[Chapter 5] of [Book I likely won't finish]

It's been going a bit badly lately I have to say. I'm trying to slog through the middle at the moment and I've realized my adversary has no real goal (as usual one of my biggest problems). Anyway. Here's chapter 5 and I'll try to post on time again tomorrow. Heh.

Gregory Han lived an hour from Blackwater, at the edge of a bigger a town called Hamilton Park. He didn't answer his doorbell when Riz rang it once, and he didn't answer when she rang a second time. At the end of her patience, she lifted a fist to and banged on its decoratively carved wood.

Didn't she have better things to do than hunting ghosts? Whatever she'd seen on the road the night before hadn't been real. What more did she (and Huber) want to find out? As a police officer she wasn't even supposed to be alone out here either, but Huber had made no mention of taking a partner with her.

She banged on the door again.

"Blackwater police, open the (damned) door!"

Silence, but there was a scuffle somewhere behind the door that told her someone was home.

"Blackwater -" she started again, but was interrupted.

"This is Hamilton!" a voice snapped back. "You have no jurisdiction here!"

Riz rolled her eyes. "You reported an incident in Blackwater, thus we are required to investigate." She paused. "Do you want me to break down the door?"

She couldn't of course, not officially, but by the decorative door she judged he wasn't a guy to know legislation very well. She was right. When he did open the door (ten minutes later after some more shouting back and from) she realized he was an artist. His one bedroom apartment was small (not that this was an indication of artistry), and it was also crammed with cans of paint and finished paintings on canvas. It took all her willpower not to roll her eyes again. An artist. They were the worst. Entitled, they thought the world belonged to them, and if it didn't, they could shape it so it did. She saw the evidence all throughout his pictures, the discarded canvases and sheets of paper, and what bugged her most was he seemed to idealize his life as a starving artist. Riz didn't necessarily hate art (except Russian art) but she hated artists (of every kind).

It was only when her eyes wandered over to more recently painted pictures (the colour still too shiny to have been sitting in his apartment as long as the rest) that she halted. He'd painted a leshen, like the one she'd seen, tall, dark, with red antlers on top of its skull-head.

Riz swallowed against a suddenly dry tongue.

"You a gamer?" she asked, as casually as she could muster.

Han rubbed his hands together, and his whole body language told her he was uneasy. "No. No, I don't game. I haven't since I was a kid."

"Then what are these creatures?" she asked.

"They're - they're nothing."

Riz crossed her arms. He was avoiding looking at his paintings almost as much as he avoided looking at her, and as an Asian, despite her travels around the world, to her, he was difficult to read.

"So you just painted 'nothing' because you thought it'd be fun."

He didn't respond.

Riz decided to cut to the chase. "Are these the things you saw on the road when your friends, Mr. Miller and Mr. Wang, crashed their car?"

Han's expression changed from cowed to aggressive.

"I've already talked about it with your colleagues."

"And yet you can't get it out of your mind." It was a guess, but a good one. As quickly as his temper had flared, the air seemed to drain out of him and his chest deflated, but still he kept his mouth tightly shut. Why did he have to be so stubborn? This was exactly why she despised those closed-off art-or-nothing types.

"It isn't relevant what I thought I saw," he said, and he began to pack away the canvas that showed the leshen in its (their?) tall form. He threw blankets over some of them, sheets over others, but he didn't speak.

Riz was inclined to agree with him (what he'd seen wasn't real and thus not relevant to the police), but she couldn't push away the image of the leshen she thought she'd seen, and anyway, Detective Huber had sent her here to talk to the man, not accept his silence.

"Who says they're not relevant? I wouldn't've made the trip down here to Hamilton if I didn't want to talk."

Han halted in his covering of the paintings, but then continued quickly a moment later.

"Your colleagues didn't believe me."

Again, she desisted the urge to roll her eyes at his dramatic tone. It wasn't that she didn't understand him, because she did, but did he have to be so elusive? She put on her best patient voice, thinking how easy it'd been to talk to the boy yesterday night, although their emotions had both been highly charged. Ekko hadn't needed to be coddled.

"I'm not my colleagues, and you're obviously stressed out about this." To punctuate her words, she pulled up another painting of the leshen, this one more detailed than the others, which diffused into streaks of black (body) and white (skull) and red (antlers) after a few strokes to suggest a person's outline. "Don't you want to talk? I'm here to help you."

"I don't need help."

Phew.

"Well, I do," she said, ignoring her pride, ignoring her irritation at Han. "I need to know what you saw and when you saw it and why two people died in that car and you survived."

He glanced at her, and his expression was full of guilt, full of pain, and momentarily, she felt bad about making him speak, and had to remind herself it was for the greater good. Real or not, something was scaring the citizens of Blackwater, and it'd - Why wasn't she telling him?

"Listen, Han," she said, a bit calmer, a bit softer. "Whatever it is that scares you scared other people as well." She dug in her uniform jacket's pocket for the scrap of news she'd printed about Henny Pipers. "Here's a bit of a report of a woman called Henny Pipers. She's old enough to be your grandmother and she also (thinks) encountered something on the road late at night. It scared her enough she offroaded her car and in her flight back to town crashed into a lamppost opposite of the police office."

She watched him swallow, hard.

"You think I can help?" he asked, and she would have answered (yes, of course. You saw it, and you're the only one who can talk about it, considering Henny is now being held at the psych hospital), but a screeching voice interrupted her.

"Gregory! Who is it?!"

He gave Riz an abashed look.

"No on, gma!"

"I heard the doorbell you little skint. Don't lie to your grandmother's - Oh."

Riz hadn't known there was a staircase, but an elderly lady suddenly appeared in the corner of Han's apartment, from a staircase (that must've been where the smell of Chinese food came from), her narrow eyes narrowing even further as she took in the scene.

"Blackwater police," Riz introduced herself.

The older lady turned to Han.

"Have you gotten into trouble again? Is that why you never help out at the shop?"

Han's pale skin had turned a shade of dark-brownish pink she never observed on Caucasians, but it made sense, considering the shop below was a Chinese restaurant.

"This isn't the time!" he said. "This lady wants to know -"

"Is this how you speak to your elders?" the grandmother demanded, but Riz meant to see a spark of amsuement in her eyes. "I will bring tea." And away she went again down the steps.

Han couldn't meet Riz's eyes when his grandmother had left, but Riz was quite immune to the antics of the elder generation. After all, being an only child, she knew how it felt to be the focus on their scrutiny.

"Shall we sit?" she asked Han.

It was his home, and she was preposterous, but he was whipped, and she didn't have the time (or at least, she didn't have the patience) to wait until he remembered what civilized people did.

"Yes, oh, of course," he said quickly, and with delicate fingers plucked some of his paintings (flowers, in painstaking detail, mostly) off the kitchen table and then, as if his grandmother made him remember his manners, pulled out a chair for her.

Riz plopped down on it, and when he didn't look, made some space on his table by swiping away some more canvases, then put the detailed picture of the leshen she had held onto in front of him.

"So. The creature," she said. "Is this what you saw when Mr. Miller's car went out of control?"

His Adam's apple bobbed. "I - yes."

"You're sure this is what you saw? Dark skin, antlers on its head?"

"Why? Don't you believe me?" he shot back.

No, she didn't, or she shouldn't, but he was evidently traumatized.

"You seem uneasy talking about it."

"Wouldn't you be?" He threw up his hands. "My best friends died! I almost died." He lifted his shirt to show a long scar across his stomach. "And all because - because of some freakish thing in a mask."

Her eyebrows conctracted. "A mask?"

"What else could it be?" he demanded. "A monster? No. No, I'm not a child. There are no such things as monsters beyond the realm of my pictures. I know a mask when I see one and this - this person in the mask, what was his purpose? Have you caught him yet?"

She hadn't expected this from an artist, but collected herself quickly.

