Ghost Hunters

The two of them sat huddled in front of the softly glowing LCD monitors, the black-and-white images casting eerie light over their faces and clothes. The house was cold, and the open curtains showing the darkness outside let the chill penetrate deeper. The ancient Victorian had been beautifully restored, but that didn't include insulation or double-pane glass in the sashes. It didn't include new window casings, either, so that the blistering wind from the northeast whistled in through the gaps around them. The thick, opulent decor simulated the time period of the house perfectly, with rich mauves, oriental area rugs over pristine wooden floors, delicate tables packed with articles of pewter and nickel, each covered with a fantastically woven doily. Tiffany glass lamps sat in the midst of each and a large light fixture, designed to simulate a gas light from the Victorian era, was mounted low in the center of the room.

They were dressed warmly, in heavy jeans and a T-shirt over a thermal undershirt and a flannel over shirt. The watch caps they wore protected their ears from the biting chill, and their rag-woven socks did what they could beneath the Chuck Taylors to keep their toes from numbing. Light, fingerless gloves covered their hands, but because they needed to tweak instruments and knobs and keyboards, their reddened fingertips throbbed when they cupped their hands and blew warm air into them. Their words puffed out in wispy, white clouds from their mouths when they spoke, drifting lazily into the void or against the monitors.

"So," Dillon whispered, sniffing and rubbing his red, chilled nose, "now what?" He dragged his finger nails over his jaw, rasping against the three days of stubble growing on it.

"Why do you keep asking me that?" JD said, knitting his brows and glaring at Dillon.

"I'm curious is all," Dillon whispered back, holding his hands up defensively. "It's just that we've been sittin' here doin' a whole lotta nothin', and it seems like we oughtta be doin' somethin'. Ya know?"

JD sighed. "Yes, I know," he said tiredly. "I told you it would be tedious, Dillon."

"You didn't say nothin' about boring, though," Dillon retorted.

JD turned quickly in surprise to look at him. "Do ... do you know what 'tedious' means, Dillon?"

"Look, I'm just sayin', shouldn't we be doin' something 'sides sittin' here?"

"No, this is precisely what we should be doing. Watching."

"I'm sick o' watchin', JD." Dillon put his foot up on the table supporting the monitors and keyboards in front of them.

"Why'd you come then?" JD said, adjusting the EMV to his right, and watching the room in front of them on the monitor.

"You said we were huntin' ghosts, JD," Dillon whispered. "That sounded exciting. This shit's boring as hell, man."

"What did you think was going to happen? 'Ghost Busters'? A room full of flying objects mysteriously being levitated all over the house? Some apparition like on Scooby-Doo cartoons chasing us down the hall way?"

"Well ... yeah. Sorta." Dillon sniffed again, staring at his shoes.

JD looked at him sharply. "You're kidding, right?"

"Well ... no, man. What would you think? I seen you go off day after day, for months, and you never invited me once. That hurt my feelin's, by the way, just so ya know. How was I supposed to know it was like this? I thought you were, like, chasing ghosts, man. It sounded interesting."

"Dillon," JD sighed, trying to marshal his patience, "the reason I never asked you to come along before was just this -- exactly this, right here. You're bored. You have no patience. You don't like to sit and observe. It's not that we're not friends, or that I didn't want you in on my exciting, action-packed adventures, but because I knew this wasn't your thing. It's not something you'd enjoy. Didn't I tell you that when you asked to come with me tonight?"

Dillon was contemplating his navel carefully. "Yeah," he whispered. "Yeah, you did. Jerk."

"Why are you whispering?"

"I don't wanna ... I don't know. Aren't we supposed to?"

"We're not spies, Dillon. We're watching, that's all."

"What if we ... what if they get scared away?"

"Who?"

"The ghosts, ya dildo, the ghosts!"

"Scared away? By what?"

"By us talkin', dude, whattaya think??" Dillon was struggling to continue to whisper.

"We're not fishing!" JD said. "I've never heard of a ghost being startled away by human voices. If that were true, no one would ever see a ghost, doofus."

"Oh," Dillon said, not whispering for a change.

They were silent for a moment, JD continuing to check the cameras placed strategically around the parlor in the darkness. He watched how his adjustments affected the picture, and scanned the other instruments for changes in temperature, motion, infrared light shifts, and sound. The equipment was silent and sentinel in the dark room, and he yawned, billowing a heavy cloud around his hand as he tried to cover it.

