Category Archives: From The Writing Desk

Deep in Rewrite land

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I’ve been deconstructing the first part of Mind The Slice, which is a slow and deliberative process. Part of it is replacing the first several chapters of the novel, starting it closer to the core action.
Lilah, of course, as opinions on this. I thought it would be fun to write a prologue in her voice, and she really ran with the ball. I don’t know if this is going to make the final cut, but I love how she has no fucks to give.



Prologue

Someone told me once what a prologue was. Honestly, at first I thought they were joking. Like why the fuck do you need to write about a story before the story? That’s just dumb. Can’t you just write it right to begin with?

But then they explained it was more about voice, and tone, and I was all, “Voice? Oh honey, I got this one.”

So here’s my fucking prologue.

None of you know what its like to be me. None of you. You think you know what the world is like, sitting there is your safe little houses with plenty of food to eat, and nothing to worry about. Do you know what its like to not eat for a week? Do you know what it’s like to hear the sound of helicopters and know down to your bones that someone around you is going to die? Do you know what its like to sleep out in the cold without blankets or coats because your house just got bombed, and all your belongings are buried under tons of concrete?

See, I know what your world is like. I lived in it too, up until your President decided that people like me couldn’t be trusted, and kicked my family out. I’ve been to your schools, shopped in your malls, I’ve seen your Christmas lights, I’ve gone trick-or-treating, I’ve been to your national parks. I was there, I had it all, I thought it was mine as well, but then it was taken from me, swapped for a country in the middle of a civil war, and all because my family worshiped Allah. 

I know what it’s like to be you, but you don’t know what it’s like to be me.

Did you think I started to hack for fun? Oh no. I turned to crime because there was nothing left for me to do. You saw to that. You and your people. So don’t go giving me that bullshit about being a criminal. YOU MADE ME ONE. I would have been happy pretending like I was one of you, but you decided that wasn’t enough. You’re the ones that made sure I couldn’t join your little club, so don’t go fucking crying to me when you have to hear what I have to say. You sent me down this path, mother fuckers. You made me what I am.

The only time you think about people like me is when you bomb us. And yes, you totally fucking bomb us. Don’t think we don’t know? Are you so lost in your own special world to not realize you paint your names and serial numbers on the outside of your ordinance? Sure, some of the bombs come from Russia, and even some from North Korea or even Iran, but we can read that shit too. Like you’re the only ones with access to goggle translate.

Discounts, discounts, everyone over there is looking for a discount. Well let me tell you something, dis-count, this count. I count too. 

I have dreams, I have desires, I am going to write my own path, and you cheap-assed mother fuckers are not getting in my way. I will go behind you, or over you, or around you, or THROUGH you, but you are not going to stop me. No sir. Not no more. I’ve had enough of your set backs. I am moving forward, and you ain’t gonna slow my roll. I am miles above, beyond you, inside you. You cannot stop me because I am in you. I have hacked into your systems, I am deep inside your code. You can’t get to me without first getting to yourself, and you can’t handle that. You can’t deal with your own criminal ways. You don’t want to hear it.

You hate me because I force you to deal with your own shit, and you cannot stand that.

But don’t you worry about me none. I’m gonna be just fine. You wanna know why? Just like you can’t deal with your shit, you also cannot stay mad at yourself either. There always another meal to eat, another tv show watch, another discount to buy at your stores, until you bury yourself so much cheap crap that you don’t hear our screams.

Well guess what, mother fuckers? Someone gave me a microphone, and you’re gonna hear me now, because I am LOUD.

From the Writing Desk, My Beautiful Amador County

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Occasionally I will work on the weekend on a previous story, refining or fixing. This one My Beautiful Amador County had received a lot of work in a rewrite and then sat fallow. I picked up it just for fun and soon was lost in it. The language at the beginning was pretty rough, but once I hammered that out the rest seemed to flow. It still chokes me up at the end even though this is the slowest burning story I have ever written. Fucking Harry takes forever to get to the point, but he is eloquent. Here is is talking to Reginald Pike, who is about to seek his revenge on the richest guy in town.

“Think about it, dear Harry. How does one harm a rich man? If you punch him in the nose, you only end up in jail–for the laws and judges support men like him above all others, save perhaps the elders in the Church. If you burn down his mansions, he’ll simply build more–and if he’s insured then he’ll likely turn a tidy profit in the process. You cannot starve such a man, you cannot harm him. Perhaps you might shoot him, but where is the revenge in that? He dies with as much wealth as he had when he lived. You cannot steal from him, he simply has too much–there is no thief so expert that he could compete with his great pile of capital. No, the only way to harm such a man is to remove from him all of his wealth. But it has to be turned over voluntarily. You cannot take it from him, he has to give it to you. In essence, you have to hang him, but by a noose that he has tied himself.”

My Beautiful Amador County is a story about, high finance, revenge, found-friendships, and what “family” means to those who have been cast from their own. LGBT friendly.

From the Writing Desk

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Work on my next novel “Fight From The Inside” (aka Mind The Slice 2) is moving along at a healthy pace. This is how my work ended yesterday.

Note: this is slightly spoilery for MTS, and is entirely unedited. The person speaking, Amethyst, is looking over the data from something that happened near the very end of MTS, and they are NOT happy.

Here it is:

And then there was the data from the Gap Sampler. Apparently one of the two impossible pair-bounds had destroyed the device, and all the data within it. This was bad as the connection data from the machine would have been highly valuable in terms of verifying how tight they connected to each as, and how well they thought.

As it stood, Amethyst wasn’t even sure which half of the pair had destroyed the machine. Whoever they were, they had been quite thorough, going so far as to remove the delicate data cartridges from the Gap Sampler and atomizing them using a large piece of solidified quartz. Amethyst has seen the photos. It was an impressive amount of destruction, almost as if they had been trained to cover their tracks. 

The last half of that last sentence in interesting. It was a total surprise. I hadn’t even had that thought, right up until I typed it. And then, oh boy, the implications: This, ladies and gentlemen, is what you call a plot point, seen in it’s natural wild state. I’m going to have a lot of fun letting Amethyst chase it down. They will too.