"No, but that's why I'm here, why I need your help."

"It must be a mask."

"I'm not saying it isn't."

But did he truly believe that it wasn't a mask? She wasn't sure.

"Can you tell me what happened?" she asked.

"We were driving along [country road] a week and a half ago," he said, grudgingly. "It was dark, around half before midnight, and we were the only car around. Wang was - was playing with his magic cards again, getting on our nerves, and Miller, well, he was talking about football, as usually, but somehow the topic changed after a while -" He cleared his throat.

"To what?"

"To uh - to - to women, if you want to know!"

That, she could relate to.

"All right, go on."

He blinked. "Well, we were talking about girls, and then suddenly, I don't know. We thought it was a deer, it just came out of the woods around us. It jumped into the road, or I don't know if it jumped, it suddenly was there, and all we'd seen before was a flash of fur or something, and Wang, he screamed, like a girl, and then Miller cursed and he tore the steering wheel to the side not to hit it, and then, and as we swerved past it I saw - I saw -"

"You saw this thing."

She held up the painting he'd made, and he gave a nod.

"What did you think of it?"

"In the moment? Nothing. I - we - the car slipped on some leafs, you know, the trees are just shedding and this was in the woods, where there's a lot of them on the ground, and we just slipped, and I stared at at that thing through the back window -" He went silent.

"And then?" she pressed. Despite herself, her heart rate had gone up slightly, and she could feel her pulse pound. There was something tangible here, some tangible fear, as if Han wasn't just recounting a traumatic event, but reliving it.

"And then nothing. Then I woke in the hospital, and my best friends were both dead."

The tension was still high, but her anticipation faded somewhat. Han lifted his head defiantely at the end, and she could see his eyes were red. She didn't know what she'd expected, but it hadn't been this.

"I'm sorry about that," she said, half expecting a snappish answer, but instead, he inclined his head with what she thought was gratitude. Then he said, "What have you found out? You're investigating the case, aren't you? Have you found the culprit, any lead?"

Riz shook her head. "It's difficult. Whatever - whoever it is going around like the wrath of - I mean whoever is underneath the mask only strikes at night at unpredictable locations. That's why I have to follow up every lead (she cringed at the word) I can get."

"Did I - Did I help?"

She wasn't certain, but that's not what he wanted to hear.

"Yes, I believe so."

"What will you do next? Will you find him?"

"Him?"

Han gave a nod. "It must be a 'him'. What woman would do such a thing?" His cheeks coloured again and he seemed to bite his tongue. "I'm sorry. I know there are also woman murderes. I just meant - the thing - the person was tall. I don't know how tall, but he towered over the car, and I couldn't see his face - his mask - clearly at all even though we passed only half a meter or so next to it when Thomas crashed the car."

7 feet tall. Riz kept her face carefully still. The night before, she'd thought the thing she saw on the road was extraordinarily tall. Taller than any man she knew, it'd looked taller than her favourite basketball players even at a distance. But there was no reason to tell Han that.

"That helps," she said. "I'll make a registry of tall men in the area and go from there."

"What if he's from outside?" Han asked. If he was a child, he would have been tugging on her sleeve.

"There aren't that many 7 foot people 'round, even in the US." And if there were, they'd all be playing basketball.

"And masks!" he said as she stood. "You have to find out who sells those kinds of masks."

"Uh - huh."

"I'm serious."

Riz turned around before the door, and saw Han's grandmother coming up the back stairs in a waft of Chinese-food-smell. Her stomach growled, but she ignored it. There were donuts in the office, still, and it was only an hour, not that she didn't love Chinese food.

"You're leaving already?" the old woman demanded. "I've only just finished the tea and there's fresh moon cake downstairs - only three dollars each."

Riz cringed, but only inside. The blackwater PD didn't need any more bad publicity.

"Mrs. Han, I'm so sorry, I have to get back to work. Mr. Han, thank you for your cooperation," she said formally, then closed the door in their faces.

[Chapter 4] of [Book I likely won't finish]

It's a bit of a slow day today. I reached chapter 12 by now and it's slowing down a bit towards the middle. I'm not sure if I can make it or if I should take a break and try again tomorrow but motivation is a bit meh today. I had to edit some stuff in chapters 9 and 10 so am a bit confused. But let's see!

Riz dropped the boy off at what she hoped was his school (You could never know with teenagers these days) and then sent a message to the headmaster where he'd been found the other night. If he chose, the headmaster could involve the boy's parents, but she wanted to give Ekko a chance to come clean himself. He'd said his parents weren't awful (like many other parents) but that didn't mean they'd appreciate a call from the police about their son being found in the woods where just the day before an accident had happened.

Then she went back to the police office and sought Detective Huber at his desk.

"Are they ready yet?"

"Good morning to you too, Clarisse."

"The Pipers," she said. "Is Mrs. Pipers ready to be questioned?"

"You make it sound awfully harsh."

"Detective -"

"Why don't you take a seat?"

Riz sat. There was no doubt she should be talking to Huber with more respect (He was her superior after all), but he was German, or of German descent, and while he was meticulous with his methods, he didn't often care to reprimand any of his deputies for their lack of etiquette. Today, however, seemed to be a day where he did care.

"I heard you went up to the Blackwater forests yesterday night."

"Mel told me?"

He gave a short nod.

Riz shrugged. Why couldn't Mel have stayed quiet? Huber must be thinking she was crazy now as well. "I thought I'd check out the crash site."

"What of the other part of the report?"

"What part?"

"Come, don't play games, Riz. We both know you know what crash sites look like, and as Mrs. Pipers wasn't injured, I don't think there was any need for you to drive there, never mind in the middle of pitch dark night. No? You don't want to talk about it?"

"There's nothing to talk about. I found tyre tracks like at any other crash site, nothing else."

"Mel says you seemed afraid."

Riz snorted. "Afraid?" Me? Have you seen me? Almost 5'7' and quick with a gun or rifle (and donuts) - why would I be afraid? But even his words sent a chilly shiver down her spine.

"And the boy?" he said.

"Ekko? He's a police work enthusiast." Or something like it anyway. Why else would he have been in that forest in the night? As if in answer to her question, the image of the leshen he'd shown her on his phone popped up in her mind, but she pushed it away. Leshen belonged to Geralt the Witcher, not Blackwater.

Huber stared at her a moment longer, then glanced down at his desk and pulled out a file from a stack. He held it out to her.

"The Pipers?" she asked as she took it.

He shook his head. "A certain Mr. Han."

Han.

"Sounds familiar."

"Indeed. He is the survivor of the three person crash last week up near Blackwater Creek."

Ah, that was it.

"What do I want with him?"

"You want to talk to him about what he's seen."

"What he's -" Riz groaned. "Not the yeti again."

"Precisely the yeti. If there's someone going around in an animal suit, on two legs, scaring our citizens half to death, or to death in Mr. Han's friends' case, then we ought to know, don't you think?"

Riz couldn't argue with that, so instead, she stood. Han didn't live too far away and if she was quick about it she'd be done in time for (donuts) lunch.

"And Riz!" Huber called after her as she left his office. "If you need any help let me know. Whatever you find out."

At the whatever his eyes lingered on hers, and she had to work on her sneer to keep it up.

Did Huber really believe in this supernatural thing? He was German, and she'd always thought Germans were reasonable, detached, what was the phrase? Down to Earth. (This same efficiency was the reason she felt safe in Huber's presence too although usually she preferred to avoid men) Then again, maybe he'd meant something completely different when he mentioned the animal suit, a killer in hiding, something like it, and she could really count on his help if she needed it.

[Chapter 3] of [Book I likely won't finish]

All right. Tomorrow is a long wait and Chapter 2-2 isn't really a full chapter so here you go: chapter three. And now I really need to get back to working on this or I won't have a chapter 4 to show tomorrow.

