Mark's blog: "Writing"

So, this is something that I would like to do something with. What, I am not sure. A novel was my original idea,but I think it could work well as a comic or web comic, or a compilation of short stories. The problem with the comics, is that I cannot draw, but having someone to help me out or get motivated again would be wonderful. I have a lot more planned and plotted than is actually written.

To give a quick overview. There are two main characters. They know they are in a book, but they do not know what they are supposed to be doing. Think of actor's on a stage that have no scripts, and must improve from the director or the audience. The author gives subtle (and sometimes not to subtle) hints as to what they should be doing. They do not have to do what he says, but if they do not, bad things happen. It's a medieval comedy spoof type thing. Lots of puns and bad jokes about. As well as many pop culture references. I don't know if this would actually even sell as a novel, or is something that people would pay money to read. But here is some of it.

P.S. I know a lot of it needs to be polished. I started writing this a long time ago and it has just sat around

 

 

At a tavern in a galaxy far, far away, two men sat at a table looking bored and as if they were waiting for something to happen. One was about 6’2, had black hair and hazel eyes, and was dressed in all black. The other was shorter, only about 5’8 and had blonde hair and blue eyes. He wore long, white robes, and looked as though he was a priest or cleric. A picture of a quill and a bottle of ink set upon the chest of his robes. He also had with him what he called his "peace pipe" and was avidly using it.

"All this waiting doth bore me," the taller of the two muttered.

"Dude, why are you talking like that?" The other one asked.

"Because, this is going to be a medieval adventure. We should talk like it."

"It just going to make The Great One do more work. I don’t think he will want to try to write everything in Old English."

"Who is this Great one?"

"The guy who is writing the book."

"Nonsense. If he wants this book to be somewhat realistic, he should put in those sort of details."

Shortly after that, a waitress briefly stopped at the table and handed a note to the priest looking guy. There were only two words on the piece of paper. They were "Hell no."

"I kind of get the feeling that The Great One doesn’t agree with you," and while saying that, he hands the piece of paper to his friend.

"What kind of author does this Great One this he is? Here we are sitting in a tavern doing nothing when something like a plot or story line should have been established already. We don’t even have names yet! This is really pathetic. Don’t you agree?"

After a pause, and no answer, he looks across the table to see the priest guy staring blankly at the wall next to him with glazed eyes.

"Great, you won’t be any help. Well, since it’s getting late we should get a room for the night. But wait, we have no money. Another convenient detail left out by The Great One."

While complaining about various other things, something smacks him in the side of the head and falls into his lap. He picks it up and looks at it. It’s a leather pouch, and by the way it hit him, it obviously has something in it. Glancing inside, he finds several copper and silver pieces, and even a few gold, as well as a folded up piece of paper. He picks up the paper and takes a look at it. "At least this one has more than two words on it," he grumbles and starts to read it.

"Stop complaining you pansy. I’ll write this book however I want, and you can’t do anything to stop me. You will get more information in the morning."

"How wonderful, an author with an attitude. Well, I can’t do anything about it, so I might as well go to bed. I really need to relax and relieve some stress." He glances around the room, and spots something. One of the local "Ladies of the Night" might help. And his friend will be too stoned to even notice.

While paying for the room, he requests to have a "special room". After taking care of that, he heads up to the room dragging his friend with him.

*********************************************

When morning arrives, the taller of the two wakes up and absently starts scratching his crotch. While doing so, he notices that his friend is starting to come back to the real world, and that there were two packs in the middle of the floor. While looking through the packs, he finds yet another piece of paper, but he doesn’t bother reading it until toker boy looks like he is at least somewhat aware of what was going on.

After about an hour and what toker boy says starts to make sense, the other guy pulls out the piece of paper and reads it aloud. "OK, here is the information that you wanted so much. The pansy in the black is an assassin and a thief named Aaron Dalton. Just because you’re a thief and an assassin, doesn’t mean that you are evil, but you are. If you don’t want to be evil, too bad, deal with it. The other is a Floydist priest named Winston Corliss. Let me rephrase that, he is the only Floydist priest. A Floydist is someone who believes in Floyd The Almighty Pink Rooster. Every morning Winston must smoke on his on his "holy peace pipe" and find out what you should do for the day. You don’t have to trust the information or do what you are told to if you don’t want to, but since I’m the one who is giving it to you, you might want to. But if you can’t trust me, who can you trust?"

Aaron stopped reading for a second and thought to himself out loud, "Trust the information we get, huh, but how am I supposed to trust a stoned guy? Who know if what he says is what we’re actually supposed to do and that he isn’t just making stuff up?" Annoyed, he began to read again.

"Anyway, you should start traveling east towards a place called Amishia. It’s an Amish town. They weren’t original in the name, and you have some work to do there. That’s all for now. Oh yeah, the reason why you have been scratching your nuts all morning is because you have pubic lice. If you quit complaining and do what you are told, they might go away in a few days."

