Struggle and Expansion

I struggled with last week’s story for days. I went through at least four different drafts before I got it heading in a direction I thought might work.

For the second week in a row I was writing a story that started out as a dream. The difference is that A Pig Gets His Day flowed out of me with no hesitation. Unconscious Blindness however was so crystal clear in my head but I could not for the life figure out how to transcribe that clarity into a coherent story. It was absolutely infuriating. So even after working with it every single day for a week and going through multiple drafts, I still didn’t get what I wanted from it, but it was close.

I think however that I’m getting better at containing the stories instead of starting unwieldy novels in such a short period of time, which feels pretty good. And I think I’m playing with the flow of language and story progression a bit, which is pretty fun. And I think the characters I’m coming up with are fairly clear and fun to read about.

But I seem to be drawn to writing stories that exist in a genre that I don’t really read. So I’m working hard to expand my reading to encompass more sci-fi/fantasy and mystery/suspense books in an effort to get some insight into story flow and character development within those genres. And the biggest thing, I think, is that I just need practice. So it’s a good thing I’ve got 48 more weeks with this project, if nothing else, at the end I’ll be vastly better read.

So, if you have recommendations for me for books to read, bring them on!!

Unconscious Blindness

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain.” – Carl Jung

Why the hell can’t I open my eyes?!

I know I’m awake, somewhere. My body appears to be intact. Whole. Functional. But there is light, I can see light through my eyelids. Dim, a lamp in a far corner of the room. I’m trying to ignore the panic rolling through my stomach like a tidal wave, trying to ignore it out of existence before it can come crashing down and leave me in hysterics.

The surface under me is hard, too hard to sleep on comfortably and yet I am strangely well rested. Stiff in the pressure point spots, but relatively refreshed. It is quiet but for the sounds of my own breathing. The current in the room has shifted ever so slightly, perhaps the air conditioning turning on? The movement in the air brings to me the dull smell of flowers long since wilted.

Where the hell am I?!

I’m shocked to find my voice sounds strangled. I must reel it in. I must find a way to contain this terror. Here I am with no imminent danger and I am flying to pieces. Breathe. Just breathe. In and out. 700 or so breaths later…

Now. How the hell do I get out of here?

Better. Growing accustomed to the quiet, to the sightlessness of my new existence. Better.

Suddenly there is a bright burst of light that knocks me back into my too hard seat. It’s coming from my right. At first the panic threatens, but there is something about this light. It’s friendly. Natural in some way. More breath. And I’m standing, hands outstretched, feet shuffling slowly one in front of the other so I don’t dent my shins or nose on something in my path. The light is so bright in front of me that I can see the veins in my eyelids, bright blue in a webbed pattern across my vision. This must be sunlight. It feels almost cheery.

I’m close now, to what must be a doorway. It’s channeling the light right into my face, concentrating it into one firm beam. As I cross the threshold, the faint sound of birds chirping reaches me, the distant smell of laundry baking under the hot sun. But there’s something wrong. I can’t feel it. There’s no warmth, there’s no relief to be in this light. There is just a new kind of dread. Because it doesn’t make any sense. Where is the heat? Where is the sense of security that comes from looking up into the sun?

Without introduction, there is someone with me now. I can feel him next to me. Him? Yes definitely, he smells like water. Ethan! It’s Ethan! What the hell is he doing here?

Ethan!! Please, I can’t see, my love, I can’t open my eyes, please help me, you’ve got to help me!

My hands raise to find his face and find his hair instead, all urgency erased I take a moment to revel in just running my fingers through his short hair. Grateful for his presence in this place that makes no sense. I can hear water dripping somewhere and I think maybe he’s just gotten out of the shower, but his hair isn’t wet. But he smells so completely like water, my favorite smell on him. Just the soft scent of his skin rising up through my nose and going straight to my head. I let my fingers dig deeper through his hair trying to trace my way down to the features on his face. But I can feel him disappearing before he’s actually gone.

Distress bubbles up through my throat in the form of a hoarse scream. There are tears in my eyes and flowing down my cheeks. I am scrambling for him before he’s faded completely away. I cannot hold him.