Riz ended up at Mel's place anyway, but they didn't have sex. One reason was Ekko, who refused to tell them where they were from and what a leshen was until they agreed he could stay at the police office fort he night. The other was that Riz felt particularly stubborn about the events of the night. She knew what she'd seen, but Mel didn't seem to believe any of it, and that was fine, but it also meant she was in no mood to have sex or talk about their relationship (which Mel often tried after they had sex).

The next morning Riz was even grumpier than the day before (sleeping on a narrow couch will do that to you, but then again, it was her own fault), and only managed to put on fresh clothes when they came in the office (separately) at 6 AM. The clothes she'd kept in the office were too small and her chest (grown considerably since she'd started here) strained against the cloth until she left it open under her uniform jacket. It wasn't standard, it wasn't proper etiquette, but if she wanted a straightjacket, she'd go straight to Huber and tell him all about last night's campfire experience.

At the office, Ekko waited, and Deputy Hailey, a bear-like guy in his thirties, made a grimace at her as she arrived.

"Where'd you pick up that brat?" he said.

Ekko bared his teeth at him, and Riz shrugged. "Dark forest, north of Blackwater."

Hailey lifted an eyebrow, then seemed to think better of it. "Yeah, not gonna ask what you were doin' in a dark forest north of BW."

He left. Riz stared at Ekko and he stared back defiantely.

"Time to go," she said.

"No," he said.

"I have work to do, and this isn't a kindergarten. I'm gonna take you straight to school, or straight to your parents. Your choice."

He too, was wearing clothes that didn't fit, and it looked like one of the deputy guys had lent them to him.

"I'm not goin' anywhere."

"Wasn't a question," she said as she turned to make her way into the corridor, down into the parking lot to her car.

Ekko followed sullenly.

"Did you manage to get anything on camera?" she asked when he'd caught up to her and they were walking side by side.

"All white," he said. "I shouldn't'a used f."

"Hm," she said. Bummer.

At the door to the outside, she stopped, because he stopped.

"What?"

"I can help," he said.

"Help with what?"

"The leshen."

"You've said that word twice and I still don't know what it means," she said. She should've googled it, but in the (relative) safety of Mel's apartment she hadn't felt like unpacking all the crazy she'd seen. She really should have, though, then perhaps she would've slept better that night.

"I'll show you if you let me stay."

"Let you stay where? This isn't kindergarten. It's a police office." What else could she add? Ah, the adult card. "Your parents will be worried."

"No they won't." His eyes darkened. "Don't look at me like that. It's not like they neglect me or some shit. They think I'm at a friend's."

"Hm."

"I can help you with this case."

"Oh yeah? And what case is that, if you're so smart?"

"The leshen case!" he snapped.

"Still don't know what that is."

He made a noise somewhere between angry dog and angry cat, but more dog, and pulled his phone out of male-deputy Guile's pocket. In a few swipes he got what he wanted and held it up to Riz's nose.

"This is a leshen."

Riz stared at it. It was a drawing of a man-beast, a greyish-dark skinned man up to the neck, on which the white skull of an elk sat, and from the skull protruded red antlers. It was exactly what she'd seen, or thought she'd seen, on the road the night before. The two visions were uncannily alike when she layered them on top of each other before her inner eye.

Then her eyes caught something else on the bottom of the picture - like a signature.

"It says Witcher III fanart" she said, suddenly annoyed that he was wasting her time.

"So what?"

"So it's not real."

"You saw it yesterday!"

"I saw a person on the road" she said. "It was Mel."

It had to have been, didn't it? Mel had left her car and came down to collect them in the incline after she'd seen Riz's car stopped close-by. Whatever else she'd seen had to have been something pathological. Anger about the reports, about people like Henny Pipers, driving hands-unfree with their phones, had set her off, and she'd imagined whatever horns or antlers or dark mist. It must've been. Mel hadn't seen it and she'd arrived only a moment after Riz's flashlight went off.

Riz glanced at Mel at her desk, then away again.

What was she thinking about changelings? She'd known Mel about half a year now and there never were any sightings of strange creatures before last week. Besides, if Mel was a leshen, then she was hiding those antlers pretty well. Likely in her cleavage.

Riz sighed. "I'm not buying it."

"But it's right here!" He thrust out the phone towards her.

"I see an image drawn by a fan of something mythical creature out of a fantasy realm -"

"It's not fantasy, it's folklore of [eastern Europe]."

"Uh-huh," she said.

"Your name is Clarisse Hunter, isn't it?"

"Riz," she said, unsure in the next moment why she was telling him anything about her.

"Ok, then, Riz," he said. "I can help you find out where the creature is, what it likes, what it does -"

"You're a gamer."

At this, he pulled himself up straight (about chin-height compared to Riz) and, his eyes burning like (not devil's) embers, he declared, "I'm not a gamer. I'm a scientist."

Riz managed to stop a snort before it left her nostrils, with difficulty, and only because she didn't want to hurt the boy's sense of pride in whatever science class he achieved good grades in school.

"That's good," she said instead. "The world needs more scientists." She opened the door they'd been standing in front of and gestured outside. "Now, however, Einstein, you better get back to your studies."

[Chapter 2-2] of [Book I'll likely not finish]

Here's the third chapter of this venture. It's actually more like part two of chapter two however... and yes. I do know I'm going a bit overboard with Cthulu jokes! But that's what editing is for - right? :)

PS: as this is the second part of chapter two it's a bit shorter (sorry!) but I'll have the real chapter three up by tomorrow morning!

"I - I don't understan -"

The boy beside her moved first. His phone went up and there was a sudden flash as he pressed the trigger button, and then he gasped as if he'd been wounded. His terror brought her back to herself and finally her gun was out. Had the creature noticed the flash of light? Riz killed her flashlight. What had she thought coming here alone? What did she know Cthulu was capable of? All she'd heard about him was fiction and this? This creature? What if it was a ghost and she couldn't wound it?

"What should we do!" the boy whispered. His voice was harsh and terrified and HOW SHE HATED CHILDREN. Why had he come out here? He wasn't any smarter than she and now he expected her to solve it! How could she protect this brat if she didn't even know what she was up against? She could barely see anything ahead, her eyes still trying to adapt, and he thought she could do something to protect them?

"Officer!" he whimpered.

"Quiet!" she snapped back. Protocol. Remember protocol. The innocent behind you, the gun in front. "Don't speak and follow me! Quickly!"

If she could go around the road she might be able to get a better look at it, and they'd have a better chance to get in their car, but if it spotted them...? Then what? Where was it, even? Her sight was coming back somewhat, but the thing she'd seen was gone, the road empty, except.

"Riz?"

Tension drained out of her like a rushing waterfall and she was suddenly inexplicably tired.

"You followed me."

"Of course I followed you!" Mel exclaimed. "Gee, you look like you've seen a ghost."

Riz chuckled. A ghost, huh.

"Haven't you seen anything when you came down here?"

"A lot of trees. Who's that?"

Riz turned to see the boy staring at Mel (well, her lips, anyway). "That's uh -"

"Ekko," he said, half mutinous, half enthralled by Mel.

Riz scowled at him, almost jealously (she caught herself just in time) then turned back to the road, to her car. "And you didn't see anything when you arrived?"

"No." Her brow creased. "Was there anything I was supposed to see?"

An apparition, a ghost. Cthulu's grand grand-kid. An apparition in the dark, shrouded by mist, with antlers on top of its head.

"What did the witnesses say the yeti looked like?"

"Uh," said Mel. "Tall, like a man, dark fog surrounding it. It wears a mask of bone, like the skull of a moose, or an elk, but Riz - Do you believe in this crap?"

What was she to believe? A moment ago she would've bet her life (or at least Ekko's life) that there'd been something supernatural on the road, but now, with Mel there, it was difficult to concive such a notion, difficult to say she'd spotted bigfoot with a straight face.

"I need sleep" she said instead, and walked past Mel to check on her car. It was undisturbed, but in the darkness around her, Ekko's words echoed when he spoke.

"It's not the Yeti," he said, as if annoyed. "It's a leshen."

[Chapter 2-1] of [Book I likely won't finish]

All right. I've decided to take the plunge (if only to maybe try and figure out if/what the rules are about books you don't think are yours to write) and here is Chapter 2. This is again a first draft and you're reading at your own risk (of what I don't really know).

Please be advised that I'll be doing this project alongside another (edit 100000 of First Book Ever) and there is NO GUARANTEE I'll finish this one if it doesn't work out. For now, however, enjoy! It might be someone can learn from this.

Riz stopped her car at the site off the last report, and with the engine, [country singer] shut her mouth as well. The road was really in a rural area. The asphalt was cracked and there was no street light in sight as she climbed out of the car and pocketed her keys so she had her hands free for a torch. The torch, small and cheap as everything at the Blackwater police department, didn't reach very far, and the residual heat from inside the car evaporated quickly as she took a few steps.

So where was that monster that'd scared Henny so thoroughly she wasn't able to speak to the police? Riz grumbled. Her car had left tracks on the side of the road where she parked it (couldn't park in the middle of the street no matter how rural the area) and after a few minutes she found the old woman's car tracks as well. In one hand a donut (Ha. Ha.), in the other her flashlight, she observed the way Henny's car wound on the road (tyre tracks) and then close to the slope leading into the forest beyond the road. Henny had been driving straight, at least, while she chatted on the phone, but something deterred her, scared her, Riz could see where the black brake lines shrieked over the cracked asphalt. Then the old woman might have lost control of her car momentarily, tearing the wheel away from whatever she saw on the road, coming close to the incline before once again she ripped the steering wheel the other way. Riz couldn't help some admiration at least for the old biddie. Despite one of her hands being occupied, the woman had managed not to crash down the incline and into a tree. It spoke of some skill in driving, other encounters with deer over her 65 years of life perhaps.

Then why was she playing traumatized now? Riz growled. Her stomach did, too, and she took another bite of the donut. There she was, a policewoman in her early thirties, writing speeding tickets and eating donuts. This wasn't what she'd imagined her life would be like when she signed up some, what, ten years ago? There was much less glamour than she'd expected, and too much paperwork, but on the other hand, it never was achievement, was it? If she'd wanted to be a celebrity she wouldn't have signed up for the police force in an obscure town such as Blackwater.

Chewing, she walked back onto the road. Here, she'd see if it a car came miles away by the headlights, and even she didn't spot them through the trees immediately, she'd hear it. But cars didn't interest her as much at that moment. The beam of her flashlight combed the street like it would if she were trying to clean up after an accident, only she was looking for animal tracks instead of pieces of metal, glass, shards of plastic and airbags. It was well enough to say a few witnesses spotted bigfoot, but Riz didn't buy it. Her mother might be superstitious, but she was not. She had a gun, and she wasn't afraid. If a ghost wanted to challenge her, it might as well. She'd put a bullet through anything that decided to tangle with her.

But nothing did.

It was almost more frustrating than if Cthulu suddenly jumped out of the trees. At least Cthulu she could shoot. This phantom man-elk? She'd have to believe in it first.

Ten minutes passed as she walked down the road and then back up to her car. The donut was gone and the chill was seeping into her bones quickly now as the last warmth she'd held on to faded. She really should have taken Mel up on that offer. A bit of a movie, a bit of popcorn to go with the donuts, a bit of sex.

Riz stopped in the middle of the road (really, one shouldn't) and pointed the flashlight up to see if she could spot some stars as she blew out a sigh. A bit of sex often went a long way when one was stressed. Venus winked down at her as if she knew what Riz was thinking, and Riz scowled back up at the planet.

"You know nothing," she said.

She might have given up then. There were no tracks on the road or on the side of the road of anything, animal or supernatural elk-man, but the moment she lowered her flashlight again, something moved in the corner of her eye. A sharp intake of breath, her heart suddenly frantic, she suppressed that cold jolt of terror and whirled around.

"Oi!"

Something moved. She couldn't see it well because it was still in the trees and at her call started to run away. Run away? What elk-monster was this to be scared this easily? Cthulu didn't bow before anyone! Riz ran after the creature as it sprinted away, but it had a headstart, and anyway, wasn't it a bit small to be the great Lord's offspring?

"OI, I say again!" she yelled after it. Her flashlight bounced, the beam going wildly this way and that as she crashed into the treeline, through the trees, after whatever it was she was chasing.

"Will you stop!"

"I didn't do nothin'!" a voice came back at her.

No elk-man then.

Riz caught up to the creature (a teenage boy could still be considered creature, couldn't it?) and grabbed its hood. The boy jerked forward with momentum, and they might have both tumbled had she not grabbed a tree on the other side as well.

"Why do you run?" she snapped, but the teenage boy, scared as he'd been a moment ago, seemed to have found his juvenile disregard again.

"Why do you follow me!" he demanded back. "I've done nothin' and you're the police! You have no business followin' me around!"

"And what business do you have here, in the middle of the night?"

"Ain't none of your business!"

They stared at each other momentarily, panting, and Riz hated how out of shape she was despite her penchant for donuts.

"I'm not trying to arrest you," she said.

"Why'd you say that? 'Cos I'm black?"

She rolled her eyes. "'Cos you're a (stupid idiot) little careless to be out here in the middle of the night."

His arms crossed and Riz noticed he carried a lit phone in his hand. The phone's camera showed on the screen.

"Why?" he demanded. He sounded defensive and she supposed it fit to his crossed arms.

As she deliberated what best to say (The yeti is on the loose? Cthulu's spawn has been sighted in these woods?) she realized there was something odd about the camera and the phone and most importantly the fact that he was out here at all.

"Why don't you tell me why you're here instead?"

"No deal."

Damn it. She couldn't just warn him there was a monster loose. He'd have questions, and he'd think her mad, and besides, she had a hunch he already knew about the sightings if he was here in the middle of the night with a camera.

She straightened her shoulders, watched as he shrank back ever so slightly, probably not even conscious he did it, and relaxed again. Scaring this kid wasn't the way to go. He was already scared, whatever had possessed him to come out here to re-enact Ghostbusters.

"I was just investigating a crash site," she said, casually, trying to make her voice sound calm, unexcited. "An older lady tried to offroad here and she's in the hospital now. As an officer it's my duty to inspect, yada yada. You know all this. You've seen police work before."

His mouth was still pressed together and she thought he was chewing his lip, but he nodded, carefully.

"Anything you can tell me about the crash, since you're here?"

It was difficult to tell but she thought he paled somewhat.

"If you don't know anything, that's all right. I'm - I got a bit carried away chasing you, that's all. I'm not gonna arrest you." She paused. "I got two more donuts in the car if you like."

"No."

She lifted an eyebrow. "You don't think I'll leave you here by yourself, hm?" Yeti or not, it was late, and way past a teenager's time to be on deserted country roads. "As an officer it's my duty to -"

"All right, all right," he said. "I'll come with you, but, but not to the road."

"Not the road, and why not?"

He didn't respond. Riz was about to repeat her question when something drew her attention to his eyes like a sudden gunshot. Her words stopped in mid sentence she stared. It seemed the boy's eyes were turning red. There was something in them... and a reflection of something small behind her -

Her hand was halfway toward the gun as she whirled around. The boy was staring at the street and now she was too and there was... something out there on the road. It was hazy and dark, but tall, almost half as tall as the trees around it, with two antler-like protrusions on top of its enlongated head. Riz felt suddenly cold. Her breath stopped, and it seemed like her pulse did too as she stared at the road.

Isn't that a cliffhanger!

As always comments are appreciated! And now back to my other project.

