Sunday 29 September 2013

What has become of me.

I'm going to share a new short story that I wrote for some contest just so that I could get myself writing again.
I realize I work best at night, not that this is any good. The hard part was to fit the whole thing into 750 words.

The darkness closed in around us. I hugged my teddy tight and waited again for the noise. I looked around, trying to see, but there was not one speck of light to help focus. The room was totally black. Teddy brushed my cheek, so I held his head. My lower lip quivered.
“Soon it will be here again.” My teddy warned. I nodded shorty. My breaths were heavy.
“Ouch,” Teddy groaned. I turned fiercely, and gasped in relief. I loosened my grip on him. The hole in his neck was still small. Shaken, I turned my fear back onto what might appear. I was so scared a quiet cry escaped me. When I shut my mouth, the cry proceeded. That’s when the metal floating thing, with its lights and all its strange arms arose from the foot of the bed.
It swiveled as it approached me. I whimpered in silence while I watched all its spidery arms test the tools they were holding in midair. It took all my might not to scream while it shined its light at the things in my room, turning around until the light pointed at me.
couldn't see it now. It was too bright. But I knew it was there heading straight for me with its sharp tools, meant for use on me. I crushed Teddy. He choked in my ear to stop and I stopped. He was just as scared as I was. I couldn’t keep my eyes open any more. They filled with tears of fear and pain from the light. I tugged on Teddy’s tail – the signal that I was about to scream. I knew that if I screamed, the thing would attack, but I had to. I opened my mouth but nothing escaped. I was frozen sitting it bed my mouth open, eyes shut tight, with the light shining through, getting stronger and stronger. The hum of the machine got closer and closer.
Teddy! It took him from me! I groped next to me. I touched my pillow, grabbed it and shot it at the machine.
Still scared to scream, I rolled out of bed, pulling one of my covers with me. The light followed me like a spotlight. The hum grew. I ran for the door holding the blanket like a cape.
“Dylan!” I had just reached the door when I heard Teddy. I looked up at the floating metal thing only to be blinded with the light. “Save yourself!”
I closed my eyes, I took a second to decide.
Hummumumummmummmummummm
The sound was so close now. I flung the blanket upwards as hard as I could. As I had hoped it covered the metal humming thing, diming the lights and the sound. The thing spun and swerved in the air throwing shadows of everything in the room in odd directions. I tried to blink away the blindness it gave me, searching for Teddy. I found him on his back with the pillow I through covering him.
“I’m coming, Teddy!” I lunged at the pillow and hugged Teddy tight.
Suddenly the room was flushed with light, and the humming was back. The robot managed to cut the blanket in half with one of its razor-sharp tools. It found us again. I ducked and rolled till I hit the door. I ran through the hall to the living room, regretting running passed the front door. I wished my parents weren’t such deep sleepers.
The robot was nearing, it would have me cornered again, but at least I had Teddy to tell me what to do.
“Look around for something to throw” he whispered.
I grabbed the couch pillows. Tossed them one by one at the machine, who bounced them back at the floor. There was nothing left to throw.
“Throw me.” Teddy said.
“No!” I cried.
“Dylan, it’s the only way! Throw me.” I didn’t have much time. Tears drizzled from me. I flung my Teddy up to the robot and it hit a claw, spinning it, but not much else. I watched Teddy try climbing on top of the metal beast as it closed in on top of me, its claws and needles raking my skin.

I woke up on the floor. It was morning. I could hear the radio and smell pancakes, but I couldn’t move.
“Hey Teddy!” A hand squeezed me hard.


Dylan comes to smirk at me in the window pretty often. No one’s ever going to buy me with that hole in my neck.



Monday 27 May 2013

Monday 22 April 2013

Chapter One: Just Post It Already


Chapter One: Running

All my life, my dream was to fly.

Without an airplane. Without a jet-pack. If I had a jet-pack, though, I’m sure I wouldn't mind.

Looking up at the birds, I could never help but feel jealous. They were born to fly, and don’t have any other care. They don’t have school. Their life is easy. They fly with grace.

Grace. The way people are supposed to move around. What’s the point of walking around if you weren't going to do it right? Although wherever I was, I heard only, “sorry,” “oops,” and “I’ll… uh… clean that up”.

People seemed only bashfully happy to me. So very grounded by what they have to do, by either force or necessity or desire. Being able to fly would pretty much be the exact opposite of being grounded, wouldn't it? That’s what I’d liked. To have been different from my Grade 6 classmates at school, each of whom had their own anchor. It was usually video games or TV or sports.