I’m on my feet, running wildly, trying to follow him. But he’s gone. There is no trace that he was ever here with me. I’m on my knees now, my legs no longer strong enough to carry me.

I don’t understand any of this. None of this makes any sense.

There is a jolting smell coming to me now. Bleach I think. It’s burning my nose and throat to the point where I’m starting to wonder if I’m actually drinking the stuff. I’m crawling away from its source, trying to find my way back to the light, trying to get away from the clinical coldness of this smell. I can feel the hardness against my bare legs and the palms of my hands, as if I never really left my original spot, just crawled up onto it. But I have moved, haven’t I? I remember walking, I remember going through the threshold into the room of light, don’t I? I must have, Ethan was here, he was with me. But I have no proof of that, the bleach has scrubbed every smell out of my memory.

I don’t know how long I’ve sat here. I stopped counting my breaths at about 500. Lost count in an effort to bring myself back to present tense. Above my breaths I can hear a beeping now. It’s so faint at first that I’m fairly sure I’ve made the whole thing up. But as I hold my breath I can definitely hear it and it’s growing louder. Moving towards me? Or just turning up the volume?

I’m going to stand up now, I’m going to find that noise and figure out where the hell it’s coming from. I’m not entirely sure I can trust my legs though, so I opt for crawling instead. Safer. Plus I’ve got myself talked into thinking that I’ll be able to prove I’ve actually moved if I crawl.

Holding my breath again I think I’ve got the sound pinpointed. Off to my left now, but higher. Maybe coming from the ceiling? If there is one. Panic, the panic is back. NO. I will move my left hand. Then I will move my right leg. Then I will move my right hand and then my left leg. Here I go. I’m moving. And the beeping is getting louder. And I’m making progress, hell yes, I’m making progress!!

There is one final, deafening beep then and everything is quiet. And utterly black. My toes are going numb. I can’t feel my fingers. The darkness is starting to trickle down my throat and fill in my ears. It’s like getting swallowed by some creature forgotten by time; I cannot believe what is happening. And I can’t breathe.

Wait! Wait, why the hell can’t I breathe?!

I bend my entire will to the sole purpose of taking in breath. I will breathe. NOW. I will breathe RIGHT NOW!

And suddenly, my eyes pop wide and the breath screeches down my throat to fill my depleted lungs.

Before I am able to pull focus on anything there is a tremendous amount of noise, clattering around me, a whirl of colors. But there, just there, it smells like water…

I cannot allow myself to blink. I cannot go back to the swallowing depths. I can feel my eyes wheeling in their sockets looking for something, but I can’t see anything yet. Just light and there is so much noise. But the breath is coming more easily now, it doesn’t hurt quite as badly so I focus on smoothing out the rhythm of my intake, attempting to temper the expulsion of exhausted breath into a less ragged pattern.

The noise is starting to organize itself now. The beeping is back now and there are voices, clamoring to be heard. Finally, there is but one voice and I do not recognize it.

“Kara? Kara, you’ve been in a coma. Can you hear me?”

Topographically Speaking

I’m here! Whew, been snowed in for the past few days in New Mexico, but I’m here.

And you’ll have to excuse my excessive excitement here, but I really love last week’s story. I can totally understand now why people write fiction. If I could always write stories like that, have the process work like that, be as enthused and energized by the act of writing like that, I’d never want to do anything else! As Sh noted in the comments, it needs a fair bit of editing, but all in all I’m thrilled with how it turned out.

Now here’s the buzz kill of this week though. I’ve got nothing. I’m travelling this week, but by car with just my daughter, so no people watching opportunities. I guess the major thing I failed to consider when undertaking this challenge was the idea of writer’s block. What the hell do I do if/when writer’s block hits and I’m unable to do anything but watch my weekly deadline creep closer and closer as I stare at a blank open document?

Well, I am currently sitting in very possibly the busiest library I’ve ever been in, so hopefully something intriguing will happen shortly. Or at least the shadow of something interesting that can lead to a made up something intriguing.

I’m still trying to get my bearings here in the land of fiction, but so far I’m totally enjoying the scenery.

A Pig Gets His Day

Sebastian sat on the floor of the bank vault shoving coins and dollars into his mouth as efficiently as possible. He focused on one point on the opposite wall and tried to keep his breathing even and constant. Every time he felt the chill of another quarter sliding down his gullet, his cold, green eyes tightened slightly, waiting for the one coin that was going to cause him problems. Or top him off. Although that was ridiculous. He knew that what he had done had no limit. He could swallow the whole world and still walk around as the tall, bean pole of a man he had always been. He knew there was no technical limit to his ability to cart everything with him, but he wondered if there was a limit to how much he could carry. He knew the difference was slim, but it was still a difference.

He pulled his mind back into focus. Looking at the slowly dwindling mounds around him. He had planned on starting with the gold bars housed at the very back of the vault sitting on their wooden pallets. But the first one had given him so much trouble he knew he’d never get out of the vault before the cops showed up if he only focused on the bars. So he had moved on to the large denomination bills first and worked his way down from there. He was now working on the last of the coinage and the dollar bills. Those were the biggest piles and he wondered how much time he had left.

As he paused for one moment to look at his watch, the door of the vault blew open laying him flat on his back from the whoosh of the wind. When he was able to pull himself back up into a sitting position, he was surrounded by the swat team with their guns trained solely on him. He sighed heavily and allowed them to wrestle him to his feet with no contest.

They transported him back to the station house and put him in one of those classic interview rooms. Too bright, too clean and too empty. One large mirror taking up half of the wall opposite to the door. The light overhead glaring off the stainless steel table and chair in the middle of the room. He sighed heavily and cursed himself for his own greediness. How did he get so stupid? Coins?! Seriously?!?

He sat down in one corner and waited. Finally a detective entered the room.

“Hi there Sebastian, how you feeling?”

“Fine thanks, although I’d love a glass of water.”

“Yeah, we’ll see what we can do about that.” The detective snickered slightly as he hooked one thumb into his belt. Sebastian noticed that the cop’s belt buckle was an aberration to the rest of his staid and dress code friendly attire. The man’s belt buckle was a large, bronze pig. No other adornment or decoration, just a fully grown, well fed, highly polished pig.

Sebastian knitted his eyebrows together a bit over that one, pondering its significance to this man’s character. If there was one.

“So,” the cop said “did you enjoy your midnight snack?”

Sebastian’s head popped up almost painfully with the knowledge that this cop knew what he had been doing. He knew he had been ingesting the money. That he was not just an ordinary bank robber caught in the act.

He blinked a few times and said slowly “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”

The cop smiled slowly and with one finger started to pet his pig in an absentminded way.

“Yeah, ok. You can go that way if you want. But I just thought you should know, since this is your first time out…oh yeah, I know that too Sebastian.”

Sebastian was nearing panic at this point. Who the hell was this guy? How did he know so much about him already? Beads of sweat had started to form along Sebastian’s hairline and his breathing was picking up speed, along with his heart. He could feel the adrenaline starting to flow readily through his blood stream and he welcomed it, until…

“I know, I know. I’m being rude aren’t I? I haven’t even introduced myself properly and here I am flaunting all these facts that I already know about you. Sorry about that, but there has always been one point I’ve wondered about with all of this. Did you know what you were doing?” The cop asked the last question with genuine interest, all charades put down in place of curiosity.

Sebastian considered that for a moment and with the clarity the adrenaline was lending him he decided to also lay down his charade as he knew he had already lost with this guy.

“Yes. I knew.” He was being honest, but there was no need to go over the top.

The cop took that in and walked around the room a couple of times, squeezing his girth in between the wall and Sebastian’s chair each time he passed behind him. Sebastian could hear the bronze pig scrape against the back of his chair and wondered if the cop would have to polish it again tonight to remove any scuffs left there.

The cop finally stopped walking and turned back to Sebastian, his face friendly and open again.

