Workshoppin'

Dear Gargling Remoras,

I'm enrolled in a class at Gotham Writing Classes and it's been a good experience. Every week, we've received writing assignments. Here are a few of them which I'm a little proud of.


#1

The girl's fingers barely reach above the tray table, but they find the edges of the machine's monitor. Its beeping, rhythmic tone fills the quiet room. She gets on her tippy toes for a glimpse of it over the table's lip, but the image is lost when she grows tired and lowers her heels.

The girl pushes a chair over to the table. She must see the mysterious machine, discern its meaning and decipher its riddles. With little effort, she climbs atop the chair, her hours at the jungle gym paying dividends. The machine is small and square and there are a lot of funny lines and squiggles running around on it. The girl traces the ghost of squiggly line that travels across the monitor with her finger as a foot taps to the cadence of the machine noises.

She scrunches up her face, aging her angelic features. There are words and numbers on the machine and she wishes she could read, but she's still only just learning her letters. Instead, she stares at it, hoping to pry some meaning from its pictures and sounds. However, the only thing she sees is her reflection. She blinks one eye and then the next, her action mirrored by the dimmed and warped version of herself in the black plastic. She touches her black pearl hair and the twin copies her. Her father has started cutting her hair since her mother became tired and even though it is choppy and uneven, she likes it because it is rather interesting.

He is outside the white room now, talking to the man in the white jacket and silly green pants. He smiles at her when he catches her looking, shakes the man's hand, then joins her.

"How'd you get up there?" he says and she reaches up for his open arms.

He sets her back down and takes her hand, his large fingers swallowing hers. Together, they stand at the side of the bed, standing vigil over the sleeping form.

"Let's give mommy a kiss."

She bends down and presses her lips to her mother's cheek, but it feels hollow and incomplete without the reciprocal goofy bear hug. As they leave, hand-in-hand, the girl looks at her father, the uncertainty plain on her face.

"It's okay, sweetie," he says. "She knew you were there."

#2

Sam liked the park, especially in the summer. In the summer, he could run through the tickly grass and play under the shade of the green, leafy trees with Roscoe.

It was cold in the fall—not cold enough for snow, which Sam rather liked, but cold enough that the playground sand was cool to the touch. He molded the sand into the square block that would be the castle's walls. He blew warm breath into his hands, then tried carving turrets with his fingers but soon gave up because they would crumble and he had to start all over again.

Sam looked over at his mother, who was busy talking to another lady on the park bench. He had asked her about Roscoe and she said that he was gone, and that was that. He asked why, but she grew annoyed when he did. He missed Roscoe. He was a good dog.

"You look sad." It was a child's voice.

He looked around and saw no one.

"Why are you sad?"

He looked up this time and saw the girl. "Hi," he said.

She was about his age and she was hanging upside down from the bars over the sand pit. Her legs curled around one of the metal bars, bent at the knees. Her long red hair flowed downward, dangling several feet off the ground. In one fluid motion, she pulled herself right-side-up, hung on the bar for a moment, and then dropped down, producing a rippling mini-sandstorm in the process.

Sam gawked in wonder.

"I'm Alex," she said.

"How did you do that?"

"My parents are in the circus," she replied. "They're acrobats."

"Wow."

"Cool castle."

It didn't look much like a castle anymore. He had shifted it when he got up and there was a fine dusting over it that obscured its features. He squatted down to examine it.

"Can I help?"

He smiled. "Okay."

They were still hard at work when his mother called to him. He and Alex had built a big castle—larger than any he would've been able to build himself. Sam asked her if she wanted to come play at his house and she said yes.

"Can Alex come over?" he asked his mother, who was talking on the phone.

"Sure," she said distractedly. "Who's Alex?"

"My new friend." Alex stood dutifully next to him and smiled.

"Oh. Okay. We'll have to talk to her mother. Where is she?"

"I dunno." He turned to Alex. "Where's—"

His mother put the phone away and said, "No, where's your friend?"

"This is Alex."

"Who?"

His mother was acting so strangely. Sam pushed Alex forward. "Her."

His mother furrowed her brow, then huffed, turned around, and started walking. "I don't have time for your silly little games, Samuel. We're late as it is. Hurry up, now."