Aaron crumples up the paper and throws it into the corner of the room. "That guy is really starting to piss me off. Who does he think he is? Telling us what we have to do and when we have to do it like we are trained animals who jump through hoops."

"Well, he is the author," Winston explains.

"And a sucky one at that. He will probably use some overused story line and make us suffer through it."

Suddenly an old, ugly woman who had to be at least in her sixties hobbles into to the room shouting, with a voice that sounds like she has to have been smoking for the last fifty years or so, "I am a young, beautiful, virgin princess about to be sacrificed to a dragon. You must help me!"

"At least he used something somewhat original," Winston stated.

Aaron falls to his knees and begs "OK, I apologize for the remark. If I quit complaining, will you stop doing stuff like this?" Suddenly the old, delusion woman disappears. "Thank goodness she’s gone" Aaron sighs with relief. "Well we had better get supplies for the journey ahead, right?" He pauses, and then he says "Winston?"

When Aaron looks, he sees Winston sitting on the floor with a familiar glazed look on his face.

"Great, it looks like I will have to get the supplies on my own. Oh well." And as he leaves the room, he briefly stops to wonder "What the hell is he smoking anyway?"

*****************************************

Aaron makes his way to the market area. He’s pretty sure it’s the market because it has a big sign that says "Market Place." Aaron starts to wander around the market looking for places to purchase travel gear. After searching for about half an hour, Aaron finally finds a shop that looks appropriate for what he needs.

The shop was packed with items ranging from weaponry and armor to oils and lotions and even to some objects of questionable origin. Aaron was amazed that this place had nearly everything that you could possibly ever need. But what amazed him even more, was the fact that no one else was there. Why weren’t there any customers in the store? Maybe it’s because they can’t fit in it, he thought to himself. While looking around a little more, Aaron saw banners hanging from the rafters and signs decorating the walls. Apparently the shop was having a contest since adventuring season was about to start. Whoever has the best reason to go adventuring will be the winner; and the prize just happens to be full gear for two people and a free weeks stay at Amishia Resort.

"How convenient," Aaron muttered. But when he thought some more about it, he asked himself, "Why is there a resort in an Amish town? Oh well, might as well go and win the trip."

Aaron planned arduous his trek to what appeared to be a counter. After stumbling and bumbling through a sea of miscellaneous junk, Aaron finally reached the counter. However, there was a problem, he couldn’t find anybody.

After looking around a second time, he found one of those little round bells with the plunger on top. He gives it a couple of rings. After waiting for a while, Aaron started ringing it again.

"Stop that bloody ringin’! Can’t ya see that someone is tryin’ to sleep back here!?"

"Um . . . not really. Where are you?"

"I’m right here."

"Right where?"

"Right here! are you blind!?"

Aaron leans over the counter and looks down to see a crotchety looking midget. "Oh, there you are. I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there," he stammered.

"Well you didn’t look down here now did ya? Now what do you want? It better be good because ya interrupted me nap," the midget snapped.

"Sorry about that Mr. . . . um . . ."

"Seryus’ the name. Now what do ya want, or did ya just wake me up to apologize and ask my name?"

"Serious?"

"Not Serious, Seryus. Are ya deaf as well?"

"Sure, whatever you say. Anyway, I came by for some traveling gear and to enter the contest."

"What contest are ya talkin’ about?"

"The trip for two to Amishia. The one that’s on all the banners and signs in your shop."

"Oh . . . that contest. That ended over three years ago"

"What!?" Aaron exclaimed. "Then why are the banners and signs still up?

"Ya think I’m tall enough to reach them? I’m not as tall as most people."

"Yeah, I guess you are short."

"I prefer vertically challenged," Seryus huffed sticking his chest out.

"Whatever you say. But that still doesn’t help me out with getting some travel gear. And I don’t exactly have a lot of money."

"Well, come to think of it, nobody did ever win that contest. All I got were a bunch of lame excuses from lazy bums. I suppose that if ya came up with something good, I could give ya a discount on stuff."

"Really!? That would be great! And it just so happens that I have the best reason in the world."

"Do ya now?" Seryus leaned against the counter waiting for Aaron’s reply. "It had better be a good one."

"This may sound a farfetched, but this whole thing is actually a book. The author is kind of a pompous jerk, and abuses his authority somewhat, but we’re supposed to do what he wants. And he wants us to go to Amishia. We even have a letter from him." Aaron pulls out the letter and hands it over to Seryus, who looks it over. "So as you can see, my partner and I have worthy cause."

After carefully examining the letter, Seryus looked up at Aaron, and then started to laugh hysterically. "Did an elephant just come into my shop and drop a log? That’s the biggest load of crap I have ever heard. I had a couple of guys come in here and try to use a story like that years ago. Two guys, one of them was tall and the other was short and kind of fat. Dressed really sharp too. They had black suits, black sunglasses, and black hats. Reminded me of secret service agents. They waltzed in here and said ‘We’re on a mission from God.’ Yeah right. I think they were singers or performers instead of actual adventurers."

"Well, they did sound suspicious. But our story is true. We even have a letter and everything. You have got to believe us," Aaron pleaded.

"So you’re saying that this is all true and the letter is legit?"

"Yes."

"Then ya really have crabs?"

Aaron froze. He had forgot about the letter mentioning that. "Um . . ." he stammered.

"So that’s why ya were scratchin’ your crotch. I just thought ya were playin’ with yerself." Seryus paused thoughtfully for a second. "I’ll tell ya what, even if the story’s not true, it sure gave me a hell of a laugh, so I’ll give ya a discount anyway."

"Thanks, I guess," Aaron said, still kind of embarrassed from the pubic lice thing.

Seryus, noticing Aaron’s uneasiness, said. "Don’t worry, it’s not too noticeable, it’s just that it’s at eye level for me. Trust me, I’ve seen a lot worse problems."

Trying to change the subject, Aaron thinks about something else to talk about. Then he remembers that the city had a sports festival about a week ago. "Did you go to the sports festival a while ago?" Aaron asked, hoping his pint-sized acquaintance liked sports.

"I would have, but it’s kind of hard for me to see," he explained.

"That’s too bad. I heard there was a record set in the dwarf toss." Just then Aaron realized what he had said just a little to late.

"No, I didn’t hear about that one."

And Aaron knew why. He couldn’t believe that he said that. Now he might not get the discount.

"Don’t worry about it. I find that event just as funny as everyone else, unless you’re the one being tossed. But be more careful next time, most midgets don’t have the same views I do."

"You mean the vertically challenged?"

"Whatever, that’s just a load of crap. I’m a midget, and that’s that. I don’t try to sugar coat it or make it sound like something other than it is. Anyway, we had better get down to business." And with that, the two began to discuss prices.

*************************************************

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This was something that I had to right when applying for a script writing project a long while back. It wasn't anything paid, it was just a project among friends mostly. Anyway, one thing I had to submit was a "romantic" piece. While I hate sappy stuff most of the time, I came up with a way that I didn't have to give in and adds lots of hearts, kisses, and happy endings. Well, the happy endings might have not been so bad depending on what kind ;). Nevertheless, here it is.

 

A leaf skittered across the hard, lifeless pavement. It brushed up against a leg unnoticed as it was ushered along it forced journey. The leg shifted uneasily as if it was anxiously waiting for something. Something it was not sure that was going to arrive. Wrapped about the legs was a large tan trenchcoat that rustled slightly in the wind. The upper portion of the trenchcoat was clutched tightly, to not only keep out the cold, but also to keep the hope from seeping out of the almost broken heart.

A hand appeared from underneath the trenchcoat to brush away a few strands of long blonde hair that obscured her vision. The hair easily went back into place, but soon slipped out from behind her ear to flow with the wind once more. Before sliding the slender hand back in to the sanctuary of the trenchcoat, she glanced at the gold watch he had given her. Not just any he, but the one that had stolen her heart. Then she thought to herself, he had not so much stolen her heart as he had accepted it when she willingly offered her heart to him. The hands of the watch pointed to 2:47. That was over an hour after the designated time. What that time designated, she was not sure of. All she knew was that she was meant to be in this spot at 1:30; whether it was for good or for bad, she did not know. Her only consolation was that he promised that if she would only wait, that he would be there.

She tucked away her hand to hide it from the cold, and her mind slid towards her memories of when she recieved the watch. It had been a warm summer evening on the beach while watching the sunset. As the sun melted into the horizon, he slipped the watch around her wrist and fastened it. On the back, engraved in small letters, were the words "eternally yours." She contemplated those words and questioned the truth of them. Were they just words and nothing more? No, she could not accept that. She could not believe that they were nothing more than words. She pushed that through away with as much force as she could muster. Those two words were all she had to go on right now. They were what kept her afloat when her world turned into a stormy sea and threatened to drown her. If she had any doubt in the words that sustained her, all that supported her would dissapear.

However time kept marching, straining her faith. Slowly but steadily draining the last of her will power. Trying to strengthen her resolve, she fondled the watch lovingly and thought of what it meant to her. While doing so, she discreetly peeked at the hands of the watch, as if hoping time wouldn't notice her uncertainty. 3:05 is what the reflective face told her. She told itself it must be wrong, that it couldn't be right. As the last ray of hope was leached from her heart, she was jerked back to reality. Two arms folded around her. At first she struggled, but then she recognized the familiar embrace. The feeling that she longed for came flooding back all at once. She relaxed as her fears melted away and calmness overcame her. This is what she waited for, this is why she existed.