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

Two Quick Ones

Dear Ill-tempered Marmosets,

Couple more books I've read recently:

The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King
A Shortage of Engineers by Robert Grossbach

As it has been the trend lately, the first one is another book by King. The Eyes of the Dragon departs from any of his work that I have read so far--in that it is a fantasy. Not fantasy as in little boy has powers like in The Shining, but actual Lord of the Rings-type fantasy with dragons and princes and kings and magicians. I'd say that this is so far my second favorite Stephen King book, behind Salem's Lot. It's a story of a wrongly imprisoned prince trying to retake his rightful place on the throne. Like most of his work, King really has a knack for character development. The story is very good here, but it's not anything new. The characters are what you fall in love with.

A Shortage of Engineers was a blast, if just a little true to real life for me. It's a funny look at the life of an engineer at a defense company and it'll leave you in stitches. It pokes fun at all the things office workers have to deal with, but in this case, with a closer eye on what makes us engineers tick in these work environments and the crazy administrivia that gets foisted onto us. A fun read. But probably more so because it mirrors my work life so much.

-Matt

Another Round of Not-So-Comprehensive Reviews

Dear Ogling Lemurs,

I watched Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes recently and I have to say, it was a great time. Robert Downey Jr. adds another new franchise under his belt along with the awesome Iron Man and
Jude Law does a great turn as Watson. This isn't the Sherlock Holmes you've known. He kicks ass. He's funny. It's basically a buddy cop movie with action and comedy in a Sherlock Holmes shroud. Don't be mistaken though. There are definite moments that separate this movie from others in its genre. It is a mystery and Holmes flexes his brain muscle quite a bit. Watch this one.

I probably shouldn't give my opinion on a book before I've finished it, but then again, I've disliked books enough in the first chapter to put them down. So, Boneshaker by Cherie Priest is a wild ride. It's a well written, fun, and action-filled steampunk adventure feature zombies and airships. It takes place around the turn of the century in the late 1880s in Seattle. Briar Wilkes lives with her teenage son in Seattle on the outskirts of what used to be Seattle. It's infested with rotters, the undead born from a underground gas leak years ago before her son was born. The catch? Her late husband built the drilling machine that doomed the city. Seattle is now behind a wall, cordoned off from the world. But Briar's son enters the dangerous city one day, and Briar must follow. And they find that there is more to this city than just the Rotters. There are people. I've never read any of Priest's books before, but if this novel is any indication of the others, sign me up!

Up next, two more Stephen King books:

The Shining - I wanted to like this one, truly. But it's slow. Some might argue that the length is required for us to really understand Jack Torrance's descent into madness, but there must be a better way of doing it. All the first two thirds of the book did was make me hate Jack. As a character, he's fleshed out and unique and even intriguing. But as a person that I might relate to and sympathize with, he fails completely. For those who don't know the general story, The Shining tells the story of a family of three that travel to an out-of-the-way hotel for the winter, where the father acts as the custodian of the grand hotel until it reopens in the spring. Cut off by snow and distance, the hotel starts affecting them all. The boy has special powers of cognition and the hotel wants him. The father goes crazy. Shit hits the fan. My favorite character was the cook, Halloran, though he only appears momentarily in the beginning and then ever so slightly near the end. This one I struggled a little bit getting through.
the shining - hate jack torrance and slow moving

The Running Man - I really enjoyed this Bachman book. Ben Richards live in a dystopian version of 2020s America. Apparently, by then, the separation of class has become extreme and one of the only recourses for the poor to make money is to enter state sanctioned reality TV shows where they are potentially maimed or killed. Ben is married and has a baby with the flu but no money to pay for it. His wife is forced to turn tricks and he's unemployable after being black listed. In a last ditch effort, he applies for the games. After a multitude of intelligence and medical tests, he is sent to The Running Man, the most highly rated game of all where only the best applicants get sent. Ben is released into the real world with a few thousand dollars. He will be hunted by a specialized team that will kill him. His family gets $100 every hour he stays alive and if he can manage to stick it out for thirty days, he gets a million dollars. Also: every law enforcement member he kills is an extra $100. Members of the viewing public are awarded for calling in with information about his whereabouts. No one has lasted past just a few days. So begins the newest installment of The Running Man. This books was fast-paced, exciting, and at times--incredibly violent. Highly recommended. (Although there is a part at the end that is not for the weak-stomached.)

-Matt

Onward Ho! (Or something equally inspirational)

Dear Querulous Muskrats,

I think I'm hitting that metaphorical wall. If not now, then very very soon.