Sam watched his mother's retreating form, truly befuddled. Alex grinned mischievously, winked and took off after his mother.

"Let's go," she cried. "We're gonna be late!"

#3

Hattie the mouse sniffed at the metal contraption outside the mouse hole. Even though she knew what it was meant for, it was—in its own way—quite beautiful.

"You're wasting your time," Larry said, lying on his side. He gave his furry and ample belly a satisfied pat. "There are easier ways, you know."

Hattie scurried nimbly around the trap, examining its machinations with careful precision. "All you think about is food…Oh, what's this? Interesting. You see how this small round disc gets connected to this…"

"Waste. Of. Time." He burped. "Do you have any idea what kind of spread the lady has out there? There's a plate toppling with Gouda, Cheddar, Swiss…" Larry wrinkled his nose at the memory of its scent. "And Monterrey Jack. Oh, you have to try the Monterrey Jack. It's sublime."

"…and this coil here. I think it's supposed to spring open. Truly amazing. Yes, yes." Hattie ran back into the hole and came back with half a pair of reading glasses, broken off at the bridge. She set it down and pushed it into place with her snout. "You really should take a look at this," she said to Larry.

"In big cubes! Practically the size of my head and they just left it out. I should go get some more. It's my duty as a rat." He rolled onto his stomach. "You coming?"

"Maybe later. Oh!" she said, perking her ears, then dashed back into the hole again and reemerged with a long matchstick.

"What are you doing?"

"This…" Hattie bit down on one end of the matchstick, maneuvered it into position, and used it to press the shiny metal plate in the contraption's center. A metal arm swung down ferociously, snapping the matchstick into three pieces and popping the device off the ground several inches. Hattie stood by, enthralled.

"You're insane," Larry said.

She climbed onto the harmless metal platform and took her prize.

"You coming or what?"

"No, thanks." Hattie pressed her nose to the sliver of American cheese, inhaled, and sighed contently.

"Just insane." Larry shook his head and ambled his way back towards the living room for second helpings.

Gah!

Dear Frazzled Ewoks,

Long time no post. I finished a first draft of a novel, Paper Heroes, recently and am now of my writer's high of finishing the story--a rough draft anyway. (Also, interesting to note that Heroes can easily be misspelled as Herpes, as I have just come to find out while typing this blog. That might have been a more interesting novel.) Anyway, since I am procrastinating doing all this editing, a seemingly insurmountable task, let's talk books.

I just finished Lisa Lutz's The Spellman Files. It's a really fun story about the Spellman clan of California who are a family of private eyes. It features Izzy Spellman, a 28 year old problem-child and eldest sister. The Spellman Files precedes three sequels, which I am planning to read, and supposedly, a movie is in the works.

In similar news, I found on that Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell will be made into a movie soon as well, and rumored to star Leonardo DiCaprio according to IMDB.com.

What else? I started the very short novella, The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett. It's about the Queen of England discovering the love of reading through a mobile library that stops neat the palace grounds every week. Seems pretty good so far. The word "delightful" comes to mind.

Until next time,

Matt

Nothing of Real Importance

Dear Flippant Geckos,

Got two email rejections today. As the kids say, Woot!

Here's one of them because I don't feel like submitting it anymore.

-Matt



"The First Day" By Matt Mok


With silence. That's how it begins.

I'm thrown skyward by the blast and when I open my eyes again, I can hear nothing except the ringing in my ears. Taking in the remains of the vehicle checkpoint, disoriented, I see the aftermath of the explosion.

And then the gunfire. From flashes of fire in the night, bullets tear through our position like metal hail, kicking up the hot desert sand. Scrambling for cover behind a fallen pyramid of sandbags, I see Hernandez. He lives in a tent near mine, a wiry twig of a boy from North Carolina who likes to show off the ink on his arms. Lying in the sand, he's missing one of those arms and nearly half his face.

Another volley of automatic fire ignites my auditory senses, and I pull my head below the brim of the sandbags as bullets find their mark on the other side. I can't find my rifle, so I take Hernandez's, and start shooting wildly into the darkness at invisible assailants. A prayer escapes my lips, maybe for the last time.

