Tag: some good writing

Number 91 through 100

Numbers 101 through 110

Numbers 111 through 120

130 Tales: 111 through 120

I remember this time in the project. This is the time where I was so behind. I had a few days left, and about two decades of tales to write. To tweet.

I was entirely ready to give up on the project. I missed my goal. It was a fun dream, a fun challenge for myself. I had surpassed the one hundred mark, wasn’t that good enough? Wasn’t that something to be proud of? A feat in itself? Wasn’t that something I could walk away from and be happy with and learn from?

No.

It wasn’t.

I wouldn’t have been happy with it.

I wouldn’t have been proud of it.

I would have seen it as a failure.

Sure #130tales gathered me much attention, followers and comments on Twitter. Sure it got my mind thinking in different ways. But if I had let the deadline pass without the project seeing completion, all I would be doing would be showing that, broadcasting that to the world. Broadcasting one’s failure is something I definitely didn’t want to do, but felt utterly helpless about changing.

It’s amazing what one person can do for you.

It’s amazing what one person’s interest in you, one person’s belief can do to completely re-energize your self-worth, and confirm your artistic integrity.

In the same respects, it’s amazing how one person can do the exact opposite.

I float between these two extremes in an almost predictable pattern. I am haunted and blessed by muses. I don’t know if it’s a productive way to creatively live, but it’s not a thing I really have control over (and doubt I ever will). It is the way I am.

I am blessed to be surrounded by beautiful people I want to challenge, and want to be challenged by. The idea of working with them ignites my creative oils in a way no match ever could.

On the other hand, I am haunted by losing the interest of those people. I am haunted by losing those people. And I have. And it is not pleasant. And it sadly happens more often than I’d like it to. That’s the thing I don’t have control of. The thing I don’t understand.

That’s the thing that messes me up.

I’m starting to learn how to deal with it though.

Because it is almost predictable.

Now I know that I just have to wait for that one person to come along

and amaze me all over again.

130 Tales

# 111 through 120

111. Through the park, you know, under the bridge, on the other side you’ll see a house with a second floor door that leads to nowhere.

112. The town was in low spirits; who could want to see its park in flames? Billy didn’t know, but that’s what he planned to find out.

113. Three tall men in long cloaks stand over a broken body. One spits. Two piss.

114. I stare at my hands and genuinely wonder what to do. My right closes around the pencil and I know I’ve made the wrong choice.

115. She felt good standing there, feet bare, pink and searching through the snow for something she lost. “There you are.”

116. He’s walking to a cafe he’s never seen to meet a girl he’s only met once. I could get used to this, he thinks among foreign signs.

117. “It wasn’t me,” said the boy who lit the match. “Save it for the judge,” accused the officer who couldn’t quit smoking.

118. Twilight dances upon his features, gently defining them to the stars above. ‘You can’t touch me,’ he says to those heavenly eyes.

119. Everything was structured then; have a bath, go to the living room for cookies and milk and television, then sleep. Always sleep.

120. The warm touch of the evening rains itself on me as a thousand suns die in the distance. I watch the world from my protective box.

Past Decades:

Number 91 through 100

Numbers 100 through 110

130 Tales: 101 through 110

We’re getting there. Only a couple posts left.

These entries all seem to be moments in time, vignettes: descriptions of scenes not still but full of life, of movement. I imagine everything happening in slow motion, “bullet-time” without the bullets. The limitations of length I think enhance these tales; they remind me of those moments when time seems to all but disappear – those moments that don’t last for more than a second or so where our minds move so quickly the memory becomes cemented, becomes the foundation of the story.

The memory becomes the story.

130 Tales

# 101 through 110

101. Her hand ran the pad across her face. He wanted to tell her she didn’t need it but he was scared to break the gap of anonymity.

102. It surged up his arms and legs, all the way up through his heart and throat. It came out like a train’s bellow, echoing all above.

103. He kept a firm hand on the back of his pants, not to keep them up (that’s what he wanted people to think) but to distract them.

104. Her face always grabbed the eyes of those she didn’t want, as if walking through a burr patch in a field of dandelions.

105. His question rang too loud, cutting through black winter coats and a slushed subway platform. To a tired mob an old man lay lost.

106. He could feel it, dampness beneath the zipper of his hoodie, the itchy sting in each fold but he couldn’t stop running this early.

107. Laughter by the entrance – he swore he saw three girls whispering near the gravestones, cautious about going in. Where are they?

108. He couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes – he kept thinking about what his must have looked like: half full brown cartoon waves of beer.

109. She didn’t know what it meant when it fell, but as it lay there, inches from her face, she became lost amidst its icy veins.

110. An alarm sounds. The grey sedan sheds its feathers. The beating of wings turns a witness’ head.

Past Decades:

Number 91 through 100

130 Tales: 91 through 100

It was bound to happen. Within such a confined structure, when most of these tales were written on my phone (before I had a smartphone mind you, so the tales were actually texts I’d send to 21212, the phone number for your twitter account if you have no access to the app) during transit, it was inevitable that out of the 130 I’d create, I would draw on the same inspiration and basically repeat one of them… at some point. And point is actually Number 100. Funny. Such an iconic number, the first to break into three digits, the real marker letting you know that you have really come somewhere… and it’s a repeat.

This is what Number 100 was originally:

She offered him her card, although they’d never met. When he asked, she said, “Call and all your questions will be answered.

Almost an exact repeat of Number 13:

Leaving, I feel a tap on my shoulder. A card pressed in my hands. “Call me later and I’ll explain everything.” What? “Just call.”

I’m happy there was so much space between the original and the repeat (87 original tales until rehashing an old idea is pretty impressive, especially because I wasn’t looking over the archive, aside from just to cut and paste them into a file, while I was still producing the new tales). I can’t, however, let this repetition continue to exist in this project. It feels wrong. Like a little cheat. An unintentional cheat to get to the end. Each tale has to be unique.

So I’ll write a new one.

Number 100 has been changed. I’m excited to mix 2013 Andrew in with the Andrew of 2009 / 2010. And just a bit nervous. Will anyone be able to tell a difference? Probably not. Or, maybe, because I just spent a whole lot of time talking about how Number 100 is new.

Oh well. Here we go:

130 Tales

# 91 through 100

91. The man in brown came every Thursday. He’d open his laptop, order a coffee, then close his eyes. Let his coffee go cold, he would.

92. The snow on her pants didn’t bother her anymore. She’d come to see it as a trophy, a badge of honour she’d wear proudly.

93. She knew it would cause a fuss. That’s why she kept putting it down then picking it up. Now it sits atop her head, ready to fight.

94. She’d never trust her smile with anyone else so she’d pull the scarf above her nose. A mask for his memory.

95. He heard the story about the white stone as a child and thought he’d never forget it. “A lifetime is enough to change any mind.”

96. It hit his eyes first then quickly swam to his mind. His muscles stayed sombre but he felt he could finish the novel in an hour.

97. He thought, This is the only profession where it’s acceptable to be covered in blood and stand out in the streets to have a smoke.

98. Below the third rail lay the charred remnants of a wing. Its bone, stripped, juts towards the rail’s shadow in an innocuous Z.

99. His fingers grabbed the ceiling like a tree frog’s: splayed and flat. He’s tall and wiry, jerking about with the eyes of a gecko.

100. He just couldn’t put it down. It was like that controller was his pair of glasses: a lens to distinguish fantasy and reality.

Past Decades: