My book exists :D 2 small changes were made for all future editions: 1 - Pages 66, 68, and 69 will have the broken ' ot ' sign fixed to make it a 'hotel' sign. For all intents and purposes, it will, contextually, flicker; so it won't ever be repaired entirely. 2 - Page 61 has a glow that glows SO BRIGHT the word "glowed" can't be read... Future editions will include the word "glowed", which no doubt will be a less-bright torch. Please feel free to fill in the missing information as an activity (or not.) |
0 Comments
One day, I was writing A Place to Stay. The story had started out some time before with some thoughts on Black Sabbath, and how metal music came to be put together. I was thinking about how, if horror movies can influence music, what influence might listening to music have on writing? A lot of music had been listened to up to that day, and I was grateful to find appreciation for several artists I wouldn't have otherwise heard: Wayne Static, The Melvins, Korn, Bowie, Russian Circles. Anyway, when those artists started to sound repetitious, others were sought, skimming search results of something like "scariest albums." Which is when I heard Scott Walker.
Scott Walker's influence is present throughout A Place to Stay. When I think about it, I can't point to a particular spot where is music was an influence; and as someone in the room chimes in about where sound is coming from before realizing it's Scott Walker's music playing quietly as I write this, I can't think of a better way to demonstrate: It's in the backgrounds, it's the atmospheres, the settings, the feelings, the emotions, the tones. I didn't look for anymore music for this project after hearing Walker's "Buzzers" that day. Death lingers. For the living, it can be a long process, and often we do not discuss it directly. Allegory, metaphors and myths all substitute for our willingness 'to deal with death.' Or otherwise, 'a way to go along with the absence of presence' - a pathway we must go along with, one way or another, as those we know become, essentially, physically in absentia. Here is a contribution toward the discussion of my novella, "A Place to Stay." This essay was written after a few drafts of the aforementioned story had been completed to help me better understand what it is I was writing about before beginning the final revisions. It was necessary, at the time of writing, for me to write it from such a point of view as to be spoiler-free. If you haven't read the story yet, maybe it will spark your interest. If you have, maybe it will illuminate some paradoxes.
The Hotel as a Symbol Hotels represent a need of human experience fulfilled and an insatiable desire toward what is deemed sinful behavior fed. A given, conceptual hotel serves as a prime example. A hotel in town is fed by greed, gluttony, sloth, lust, wrath, pride. A hotel outside of town feeds on feelings of envy, escape and excess. An unstable juggling act of sins get the best of a collective weakness, robbed of choice with a consequential reliance for the best of humanity: Greed tips life out of favor. Gluttony feeds systems of relaxation to a slow death and a life relatively unfulfilled. Slothfulness allows each sin to continue. Lust ensures future generations will repeat sins. Wrath raises other emotional vacancies. Pride refuses to give recognition for the roles played among these things. In turn, further opportunities turn desolate. Expressions of excess culminate toward expressions to escape with some different kind of excess. Becoming dissatisfied with the excesses of life, a desire for the ever-looming Something Else arrives. A move for escape only results in the envy of more escape. A desire for escape becomes excessive, as the search for Something Else continues, finding what is already present in life more and more difficult to obtain. The fear of the hotel, then, is not, “How many people slept here before me, sinned here, died here?” but, “How were they ever going to escape the Something Else they envied? Did they? What sort of escape could they have envied, and toward what eventual fate? Were they aware of it?” with endless questions going on and on without a single verifiable answer in such a present moment as can be expected during a getaway stay at a hotel. The real fear of a hotel is the idea of others fulfilling a need for shelter from some aspect of nature; even when their needs were met, their desires remained unfulfilled on levels unrealized to them then and unknown to us now. Find A Place to Stay Visit The Dreary House Thanks beyond mere blog-words for giving my new novella such a warm reception! It means more than I feel can be expressed for anyone who finds my work of interest in such a time as we find ourselves. In the interest of story flow, I find myself drained for finding any other way to plug at this time: The Dreary House and A Place to Stay are both available now. The third part, tentatively titled "Chance of Tragedies", is currently on-schedule and in-progress. (Slated for an autumn release with a hefty side-helping of optimism!) When the idea for the short story which follows first arrived a few years ago, I told myself to write it down so I would not forget it. No writing down occurred, and I forgot the specifics of the story pretty quick. Remembering it recently, it was written down right away when it returned. From inception to publication here, the story seems to owe some degree of homage paid to one James, who is no longer with us. This story is snack-sized as it ever was, and titled "Finn's Tale."
"a man, out walking in the woods one night. He grows tired in the darkness. The night is long and the man has been traveling longer. He spots a glow in the distance. His path changes toward it, with care around trees and in silence over branches. As he gets closer, he sees others sitting around a camp fire. One is talking in a low voice. Leaves crunch under the man's footsteps upon his weary approach and the others turn, spotting him at an edge of some trees. A hush passes between everyone as one speaks to the tired man, 'Our night is long, so we are telling stories to pass the darkness. If slumber will cease to seize you yet, you may join us to tell a story of your own.' The man watched the flames meet the night's abyss before the starry sky above as others looked at new flames finding a temporary space. 'I do have a story,' he replied while joining them at the campfire, taking a seat. 'There is" Submitted A Place to Stay for digital publication. Stay tuned....
In the thick of it, to be sure. Certainly wanted to have a story for you today, dear reader. No such luck. Completed chapter 5 last week. Chapter 6 is the longest chapter in A Place to Stay and also has the biggest change. It is underway. Such an undertaking has been slow goings so far, but we'll get there.
A few projects in the works right now, though nothing much to put here today. The audio book for The Dreary house will go ahead sooner than a physical copy. It will likely be available late February/early March. A Place to Stay is still in progress, there were considerations today to re-post the first draft before deciding against posting bad writing without further explanation. However, we'll forego having to read too much bad writing by saying chapter 5 is half way done, out of a total 10 chapters. Half way to half way, one might say; for a draft done this way, anyway. The third book is continuing to have the outline refined, but still seems to be on course for October this year. Thank you for reading!
I'm not sure what I was thinking, but elsewhere on the internet it seems I said there would be a post or something today. Well, if it had been "or something", I had wanted to do a sale today and it seems something was overlooked, thus that is not the case: No cyber Monday sale announcement from me, sadly. I'm having trouble writing two different stories at once, and it seems such work will be intermittent if it is accomplished. Still, I'll see about having something new this Friday, not so much today. Since you're here:
|
|