Fantasy Westerns and Chair Painting

Dear Party-Crashing Chimpanzees,

Talking about two books today.

The Gunslinger by Stephen King
One Vacant Chair by Joe Coomer

I was a little disappointed in The Gunslinger, though I probably should have seen that coming. I don't like long books, and even though The Gunslinger is a short book, it is part of a much, much larger story--The Dark Tower series. The story is slow and not much happens. On top of that, I never got invested into the main character, never really cared what happened to him. The general idea is interesting. The story is about the Gunslinger, which is a title for a sort of warrior in this fantasy western type story. The world is an alternate reality to ours and this gunslinger is chasing after A Man in Black across a desert. Along the way, he meets a boy who has somehow traveled from our world to his and the pair continue onward together.

Even though I didn't love this book, I continued onward with the next one in the series. Unfortunately, even though it started with a decent amount of action, I still could not bring myself to read on. I'm not sure what it is. It might be the daunting idea that there are thousands of more pages before I would finish The Dark Tower, and for me to want to do that, I need to be entirely enraptured in a story and not just passing the time. Maybe one day I'll give it another shot.

One Vacant Chair has a sweet melodic pace to it and I rather enjoyed it. It's an atypical road trip novel featuring a middle age woman on the run from a failing marriage and her 62 year old aunt that paints chair portraits. They travel to Scotland to scatter the ashes of their recently deceased grandmother and mother, respectively, along with her disinterred husband. This is a simple novel about people and relationships and has no explosions and murders and car chase scenes. It's at times funny and sad. It is also interesting in the fact that the main character, Sarah, is written in the first person by a male author, which is not typical. It is also very well done.

-Matt

Lookit: Fire

Dear Corny-Joke-Telling Cockapoos,

Today's offering is a short little story. I'm not really sure where it goes or what to say about it, other than that the setting was inspired by Dark Days.

Happy New Year!

-Matt

"Apprentice" By Matt Mok

The boy stared at the old woman's dark wrinkled hands, his eyes affixed on the flame that glowed in them. It hovered inches above her palms, but caused no pain to appear on her wizened and freckled face. Her smile was one of serenity, of peace that belied her surroundings.

He was a stranger in the city's abandoned tunnels underneath the civilized world. Yet he was inexplicably drawn, the idea striking all at once, an incomplete thought coursing through his head. The boy had walked out the front door of his house, took two buses, and walked half an hour until he found the entrance to a place of which he had no recollection.

A hidden city had unfolded before him, a collection of shacks built from discarded poster board and sheet metal. The deeper he descended into the forsaken subway tunnels, the more elaborate the structures became. Where once there were burning trash cans for light, there were now bulbs running off stolen power. All around him, the city's vagabonds returned home with their day's spoils to canned soup heated on hotplates and coffee in collections of mismatched mugs.

The boy had realized with a start that he was lost when a man touched him on the shoulder. The boy was not from below—that was plain to see—and the man asked of his intentions. A name came to him this time, fluttering in his memory before it evaporated. "Magda," he had said. "I'm looking for Magda." The man blew into his fingerless mittens and rubbed his hands together, and after some scrutiny, had pointed the way toward the old matriarch.

He watched now as the old woman repeatedly pinched the flame off of the candle and threw it into her other hand, collecting an ever-growing liquid swirl of red and orange. When she stopped, the flame that rose from the inferno in her hands licked at the roof of her shack.

"What—"

Old Magda hushed the boy and cupped her hands together, extinguishing the fire. It reemerged within her hands in seconds, but with a cool emerald glow that made her fingers appear translucent. She opened her hands to reveal a brilliant orb of roiling green fire that seemed to be contained in an invisible sphere. The old woman bent down over it and blew softly. The boy had drawn very close by then, and could hardly feel the breath of air, but the flame went out just the same, as if doused by water.

"How…" he said, his voice dry from the heat.

Old Magda pursed her lips, smiled, and said, "My child, I will teach you."

Gold Star!

Dear Scampering Ferns,

Looks like the anthology that I was apart of won something. Woohoo!


-Matt

Admitting That You're A Dreamer

Dear Pasty Centaurs,

Admitting you have a problem is generally regarded as the first step to recuperation.

To writers, I think admittance is the scary blind leap that we all take, or will have to take.

And what is there to admit? Well, that we're dreamers, that we write, and even though we enjoy it in itself, we hope for the day when it isn't just a hobby and we are published. And I don't mean published online or published in a journal, although both are still very significant accomplishments. I mean having a book that anyone can pick up at a book store or Amazon.

But really, sometimes the first step is to admit that we write at all. You see, even though the population of people that actually read seems to be a very select group, I suspect that many of them fiddle with the notion that they, too, can write a novel. They have ideas that stir them from a restless night. They look at publication industry, literary agent, and author blogs. They look at advice from others on business cards, writing synopses, writing queries, building websites, and building web social platforms. All this with one guarded thought in mind: that you could write a book.

But will you admit to anyone? Will you even admit that you write?

The fact of the matter is that not many people read, and even less write, so the thought of telling people that you write seems like a conversation ender.

Who cares? Why? Really, that's nice.

Some will show true interest, if only through the kindness of their hearts. And then will ask if it's a hobby you have had for a long time. I think most will say that yes, it is a hobby (myself included).

So why would I do that? Why would I say that it's only a hobby when the secret is that I hope that I am good enough (at least one day) to be published? How many of us wonder what it might be like to be able to derive our entire incomes from writing (extremely rare and difficult to manage when attained, I know)? But we'll say it's a hobby because it gets us off the hook.

We've already admitted that we write. Phew! Let's let it go at that.

I think if a writer claims that writing is just a hobby, that they harbor no secret desire for publication, I would wager just about anything that they're lying. 90% of them, at the very least.

If we claim to have higher aspirations, two possible reactions may occur (or that we're afraid will occur):

1. Your friend/relative/acquaintance/person sitting next to you on the subway will have a much higher regard for your writing talent for you do and ask if you've written anything that might have read. Failing that, have you written something that will be coming out soon? If the answer to either of those questions is no, then we're left feeling foolish and grasping for justification for your claim to the title, WRITER.

2. Your friend/relative/acquaintance/person sitting next to you on the subway will have no regard for your writing talent and think: Who cares? Why? Really, that's nice.

And then every time they ask you again about your writing, you will (most likely) tell them there's no news. Sure, you've written, workshopped, improved, but you're still unagented and not much closer to having your book on a shelf.

It really is a dream. Thousands of people try to write a novel and fail. The probability that you, an anonymous writer, will be published is astronomically small. Why?

Well, first you need a finished manuscript and it has to be good. It has to be the best work you've ever done. It has to be edited to the umpteenth degree. Any less is a waste of your time. This step in itself can take a LONG time because your first draft will suck. Your first edited and revised novel will not be your best.

Next, you learn to write a clear and efficient query letter after an exhaustive literary agent search. The agents will read the queries and say no thanks to most of them. If one of them asks for a partial, thank your lucky stars.

Okay, you've sent out full manuscripts for review. The chances of an agent then offering representation is even lower. If I had to guess, and this would be a very uninformed guess based on unofficial numbers, the chance of someone securing representation (with a VERY GOOD manuscript) would be 1%. And I'm sure that is an extremely generous number. It's probably a fraction of a fraction of that when you think of all the hopefuls out there.

After some strategy sessions and more revisions, I imagine the agent will try to sell your manuscript. I think, here, after all the vetting, your chances are becoming a little better of being published as long as you have partnered up with a reputable agent who has a good eye for talent and is a good judge of what's selling at the moment. Even then, it will be months, it not years, before it gets sold, then revised some more, then sold and marketed (the marketing will also be your job as well).

So, at least for me, this is what goes on in my head if someone finds out that I write, then starts asking follow up questions. Because if I tell them I want to write a book, it will be a year (if I'm extremely talented and lucky) before I can point to something in my hand and say, "Hey, I told you so."

This has been a rant (with numerous grammatical and spelling errors, no doubt) without any real resolution, I'm afraid. I guess my point is this: If you're not ready to admit to your dream to others, at least admit it yourself. Yes, you're insane, but so what?

-Matt