Thought-Drive

David avoided Miami, all Floridian ports, actually. He told himself it was because he didn’t want the hassle. Because his skin was always on the lighter side, more yellow than brown, more Caucasian than Hispanic. “What’s next?” he asked the captain. “Savannah,” the man said. He seemed agreeable, but he was providing a favor, and his men did not understand. Likely, they were losing money by the day because of their bizarre route, and over time, everyone had come to understand who was at fault, but not why. David knew only small bits about the shipping industry, and sailing business, such were his family’s interests, and his involvement in them. He knew even less about Georgia. “And after that?” The captain looked down at his notebook, and turned a page. “Well, Bay City.” David knew absolutely nothing about the US eastern seaboard except there was New York, Boston, and then a bunch of other places with less important names to the south. “It’s near the capital,” the cap...

Without further ado, that thing I wrote. David’s flight from the island was unceremonious. He woke up one morning, walked into his mother’s kitchen, sat at the end of the table and silently ate his share of the breakfast. It was room temperature, coordinating with the hour. His father had gone, and left his guards. Something about listening to his mother sing as she washed the dishes, as if she couldn’t see the posted sentries, the men in suits designed to shrink their world. Something about that made everything click for David.  When his father came home for lunch David told him.  “I’m leaving.”  And not just him, David realized, but his mother, too, and the uncle or cousin his father had brought home with him. The words came out of his mouth and it was almost like sneezing, something his body needed to expel, a violent, involuntary gesture. After he spoke, there was nothing left to do but to have an ugly family confrontation. Except David had prepared fo...

Applications are submitted. That story even got written. It was interesting, working my way through those paces. I still don't have a title I like, and yet even though I don't know what to call it, I know exactly what it is. All the drafted novels of the Where Shadows Lie series exist in a state that is very, very close to 60,000 words. I don't know how that happened, but I can attest to that not being on purpose. By the time I got into that range, the story was either done, or winding down, major conflicts addressed or resolved, most characters moved close or farther away from their hearts' desires. It was over, and time to address the next one. Except for the first book. The first book was only 55,000 words, and as I began noticing the earlier trend, that break in the continuity stuck out more and more. I didn't realize that those missing 5,000 words actually existed somewhere until I wrote this earlier story. With the average length of the chapters in the bo...

Feels like the beginning of locomotion. Gears turning. Metal grinding. Power increasing. Or I could just be imagining things. I have not very much time to get the grad school applications done. One was due back in December, and I got it off with nary a hiccup. At the time, it felt like leaving my home state of over 10 years was in the cards, that is to say that I really welcomed the change. As per usual things came up to impress upon me my desire to stay around these parts. I presume this is how most people's lives go: the road before them forks, and their list of reasons to go left or right are about equal length, but have very different items. I was struck by several writing ideas, which is not new. What is different this time is that they were all old ideas, or rather, they were all new ideas about old stories. One of them even struck me hard enough that this very morning I spat out twenty pages. With no solid thoughts on what to do with the writing, it just came out of me,...