“I’m Jones. “ He thrust out his hand as if to shake, but Sebastian just eyed his plump digits with care and jingled his handcuffs against the back of the chair.

“Oh! Right! Sorry about that.” Jones produced a tiny key from somewhere in his jacket pocket and wedged himself behind Sebastian’s chair again to unlock his handcuffs.

Sebastian brought his freed hands to the table, gingerly rubbing his wrists. He had always thought all of those actors on TV who made such a big deal about being in handcuffs were being overly dramatic, but now he was rubbing the red indentations left behind by the metal manacles.

“Thanks,” Sebastian muttered as Jones walked back around the table and stuck out his hand again to shake.

This time Sebastian slowly put out his own hand and placed it in Jones’ hand preparing to be crushed in the man’s thick paw. But for all of Jones’ size, he was a remarkable gentleman as he shook Sebastian’s hand with only the required amount of pressure and force.

Jones smiled widely then and with a slight chuckle in his voice said, “So Sebastian, what are we going to do with you now?”

Sebastian just stared at him then. All trace of games wiped away from his face. His mind raced to find an answer that would appease them both, but before he could Jones spoke again.

“You know, I’m just curious, what were you going to do with all the money?”

“Pay my mom back and go to the beach. For the rest of my life.” Sebastian smiled at the idea of the last part. Being able to extricate himself from his mother’s guilt and do nothing but lay on a warm beach in Fiji, sipping umbrella drinks and watching the waves.

Jones looked at him for a moment then allowed a broad smile to race back across his face as he shook his head slowly with understanding.

“Yeah, I figured it was something like that. You seem like such a nice guy Sebastian. Like a normal kind of guy. A guys who pays his debts and says good bye to his mother before he leaves the country with a belly full of stolen money,” Jones said with growing animation.

Sebastian grew cautious again as he was once again struck by how much this guy knew.

“Had you given any thought to how you were going to get the money out of your stomach Sebastian?” The way Jones asked this question made Sebastian feel like he already knew the answer, he was just leading Sebastian into something. And he was growing quickly uncomfortable with the turn this conversation had taken.

“Well, I figured I would just do the opposite. I mean I was planning to wash it all before using it.” For some reason it was important to Sebastian that Jones knew he wasn’t going to be handing out stomach acid covered bills across town.

Jones nodded his head slowly then, “Yeah, that’s what I figured you’d say Sebastian. That’s what they all say. But I am afraid you were misled. It’s not quite so simple you see.” Jones was working up to a roll now. “You probably thought that this, ah, procedure was simply to allow your stomach to expand to accommodate anything you put in it, right?” He looked at Sebastian expectantly.

“Um, yeah.”

“Yeah. Well it turns out that’s not how it works. So you could puke your guts out until you had nothing left and you’d never even get one measly little quarter back Sebastian. No, it seems as though this somehow actually allows your body to absorb whatever you can fit down your throat and stores it an entirely other place until it can be fully absorbed.”

Sebastian’s eyes flew wide as the ideas flew through his head. He couldn’t just get the money back out? How was he going to pay his mother back? His perfect beach image was fading quickly now. He looked back to Jones with undisguised panic on his face now as the final realization came to him.

“You’re here to get the money back aren’t you?”

“Ah, see, I told them you weren’t stupid Sebastian. Thank you so much for not making a liar out of me. “

Jones’ entire demeanor shifted then. The friendly face was gone, replaced by a look of sinister determination. But what made Sebastian really go cold was the glimmer of satisfaction in Jones’ eyes. He was looking forward to what he was about to do.

Sebastian took a deep breath and tried to sound nonchalant as he asked, “So what do we have to do to get the money out?”

Jones’ head cocked slightly to the side as he deftly slid a gigantic knife out of a holster Sebastian presumed was somehow concealed on his back. He looked at the blade for a moment, enjoying the way the light from the over head bulb splashed its reflection across the blade. He slowly lowered the blade until it was positioned directly, intentionally, under the chin of the pig on his belt buckle. If Sebastian didn’t know any better, he could have sworn that bronze pig was smiling.