What wall? I am speaking of that wall that most writers know to well—the one that divides your progress from one of the enthusiastic clickety-clack of keyboard keys to utterly desperate inertia.

I feel like I'm very close to being there. For me, the wall comes early. Most of the time it's because I fall out of love with the idea. What was once the best thing EVER, is now…meh. The euphoria at the beginning is like no other. Everything seems to fall in place and your initial seedlings of a plot germinates, and you have an almost entirely mapped out novel in your head, complete with fun characters, memorable scenes, and a kickass ending.

The WIP (work-in-progress) now has lost some of its luster. I've changed some things over the course of the first 12000 words. I've added elements and took some out. But the surprise is that I still like it, unlike some of the other projects that never got past the first couple thousand words (or have just been left in an ideas file to be undertaken on a rainy day). So, I still like it, but I know I'm near that point of the novel where it will feel like real WORK to continue.

Make no mistake about it though, writing is work. You can't expect to finish anything close to this length without putting some sweat and tears into it. I just wish there was something that could read my mind and write my novel for me. Life would be so much better. But then again, I guess the sense of accomplishment would be diminished and everybody and their mother would have a manuscript floating around.

This will be the second piece of long fiction that has a decent chance of completion. The previous one fell a little short than my target word count and still needs several revisions. Here's hoping this new one will make it at least that far.

Now to stop procrastinating.

-Matt

Tackling a Few More Books off the Reading List

Dear Harrumphing Bunny Wabbits,

Some more books I read recently:

Darling Jim by Christian Moerk
Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Darling jim
An abundance of katherines beat the reaper
katherines is great-- really fun fast paced YA read.. looking to others.

First, we have Darling Jim. I wasn't too sure if I was going to like this book going in and it turns out that my doubts were well-founded. The story in the novel is told well, and it's rather short in length, but it felt long to me. The interest was high in the beginning but didn't hold for me. The story itself is a mashup for different genres (fantasy, mystery, fairytale) and it felt forced, especially near the end. In the end, it was somewhat forgettable. I found myself skipping ahead at certain points, skimming through pages at a time. When I skim, don't just speed read, I scan. I take probably 15-20 seconds going over a page to glean the important stuff, then move on. In short, the story was interesting enough for me to find out what happened, but I didn't feel bad about not reading every word in order to do so. One thing that bothered me is that this story is about three sisters who are trapped in a house by a deranged aunt and most of the story is told from diaries. We'er supposed to feel for these women, but when they kept referring to an Asian character in the story as Chinaman (he was Korean, in fact), it just bothered me. Keep in mind that this story takes place in modern times, so there is no excuse really to say that it was just a word that was being used during that period. Even if the "Chinaman" was a villain in the story, using that term just did not sit well with me. Also, I was much more interested in the story of Niall, the postman who finds the sisters' diaries, than of the sisters' diaries themselves and I wish more of the story was about his adventure and not their plight. Christian Moerk, however, does deliver a solid debut and the novel is well written, even if I didn't fall in love with it.

On to An Abundance of Katherines. This YA novel by John Green is in a word--awesome. I first found John Green when I stumbled upon his hilarious dissection of the Twilight series on Youtube. His novel is about Colin, a recent high school graduate who is also a certified prodigy. He has just been dumped by his latest girlfriend Katherine, number nineteen. In turns out that all of them have been named Katherine and over the summer, he and his friend Hassan, go on a road trip while he tries to figure out what has gone wrong with his love life. The story is funny and poignant. Don't let the young adult label scare you off. This book is great. I look forward to reading his other novels: Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns.

Beating the Reaper is the debut novel of Josh Bazell, who is not only a novelist but a doctor as well. It's a rip-roaring story of a mob assassin who joined the witness protection program and is now a first year intern at the hospital. Unfortunately the mob finds out where he is, and then the trouble begins. Beating the Reaper has a great protagonist with a funny and fast-paced voice. The end felt slightly abrupt and a lot like a cliffhanger for a sequel. If Bazell does turn this into a series, I'd definitely take a look at the next one.

Until next time,

Matt

I Can't See Myself Coming In Today

Dear Swan-Diving Gypsies,

I wrote this one a while ago based on a writing prompt in a workshop. The idea was to have someone be caught where they weren't supposed to be. Here's my take on it.

-Matt


"Cough, Cough" By Matt Mok

The familiar shorn head from five tables away reflects the bright sun in my direction. I quickly duck my head, and reposition myself so that Lucy is blocking the line of sight. She gives me a funny look, to which I smile and straighten back up, but still unseen by the man with the shaved head. She takes the final bite of her sandwich, some mustard squirting out its bottom and onto her puffy down vest.

