A Fistful of Essays: Volume 1

Approximately one year ago, five writers living in various locations around the world joined together with the common goal to publish essays and stories on a literary website. After numerous hours brain storming, typing, and editing, we are proud to present a compilation of those efforts; our best writing from 2009-2010: A Fistful of Essays: Volume 1.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us throughout the year. This one is for you. And of course, Enjoy.

Open publication - Free publishing - More the proofread

Prompt 2: The sound that wouldn't quit

The next prompt from The Pocket Muse: "Write about a noise -- or a silence -- that won't go away." Here I go! I'll try to post within a week (I'm supposed to be finishing my Manifesto, too). Feel free to join in the promptyness, and let us know your results!

Pocket musings -- the first result

It's been a few years since I wrote fiction. Here, in response to the prompt I referenced in my last post, is my answer to writing about someone who is pretending to be something he is not.

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"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHgrrbblfhhhhwhaaaaaaa!" Kevin screamed as he rattled the bars of the cage and bared his teeth, only wishing that foam could seethe from between his lips. Red strobe lights flashed and thunder boomed, and fat rats poked their heads out around the feet of the girl and who Kevin presumed was her boyfriend. A mysterious moistness hung in the air -- was it from some rotting posthumous being? A brewing storm? A steaming pile of fresh sewage?

All that was missing, Kevin thought, was the proper stench.

The girl practically knocked the guy over as she jumped into his arms. It was pretty dark, but Kevin could see the guy's stiffness after he, too, jolted slightly. His girlfriend didn't notice, though, probably since he clamped his mouth shut and didn't let out a comparable, blood-curdling shriek. She also didn't realize that their weight ratios were not properly proportioned for him to take her weight.

Kevin had worked at the haunted house from the time he first remembered dressing up for Halloween. He was four, and very much against his mother's wishes he picked out a grim reaper costume. But she calmed down eventually. She figured as long as she read him some more uplifting books before bed at night, he'd turn out fine. After all, haunted houses were a family business, of sorts -- his parents and older brothers had been witches, corpses, skeletons and mad scientists for decades. When he was little, he delivered bottles of water to the haunted house workers throughout their shifts. He graduated to rat duty -- sitting behind a wall and thrusting a fake rat on a stick out a hole. And now, as a vastly matured and worldly 16-year-old, he was running one of the main scare attractions: the jailed felon. Not just a regular old felon, of course, but one painted in creepy Halloween paint -- bloodied, wasting away, abnormally gross teeth, dressed in tatters, nothing to do except shriek and scream in agony.

Kevin had become quite suited to the haunted house work over the years; he only wished the hours and the season were longer, so he didn't have to concentrate so much on the less satisfying, everyday life of the teenager going to school. In the haunted house, he was king of the spooks.

So in the haunted house, Kevin did everything he could to make himself more terrifying. By Halloween weekend, naught a person had stifled his screams when he walked by Kevin's post, much to the jailed felon's delight.

Then there was Jean Jacket Patches. Lots of people had jean jackets, but JJP had apparently hand-sewn several animal-print patches on her jacket. Kevin's encounters with the haunted house guests were brief, but he was good at giving a quick read as they turned the corner to his lair. Kevin could see a glint in JJP's eyes that was different from the other people; it was a strength gained from some experience in her life, perhaps very traumatic, perhaps very risky. Either way, he could tell this would be the ultimate test of his spook skills to even slightly startle JJP, much less melt her soul; it seemed like instead of wanting to be scared, she wanted to prove that the Halloween house horrors were no match for the fortitude she had acquired.

Thirty seconds later, Kevin walked out the back entrance of the haunted house. His eyes welled up with tears of shame as he peeled off his costume and threw it in the trash, among the greasy wrappers and styrafoam cups. He'd met his match. JJP had sensed him even before his act commenced. She had talked to him. How?! Why?! What right did she have to break the barriers within the hallowed ground of the haunted house. Did she have any idea what that blasphemy meant?! Or, Kevin thought, did nobody understand that anymore?

The champ had lost, sacrificing the proverbial belt to a new contender. A piece of Kevin hoped there was another contender out there, but the rest of him feared that nobody would ever be able to break the seemingly impenetrable shell of someone like JJP.

That night, Kevin went into the bathroom he shared with his brother and sister and brushed his teeth. After a few minutes, he loaded up his toothbrush with more paste. He brushed some more. Then he looked up at his reflection in the mirror. He pinched his lips shut, and used his tongue to push the mass of foaminess forward as he blew outward and started to open his mouth. He let out a ferocious roar. The foam settled on his lips and around his mouth, and after a few moments, deflated. Kevin silently watched it dripped down his chin.

---End---

Pluses: There is a beginning, middle and end; I incorporated some visual and descriptive elements, which is something I don't often do. Minuses: It probably lacks development -- even though it's concise, I think there could be a little more development while still not going overboard with connections and what have you. But is the foam theme too much? I wanted to be kind of clever, somehow. When is clever not to obvious, not too obtuse, but just right?

I will tell you that I originally wanted to have Kevin kill somebody who was walking through the haunted house, but I felt I would have had to develop some intense reason why he wanted to kill, like he had some major bullying problems at school. I tried to do this pretty fast and just let the ideas flow, and once I went into getting bullied it seemed really dull and it got too long.

Any comments, on anything? I think it will really help me to keep on with this, and feel free to join me if you'd like. I'll post the next prompt in a separate entry.

Pocket musings

Creativity sometimes doesn’t come easily to me (read my previous Proofread essay on inspiration). Maybe all the straightforward, fact-y journalism has just gotten me out of practice, but I’m constantly fighting to get it back or generate some more.

So a few years ago, I picked up The Pocket Muse at the dangerous-to-wander-aimlessly Barnes and Noble. It was a big leap for me to buy it like that — I didn’t read any reviews online (gasp!), didn’t know the author or anything she had previously written. I didn't know whether it would be better than the many other books offering the same types of creative writing prompts and practice. But the author's bio picture was of her and her cat; I had seen that kind of picture before, of a person I actually know and admire and who kind of inspires me. So I flipped through a few pages and swiped my debit card through the machine and that was that. The book looked/looks really cute on my shelf. But I never used it.

Until last night, when, as I'm getting more into writing in different forums, I opened to the first prompt page. I read “What are you waiting for? If not now, when?” And I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to write something about that, or if it was just an intro-type thing, and that’s when I realized I’m being way too uptight. Quit overanalyzing, Allison -- stop the inquisition!

All right, what the hell -- I’m going to try some of the prompts and observe the creative juices flowing. First up: “Write about someone who is pretending to be someone or something that he is not.”

I'll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, please help: How do you work your creativity muscles?

Inspirations

Kicking off our Manifesto theme is Matt's essay entitled Facebook-ifesto!.
While the dialogue is fictional, the inspirations are real. Almost a little too real. Don't Youtube the video referenced in this piece; you cannot un-see such horror.

Enjoy.

Facebook-ifesto!

The First Sunday

“It’s a shame that you didn’t show up earlier to the party last night.”

“Hey. I made it to our weekly coffee date on time. Cut me some slack. Was the ratio of popped collars to normal collars outlandish?”