“Well, we’re going to have to cut it out of you, of course.”

The Ideal Reader

I’m reading Stephen King’s On Writing right now and he has been spending a great deal of time talking about the Ideal Reader. Or rather, writing for your own personal Ideal Reader. It’s an intriguing concept for me because I’m not sure what my Ideal Reader looks like. I don’t really have any clue as to who they are or what they’re looking for in a story. Perhaps because I’ve never written fiction before? Whatever the cause, I wish I did have an Ideal Reader because maybe they would have saved you all from the drivel I wrote last week.

Joe was about three dimensional as his name. Sorry about that. I just had this idea about this guy who was a campus security guard who loses his job after many years on his particular beat and I started wondering what would happen to him next. But instead of focusing on that next piece, I got sucked into the previous. I got distracted by his needy wife and his absolute adoration of her. And I lost my original idea. Which would have been fine if what replaced it was interesting. But it wasn’t really.

The past two weeks I’ve been focusing on allowing my writing to be driven by a character. But I think maybe this week I’ll focus on a situation (hopefully an interesting one) and then take a look around to see who happens to be the most engaging character in the room I’m already in. We’ll see how that works.

Oh, and if any of you have any ideas about how I can get more of you here, reading whatever I’m churning out, I’d love to hear them. I need more feedback!! Self critique will only get me so far I’m afraid.

The Beat's End

Joe surveyed his beat as he cinched up the scarf that his wife had made him around his neck. He smiled briefly, warmed by the idea that the very thought of her could still make him smile after all these years. The warmth faded quickly in the face of the incessant tone and tenor of his daily routine however. He had been informed that his position as head of campus security was soon going to be eliminated in an effort to trim the university’s budget.

When he had started this job 20 years ago he was straight out of the police academy, bright and willing to work hard. He had chosen this beat instead of one on the street at his wife’s request. She had begged him to stay away from real police duty because of deep fear that she would lose him. How could he refuse her? She had supported him all the way through the academy without fear or trepidation, but on that day when he was to begin interviewing with the city police department, she had dissolved into tears at the thought of him patrolling the streets that were getting more and more dangerous by the day.

“Please Joe, I cannot bear the thought of losing you. Please. Please. You can help people in other ways, just not this way. You can’t protect your community unless you protect yourself first. Please Joe, there has to be another way.”

He had never seen her like this. So utterly consumed with fear. He couldn’t refuse her. So he had cancelled all of his interviews in the various departments and reached out to friends at the academy for new options. He had gotten this job at the biggest university in the region quickly and had risen through the ranks of the security guard rapidly to his current position as “Captain of the Guard” as he jokingly called it.

When he had taken the job he had been excited to be continually surrounded by youth. To always be dually immersed in the naiveté that comes with college kids as well as the constant search for knowledge. He thought it would keep him young, keep him vibrant. Instead the daily grind wore down his brightness until it was just a toothless maw of routine.

He patrolled the rolling campus day after day making eye contact with the bullies to let them know someone was paying attention, avoiding eye contact with the slutty girls to avoid paying attention, keeping track of the timid ones to make sure they weren’t getting dealt blows off anyone else’s radar.

In the beginning he had treated it as a way to train himself in human nature. He studied the students with keen attention, picking apart their ticks and oddities as well as cataloging their sweetness and meanness. He didn’t keep track of faces, he kept track of behavior. He probably couldn’t pick out a handful of the thousands of students he had seen over the years, but he could write a book on their behavior. How they carried themselves, how they spoke to one another, how they showed off and how they tried so hard to disappear.

The scenery changed every day with the comings and goings of the student body. The seasons changed the landscape dramatically. Even his own ranks turned over as its members either drifted into something else or finally saved enough money to get into the police academy. Initially, maybe even for the first 10 years or so, the constant change had kept him sharp and allowed him to see some of what he had so studiously learned. But ultimately he grew accustomed to the change. Because even change gets monotonous after a while.