"Man it's cold," he said at length, rubbing his hands over his upper arms then cupping his cheeks.

"Hey JD," Dillon said softly, "you ever actually seen a ghost, man?"

"No, of course not," JD said matter-of-fact-ly, never taking his eyes off the instruments and the image of the room on the monitor.

"You haven't?"

"No. Why, have you?"

"I ... No, I don't think so. Why haven't you?"

"Because I'm a very good paranormal investigator, and there are no such THINGS as ghosts."

Dillon screwed his face up into a confused mask. "Whah??"

"I said there aren't any ghosts."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes. Why, do you believe in ghosts?"

"I dunno ... sure, why not?"

"Because you graduated from a Christian college, that's why not. Didn't they teach you about how spirits work?"

"Uh ... like what?"

JD sighed, shaking his head. "You've GOT to be kidding me, Dillon. What did you study?"

"Pastoral Care and Lay Ministry," Dillon said flatly. "I still don't get your point, dude."

JD chuckled. "Why doesn't that surprise me? You did pass your courses, didn't you?"

"Hey, don't get all uppity an' stuff, JD," Dillon said, swatting him lightly on the arm. "You ain't all that, y'know."

"Well, did you sleep through the part about being absent from the body meaning being present with the Lord?"

"Eh?" Dillon looked confused.

JD sighed again, less patiently. "Paul said that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord."

"Paul who?"

"Paul the Apostle, numbskull!"

"He did?"

"YES!"

"When?"

"Sometime in the first century, Dillon," JD said through clenched teeth.

"Is that in the Bible?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yyess."

"Where?"

"How the hell should I know?" JD spat, looking at his friend in disgust.

"You brought it up."

"So?"

"So, if you're gonna say somethin', you oughtta know where it's comin' from, don'tcha think?"

"Oh for ... okay, it's in the Pauline epistles, okay?"

"Yeah? Where?"

"I don't have a Bible with me, Dillon."

"No? Then how d'ya know?"

JD shut his eyes. "Trust me. It's there."

"Where?"

"Oh, for the love of ... Okay, it's in Thessalonians. Okay?"

"Which Thessalonians?"

"I don't frickin' know off the top of my head!"

"You shouldn't've brought it up, then, man."

"I'm gonna ring your scrawny neck, Dillon. All right. Fine. Okay. It's in FIRST Thessalonians, all right? No, wait -- Second Thessalonians. No, FIRST. First Thessalonians."

"Aw, well how am I supposed to believe ya now? You can't keep your stories straight, you ain't sure of the book -- I bet you don't even know if it's in there at all."

"We can put the theory to the test right now."

"Yeah? How?"

"I'll kill you right now. If you don't go to either heaven or hell you can come back here and let me know."

"Aw, now you're gettin' hostile and shit, dude."

JD glowered at Dillon, opened his mouth to speak ...

... and a flash of light lit up the darkened monitor brightly, catching the attention of both of them.

They stared at the screen, shocked and startled into silence. JD checked the other instruments. Dillon put his face inches away from the screen.

"JD ... JD, what was that, man?"

JD studied carefully, watching the room wide-eyed.

"I don't know," he said finally. Only after he spoke did he realize he was whispering.

Technorati Tags: fiction

Ready to go on to Part 2?

Giving Birth to an Idea

I've been thinking of a story for a new book.  It's been bouncing around in my head for a while, but I've not really given it any serious thought.  As I started to the other night, the tragedy of life swarmed me under, and I got side-tracked.

The basic premise is pretty simple, but I do want to make sure I present it from a certain world view.  Mine, to be exact.  That means that, to be true to that view, I have to do a lot of things that make me uncomfortable, because all of them call to the fore one of my major weaknesses: laziness.

The central character is stationed in a position about which I know little or nothing.  So, there's research involved with finding out how to accurately portray that occupation.  In addition, I need to discover the methodologies, the equipment, the education and the characteristics of the people that do that sort of thing for a living.  Since I don't personally know any, it gets much harder to do.  Now I'm faced with either finding one who's willing to talk to me about what they do, how they do it, why they do it and what they need to know, or doing a lot of blind research on either the Internet or in some other informational repository and trying to make that look and feel real.  The latter sounds easier, but like most things in life, I bet it's not.  And if it is, it's probably not the best way to accomplish the task.

