I think I was still in middle school, in the early 1970s, when I decided I wanted to be a writer. I started making up stories as a kid in the '60s, but made a conscious decision to follow that path circa '72 or '73. I never achieved any notable success as a writer of...well, anything, but I did sell a bunch of nonfiction (mostly about rock 'n' roll) as a freelancer. As a practicing late bloomer, I finally made my first fiction sales in 2019. I've sold seven short stories (and spent every dime of what I earned concocting 'em), with an eighth short currently pending. Five of those seven short stories can also hang together as the rough start of a novel. Six other stories that didn't sell may yet find their way into a self-published anthology. Maybe. But I'm still writing.
I always have a number of drafts at some stage of nowhere-near-done-yet. Today's post sews together the opening bits from a number of different short stories in progress. Only the beginnings. New stories have to start somewhere. Some of these will remain unfinished. Some may grow into something.
So! Let's begin....
He wasn't really used to big cities. But being in a teeming metropolis didn't bother him. The twenty years he'd spent on the run from the law taught him to adapt, to find his place in whatever place he found himself. Places were temporary. As a fugitive, he usually wouldn't stick around long enough to care all that much about where he was.
The ghost of Quisling knocked back a drink. The liquor had no effect on him. Souls damned to spend eternity in Hell felt no buzz from alcohol, no fulfillment from food, no relief from any resource, no matter how much they consumed. Quisling drank anyway, out of habit. He downed another shot before rising to greet the tourists that had entered his dismal office.
"Vidkun Quisling at your service," he purred, his cheery facade unconvincing to anyone who bothered to pay attention. The indifference of his guests rendered the point moot. "I shall be your tour guide on your visit to Hell."
Type casting? Not Exactly.
Darren was 13 years old, and his parents had just divorced.
My Mom used to joke that she was gay, but that she wasn't very good at it. If a pretty boy's face caught her fancy, she would turn hetero for a night or a weekend. But she always, always returned to her one true love.
Captain Whirlwind surveyed the battlefield around him. His usual smile was not in evidence, his cheerful demeanor displaced by a sober, somber visage. He knew all was lost. It was an unfamiliar feeling. He didn't have any experience in how he should react to that dull certainty.
There had been a Rapture. But it was fleeting, temporary, not eternal.
I was dreaming. In the dream, I was still a little girl, five years old.
I knew it was a dream. I'm a grown woman, a widow, an occasional writer, and an occasional insomniac. When I did sleep, I didn't dream. But I was dreaming now.
I was dreaming that it was 1965. The year my parents divorced. The year my Aunt Ellis died. The dream wasn't about any of that.
The dream was about television.
Time travel carries certain inherent restrictions. You can't change the past, of course; you can't prevent 9/11, bet on stocks, or facilitate a second season of Freaks And Geeks. You can't hook up with your college crush, nor interact in any way with anyone in a previous time. You are there to observe, not participate. The temporal natives won't even notice you're there.
All of the restrictions were okay with Scott. All he wanted was a Club Burger.
Those are my assembled openings. One of them already has several additional paragraphs written, and most have only gotten as far as you see them here. There are a number of other stories with just a title and nothing more. Guess I have some work to do.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.
I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl
No comments:
Post a Comment