Thought-Drive

The new novel is underway, has been for a couple weeks now. After taking down notes regarding who the characters were, what they wanted, and how they might achieve those goals, I tinkered with the setting. Questions came up, about timing and motivations and pacing and other narrative elements. I answered some, and others arose out of those efforts. After the notes I constructed the beginning of an outline. I can never build the entire thing, because I always learn new things within the writing, about the characters and sometimes about the setting. After the outline, I got to work. I've since written to the end of that outline, and I wish I had something to compare it to. I always struggle with the beginning and the end. I suppose it must be a lot like flying a plane. There's a lot of convenient instrumentation to keep the craft aloft once it's there; once I know where the story wants to go and what it's about, I can guide it just fine. The taking off and the landing ...

Part V David had his worst week of work since getting the job. He told his co workers it was the last remnants of the bug. By the middle of the week, he recognized that something had changed, and by the end he realized that he needed to make a decision. On Sunday, he thought about church for the first time in years. It would’ve been nice, he thought, to have some place to go to get the answers to his questions. Instead, David went back into the ghetto. He brought along a bag that had his wallet and a change of clothes, but he also kept his teeth hidden behind the top of his zippered jacket, and his hands in his pockets, except for when he knocked. The place wasn’t difficult to locate. He had the scent, and when it came down to locating which specific house, the area of dead grass and weeds, the rot in the wood and foundation, gave the place away. Jarvis opened the door and did not look surprised. David wondered if they tracked by scent also. “What is it that you want?” Da...

Part IV His hearing came back first. There was a booming, a thump, distant vibration, then noise charging in his direction, ricocheting off of objects. It was more rhythmic than chaotic though, almost like music. Breathing in, David caught the stench that triggered memory. He jerked away from the contemplations, feeling sore muscles beneath naked flesh. Wood pricked his skin, and glass, and cold. He creaked his eyes open to see a blurry room with skeletal walls and unevenly spaced floorboards. A gaping hole in the structure cast blinding brightness on his prone form. David tried to move again and recoiled from the pain. He remembered what would usually follow the disorientation and mystery. People with their hands on him, grabbing and pulling, faceless assailants that always ushered him back to the cage. The pain was much greater this time, and the soreness, to the point that this time, even though he knew they were on their way, he would not try and hide. He had killed again. Da...