic fit. The three foot thick doors are icy cold to the touch. The interior of the room is near black, the only source of illumination are the buttons and dials from the control boards. All over head lights are off. With a loud click one lone spotlight shines down in a white yellow cone on the floor. “Step into the light please Mark.” A bodiless voice commands from the darkness.

Stirring from their sleep Jimmy Wu and his pal Janice sit bolt upright, their hearts are pounding. “Did you hear that? Whose voice is that? I don’t recognize it, do you?” Whispers Janice. “Oh I heard it all right. Now be quiet, this is going to get interesting!” Chuckles Jimmy. Tapping a few buttons on his HR select wrist communicator, he runs some diagnostics on the voice from the audio broadcast. On his blue green LED screen a whirling pattern appears. The machine is searching and the app is thinking.

“I have it on good authority Mark that you were successful in locating my asset. But, you sent a message. What was it?” Growls the heavily modulated voice from the dark. “I’m sorry, sir or Madam. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The quiet response is mumbled. “Of course you know! Tell me, what did you send? Was it a warning, an alert? Answer me before I put you through a recycler!” Shouts the voice in a terse response. “I’m sorry sir, I’m just a generalist, I haven’t spoken to anyone, or sent any messages, covert or otherwise – sir.” The meek voice wavers, whether from fatigue or otherwise is not immediately discernible. “He’s got an Ultima level cognitive block in place – very useful in these covert operations. Give him the key word and his subconscious will spill it’s data core openly. You can cross reference any multitude of points of information. It’s a nifty bit of engineering.” Speaks a second deeper voice. Although given the modulation used it could be anybody on the other end of the line. “I don’t have a key? What key? I was told the ghost would search my coordinates, locate the assets and report back. I said to specifically not send any messages have any type of communications with it. That was of the utmost importance!” Shouts the original, now maniacal voice. “How’d you do it without a key? That’s not possible.” Responds the second lower voice in a breathy tone. “I commandeered his time and sent him the quadrant to look through, same as I would for any duty roster change!” Screams the first speaker. “Wait – you didn’t use encryption or a key word? Oh fuck!” The voice cuts away to a gurgle, there are sounds of gunshots and bones crunching broadcasting over the line.

“Sir – we have at least two more listeners on the line.” Says a soft but firm voice over the audio broadcast. “Uh. Find them and eliminate them please. Are we on Vox? For fuck’s sake turn that shit of…..” The line goes dead a second time that day in the HR broom closet on deck 19. Janice and Jimmy are frozen in place. “They don’t mean us do they?” Asks Janice. “They couldn’t possibly. I used a remote audio broadcaster. They’re a dime a dozen onboard this ship. It’s not registered to me specifically, just our department.” Shrugs Jimmy. “Maybe they could trace the outgoing signal of the broadcast unit, not that they know it’s us?” A heartbeat later a quiet peep chimes in from Jimmy’s wrist communicator. The voice diagnostics are complete, and a red flashing flag is present on Jimmy’s LED screen. Before he can cancel it, a matching beacon pops up on Janice’s wrist communicator too. Sitting so close together for so long the HR consultants private chat app has linked them together. In the green blue glow of their wrist communicators the two share an ashen grimace.

In the bright yellow halls of the HR department on deck 19, loud boots and the metallic clink of assault rifles can be heard.

Part Twelve: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

Lazy Saturday in mid January.

greatwallstudios1 Comment on Lazy Saturday in mid January.

With nothing much going on except for some story beats percolating in the back of my mind. And a fairly simple question to answer. Do I want to do a dialogue heavy chapter with a little bit of detail, or recount the scene as though it was historical fact via a third impartial party? That is my question.

Both options offer me a unique way to hit on some story points with more emphasis. It’s a good place to be stuck in, I’d rather be spoilt for choice than drawing a total blank. I could do it over two chapters and show the divide between what actually happens, and how history interprets what went on by the evidence that they can find and piece together. Hard choice to make.

Also I’m a big fan of switching up how chapters are told, which is why I like the short/micro story format. If I had to write it all from one point of view I’d likely cock that up something awful. I can be passive, first person, third person or an objective witness as I see fit. I am amazed at people who can write 250,000 word epic worlds teaming with characters and animals, machines and vast world building. Sounds like a tonne of fun, but also – so much work.

As a side note, which is off topic: my kids are in love with this Youtube character named Sammie (who looks like a modified pink & purple butt plug) whose human counter part does arts and crafts. And in that vein I have sculpted two plug like pink/purple/sparkly Super Sculpey Sammies with glued in eyes and sculpted lenseless glasses. My oven burned the rear side of the sculpey which annoyed me as I didn’t want to have to paint anything other than the sculpted glasses. So yeah! Two sculpting projects down for 2022! Small win for me creatively.

Sprinkled across her field of view

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on Sprinkled across her field of view

Is a smattering of dim flecks of light. Distant stars, far further than her own native sun. The Mangelo has been coasting for some time now, aiming for Pluto’s Lagrange point 5. But with only the slimmest quantity of fuel left in the sabotaged external tanks Racquelle is fighting for her life. Desperately trying to locate team ETA and their small search and rescue vessel Lil Boat Peep. After discovering the treachery onboard The Mangelo three days prior, the tainted rations & water cistern, Racquelle has been trying to devise a plan to not only keep the ship on course, work through the damaged cockpit, but also solve the water and food supply issue. She hasn’t slept more than a few hours over the last three days, and dehydration is making her life hell. Her ability to perform manual labour is limited in scope, and painful to endure. Her last move was to cut back the output of the heater and hope that there was enough moisture in the air to condense on the walls and panels so that she could collect it with some rubber sheeting she’d hung before collapsing into the captain’s chair, and passing out from exhaustion.

A brilliantly dazzling explosion of light burns through the eyelids of the sleeping Racquelle. Her hair is damp, and her seat is a puddle of cool water. With a flinch she slides off of the chair to bury her rough cracked lips into the cushion to unceremoniously slurp up the puddle of water. It dribbles over her chin and collects at the neck ring of her space suit. She holds the mouthful of water in her cheeks and tries to slowly swallow only a small portion at a time. Trying desperately not to vomit up the precious water. Her wrist communicator is flashing amber alerting her to her near fatal state of dehydration. The notification for hunger is still in the late stages of green, almost to yellow. She could last another twenty one days without food if she absolutely had to. Taking a deep breath, her chest heaving, the urge to vomit subsiding Racquelle can see nothing but grey and alabaster shapes outside the view port of the cockpit. Struggling to stand up, her legs shaky, she crawls back up into her chair, and moves the control panels to face her. The radar screen is showing a city sized green amorphous blob just outside The Mangelo . But no sign of the rescue tug Lil Boat Peep. The communications panel has a lone flashing blue notification. Something has been calling her in her sleep.

Racquelle toggles a switch on her armrest to display the notification on the swing armed screen above her head. It has no video, just an audio file of a strange metallic machine screaming tone. Like a tin can through a grinder. Pulling up a few diagnostics of the signal she can tell that the message originated from the direction of earth and not from the behemoth parked outside her window. Reaching up Racquelle pushes the screen out of her field of view. Slowing getting to her feet she steps over the jury rigged cabling and exposed wires littering the floor of the cockpit. She stands by the front view port and stares at the writhing grey off white mass before her. The vessel is so large it covers one hundred and eighty degrees of her vision out the window. Up and down, and side to side. Nothing but a shuddering, wriggling and writhing metallic surface.

“Hungry”. The message appears like frosted smoke across her view port. “Yeah – sure.” She says aloud. “I could eat.” She dead pans to herself, assuming that she is hallucinating rather vividly due to stress. “I hunger.” With a soft chuckle Racquelle retorts. “No, no, no – dickhead. I’m the one that’s hungry.” Staring slackly at the glass the message fades as though it were never there leaving no trace. “Yah! That’s what I thought.” She gives her head a shake. Droplets of water splash onto her control console, dripping down her neck from her hair.

The alabaster skin of Kelvin wriggles itself into four meter thick tendrils and reaches out hungrily to absorb the tiny black and orange morsel into itself. Kelvin has needs for raw materials and ejectable propellant mass. In the span of a few moments, or were they days, a week or instantaneously, The Mangelo and it’s occupants are consumed entirely.

As the off white tendrils leech over the ships hull Racquelle shrieks in horror. The silence that follows is deafening.

Part Eleven: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

How attached to your written characters are you?

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on How attached to your written characters are you?