Debrief

And here we go into week 2. Writing my first story was not nearly as hard or harsh as I expected it to be. I think there was some nice language in the first story, some decent character development and my writing was not nearly as self conscious as I thought it might be. All in all, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

For this week I’m considering one story that has to do with a Christmas tree graveyard that I had dream about not too long ago that has some interesting images in it. But I haven’t quite decided yet, so I guess we’ll just have to see what happens when I sit down to write.

In the meantime, please keep the feedback coming!

Secret Santa

As he was buttoning up his shirt he couldn’t keep his eyes from straying to the bushy white beard arranged meticulously on the foam head on the dresser. From there it was an easy jump to the array of hats hung just within arm’s reach on the otherwise empty wall. And by then he had turned completely around to face the half open closet. One French door stood wide open revealing the everyday clothes of this businessman who had long ago outgrown the requirement to wear ties to the office. But peeking out one of the slats of the closed door came the sheen from where the pearl button caught hold of the light from the bright overhead lamp. He sighed and smiled briefly before turning back to the mirror to make sure he hadn’t missed any buttons on his plaid shirt.

Today was a normal day. Today his calendar was full of things like conference calls, staff meetings and the monthly long lunch with his wife. It would be a good, productive day. But normal all the same.

But tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow would be the beginning of something new. Something to temper the normalcy. Something to up the ante.

He pictured the beginning as if it were yesterday. He had stopped at the corner diner for a cup of coffee to warm up on his way home from a long day. As he stared out the window lost in thought he caught a glimpse of a child as he was ducking back behind the counter. His waitress had quickly shooed and shushed the little boy away into the cupboard with the straws and napkins. Hurriedly looking around to make sure no one saw his bright red train and too small overalls split in the knees. She locked with the man’s gaze long enough to know he had indeed seen. Her face flushed scarlet as she smiled apologetically and scooted over to his table with a coffee refill.

“I’m sorry, he won’t bother you a bit, I promise,” she half whispered.

Before he could even give her a “don’t worry about it” smile, she was being cornered by a man who seemed to be encased in grease. His skin shone with a dull, gritty glaze that marked not only his face, but every inch of exposed skin. The clothes he wore crinkled in all the wrong places accenting their age and soil level. When he spoke the accumulated grease seemed to trickle out of the corners of his mouth to make way for the harsh words spilling out in an angry rush.

The waitress stood strongly for a moment and then crumpled into tears. Her eyes darted from corner to corner of the little diner attempting to pull herself together before any other customers could see her loss of dignity in the face of this dingy man. She slipped out from behind his bulk, careful not to touch any part of him, and slid across to the cupboard where her son was hiding quietly. When she opened the doors he greeted her with a beaming smile and stretched out his little arms so she could scoop him up easily. She slung him onto her hip in one fluid movement as she quickly scanned her tables for any missed tip money, threw her shoulders back and strode purposefully out of the diner without so much as a glance backwards.

There was something about the scene that had struck the man. The way she had in a matter of moments gone from destroyed at the hands of this muck of a man to confident. How she had re-arranged her features from hopeless to near haughty. So that her son could see her true face. Her happiness to see him. So he could see his adoration reflected in her eyes. Her conscious choice to be the mother he needed her to be instead of the waitress she no longer was struck him as one of the most beautiful moments he had ever seen.

He quickly grabbed his coat and ran out the door after her. He caught up to her on the corner and asked her to wait a moment.

“I’m so sorry he spoke to you that way.”

“Oh, it’s ok. I’m used to it.”

There was a glimmer of shame in her eyes, but she traded it out quickly in favor of wary expectation.

“Was there something you needed sir?”

“No. I just…I just wanted you to have this.”

He quickly dug a $50 bill out of his pocket and thrust it at her. The wariness turned into undisguised caution as she took a step back.

“Wh-why? Why would you do that sir?”

“Just please. Please take it. Please. You deserve it. And I don’t need it.”

She looked at him for a long moment, the internal debate evident on her face. Finally she slowly reached out towards his hand and curled her fingers around the bill. A flicker of a smile played around the corners of her mouth as she struggled with something to say.