[Chapter 1] of [Book I likely won't finish]

Here as requested: (PS: http://jmtrent.blogspot.nl/2017/12/do-you-have-to-write-every-idea-into.html)

This is simply chapter one of the story that came into my mind yesterday. I'm not sure it's my story to write - but I did get a request to put it up/show it to the world - so enjoy!

65-year old Henny Pipers was driving home alone on a rural road in CO when what she later described as a man-beast appeared in front of her car. Mrs. Pipers's wild ride hit a tree and uprooted...

Riz threw the article on her desk in digust. Mrs. Pipers saw a man-beast had she?

"Where is she now?"

"Ahh... that's a difficult question."

"I'm not in the mood, detective Huber."

"It is a difficult question, however. Mrs. Pipers, you could say, suffered some trauma and is unavailable for comment at the current."

Riz turned her scowling face towards the detective. She hadn't become a police officer to listen to fairytales of man-beats loose in the countryside. And yet the frequency with which these reports were coming in was mounting.

"How does this -" Her hand flicked at the article. "-know that she encountered a man-beast then?"

"She was on the phone with her husband, Mr. Pipers."

The detective's words only agitated her further. She'd seen Mrs. Pipers's phone (It had been confiscated as evidence when she rolled over the three cars in front of hers in her sudden panic) and it was definitely not designed to take calls through the car's speaker system.

"While driving?" she snapped.

"While driving," he confirmed.

Riz's temper was bad enough as it was with all the fictitious cases that'd come her way this week, and now this.

"You want me to write her up?"

"I want you to speak to her," he said, seriously, then on a lighter note, "but yes, the rules must be observed as well. Mrs. Pipers isn't exempt from fines."

Riz grabbed her uniform jacket to head out. It was late and she'd been looking forward to a quiet night, but now, with all these cases about monster men, and the strange tracks found, her mind spun too wildly to rest.

"Why don't you come to my apartment?" Mel said as she passed the other deputy's desk. "We could order pizza, watch a movie..." Her voice trailed off.

And then what? Riz thought. Have sex? She didn't need sex. She needed to find out why all of Blackwater had suddenly gone insane with these fairytales.

"No."

Mel crossed her arms. It wasn't as if Riz didn't like her - actually more than that, because who wouldn't immediately fall for those dark locks and pretty lips, and pretty tits - but the cases. The cases of the fairytale monsters. About a week ago people had started seeing bigfoot here and there on deserted country roads, and some accidents had happened because of it. Two people had died. The third, the passenger in the back seat (also the only one with a seatbelt), spoke of a man-thing that suddenly appeared before them out of the woods. It had antlers and walked on two legs. That was about all he'd seen, and now it was on Riz to figure it all out. A man in a carnival suit? An elk rearing up on its hind legs when the light startled it? And yet eyewitness acounts claimed there had been something ominous about the creatures. A black veil around them, or a black sort of fog, and its eyes gleamed like, as one eyewitness named it, 'the devil's eyes in embers'.

Riz stared at Mel (or rather her boobs, because it was difficult to keep eye-contact when her mind was somewhere else) and scowled.

Unless they weren't fariytales.

Mel lifted an eyebrow as she crossed her arms.

"Clarisse?"

But Riz had already unravelled her arms again and was rushing out into the corridor to grab her coat. It didn't matter if they were fairytales or if they weren't. If she went home, she wouldn't be able to sleep, and if she stayed in, Mel would drive her crazy with those boobs and lips, and detective Huber would bother her about more fairy cases. So why shouldn't she investigate herself?

Leshen! Do you HAVE TO write every idea into a book?

I went out to cycle around the close-by lake yesterday. It's about an hour and a half around and you can cross some islands (pirate island is one of them! Treasure island another!) while you do it. Treasure island (where you start) has a small path across it. This path is about one bicycle wide and surrounded by the lake/rivers on either side of it. As you'd expect close to the water there's also some brushwork around the water's edge and some trees stretch their branches over the path. It's quite idyllic.


It's also scary when you're alone (but that might just be my imagination).


As I was riding my bicycle through it I had this idea: what if suddenly a leshen appeared out of the brushwork before me? It was quiet and though the bushes around the edges of this path aren't particularly thick it seemed entirely possible.

(PS: if you don't know what a leshen is you absolutely need to google! They look awesome. They're a kind of ancient spirit - at least in the Witcher - with human-ish bodies and elk skulls/antlers. They must be one of my favourite monster of all time.)

Let's get back to the story:

A few leafs got stuck in my wheel and I got off the bicycle to remove them.

I DID look over my shoulder while doing it but predictably there was no leshen (sigh).

I got back on my ride and had the idea that: what if there's this old lady driving her car in rural Colorado (or somewhere else?) when suddenly this elk-man thing jumps out at her? I gave her a name: Henny. Henny doesn't have time to do much except push the brakes and steer away and because she's old she has a near heart attack. This gets back to the sherrif's department when Henny's husband calls into report the accident.

Henny's file is placed in front of my main character's desk (a woman called Clarisse INSERTLASTNAME). The department of course doesn't believe in Henny's elk-man BUT there have been other such incidents where a leshen was spotted. Riz's superior wants her to write Henny up because when speeding away she crashed her car into two others (or a tractor) on the other lane. Riz is getting tired of these yeti-reports she gets daily and though her job is easy (write a speeding ticket) there's been too many coincidental reports of fairytale monsters to sit still.

At the end of the first chapter Riz is going to rural CO to find out what the heck Henny and the other witnesses have seen.

This is where I stopped writing yesterday and I've been considering the story ever since. I have this voice (obsession) urging me to write the rest but at the same time I'm not sure this is a book I should/would write. I probably could. It seems like I have to (thanks obsessive compulsive) but I'm not sure that I want to.

Here's the argument in my mind:

I only have one other new project going and the rest are edits. I might as well try this story out.

However - I've already started a new story and I keep starting stories I don't finish. Do I want to add another?

And also: I am currently editing two stories and have one more on the back burner to edit. Do I really need more work on my plate?

These are all questions you should keep in mind. I have no clever answer - or any answer really - in this post. I'm still trying to figure it out myself.


Here's my favourite part of the first chapter however:

"Why don't you come to my apartment?" Mel said as she passed the other deputy's desk. "We could order pizza, watch a movie..." Her voice trailed off.

And then what? Riz thought. Have sex? She didn't need sex. She needed to find out why all of Blackwater had suddenly gone insane with these fairytales.

Merry Christmas!

I haven't been able to do too much these last few weeks. I called in ill Tuesday the week before last and haven't been to my day job since because of burn-out. In the first four days after calling in sick I managed to write 40k words because another project fell apart. I'm now working on it from another angle.

Depression's kept me mostly in the house meanwhile. As stated in my last post I ordered lots of food because I was too exhausted to make any. HOWEVER. I have also been more productive with THINGS THAT MATTER (TM) than in the months before.

I have FINALLY FINISHED a novella I've been trying to work out the last two years since early (March) 2015. This is called ELEGY OF THE STARS and you can read the first 'chapter' (It's not really meant to be read in chapters) here: Elegy of the Stars Chapter 1

This novella was extremely emotionally taxing and the last kick I needed - apparently - was the absolute and complete meltdown I had last week. I spent a few hours crying to myself and ranting on reddit and then spent some more hours pitying myself. This happens to me approximately once a year or so. It's no longer a big deal. It stills feels bad. It felt bad enough I didn't manage to send proper Christmas gifts or invite anyone over. (However a quiet Christmas is sometimes nice and it gives me additional recovery time!)

Anyway... let's go back to the novella now that you have some insight in what depression has been doing to me the last few weeks.

As I said this novella was insanely difficult to finish despite being only 30k words. I picked it up and dropped it about 4-5 times before because it was just so incredibly emotionally taxing to write it.

Elegy of the Stars is about this little girl (Oria) struggling to survive on the streets of a small planet called Glast. The plot's already explained in the post linked above so I won't go into more detail. I'd rather talk about the worldbuilding of it! Here we go.

Glast:

This planet isn't in view of any sun (the planet Reath is blocking the sun year round) and so scientists had to make their own artificial star - the Seirios. The Seirios sits on top of the main Administrative building in the only and very small and dirty city of Glast - Oblivion - and the star's light is transported via light pipes to fields and so on to keep the planet lit. The streets are harsh: during the creation of the Seirios radiation went rampant and a lot of people (90%) got infected by the mutation virus that came with it. They're not all that there any more and part of that infected population has formed a cult around the Seirios. There's also miners who like little girls and boys. However the most problematic part of this population is the healthy citizens of Oblivion. They've always had access to the radiation vaccine and they basically rule the planet. They're the cultivators who produce the food and supplies everyone needs but almost no one can afford. They're also not altruistic.

This is the world Oria has to navigate and she can only rely on herself. During the years on the street she's allowed one person to rely on her but eschews all other forms of communication or teamwork with even fellow street rats. This changes when she meets Quinn. He saves her life and suddenly she's in his debt. He has an easy solution to getting rid of that debt but when she agrees to it instead of getting rid of Quinn she falls into even deeper debts to him.

There is a lot of pain and struggle in the story. It's not something that I'd usually write (probably that is why it was so hard). I don't like reading depressing stories and don't like writing them either. And yet. This was a story I couldn't get out of my mind. I mean I could. I got it off my mind a year and then another - but at some point I had to return. I had to try again. And it's finally done!

So what are the next steps?

I've commissioned my cover artist to make cover for the story and I hope to be done with the last edit (spellings and general polishing) by the time the cover is done. And then it's off to KDP!

Again! If you want to read the first chapter please click here: Elegy of the Stars Chapter 1

I'll post some more chapters (probably the whole novella) in the future and will have some small comments about what was so difficult! Tune in if you like.

PS: I'm also always happy about comments!

Here's one of my current WIP's: Elegy of the Stars Chapter 1

All right. As I've recently read a book (a great book! Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon!) and he recommends showing/sharing what you're working on I've decided I'ma try it.

I wrote this novella (it's complete at approximately 30k words) around (almost) three years ago in March 2015.

Elegy of the Stars is set on a planet called Glast. It's in traveling distance of Earth and the novella revolves about Oria, a street girl who doesn't rely on anyone but herself. During a theft gone wrong she suddenly has to trust another street rat, Quinn, to get her to safety, and a sort of relationship between the two forms. They plan a heist to the local star-cult to steal enough food to survive the winter. But if that heist goes wrong... both of them might not survive.

Here is chapter one of Elegy of the Stars:

1.

I am Seirios.

Sirius in your language.

The watcher on the evening sky, who guides your seafarers home in even the darkest of nights.

Thirteen years ago she was born and they created a star; a binary star system in the center of Oblivion, the sole city on the planet Glast, the place of her birth and dreary existence. They called it Seirios. The Scorcher. A bit like her own name, Oria, which meant bright and burning in the language of Glast. Seirios destroyed the world as they knew it. Its genesis – also called the Cataclysm – collapsed laboratory of the time and pulverized most of the city into white-hot debris. But still, an achievement was an achievement.

Oria clutched the colourful scarf tighter around her thin neck and suppressed a snort as she averted her eyes from the stars where they gleamed from the shrine atop the Hall of Harvest. She would have been more impressed if what was left of the Administrative Council came up with a way to feed those who starved and froze to death next to her in the dusty alleys and derelict buildings of Oblivion. Heber had told her the Consortium of Science's power was reduced now that they had been decimated, most, if not all, of its members... changed by the radiation.

Heber was an idiot. He knew nothing about the real world beyond his science and math and all the other useless things he tried to teach her when she visited.

Why would he even think she wanted to know she was thirteen human years old? That Glast rotated around a sun so far away one human year stretched to 500 Glast days? How the Seirios cult operated? What the cultivators had done to the scientists to drag them down into the hole they were in now? What did it matter when she was trying not to starve or freeze to death every other day?

And it wasn't even winter yet.

Her teeth clattered at the thought but it might also have been the chill wind ghosting through the alley. How was she going to survive the cold season with its ice storms and perpetual darkness this year?

She crouched to check whether her moccasins were hidden by the hem of her trousers. The toes when she peeled away the soles were purplish-blue with the cold. She had to be careful if she didn't want to lose one of them – perhaps swipe a scrap of leather somewhere to close the holes before winter arrived. Still. To the west a scattering of suns too distant to provide much warmth or light was rising and they would do for now. They would have to – or she would be weak again tomorrow. Her stomach grumbled. It had been doing that for a while.

Oria let the soles go, and they popped back against the rim with a weak crack. Her hands went up to her dark hair and she gathered it into the balloon cap Heber had given her when she asked if he had anything less conspicuous than the dress he tried to deal her the last time. She dropped the filthy blanket that hadn't been washed since she swiped it from the clothes line from her shoulders and stood. The wind increased. Her nose seemed to blister with the cold as she made her way down the alley to its mouth.

Still.

It couldn't be helped. She hadn't eaten anything solid in two and a half days and nobody could survive on a sip of water muddied with rat excrement and pieces of mouldy bread somebody else already half chewed and then spit out alone.

She drew the hat deeper into her face as she exited the alley's south end and the glow of Seirios increased. The Hall of Harvest was still a few minutes walk, and the distance felt like a trip to Earth with her empty belly and all but bare feet unprotected from the wood-and-glass splinter strewn ground, but the artificial star bathed the city itself into a beautiful light.

It was easier to be a boy on the street. Nobody looked twice at a farmhand on their way back to the master they served, but they would want to take advantage of a lonely girl. Not that she was a solitary case in the city, an abandoned girl looking for food and shelter, but if Heber had taught her anything useful at all, then it was that men didn't care whether there were other girls just as vulnerable as she when they found her first. Of course, she hadn't know what that meant at the time, but several long years on the street had wisened her. Which was the reason she now carried a knife whereever she went. Which also was the reason she was glad to have a chest as flat as any boy's, on contrary to the older girls she sometimes met.

She ignored the guards' stares as she approached the Hall of Harvest. Today she was an acolyte of the Seirios – the child of the Administrator or one of the other cultivators – out to attend her first (or second) convergence with the adults. It was best she pretended to belong even if she didn't. The guards wore uniforms and weapons. They were initiates into the official ranks. The ones who still had to prove themselves to the Administrator and his staff. At least that was what Heber said.

Her pulse quickened as she came to the gates. Would they let her through? Was it usual for children to arrive early at the festival market without their parents? She wouldn't know. She didn't have any parents nor did she care to. The only person closest to a father was Heber, and Heber would have reproached her if he knew about this plan.

And yet.

How else was she going to survive? He couldn't feed another mouth. He had it hard enough with his sick sister and even if he would have let her stay with him she could fend for herself. It was difficult enough to feed one person.

Then she was through.

The Hall of Harvest itself was the size of one of the giant spaceships that made the trip to distant Earth every once in a while and would do so again after winter started. Once filled with wealthy scholars and scientists, or so she had been told, the only people who were able to afford the market nowadays were the farmers and asteroid miners themselves. The ceiling crisscrossed with intricately carved light-pipes that transported the Seirios's illumination to the distant fields on the other side of the planet and made the cultivators richer every day.

The market itself was a coagulation of carts and stalls with wide displays of food almost nobody could afford, situated in the heart of Oblivion's least destroyed district. Oria strolled along the aisles casually, dark hair tucked away into her hat, gaze cast down though there was nothing to see underfoot but sand and dirt. It hadn't taken long for her to learn that it was best to appear as if you belonged even if you didn't.

She found her target relatively quickly. A stand half concealed between two others, whose owner sold fruit, like apples and pears and grapes, and that Seirios-mutated fruit called starfruit, which supposedly tasted like sweet sugary heaven, and which she had never had and could never afford. The symbol of the Administrative Council was painted on the wooden frame of his stand. Another Cataclysm-richened farmer.

The farmer himself was fat and bald. Most of them were fat. Two apples less wouldn't hurt that one's wallet, but that didn't mean he was going to give them up for free.

Oria picked her way closer, always staying hidden inside the shade cast by the surrounding ruins, her gaze darting around for guards or cultists. It was a gamble and the wager was her life. If she was caught by the city watch she would be whipped and beheaded on the public spot to set an example.

But she wouldn't be caught. The farmers lived in abundance and didn't pay enough attention to the paupers who starved in droves just around their corners. On top of that she was fast, faster than anybody she knew, and she knew a fair few fast rats around these perimeters, most of who couldn't be trusted, the rest crippled or blind from the Cataclysm and in much more need than even herself. That was why her next stop would be the deformed old man close to the Seirios Cult's headquarters. Though she could hardly afford it, she had allowed him to rely on her.

And then maybe she would check on useless Heber, see if he hadn't died of idiocy yet, or his mutated sister hadn't gone insane, as many of the mutation victims did, and murdered him in his sleep.

But that was after.

Oria slowed her steps as she approached her target's stand. She had already caught sight of her quarry, two apples at the lowest edge of the layered display, one of them wizened and the sickly pale colour of diseased skin, nothing the high society would want to buy anyway, the other round and red as her cheeks would have been had she been one of the councilmen's children, and was scouring the lavish display for anything else she could take.

A scrap of leather to wrap around her shoes so the soles would last another day? A morsel of bread to go with the apples? Maybe even an egg from that basket a little higher up? But that would be too risky. The apples were already uncertain enough although she could swipe those without raising her arms, inconspicuously, and be gone before the farmer noticed they were missing, which she doubted he ever would in any case.

Oria reached the stall. There was a basket of turnips on the other end from which she could grab a handful when she left, but for the moment her attention was focused solely on appearing as if she belonged, and that included wearing an impassive and impertinently unconcerned expression and not staring at the goods even though their delicious scent was enough to drive her mad with hunger.

Quick as an arrow she snatched the two apples without halting her pace, just as she had planned, just as she had done several times before, ambling along casually, without so much as a tiny skip in her step, and stowed them inside her shirt. The process was so familiar by now that her heart didn't even speed as it had the first few thefts. Then it was time for the turnips.

She was small enough she wouldn't have to bend to reach the basket. It would do to stretch out her left hand, snatch a turnip, and then proceed leisurely back to the end of the market from which she had come, where she could begin to sprint back to her sheltered alley and examine her loot.

She hadn't taken so much as a step forward when a hand grabbed her from behind.

You can also find it here if you use fictionpress (sorry! I'm old-fashioned): https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3318299/1/Elegy-of-the-Stars

If you want, leave some comments, either here or on fictionpress! Every input helps!

Depression and why you should NOT be a writer every day

I want to talk about taking breaks.

I'll talk a little bit more about myself first (but there'll be practical advice too so stick with it!). I'll tell you about my life for one reason: It's vital to understanding my art. In order to do this let me explain a bit about depression.

Imagine going to sleep at 9 PM and waking up ten hours later still (or perhaps already) tired. Imagine having to order food twice or three times in a row because you weren't able to face going outside/to face reality/to face other people and maybe having to speak to the cashier in at the store. That's just a short insight in what depression can be like. I don't want to bore you.

It suffices to say depression is a terrible ghost. I'd love to exorcise it but that will never truly be possible and it does sometimes affect my work. I don't have as much energy to write and I need to take breaks often during the day. I also have a day job.

In addition to having depression I'm also a perfectionist. I can't just put 'any' short story or novel out there even if it sounds good in my head or is mostly completed. If it's missing the special spark it has no place under my name.

I won't lie. I don't always do good work and sometimes it's true crap as well. I'm not always as productive as I could be (thank you reddit). But I do my best. I do as much as I can every single day, even if I know some projects won't work out.

Doing my best means - for me - also taking breaks. If you're burnt out, then the best you can do is take a break and forget those spivs trying to convince you you're not a real writer if you take a day, a week, a month, or even a year or two off. Writing is a profession as any other. Would you say a policeman isn't a policeman because he doesn't work one weekend of the month? If he takes a year off to recover? Police work is hard work and so is writing - a book or short story or anything else you pour your heart into and risk your (mental/virtual) life for. And that's what a good book should be. It should risk your reputation and challenge everything you ever believed.

You deserve to take breaks just like the coffeeshop lady eating her sandwich in the back.

And if this doesn't convince you yet then consider that: Don't want to write for a month? Ok. A lot of people will think or tell you you're not/no longer a SERIOUS WRITER (TM). I won't because that's bullshit (reasons explained above). But let's say you're no longer a writer because you dared take a break. You know what? The moment you pick up your pen or keyboard again you'll be a writer again - just like magic! Any really. I'd rather not be a writer for a year, then be one again, if that helps me stay relatively sane.

I'm not sure if this'll be of any help to anyone but I often have to give myself permission to take a break. It's not easy. I'd love to work every day the whole day and write 20 million books a year.

But it's not possible.

Depression makes writing everything even more exhausting than it is/has to be and I'm probably a lot more sensitive than others to the break-needs because of that. However - everyone needs a break every once in a while to stay healthy. So please take a break. Do it before you burn out. Do it now if you feel like your head is stuffy/about to explode.

You can still be a writer tomorrow or next month.

A long hiatus... but I have good news!

I know I haven't posted in a while. I'm sorry. I'll be trying to post more but I didn't want to spam y'all with useless posts. If I have nothing to say I'd rather shut up most of the time. (Unless it's an argument I need to win!!!!)

Anyway! I wanted to take the time to list some accomplishments before the new years starts and you're all welcome to participate/tell me about yours! (PS: this blog will turn more informal than it has been.)

So.

What have I done this year?

1. I've finished the third draft of my post-apocalyptic dinosaur and cyborg book. This is great news because it means only one more draft and it's done! I'll be sending it out to agents (and publishers in some cases) and hope someone takes it! My beta reader has also been very positive about this book so that makes me double happy.

2. I wrote about three short stories. I've sent one to the New Yorker because it applies to the real world (strangely enough) and is about a popular current topic (children's privacy on the internet/especially concerning pictures). I'm pretty sure they won't want it but hey! Worth a try anyway. I'll probably be putting it into a collection on amazon soon. It's called KIDNAPPING SKY.

3. I have three wonderful covers on three of my short stories! I love them and they're done by the very talented Hannah Hilton (link to follow shortly).

Here they are:


also following shortly with amazon link

On Amazon!

On Amazon!

On Amazon!

4. I've also read 30 books of my 53 book goal! I'd hoped to do more but am not terribly disappointed. 30 is good. 52 would be better but I did my best and it just wasn't possible. I'll try again in the New Year! :)

That's it from me folks. How about you?

PS: Merry Christmas! It's only three more days!

I want to quit. But then I don't.

I just got home from w- don't even want to say the word. I left around 11 hours ago at 07:40 AM (it's 6:40 PM now) and that's only because I was able to leave earlier and catch an earlier train. Usually I get home at 7 PM.

I want to quit.

It's not just the sh*tty dayjob. It's the depression and constant boredom that comes with it. Do you know what else? It's the time I don't have if I want to live a life. I am supposed to get up around 06:40 AM if I'm to make the 08:02 train. I'm supposed to go to sleep early... but then where is the life?

I try to squeeze writing in whenever I can (such as now). I get up at 05:00 - 05:30 in the morning for that extra hour and it's f*cking damn hard. (PS: I don't like to swear). It means 7 hours of sleep - or 6 if I still want to have a life and, you know, hobbies.