As far as I am concerned 99% of my characters are expendable, in as brutal or mundane a fashion as possible. I like to build something up only to fizzle in an unexpected manner, or for the pay off for the characters actions to be as empty as they tend to be in real life. We know the feeling. Same some bridezilla’s get after a year or two of planning a wedding, or a kid building up Christmas morning, only for it to come as this fleeting whisper of what you’d built up in your head, and then it’s done, and you are right back where you were, only now, your every waking moment isn’t spent pouring over details of this supposed magical day, and you feel a little empty or lost without the goal you’ve focused on so hard.

Then there are the 1% of characters who practically write themselves. They lead the story into unexpected territory, and can really turn one of my surface level short stories into something more compelling and create interesting problems to solve.

For those select few of you whom have read a couple of my interconnected shorts will know I don’t write my characters very deeply, they talk and do stuff, but their appearance is left fairly unremarked upon unless I feel there is a trait that sets them apart that will come up, or makes a point in the story. I’m not a “she breasted boobily” down the stairs kind of a writer, if that makes sense. Sure some characters have intercourse, but that’s not the point. Many are straight, lesbian, gay or androgynous or other, and I want them to be people, not their personal orientation.

To me they are just “folks”, they live, breathe, eat, defecate and work. They get irritated by one another and get snarky or playful as they see fit. If someone is going to affect a lisp or mumble it’ll be because they have a broken jaw, or were punched in the face. Not that I don’t operate with cliches or generalities, these are micro shorts so I need an explanatory short hand to fill in the blanks.

But, yeah… I like to kill them off. Or at least render their best laid plans moot wherever possible. I think that’s funny. Even my best laid plans fall apart at the hands of some one elses illogical choices, feelings and actions, so why wouldn’t that fate befall my characters too. These aren’t military disciplined combat troops, most are working class trades people silo’d into their own small social circles, or are corporate stooges looking to increase their bank accounts or prestige levels with little regard for those around them. Why would they do anything more than surface level planning for the pawns in their own games. Exit strategy? Not likely. Poisoned drink, or a bullet in the chest more like it.

Are you lot precious with your characters? Do you put them through hell or do you hold back on some? Are they fit for the meat grinder, or a mild annoyance?

“Hey Marko! What the fuck bud, you too good to answer your pages now?”

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on “Hey Marko! What the fuck bud, you too good to answer your pages now?”

Sneers the greasy looking mechanic in rumpled red coveralls. He’s used an over ride key card on the crew quarters door. The grey green lump of human that is currently out cold on the raised bed doesn’t stir, at all. In fact the body is so still it doesn’t even appear to be breathing, let alone functional enough to answer a page and report in for his duty rotation. Stepping across the threshold of the most spacious single occupancy room the mechanic has ever seen. Large though it may be, since it is kept sparse and unadorned it comes across as positively massive. Standing in the center of the room, the bisected doors begin to close. The change in cabin pressure from the hall and the closing door wafts the rancid smell of rotten meat, body odor and foul breath right to the mechanics nostrils. It clings to the soft palette and inside of the nose like an oily scented film. The greasy lank haired mechanic gags on the stench. Looking closely at the ghost on the bed he can see clumps of dead skin gathered in ragged lumps on the man’s pale dirty feet. He looks like he hasn’t bathed in months. He smells like he’s been sleeping in his own filth and waste for a year straight. With a ear splitting peel the greasy mechanics wrist rings again to remind him he has to get the ghost named Mark, up and ready for his next rotation in the next few hours. He flicks off the notification on his wrist communicator and finds the lighting panel for the room. With hesitation he begins to poke around getting the bathing unit ready for the nearly dead ghost. Walking around the side of the raised bed he leans against the lower desk, and pulls out a couple of drawers to stand on, as no step stool can be seen inside the room. As his line of sight comes parallel to the comatose man, he can see that he appears to have been unceremoniously deposited onto the bed with little thought given to comfort or his own safety. Limbs akimbo, neck turned harshly to his left, looking in towards the padded wall and away from the door. If his wrist biometrics unit wasn’t flashing green, you’d easily assume he was dead. The beige uniform is strained, torn and falling apart at the seams. “Dude, what the fuck were you up to? You smell like shit buddy boy. If you’re here with me at all, I’m just gonna pull you down from your bed and strip you down to your skivvies. God I hope you guys wear skivvies. Then I’m going to run you through two or three wash cycles to clean you up. I have an Omega level code orange on you my man. If it were up to me I’d leave you in the sick bay, or a med pod for the next month, but those orange fucks don’t play that way, you get me? Huh? Shit… I’d swear you were dead… umph! Jesus, heavy too.” With a lot of writhing, wriggling and unflattering pulls using leverage the mechanic drops the ghost named Mark to the hard metal floor. He turns the puddle of man and clothes about looking for a safety pull cord that should be poking out from under a stitched patch. Locating it to the rear behind Mark’s left armpit, he rips off the patch to expose the yellow triangular handle. Grabbing it firmly he pulls the twelve feet of molecular fiber cord out of the uniform coveralls and it falls apart along the seam lines. The smell that erupts out of the split clothing is horrendous. The body is covered with pustules, open pressure sores and deep tissue rashes. His skin dyed black with rot from faeces build up that the suit was unable to filter or remove via catheter. “They’ve done a real number on you bud. Come on, this might sting a little, sorry to drag you around your room like this.” Pulling the dead weight of the unconscious man from a pile of his tangle of limbs to orient him for bathing in the shower cubicle. “If you’re alive in there, listen, I’m going to key in an antiseptic scrub, wash and rinse cycle as well, for after the wash. It’s gonna hurt like a Son of a bitch, but you look as though you need it. The orange mafia don’t care to smell anything less than perfumed roses when you have a debrief. You can thank me later. Maybe a shot of adrenaline when the cycles are complete will help you out eh? Why not. It’s on the house uh! Company money, well spent I’d say.” Clicking away on the control board outside the showers the mechanic types in the resource codes he was given, triple checking against his wrist communicator to be sure. He presses the initiate button and walks out of the room.