"Damn," she says. She shifts in her seat and reaches for a napkin from the holder. I mirror her motions with precision, unwilling to lose her as my shield, my ski pants swishing as I shift in my seat.

"Don't move," I hiss.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Just don't move."

"You're acting nuts," she says, swipes at the crumbs on her lap, and starts to get up.

"Stop!" I grab her hand and she delivers a look that could freeze all the slush on the slopes. "See that guy over there? The one with the green scarf? No! Don't look!"

She rolls her eyes and yanks her arm back. "You can keep your crazy to yourself. I'm going for another run." She bends down to lace up her snowboard boots, completely giving away my position, so I dive under the table, upending my chair and spilling my soda.

Lucy peers down at me huddling beneath the gum-cemented table. "What has gotten into you?"

"That guy, he works for me."

"Oh...and he has cooties? What?"

"No, I called in sick to come out here today. He can't see me. Do you think he saw me?"

"No, your neon blue jacket provides the perfect camouflage. Who cares? He's here too, isn't he? What's his excuse?"

"He's supposed to be here. He told me about his last week he was using a vacation day, I just didn't know he was coming here."

"Oh. Still, you're his boss. Not the other way around."

"If he sees me, he might tell others. And then what? I'm their supervisor. How would that look?"

The look on Lucy's face says that she doesn't understand or doesn't care. It might be both. "Do you think he saw me?" I say.

My phone's ring startles me. The caller ID says it's him. He saw me.

"It's him," I whisper.

"Answer it."

I consider my options, but there is no scenario where I shouldn't be answering. I'm supposed to be sick, not deaf.

"Hello?" My voice is soft.

"Tom, it's Jason." His voice sounds hoarse, terrible.

"Hi Jason."

"Sorry, Tom, but I don't think I'll be able to come in tomorrow." It is somewhat surreal to hear the coughs coming through the phone and echoed from a few tables away at the same time. "I'm wicked sick. Doctor says it might be flu and told me to stay home for a couple of days."

I'm speechless.

"Tom?"

"Right," I say. "Sorry to hear about that, Jason. See you Wednesday."

Lucy looks at me expectantly. "Well?"

I get up from my hiding place and look over at Jason. He's sitting at the table talking with friends, his back to me. I grab Lucy's bottle of water off the table. "Are you done with this?" I ask with a grin.

Jason is preoccupied with joke-telling when I arrive. I give him a hearty pat on the back that makes him cough. He looks up at me, bewildered.

"Wow," I say. "That is a bad cough." I put the bottle of water on the table. "Remember to drink plenty of fluids."

My Writing Process

Dear Price-Haggling Ocelots,

Here's an introduction into my self-destructive, unproductive writing process:


1. Great awesome idea pops into your head. You rush to a pen and a piece of paper to scribble it down.

2. The creative floodgates are open and you can't stop scribbling. You add backstories, subplots, lists of characters, memorable scenes, lines of dialog, and a mishmash of additional ideas that form a rudimentary plot.

3. After a few weeks, there's a gnawing feeling that you really need to actually WRITE this story. So begins the laborious process.

4. Oh God, you think, how you hate writing. This is HARD! It was so much easier when you were just writing down ideas in your chicken scratch.

5. You come up with a title. You agonize over it even though it doesn't really matter yet. You settle on one you think is pretty good. It's not too direct, not too abstract. It's even sort of funny.

6. That title really sucks.

7. You run in a plot hole the size of Spain. But you muster some optimism and soldier on. You can fix it later.

8. Around fifteen or twenty thousand words, you still think you have a nice idea. You're surprised it's lasted this long. You even find an interesting side story to investigate. You come with a few more bits of good dialog. You're on a friggin' roll.

9. You're blocked. Not creatively. You've known what the story was supposed to be from the very beginning. No, you just can't WRITE anymore. It's driving you insane and you find every opportunity to procrastinate. You even write an outline, tricking yourself into thinking that it is just as productive as writing the novel itself.

10. You realize that you have a major problem. This story isn't long enough for a novel. You also begin to think that the whimsical original idea you had is neither whimsical nor original.

11. Oh God, this plot is hideous. It blows the big one.

12. You're about halfway done and start rereading what you've written, which is lifeless and dull. You realize—for the fifty second time—that you are an irredeemable failure as a writer.

13. You give up.

14. Repeat Steps 1 to 13.



Once in a while, I'll get past step 12 and have the will not to give up. But this happens very infrequently.

Happy New Year!

-Matt