Secondly, I have to find out what the character is like.  Is it male, female; shy, outgoing, somewhere in between?  What about physical characteristics?  While those aren't as important as other aspects of the character, they're not something I can disregard, either.  Personality type, responses to crises and pressure, what are the stressors for the character -- I haven't the foggiest idea at this point.  There is only a rough, loosely assembled skeleton of a person with a job.  Pretty generic, but then, the idea's pretty new, too.

On the other hand, I'm not sure of the nature of my story just yet.  I don't have an outline put together, I don't have a synopsis of any general plot, I don't even have the whole story in a single sentence yet.  I have nothing but a spark, and while some sparks can grow to enormous infernos, they can also be snuffed out by the slightest breeze or tiniest raindrop, too.

So basically, I've got diddly.  Just an idea that popped into my head a few days ago.

With other fiction I've written, I had a general idea what I wanted to do.  I knew the voice that I wanted to tell the story with, I knew the players (because they're all actual people), I knew the setting (because they're all real places, or were at one time), and the characteristics of those elements are easy to put in place because the events are actual, historical accounts (to the best of my recall).  But with a completely fictional account -- and, in fact, with all completely fictional accounts I've attempted -- I end up running out of steam, or losing sight of the story, or changing the direction in the middle ... all because I lose the grip on the initial goal of the characters, the story or the conflict.

My first full-length novel was a joke of an attempt to tell the story of supernatural events as they inject themselves into the lives of people that have divergent beliefs.  It didn't work; I didn't have an underlying plot of any kind, my grasp of theology was at best poor, my understanding of the occult was weak and unsupported with research of any kind, and based primarily on ideas of people that were less than credible.  So the story didn't hold together very well, I had no idea how to write a book, what the processes involved were and the basic principles of fiction were outside my scope of knowledge, too.  I was writing the story on the fly each time I sat at the keyboard.  Every chapter was a cliff hanger, and the trail of events was implausible, and the characters were exaggerated archetypes of actual people I knew.  In short, it was a piece of feces.  I am ashamed to have written it, to have wasted so much of my time on it, and now that it's been lost forever I'm grateful.

In the second piece I wrote, I got through the whole thing.  I started with an idea to tell, in a fictionalized way, the story of events as my wife and I lived through them.  But I didn't get that far; about halfway through my goal word count, I got the idea that the book was boring and lagging.  I'd introduced some characters with one thing in mind, but no real idea of how I was going to make those things manifest themselves in the story.  I wasn't working from an outline, because my life was already laid out and I was just going to retell the tale in a story form.  When I got nervous about it, though, I changed horses mid-stream.  I took the story in a completely unrelated and unexpected direction.  It was an unplanned excursion, and it showed.  I had to go back and insert internal dialog for characters, I had things in it that were only there for fluff and filler (trying to make that magic word count), and the whole thing felt like two books mashed together using the same names.  It was, again, a chunk of steaming fecal matter, and while it has the bones to be something decent, I don't know if I'm a talented enough writer to salvage it.  If I did, I'd have to pick one story line or the other though, and start over from the beginning.

Now, I'm still not a great writer of fiction.  I can tell a funny story, or a poignant one, or a weird one, or a creepy one -- but I don't know about a long, consistent one that builds, slows, builds, slows, and crescendos.  So far, I haven't done it successfully.  I haven't got the skills and/or training to see an idea go from a loose outline to a full-blown novel.  There are so many methods for writing a book, I don't know which one works for me.  And I can't do it the way that I do short fiction.  I've proven that by repeatable processes ala the scientific method more than once.  So, now I've got a conundrum.

So, at this point, I analyze myself into "analysis paralysis."  I can't move forward, because I don't know how.  I can't get the idea out of my head, because I sort of like it, but can't determine how to make it come to life.  I can't do it in short form, because the story would probably require more than a few thousand words to tell.  At least, I think so.  What am I going to do, then?

Part of me thinks that, if I sit and think about it long enough, jot down any and all ideas, I can worry about coherency later.  I can then get a rough outline and see where the little things I've jotted can fit into the overall scheme.  I need a plot, plot points, scenes, and then some people swear by the index card thing wherein they move the index cards around to strengthen the story.

I don't know.  Like I said, I've never done any of that, and that really seems to take the wind out of the sails of the joy of writing.  On the other hand, that's how most good writers work, and I need to take my cues from them.  There's a reason they're good, and published, and I'm a loser that can't even hold the attention of the blog traffic I get.  (Every once in a while, I think Stranger sends people my way.  I can tell when she does it, because I get a big spike in traffic on my Wordpress blog.  She's sweet like that, and I don't know why, but I thank her for her kindness.)