My friends gave me a share in their fun from time to time, and they always insisted I was crazy for not having much of a video game system at home. I used to agree with them, but I got over it. Now I felt lucky. I didn’t have to worry about my scores. I heard that’s all they talked about, which gave me nothing to talk about, whatsoever. My friends were Simon and Chase. The only two people I really felt comfortable to talk to, even though all they talked about is video games. They didn’t seem to care when I didn’t understand them, they seemed to enjoy explaining things to me.

They were the only ones who enjoyed coming to my house, where I had just a computer to entertain them. My TV was “lame,” and anything else was nearly inconsiderable. At school we did everything together.

That was before I knew I could fly.

It was early September, and I had decided I wanted to fly. Our teachers took us out to the park at lunch, and I didn’t want to play soccer. We hung around the field at first. After a while, we managed to wander away from everyone, up a small hill. It was where the running track was, but seeing it in front of me revealed that this would the perfect place to practice my plan to fly.

I once read in a book about someone that had learned to fly after following instructions in a book. They told him what yoga positions to do, what to say and what to put in a blender. After that he was able to fly. It described how flying had felt. It made me so angry that this was only fiction.

Nobody told me flying was impossible. I never asked, but everyone kept saying that anything is possible. All the teachers said that with a confident smile. We really could do anything. They could give more homework, I could become a genius, animals could talk, when the lights turn out your chair can attack you. I could fly.

All I had to do was want it enough. And what better position to be in to start flying, randomly by the power of will, than a running one?

So every lunch I started to lead my friends over to that little hill beyond the soccer field and run. After my friends got tired I would continue. I tried to cry a bit; maybe that would help build my will.

Eventually I started to jump, and grab at the air every once in a while, but still nothing happened. I tried to push off the ground with the Force, like a Jedi might, but still, nothing. I didn’t give up though, and I could feel myself getting stronger from this endless running during the lunch recess.

Maybe I may have stopped after a while, realizing how crazy I was, but I didn’t get the chance to. One day, I was running, sweat was just starting to bead down my forehead, I could feel. Chase and Simon were on the bleachers talking about video games or something.  I felt like it was time to try jumping. I tried my “Force Method”: I concentrated really hard, bringing my eye brows down, squinting. My hands open at my hip, I leaned forward, tried to feel the stony track without touching it. The space in between. My eyes shut and I thrust everything I could off the ground. Air blew over my face. In my hands I could feel something. It felt like compressed air, or the feeling you get when you push and pull your hands at each other repeatedly. The feeling was gone I opened my eyes and I was falling. But I was falling from way higher than I have fallen. I started to whoop in joy, but I yelped as I fell hard onto my feet and landed on my hands in the grass right after a turn in the track. Chase and Simon saw me lying there. “Jesse!” they called, “Jesse, are you okay?!”

“I did it,” I told them, “I flew.”

It had truly been only the sky and I

╞╕╒╡


So, you read the first chapter in the story! At least that's what I assume you're doing at the bottom of this post! I hope it was short enough, the word count is 871 words! So... My first story since... my last one! I'm pretty amazed that I'm doing this! So far this is going according to plan, but you may remember me saying I don't have one, so... I'm not going to try and fill you with any hopes! This is pretty much all I've got!

PLEASE let me know what you think!

Sunday 14 April 2013

YOU are The Exquisite Corpse

The Exquisite Corpse is a strange name for a contest. I'm not making a corpse. But if I did it would probably exquisite, if I do say so myself. I'd turn killing it an art. That line triggers something in your brain doesn't it?
 
 This isn't a competition to find the greatest corpse, is it? I was told it is a contest to find out who can impress Derek Landy, author of Skulduggery Pleasant (...), this month.
 
 My only possible explanation for the name is that you probably don't want to participate in this competition, if you want to live.

 That's all I can say.

 Even so, it is what has been taking up my free time at the moment, so you may not see "Chapter One" until I'm done. Then again, you may not see it at all...

 I shouldn't joke about that. Of course I don't see myself winning, so don't worry, the story is coming.

 It's a silly little thing but the good part about it is that each chapter is short, and each chapter has many possible follow-up chapters, so if you are getting bored, please tell me, and I'll see what I can do. 

 There's no fighting in the first chapter. You'd have to wait for chapter two. But then if you wanted any REAL fighting, you'll have to wait for chapter five or six.

 No, I don't know what's going on in my story I think about all day, from when I wake up, to when I try and fall asleep, everything that happens to me, or in the news, it happens to my characters. 

 It's pretty interesting. I just need to... finish this "Corpse". That's what their calling the entries, right? Even if it's just a story, or a picture... 

 Otherwise it's the invitation to mine. 

