penfist

stories are the bones of everything

Pen

The nature of starlight

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The rainy season came early that year. It was a time of upheaval. The portents said trouble was inevitable. That the monsoon would be much worse than usual. Crops would fail and things would be washed away. The soothsayers spoke louder than normal. They charged extra coins for our fortunes. Made nuisances of themselves.

I prepared. Something in my bones told me that the predictions I kept hearing were right. Something big was coming. I stockpiled extra food and made the house ready. The metal shutters and drainage ditches cost me a great deal.  Almost everything I had went into the readying. After two moons I felt that all I could do had been done.

I waited. Wrote my stories. Planned for the worst. Hoped for the best. Everything is nothing more than thinking and talking small steps. One foot in front of the other. Over and over. That’s how we move through life. The only difference between myself and others is in the way I see the process. The walking is all the same.

Ah, but when you can see where to go. That’s when the light and dark places all turn magic. That’s when each step takes you a little closer to heaven or hell. The places in between are just waypoints on the journey. Waypoints that bring one side or the other closer to being focused and real.

—

You two. Such beauties. Let’s get you out of that rain. Don’t let the flood wash you away. Don’t worry. This house will stand. I’m glad you knocked. We’re on high ground and I can use the company.

Sisters are you? Let me get some soup and coffee from the kitchen. You’re so young. Are either of you old enough for coffee? I’m not sure. We’ll risk it tonight. The winds are blowing so hard. Come in. Let me shut the door before the cold follows you inside.

This place was made as a refuge from all the ugliness out there. Take off your shoes and warm your toes by the fire. I’ll be back in a moment. Don’t mind the cat or the dog. They are friends.

Sit there, on that comfortable couch. Nothing will come in and hurt you. Not the storm. Not the worries that followed you. Not any hunger nor any pain. I’ll ensorcel away your demons with my words and the spells I know.

Sit. Enjoy this haven. We’ll talk in a moment after your bellies are full and your skin is warm. Be at peace. You are home. For as long as you wish.

Gather yourselves while I take stock of you two. So pretty. Why are your eyes doubtful? It’s dark outside. Not in here. Let me tell you a few things while you eat and drink.

That fire was made with wood I chopped and dried myself. I cut the fuel from the trees on this land. They are a beautiful gift that must be managed with care.

The soup is made from things I grew with my own two hands. Potatoes, leeks and thyme. The coffee beans grew in the field over that small hill you came up to get here.

Everything I have to offer is as much yours as mine. This house, the land, safety from the storm. Be at peace, little sisters. My hospitality is good and honest.

The two of you look tired and the rain won’t stop anytime soon. I’m afraid you’ll have to spend the night. I have extra room and warm blankets. The storm can’t get in.

—

Soon the sisters trusted me. Once the fire, soup and coffee had warmed them inside and out I showed the girls to the bedroom and let them talk together a little while so they would know their hearts better. In time, they asked me to tuck them in and tell them a story. I told them about the way starlight on your toes keeps you young forever.

Soon they were drifting into a dream state with soft smiles on their faces. When I knew they were content and saw that they would soon sleep, I doused the lights. We joined each other in the world of slumber and woke up to find that the storm had passed us by.

The rainy season came early that year. The predictions were right on that count. In one thing though, the soothsayers were wrong. The rains were fierce but they didn’t last long. My girls stayed on. They are with me still. I love watching my beauties tucked in warm under the blankets on cold nights. They whisper and giggle together. Then we talk about the nature of starlight.

Being true to yourself

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When you write, people like to give you free advice based on their own ideas about what it means to be a writer. I appreciate all of the advice. I’m not going to follow most of it. One of the pieces of advice I have spent time thinking about is that I choose different pen names for different genres. The idea being that if you like my BDSM erotica you might not like my self-help books. Or if you like my fantasy you might not like my horror. I hope you like all my offerings. If you don’t however, that’s OK too. Your choice. My name is Penfist. Call me Pen. I’m going to write whatever I want. That’s why I chose to do this.

I am a writer because I need to tell stories. The stories that I want to tell. You can float me an idea and it might grab me by the teeth and pull me into itself. That’s a wonderfully terrifying experience when it happens. I encourage you to engage with me that way. Send me an epiphany so large I have to write an entire novel or tome about that idea. In the meantime, understand that one person has many facets. You do. I do. We all do. I’m trying to simplify my life be exploring them all. I can’t do that as effectively if I have to wear masks. Commercial success will happen if the work I produce resonates. Entertains. Pulls you in.

I write self-help, erotica, horror, contemporary fantasy, post-apocalyptic stories and whatever else I decide contains a story that needs to be told. That’s going to make some people dismiss me as “that guy who does whatever he wants.” I’m totally comfortable with that. I want to attract people with malleable minds not brittle ones. The point of writing this out and putting it into the world is that I hope you’ll choose the same path. Be true to your own muse. Create art. Own the results. Learn from the feedback. Keep creating. It’s your story and the characters in it belong to you. Surround yourself with others who believe in that and you’ll explode with endless inspiration. Both given and received. That’s what I believe. It’s why I won’t create a bunch of different writing personas. I want to focus on being that guy who writes whatever he wants. I’m being true to myself and I think you should consider living that way too.

Now go buy a book so I can pay the web hosting fees this month.

Polyamory and pain

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I am an alien. The worlds that I carry around with me are not mine. They belong to the story. I am only a caretaker. My destiny is to give away everything. To you and others.

Rugged mountains covered with shantytowns and the sprawl of human life set the backdrop. I observe this place that is not my home from inside an illusory bubble of safety. My routine is that there is no routine. My companions are aliens too. Unwelcome. Our routes remain the same, but nothing else does. Except the chaos.

All is dust. Every tree looks tired. Animals labor under a sun I thought I knew and didn’t. This is not my world. A maelstrom of activity means that I am always watching. The natives are not friendly. My companions and I watch for magnetic bombs in every hand. Have you ever seen your death in someone else’s eyes? I have.

We study every vehicle and every pile of trash carefully. Things in this world explode, unexpectedly. With great violence. Anyone passing by could have a grenade. And the grenade might be wearing bits of me at any moment. If not today perhaps tomorrow. Sudden, violent endings hide among the throngs of teeming life here. Patiently. Waiting.

I see the girl. For a moment the rest of the details are fuzzy. Then clarity comes. She is perhaps 14. Possibly 15. Maybe 12. She is beautiful. I should not be able to see that. Because her head should be covered. In modesty. It is not. The girl is chained to a tree. The tree is chained to this world that is not mine. I am chained to the memory of the time and space.

She is bleeding from her forehead. She is crying. The rocks hitting her are uncaring. The boys throwing them are cruel. They are laughing. And I have rules to follow. I want to stop my vehicle. I want to get out of my armored sphere of unreality. Unchain the girl from the tree. Save her.

But I don’t. I keep going, saving only her memory. I carry her world inside mine. The rules were yours then. They are mine now. Because I took them away from you for doing this to me.

I woke up one morning not long ago and thought of the girl. I love her. I failed her. I thought of you. I love you too. I thought about how much I hurt you and others. When I give you pain, it is hers and mine and yours.

When I hold you tenderly it is her face that I see sometimes. The girl chained to the tree in that other world. The one I am the caretaker for. Please let me hurt you in a different way. One that is good for you. And let me be a part of your story until it ends. Because I’ll never know what happened to that other girl I love.

I am an alien. Love me. Better than I love you. I need polyamory and pain. Do you understand why? I can never stop loving her. Never stop failing her. Never stop trying to save you in the midst of it all.

The simplest lesson

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[dropcap background=”yes” color=”#333333″]I[/dropcap]t is the simplest lesson. To be good for anyone else, you must first understand how to be good for yourself. It is the hardest lesson. That the only way you can be good for you and others is by living honestly. You and others. They all need honesty to truly thrive. You cannot arrive at truth until this lesson has become your paradigm.

I am speaking to myself by writing these words. I am hoping you will wander by and hear them. For 40 years, I lied to myself about who I was. Denied myself what I needed to truly thrive. In that state of existence, my mind became a wasteland littered with the debris of everyone else’s expectations, demands and goals. No one else’s expectations, demands and goals will ever make you feel fulfilled. I know this lesson well.

This essay may, on the surface, appear to be an argument for a selfish existence. There is truth to that viewpoint. Every viewpoint has merit. If it did not, it wouldn’t be a viewpoint to begin with. The trick is learning to understand that not every viewpoint has enough merit to be my viewpoint. Or yours.

I am not bound to your truths. I am not bound to your worldview. I am not bound to anything you expect from me. If we collaborate synchronously I will be grateful for the exchange and for the sharing. If we do not, I will walk alone. Content with my own companions – the truths I have chosen for myself.

It is the simplest lesson. My path cannot belong to you. Yours cannot belong to me. If we join hands for a while, I will be grateful for the warmth we share. If we journey together for a lifetime it will likely assure that I smile more often than I would without you.

It is the hardest lesson. I cannot live for your truths. Only mine. That is the key to unlocking myself. Would you like a copy of my key? I will give you one without expecting anything in return. That’s why I left it here. In the lock where I hoped you would see it.

Please come inside. I am waiting to greet you.

The importance of writing rituals

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When I first started getting serious about writing, I set a goal of 1,000 words a day. Output is how you get better. I’ve long ago surpassed that target. Some days I write 7,000 words. My minimum targets now are 5,000 words a day at least five days a week. This is very achievable. I type 70 wpm, so theoretically, I could hit my mark in 71 minutes. That assumes that the story just flows automatically out of my brain like water. Unfortunately, that isn’t how stories work. Writing is art. Building a good story is just like building a good building. It’s done in a very methodical way. For anything over 1,000 words I tend to go into Scapple first and put the bones of my animal together. Scapple is a simple little software tool for Mac and PC that lets you figure out all the basics in a visual way. I tend to spend a few hours to a day working on the ideas that need to be woven together. For instance, here’s the current visual representation of Demonology, a contemporary fantasy I’m working on.

Demonology_Scapple

 

As you can see, there is more to a good story than just sitting down and letting it flow out of you. Well, for me anyhow. Stephen King might sit down and just start writing whatever is in his head. But I doubt that. I’ll bet he has a process too. Probably very different from me, because there is a generational gap and he wrote his first novel on a typewriter. Then there is Neal Stephenson, who wrote one of the most complex plots ever devised with a fountain pen. The Baroque Cycle is marketed in a silly, greedy way as three books now, but it started off as one immense tome I enjoyed mightily, as I do all of that man’s work. But I digress. The point of this post is – have a process.

If you don’t have a word goal count that you follow like the Catholic church follows the rituals of mass, you aren’t going to be a successful writer. You might write one novel, and it might even sell. But this writing thing won’t be a long-term career. You’ll need to know your tools and your process as well. You can break a million rules, but have some to break in the first place. Otherwise, you are just dreaming. The dream of being a novelist ain’t going to happen without you sitting down and pumping out prose. You’re going to need to be a word whore, and you’re going to need to be good at it.

You found this post because you either like my writing or you’re looking for writing tips. If the first, go buy a book right now and leave me a nice review so I can keep doing this. If the latter, why are you still reading. You should be writing. Go do it. But before you start, write down your word count goals. Understand your tools. And if you can’t touch type, learn that first. Unless you’re Neal Stephenson. If you are, then you should know I idolize you.

But you aren’t. So, go on. Get writing.

The geniuses of Apple

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I’m a writer. I’m not making a living at it, but I’m working towards that. In 2011, with that eventual outcome in mind, I bought a Macbook. Spending $2,000 for a laptop when I could get a more powerful non-Apple machine for about half the price felt crazy at the time. One small catch – the writing program everyone raves about on the Internet wasn’t available for PC at the time. It is now. But back then, I bit the bullet and bought a Macbook Pro. Then I spent $45 for Scrivener. This personal rant isn’t about the writing software. It’s about the arrogance of Apple.

I avoid Apple stores because they smell of superiority. Customers and sales associates both turn me off. That just isn’t my kind of environment. I like the minimalist approach to design evident in the places, but I don’t like malls, and I don’t like Apple’s policies much. This is a warning to anyone considering buying an Apple product – good luck if you need an emergency repair and go into an Apple store. My touchpad broke today. It won’t click. That makes it almost impossible to write. One sort of needs to be able to mouse clicks for various activities.

So, I used Google Maps and found the nearest Apple store, which was about 30 minutes away. I’m working on a deadline today. I was turned off as soon as I got into the store. There were at least as many “geniuses” as there were customers in the place, and the assault began immediately. Unfortunately, they couldn’t give me what I wanted, which was a working MacBook Pro touchpad. “Do you have an appointment?” Well, gee, no. I’ve never needed to make an appointment to bring in my machine for a repair before. I usually do them myself.

And that is the truth. The MacBook touchpad has been acting up for a year, jumping around and doing squirrelly kinds of things at random times. It has infuriated me more than once. Perhaps you’re a Macbook owner and you, like I have, Googled the problem. It seems certain model years of Macbooks are notorious for “battery swelling” which pushes on the track/touch pad and causes it to act wonky. I replaced the battery just in case. The problem didn’t go away. When the touchpad quit responding properly to my touch, I tried to order one online for overnight delivery. No dice. Apple doesn’t want customers tinkering with their product. Arrogance.

In the first store I went to, the “genius” told me I’d need to come back at 2 P.M. for a diagnostic. “Can I do it myself? I know the part I need.” Nope. She told me that Apple doesn’t sell parts and that they don’t want me working on my machine because it voids the warranty. “I don’t have a warranty anymore.” Too bad. I started looking around at some stuff, trying to calm down. While I was doing that, the same “genius” told me that she had “pulled some strings” and that a technician would take a look. He ran a software diagnostic which revealed nothing, went in the back and told me that they could replace the part and it would take 48 hours. “My deadline is midnight,” I said. He didn’t care much. I asked him why I can’t buy the part, which is in stock, and put it in my machine myself. “Against policy.”

I asked him who is responsible for the policy. Apple corporate was the answer. For a moment, I wanted to burn Apple corporate to the ground. If you want immediate care, I was told, you have to buy a $500-a-year business warranty. I don’t have that kind of money. If I owned a PC I could have replaced the part myself and would have long ago. There are parts warehouses and shipping depots all over the United States and it is relatively simple to do most repairs in home yourself. But with a Macbook, you better have a backup Macintosh.

My files are all backed up to the cloud, so that was not a big deal. What was a big deal though, was that I can’t meet a deadline when I can’t use the mouse. No one at the first Apple store thought of suggesting that I buy a mouse and plug it in to solve the problem. I asked them what the chances of trying a second store would be. They had no idea. All they could tell me was that they were backed up and it would be at least 48 hours before someone could even look at my machine. Part in stock. Total repair time: about 15 minutes. Or, any one of the 18 employees standing around could have suggested that I use a regular mouse plugged into a USB port to solve my issue in the short term.

The second store was better. The technician there actually took the machine in the back after taking my information and tried to adjust the screw on the trackpad. That didn’t work, and I was suspicious it wouldn’t because I’d already tried the same thing myself. But, Royce, who was actually earning the title Apple gives employees, gave it a shot. He also graciously setup the Magic Trackpad, which is incredibly overpriced but nicely designed. Now, I’m able to meet my deadline. I made an appointment for later in the week to get the trackpad replaced. I’ll be setting up a backup plan for the next time something on the laptop breaks. Beware if you depend on a Macbook for your bread and butter – you’ll need a backup plan other than running to the nearest Apple store. Apple may make nice products, but they are also overpriced, and the people making policy about service issues should take a fresh look at how they handle customers in crisis mode.

I should have had a better plan, and Apple should have better policies. How hard would it be to charge extra for an emergency repair on the spot when the part is already in stock?

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