So, how does one go about giving birth to an idea?  How do you nurture it along, massaging it from vague ambiguity to solidified story?  How long does it roll around in your head?  Should it?  Should I be getting it out on paper while it's in my mind's fore, instead of taking a chance that it's going to vanish into the ether or my so-called mind?  All questions that I've no idea how to answer.  It looks like I'm going to be spending some quality time with Google soon.

Meanwhile, I'm not doing anything creative lately.  I'm not sketching much, I'm not writing much, and I'm generally just being a couch potato.  On the upside, my car's repairs aren't going to be as bad as we thought financially.  There may still be a chance, according to my wife, that I can go get that Ph.D. in theology.  (I still say we can't afford it, she's trying to find excuses why we can.  THERE's a switch for you.  Normally, she's the one talking ME out of buying something while I'm the one trying to convince HER it should happen.)

Well, I guess I'll just keep kicking this around, but if anyone reading this has any suggestions about how to get an idea to either concrete itself or go away, I'm open to them.

As always, thanks for taking the time to wade through the tangle.

-JDT-

Technorati Tags: random thoughts, writing

The Passing of a Great Artist

I just found out today that Mike "Ringo" Wieringo has passed away at the age of 44.

He was a great artist, one for whom I held deep admiration and appreciation.  He was a favorite of mine, and he was never too famous to assist artists trying to improve with critiques and honest assessment.  He was a member of DeviantART, where I got to see his work more frequently than I'd been able to previously, and his work can still be seen his DeviantART page.

Apparently, Mike suffered chest pains on Sunday afternoon, and did call 9-1-1, but EMTs were not able to reach him in time.

May God bless the friends and family of Mike "Ringo" Wieringo.  The art world has lost a star from its heavens.

Technorati Tags: random thoughts, art

I Don't Need This

Well ... at 5:30 last night, as I was coming home from work -- and to make it even worse, I was only about a mile and a half from home! -- my car died.  I was at a stoplight, and when I took off the car sputtered, then again, as if it were clearing the system of a minor blockage.  I couldn't tell specifically, but it kicked just a little.  I didn't hear the deafening bang of a back-fire, but I did feel it and heard a bit of a knock.  It did this twice in just a short distance.  Then, something snapped, the car was coasting, and no amount of gas I applied would make it go.  There was a grinding whir as the transmission tried to engage, but ... nothing.

By the time the car stopped, it was at another stoplight, and I thought maybe, just maybe, I can shut it off, restart it and it'll engage.  The car is old and temperamental; it does funny things sometimes.  I shut it off, waited while the light was red, restarted it and -- nothing.  It started fine, I could hear it running smoothly, but any attempt to put it in gear caused a whizzing grind and there was no locomotion.

Dead transmission.

So now I'm in a rental, and while it's nice to have the added luxuries of AC, rear defrost, brakes that actually stop the vehicle and fully functional systems like turn signals, it's costing me two hours of work everyday.  And when the repair facility calls to tell me what the damage is going to be, I'll have to decide whether it's time to bite the bullet and go into debt -- either for a new car, or for a new transmission for the old car.

I was angry last night, now I'm just nervous.  We really can't carry a car note right now, not to mention the unlikelihood of someone actually issuing me one.  If this job comes to an end at the end of the year, there's no way to know how long I'll be out of work.  Stretch that out over five or six years, and you can see how the situation becomes nerve-wracking.

This is also going to mean an end to any and all ideas of going back to school.  We simply won't be able to afford it, period.

Life is grand, isn't it?

-JDT-

Technorati Tags: life, random thoughts

Writer's Block

Okay, so I've done a little research, and what I've found out is that, until very recently and depending on publisher policies, most novels are averaged at 250 words per page.  So, a 100K word novel is going to come in about 400 pages.  (As a side note, Stephen King says that 180K words is a "goodish length for a novel" -- and that translates to about 720 pages.  Yow.)

As always, however, it's a good idea to check genre publishing sites or ask a publisher putting out the kind of work you want to do for submission specs.  A fast way to get rejected it to submit something that doesn't meet their requirements.

So far to date, I've got about 45,200 words in my blog, recounting my childhood memories.  That's not a novel, but it's a good start.  The sad thing is, it's taken me about 6 months to get that far, and there's no sign of any burning inspiration to light up the last 35K-40K words to make it a full-length novel.