A opaque cream coloured bag expands out of a hole in the wall, the naked man is enveloped within it soundlessly. A viscous pink gel floods the bag from multiple directions. A soft glop and slurp can be heard, muffled by the membrane. The sticky goo oozes over the man pulling sixty days worth of dead skin, waste and dirt along with it, to be filtered and pushed back through again. Cleaning every surface as it goes. As the gooey mass get sucked from the ghosts nasal cavity he gulps in a deep and startled breath. He twitches and shakes as he comes to. With the pinch of a syringe to the base of his neck his eyes pop open as adrenaline floods his veins. He pushes backwards frantically as though trying to hide inside the wall. His heels crack the tile lining the floor, his finger nails push off his cuticle with the strain of his panic. He can not remember why he is so afraid, it’s like a blood memory buried deep within his bones. “I’ve seen a god, and it was not benevolent.” He whispers weakly from cracked lips into the empty room, a small trickle of blood from his ruined fingers dribbles down the drain in the center of the wash cubicle.

Part Ten: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

I had an interesting thought about a character yesterday.

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on I had an interesting thought about a character yesterday.

While writing part eight of my current short story series I introduced a new female character named Racquelle whom I rather quite like. I can see going off on a story tangent with her fairly easily, but the arc of the story I’m telling doesn’t really require her in that way. I suppose I could pocket her for some other stories later on. Or kill her off and use her daughter or niece to fill that space in a future short story series. Tough call to make. I can see her adding alot of humor and toughness to what I have planned, but I feel like she will need another two or three self contained problems to solve to use her properly if she is to live. Which could potentially hoop my plans, like a rough finger in the bum. What to do what to do. I know the broad strokes of what I want to happen and where the whole thing is to lead. It spans the galaxy, time and humanity as a whole. That’s alot of ground to cover for an interconnected short story series by an amateur writer. I think I’ll give in to my penchant for ballooning stories and characters. After all that’s how I wrote the first book chunk. Letting the people created within find their own ways to fix a problem or create new and interesting ones. All while heading ‘roughly’ in the direction I planned. But perhaps in a haphazard manner. I’m about to get busy with work, and I’m on day 36 or 37 of writing everyday, so I want to keep the momentum up, and the discipline in place. The habit of just writing nonsense blog posts was what triggered a vivid daydream, and hatched the second chunk of this series, so bonus points for perseverance I guess. Do I – kill off Racquelle unceremoniously, secret her away for a later date, involve her more deeply in the coming story, or ignore her for the sake of the initial story line I had half baked in the first place? If she works for me, like Ms Taylor did in book one, then she may stick around for a while, and do some crazy shit.