Friday, August 13, 2010

Spontaneous Inspiriation

"I was on a stone altar somewhere very dark. I’m not talking ‘bout no Sunday mass crap here, I mean bloodstained pagan altar. As in I was laid up for sacrifice. While I sat there, shivering, someone walked out towards me and stood on the ground by the altar. It was part of me, the part of me that thought I could take on the world. It was dangerous; it scared me. But I gotta’ say offhand, it looked way cooler than I thought any part of me could be. It was telling me I had to get up because I still had to fix the problem.
I was like, Shut up. You were stupid. You were wrong.
But it kept telling me to stand. You got up in the desert. You have to get up here. There’s no difference; it’s only harder this time.
That is stupid, stupid logic.
Is it? Look at you, the ‘strange little victim’. That what you’re gonna’ let Mr. Boogley-Eyes make you?
I’m just a kid, it’s not up to me.
“Damnit, you can’t see it is up to you!”
I turned my head towards him, taking it off the altar. “Hey, hey, I don’t swear! ‘cept maybe once to make fun of Mr. Clarebecker.”
“Neither do I, except to you.” It drew a sword and stabbed the altar, but the blade slid off. “You can’t accept this fate.”
Now it was my turn to make a comeback. “Oh, yeah, why not? How do you know this isn’t my punishment for all you did? Haven’t you ever heard of God’s punishment for crimes like ours in church?”
“And maybe it’s community service. You don’t know yet, and if you’re meant to die, I sorta’ figure you will anyhow. But I wanna’ go down better than this. Look, Jack, get over it for now. Here, right now, in this place, that you killed someone means nothing.” It laid it out flatter than three-day old soda.
“That’s kinda’ cruel. You know it still hurts me, too.”
“Not much else I could say. After all, that’s the one thing you won’t run from facing right now.” It spun in a frustrated circle. “Look at you! That’s not even you talking; you have enough compassion to see reason, I know it, even though you’ve shut me out recently. That’s not you talking, it’s fear!”
Something laughed evilly through my mouth; not the voice from before, something else altogether. A dark misty shape came and possessed me; even though it didn’t hurt. And my mouth spoke back to the only free part of me, still standing by the altar. “Yes, thorn in my side, it is Fear. And the decision has already been made for you. We will stay right where we are, and this mind, this heart, will be fed to Fear.”
“NO.” The strength of his voice shocked us both; my body recoiled a little."

Chapter 21 is done, but this next one will be a logner chapter. This passage above just appeared when I was writing today. There were absolutely no plans for this scene in my original outline, not even any plans for it when I wrote right through this part of the book, drafting all the paragraphs before and after it. But when I went to type it up, I just came up with this. And boy do I like it. These are always good days. I'm not sure how much of this I'll keep, or what I'll change, but I think this scene in general will certainly be in the final copy.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Chapter 20 Complete

"I reached out a hand. “C’mon here, dude! We’re friends, right? I help you, you help me.” It started getting’ really smoky up there, an’ I coughed so hard I couldn’t hardly talk. I always wondered what breathin’ in that fire smoke’d be like, but hey, I wasn’t gonna’ last much longer up here. And it just stared at me with those empty robot eyes.
Rose grabbed onto Alpha’s leg, crying and everything. “Please,” she sobbed, “please, Mr. Robot, save Jack! We need you.” She knew I was passin’ out, didn’t she? The fire was running down the ceiling, too. Man, I was baking!
Alpha glanced a little at this new disturbance. It’s eyes flashed as it recorded the lab all collapsing on us."

It's been a little while since I've updated this, but a lot has been done since then. I'm essentially in the climax chapters. Tantalizingly close to finishing drafting before the school year starts, but I think I'll finish it in the first month of high school this year.