On the other side of the token, however, maybe it's not really a subject matter that most people are interested in reading.  If my blog hits are any indication -- and one of them is being helped along by a friendly and very sweet Stranger so that it looks busier than it is -- not a lot of people are interested in reading about my childhood misadventures anyway.  That's fair; I don't know that I would want to wade through someone else's either.  And if there were some sort of poignancy to the project, some life-lesson that I'd gained from my experiences, something I could pass on to someone about to cross through those same junctures, I might have been able to pass it off as young adult or children's literature, for that age 10-12 group.  That's a pretty narrow audience, and I don't think I have the skills to pull them away from the Wii or the X-Box to read it.  Not without them thinking "I'd rather be playing Wii or X-Box," anyway.

So what do I do with this fiction that I've had so much fun writing, and have invested so much time in?

Hmm.  Good question.

I can't really keep entertaining the notion that this can somehow be a novel.  It really can't; there's no plot, no underlying story, nothing that really ties the events together except a common set of characters.  They're not really related in any way, they don't really have a point, there's nothing that the characters are struggling through as a theme and there's no underlying conflict.  It's just a series of memories from my childhood that I've put down as best I can remember them, and have tried to tie nice resolution into each one so that it was a self-contained vignette ... which they actually were.  There's really nothing else for me to tell, and I don't know how interested a publisher would be in a collection of memoirs from someone that has never been a politician, game show host or movie star with secrets to tell.  I'm not a famed NYT journalist or 20/20 or 60 Minutes anchor that a lot of people find interesting.  I'm not a war hero who oversaw the execution of the Secretary of State's war plan in some foreign conflict.  I am, in fact, to quote one of my all-time favorite movies, "no one of consequence."

Besides that, whenever I ask someone other than my wife to read it -- especially those that fancy themselves writers -- they tear it apart and make me feel bad about it.  I'm kidding, of course, but when I hear the input of outsiders that I don't know well and really don't trust much except that they won't blow sunshine up my rear, I generally get told things like "Well, it was okay, but I was lost here ..." or "Yeah, it was okay, but there are too many modifying words in your sentences, they need to be shorter and punchier," or "this isn't bad for a first draft; it needs a lot of work though."

Those things are probably all true.  I know for certain that when I read through them I see them for what they are, and I like the flavor and the tone of them, but I'm the creator.  These are, so to speak, my children.  Just as I think my son and daughter are the most beautiful, intelligent, challenging and yes IRRITATING children ever, doesn't everyone think that of their kids?  So it is that while most other writers don't like what I've done, I have to acknowledge that they're probably being more honest with me than my other readers (MOST, not necessarily ALL).

So what do I do with it?

Well, I have recently been encouraged to continue writing, and blogging (that sweet, kind Stranger I was telling you about before was a major help and encouragement, and my wife was absolutely adamant that I continue), so I'm not going to quit.  If I'm going to be going back to school soon (it's still up in the air right now, on an unanswered prayer), there won't be very much time for it.  And what do I want from it?  Do I hope to publish, or am I content to write just for my wife, my friends and for the person that happens across my blog and takes a minute to read it?  It's going to make for a full Wiki, I can tell you that.  But what am I hoping for from it?  Anything?

Obviously, there is some part of me that wants to be published.  I want to be an author -- a successful, rich, eccentric author -- and fulfill a dream I've had since I was in 6th grade.  Most other dreams I've had, I let fall.  I wanted to be a doctor until I dropped out of college.  I don't know why I let that one die, but I did.  I wanted to be a comic book artist, but I let that one slip away too.  I wanted to be a writer, and while that one hasn't died, I'm not getting any younger and I really didn't want to be one of those people that doesn't write their first novel until after they retire.  Besides, with the way things are going in my life, I don't think I CAN retire -- ever.  (Not that there's anything wrong with publishing your first novel after retiring -- that's fine, and God bless those people.  I just wanted to do these things while I was younger ... like, 23 or 25 younger.)

So what am I going to do with these stories, these tales that from time to time pound against the inside of my skull until I finally let them out?

A rhetorical question, perhaps.  I haven't decided yet, but I don't think I can just let them die here in my blog or on my hard drive.  I think I have to try and do something.  I just wouldn't feel right, wouldn't feel complete, if I didn't.  I would feel like a failure for not even trying.  I suppose, therefore, I'll try.  But what I'll try, I haven't got a clue.

Any suggestions?

-JDT-

Technorati Tags: writing, random thoughts