Yes, many people are going through this. I'm sure. But I'm not many people.

Ok, but, you're talking about writing here, yes? So what's the point of this rant? What has this to do with writing?

Everything.

The dayjob leaves me drained and tired and I just want to curl up underneath the blankets in the 160x200 cm bed and stay there until it all ends. But then... writing.

I get to my desk, which is a safe zone or, let's call it refuge, for me. There's papers all over, drafts from years ago, drafts from minutes ago, some printed out, some scribbled in notebooks, and on top of it all, my kindle. And another notebook (this one half the size of the others). And a green pen. And a blue pen. And another half-size notebook. And my cup. The cup. And my nail clippers (because I don't have the time to go the bathroom to clip my nails.) (PS: don't worry though, the nails, once cut, all get thrown away, properly. I'm not a complete... I'd say pig, but pigs are actually very clean animals.)

Anyway...

This is my safe zone, but until I get there, life sucks.

And then there's the constant doubt about myself

I feel like I'm not good enough, not smart enough. In 2012 I wrote 5 books (a series of 5, about 100k-160k words each) and started 2-3 more drafts. In 2013 and 2014 I wrote about 2-3 books and started some more drafts. In 2015 I managed 1 or 2 books and some short stories. I'm mostly happy with those short stories (also available to read here: ?) and I've struggled to make some of the books work (especially the earlier ones). I finally decided this is it (several times) and dropped those ancient drafts to write something new.

In 2016 and 2017 I did about 1 full book each and several first drafts / new edits of old books. I also wrote more short stories. (Most of which still need to be edited.)

I'm getting to the point where my first drafts are pretty lean. They're understandable (even by people who are not me) and the prose is quite all right. But it's the edits that make me despair. How do I fix something that's broken?

I don't feel like I'm smart enough to do it. I've tried, with those books from 2012, and I'm trying every year. I went through another round just a while ago... but it never works out. Is the trick to drop these and do new projects? Edit something 'younger'? But even then, I'm afraid to fail. I've been putting it off and reading self-help books (some of which are quite good) and writing craft books (still working on a list resource of the best books I found to publish on here) and I've recently started to read 'The Artful Edit' by Susan Bell. I'm 10% in and quite excited.

But most of all, I've started the edit on a project I haven't touched in two years. That's hard and it's harsh, but with the experience (all the failed things) I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's still hard. I'm now beating myself up because... what if I don't manage to get it up to speed? What if this will be another dropped project? It might be. I want to be realistic. I'll waste away at the dayj- even longer.

And then what?

I have other things to edit, it's true.

But what if none of them work? I'm already drained.

What if?

You know what if?

I'll get up even earlier (though not all the time) and I'll edit more. And more. And I'll edit more after that. And more.

And at some point, hey, it has to work, right?

Just like I once got a nice comment instead of a standard rejection back from a short story anthology.

And if it doesn't work? Well, f*ck that. It has to work, and if it doesn't, I'll still do it, because my desk is my safe space, and this is what I chose to do.

JMT


(PS: Hope you have a better day than me! Cheers)

DON'T write every day

Hi

I've been thinking about this a lot and thought I'd make a post about it. DON'T write every day.

Why not??!?!?!?! I hear you scream in despair. EVERYONE tells you to do it! Every writer tells us to write every day!

Yeah... but not me.

When I say I've been thinking about it a lot, I mean obsessively, compulsively. I've studied this stuff. I know my stuff. I've tried to write every day. I did. I swear. Every day, and in the beginning, it was fine, I got work done, it was fun. I wrote 5-10k a day and after a week or so I'd maybe take a day off... then continue writing 5-7k a day. That's most of the day. 9 AM to 11 PM. I did nothing but write and the occasional ten minutes of surfing funny pics online.

I did this for about a year.

Every day. Monday-Sunday with the occasional day off. (Good times, no day job, "studying" at university without going to lectures).

I then... was finished with 3 books and wrote the next... started editing the first... went to the next...

Skip forward.

I moved. I had all the time in the world still, but I couldn't focus on ANYTHING. Never mind for 12 hours like I used to.

Time passed (as it does).

I tried to at least write so and so many words a day. It worked somewhat.

BUT:

and here's the whole reason for this post.

It didn't work ALWAYS.

I get tired. I get demotivated. I realized that some stories just don't want to be written - or at least not by me. I try to force myself... at least 1k a day... at least 500 words a day. Can I do 100 words and say it's an achievement? But it's not. I can do 1.5k in 30 mins fairly easily. Yes, this sounds a lot like boasting, but once I'm into something, the writing flies, and time doesn't.

But it's no good. It's no good to force yourself.

So... why do you tell us this now? Why the sudden wisdom?

You've read last week's post? Yah. That's why. Trying to force myself to write every day (instead of when it was REALLY pressing and I had the STRONG URGE to write) made me burn out. It's done this quite a few times by now and I'm starting to see a pattern there.

So.

Don't write every day.

I know I won't. It makes me crazy. I'm fine taking a few weeks break's between projects... and at other times I'd rather write compulsively the whole day/a whole week/month than force myself to write during those 'down-times'. It's useless. All it does is make me hate ever having chosen to sit down/get up at 5 AM. And that's not an environment to write in.

If you don't want to write, don't. Take a break.

The writing, if it's meant for you, if it's your story to tell, and if you're truly a writer, will come to you. When it is ready. Not when you're trying to force it.

It helped me to realize this (although no doubt in a few week's time I'll be crying and whining about how much I suck again). I hope this helps anyone else too!

PS: don't think this is an easy process to decide. I've been bombarded with write every day for years... and I feel guilty if I don't. But for me, this just doesn't work. I can't force the writing, at least not if I want to be good, if I want it to be coherent. And to be honest, I have way too many ideas in my mind to edit a piece 20 times if it doesn't come out at least decent right away. No single idea is THAT important. And if you only have one idea? Then it's ok that you quit after you're done with it. I can guarantee another idea will show up at you door and knock you over. In time. It might not be tomorrow, or next week, and perhaps not even this year.

But in time, another idea will find you, and you'll catch fire, like you did with that first idea. That's when you write. When you NEED to write, or otherwise, you might die.

Cheers!

I suck at... everything

Hi

I'm not very active here any more (figured it's pointless and I don't like it much anyway) and I'm sorry this will be a bit depressing. See, that's me. A month ago everything was going, if not smoothly, at least well. I finished a book at about 50k words (this is my ninth so far), and, because I don't edit right away but let it simmer, I hopped to the next project. The characters made sense, they did things, for a while. Then the whole project just crashed and burned... like the short stories I have up on KDP. I'm ok with this. It didn't work out, cool. It has some 40k words, but those can be sacrificed. It's an exercise, it didn't work out, plus, I can make a wholly different story out of a part of it. It's not a big deal.

Except it is.

My short story sales are... (dejected sound from low to high). I can't seem to edit the first book I ever wrote properly, and that's a series of 5... which I get back to to agonize over every year or so. I'll "fix it" but get stuck... quit that again, and start something new. This is all fine, all right, but dude, it is so painful. I wrack my mind, heart, soul, and every once in a while, there will be a solution, but it's not right. It felt so pure, writing it and editing it, and anything I do now, because in the five years since I wrote it I've grown up, realized how bad it was, feels so dirty.

But let's get back to the point of this rant, if we can find one.

I feel like I suck and my whole life is pointless. That day job I talked about? Worst job ever. My life? Worst life ever. My writing? ... I think you get it.

Conclusion? I know this'll be over soon and then my life will be fine again. But to everyone who feels the same, this might be relevant. Whatever you're feeling now, what's happened, it won't stay. Life will move on, it'll fix itself. You'll move on with it. And perhaps, you'll even find a plug for this hole in your writing.

Have a good day