Finally she just said, “Thank you.” Hitched her son back up onto her hip, turned and strode away bowing her head slightly into the wind.

He stood there for a long time. Long enough that when he realized he hadn’t moved in a while, his fingers were numbing and his eyes were stinging from the cold. He looked around quickly to get his bearings and then headed home.

The next day he had taken a personal day to sit in his study and stare out the window. He had stared for hours as plans started arranging themselves in his head. A way to come full circle. To use his own fortune to help others find theirs. But how? He couldn’t very well patrol the city’s diners in hopes of finding down-on-their luck waitresses every night after work. His wife would surely raise an eyebrow at that scheme.

After doing some cursory research on the internet to attempt to find one or two charities in town that he could get to know and coming up not quite fulfilled, an idea struck him. As he was aimlessly perusing the newspaper waiting for inspiration to hit, it did. Why couldn’t he actively search out the people who needed his help? Why couldn’t he figure out a way to find the people who just needed some help? No strings attached, perfectly timed help. He focused his eyes on the stories he had been surfing over now and found one story in particular. An electrical fire had taken a family of 5’s entire house and most of their belongings.

An anticipatory smile spread across the man’s face. He could almost imagine himself showing up at the shelter where this family was staying and giving them a stack of cash. Maybe shaking their hands, wishing them luck, and then simply walking away. Leaving them with a feeling that they really were being taken care of in their darkest hour. Leaving the man, finally, with a feeling of using his assets to truly improve his environment.

Suddenly however, his mind raced ahead to a time when he may no longer be able to do this. Not because he would run out of money. Not because his wife would mind and cut him off. But because word would get around that there was this guy walking around giving out money. People would come knocking at his door, bothering him and his family. People would, only with the best intentions, draw as much attention to him as possible. In an effort to thank him, to make sure he was recognized for his generosity.

No. He could not have that. It would be chaos and would suck the joy from the whole proposal. He had to remain anonymous. There had to be a way.

And in the weeks to come, he had found that way. Or at least he hoped he had. He had spent days combing dollar and thrift stores for clothes he would never choose to wear, hats that would cover his distinctive red hair, huge sunglasses to hide his face and a big, white fluffy fake beard. He figured that if he could hide himself; make himself unrecognizable that he could carry on with his plan longer. The other component was choosing people he did not know. That was pretty easy. His town was large enough that there was always someone in need and he almost never knew them personally.

It seemed his plan was complete.

Welcome!

Happy New Year and welcome! I thought I’d have my first post on this blog be a “here’s how it’s all going to work/intro” post to get us all accustomed to the new digs. And because I’m inviting just about everyone I know to come and take a look over here, I thought it would be good to have at a least a little something for you all to look at.

So. Here’s how it’s all going to work. At least for this week. This is all subject to change based on, well, just about anything. But for now? Here’s the plan…I’ll do an intro post at the beginning of every week to sort of introduce my inspiration for the week, or possibly do a bit of rundown from the previous week’s story. Then I’ll post the story as soon as it’s done, but no later than the end of each week (and seeing as that the first of the year is a Friday, the end of the week will be Thursday).

What’s your role in all of this? Just two little measly things really. Keep coming back and give me your honest thoughts and feedback on my stories. Easy right? You can do it, I know you can.

So, without further ado, a little something about the idea swirling in my head for this kick-off story. I read a newspaper article not too long ago about The Secret Santa of Kansas City. Apparently there was this regular guy who had spent the last 30 or so years showing up unexpectedly throughout the year, but especially at Christmas, to give people money. Always in cash, always when they needed it the most and always anonymously. I’ve been thinking about this guy since I read the article and it got me to thinking about what it must be like to have one piece of your life, the piece that you were totally in love with, be completely anonymous. What happened in the early days when he got carded at the liquor store? How did he pull it off if his neighbor, who had been looking at his face for years, was the one who was in dire need? There are so many elements of anonymity that pose problems that it’s had me thinking about this character for some time now.

Now the work begins. The mining for the character and the story that resides within him. I’ll see you at the end of the week and we’ll see how fruitful I’ve been.