 

Thursday 21 March 2013

Impossible

I have at least four drafts for this new post. I have been waiting for a very long time to post something, and it is finally about time I did. For a very long time I've been thinking about what I would say in this new post, and wording it perfectly, trying to figure out how to start it, and I used none of those ways. Nothing like being fresh!

Speaking of fresh...
I have been thinking about doing somthing new for me. Writing short stories has been what I wanted to do, because when I started this blog, I expected people to be bored of a long story that you prolong over a number of posts, so I stayed away from that, and shared a new short story whenever I had one I wanted to share. But you may have noticed I have become very distant from that. That stupid artwork of mine is just faster. I probably should take me a bit longer if I want it to look any good, but I have immense pleasure in looking at whatever I come up with. Because every time I make a new painting, I experiment with new things, and the pictures are like little bits of my genius in a picture...

Last post- no wait- the post before the last post, I told you I'd give you a story about a yellow house, shaped like a droopy cone, which sort of makes it look like a wizard hat. This story was going to be awesome. Awesome because it was going to be quick, funny... But then it became too long. And boring, in my mind.

Now, how would you like to read a full length story, with chapters and everything, like you guys make, and I really enjoy reading?

I'm going to try this, because there've a couple of ideas on my mind that have just been bugging me to a point where I feel like I'm being tortured. I need to write one of these stories. I want to see how far I can go. My record so far is four chapters before getting bored. That was before I realizes I should just write shorter stories.

So what'd'ya think?

Sunday 27 January 2013

Waddiawantfromme etc.

I have been busy! Okay?! Stop asking me to come on and spend time with you when I have better things to be doing!
Hmm... This doesn't really apply to anybody that I really know of. . . I think I'm just trying to talk like that other guy, who always starts posts like that. . . and writes really cool books that kind of make up for anything...

But really. I've been having quite a blast doing things. This that would surprise even myself if I had just told me what I'd been doing. But I guess a lot of the time I am the most surprised at random things I would never expect me to do, while everyone else just seems indifferent. Not even a hint of surprise.

As usual, (this is the follow up thing I do to introduce most of the surprising things I do after telling everyone they will, but probably won't be surprised.) Ahem, as usual, I have been thinking. Letting time pass infront of my eyes, waiting for the time to set my plans into action, surprising everyone. As usual, I haven't actually gotten to that yet. I'm a little busy thinking. I can't pass the chance that I might miss something important.

I want to try something. I want to TELL you my plans.

Wow.

That was unexpected. Even for -. We've been through that, haven't we? Yeah, thought so.

Okay, I'll be honest, when I started this post, I had no idea I was going to say that. Sometimes I just blurt out random things, sorry. I'll try no to let that happen again.

Anyway, back to what I was saying before.

I have been busy. And I have been learning. Teaching myself. How to make this:

...



Yes. That is the grand thing I have been hiding from you this whole time. A silly song thing. The picture of the black lightning blot wasn't supposed to be part of it. Blogger forced me to make the song into a video, so I thought 'hey, why not put an old picture of how you thought the lightning from the scepter looked? It would be perfect!'
(I made that to envision  the bolt... because I kept getting confused, don't ask how. I made it with Paint.)

  Okay, so the music part was made with an app I'm now addicted to: Garageband. You may have heard of it.
  It's this lovely little app that costs five Canadian dollars, and is meant for producing music but is also impossible to use. Until I found out a whole new way, a way that takes a lot of patience, and a bit of musical knowledge, but is completely worth it in the end.

  By slowly editing each independent note, songs can be perfect, exactly as you want them, without the need of a whole band.

  So this one short, pitiful clip took two days (including breaks), and is only 9 bars. I admit, it isn't supposed to be the best. There's a reason I call this song "Waddiawantfrommethisisthefirstsongiveeverreallymade". I was just showing off (to myself) in the end, which is why it becomes all bumpy and stuff. I just wanted to see if I could do that rising thing, because I had the "Flight of the Order of the Phoenix" song stuck in my head. I realized so many things from this experience, that I think I'll continue making these short things. To keep my head in order.

  Whenever I hear a song now I see notes in Garageband-form in my head. (I don't actually know which notes go to which letters, etc, I just put them somewhere on the imaginary chart thing, and assume where the other ones go as apposed to my random placements.)

   Basically, I learned a lot. That's all I should say without trying to make you understand what I mean. It would help a lot if I understood what I was doing...

  Another thing I have been doing is thinking about writing more. All I do is think. Think. And draw useless pictures. I have developed so many story ideas, I keep adding one every time I try to count them...

  So as I have been thinking, and drawing, I realized I was creating yet another story. So I have decided to finally write that one story, because it was small, and sort-of-simple.

  And incidentally, I don't trust myself to write it. I think I need to force myself. And that having been said, I present to you . . .


THE COVER: