Caution Wet Floor

Okay so today I am going to bring you up to date on some projects I have been working on. These are story ideas I am working on, either by myself or with others. I will continue to update them as I go along. I also intend to bring you up to date on other projects. Everything except the blog itself, as obviously those updates will come every Monday.

So here we go.

Untitled 15 yr Old Project - For a few years now I have been toying with an idea for a book. I have written and rewritten many many pages, though for the most part I was unable to get past what I had. I can’t even begin to tell you how frustrating that was. I have now started again and this time writing new scenes and incorporating old ones. This began as an assignment for Creative Writing Class and was actually TWO short stories that got a positive response from both the professor and the class. The basic story is a washed up military spy who after being exposed was forced to go into hiding is brought back when the President of the United States is assassinated on his inauguration day. Below is an except.

He rubbed his temples, this was not going to be an easy task. No one had ever attempted this before. This was just too neat. Neatness bothered him. It raised the odds and made it almost impossible to guarantee anything. Pierre Trané was an old solder, he never left a man behind well not one who still was alive anyways. All of his men knew this, if they were to fall behind, they were to do the honorable thing and end their lives before they were captured. In the last five years since he had gone rogue, he had lost 6 people from his original crew and still he had replaced all but two of them.

That was the next step, there was no way to pull this off without a full team. So many parts and roles to play, he was taking his time picking the right people. That’s what made him the best, he only worked with the best. He had already “interviewed” a few people but they were not good for the job in fact they were going to be more of a danger to the rest of the team than any amateurs would have been.

Trané always though he could train just about anybody but those who were arrogant would only cause trouble and get in the way. So far that was all he was finding these days. It angered him actually, good help was indeed hard to find. As he took a sip of his wine he pondered this thought, where would he find the perfect people for this job, and would he ever find them? He looked down at the list that he had prepared over the last few days, a sort of last ditch, attempt at finding the right people. A few of the names were familiar, and others he had heard of but never worked with. Some of the names he had crossed off immediately, not willing to give them the time of day or even a second thought. They were just not worth his time. His time was valuable and he was slowly running out of it. He was just about to lose all hope when he saw a name which sparked some interest, he even smiled as another name brought back even more interest. “Perfect”, he said to himself as his thoughts drifted back to another time, heck another life even. He could see them now as clear as day.

They were sisters, two of the best looking women he had ever seen. Both had long red hair and green eyes that could pierce the heart of any man they looked at. He had first met them at Connoly’s, a small Irish pub tucked in the alleys of central London just off of Edgware Road. It seemed weird that an Irish Pub would reside here, deep in the neighborhood which was full of Hindus and Persians and yet perhaps this was part of it’s charm. The drafty old pub had areas that were darker than others. It was the perfect place to be when one did not wish to be seen. He never wanted to seen. It seems it had always been his custom. Hiding in plain sight, rather than just merely in the shadows made him harder to fin actually. As if blending with the crowd was the perfect hideaway.

Normally you would think one so hunted as himself would rather not so out in the open but that however was precisely what he wanted. Anywhere and everywhere, just about the only thing he did was to slightly alter his appearance. He always believed this was enough better to be told you remind them of someone and have a laugh at it, then to try and be something you were not.

Her footsteps were light as she walked down the darkened streets. Normally such a place would not be fit for a lady such as herself. She was however no ordinary lady. A smile crossed her lips as she heard the footsteps behind her. Speeding up she ducked into a dark corner. As the person following her walked past, she reached out and pulled him to her. Her gloved hand over his mouth she slit his throat. As the corpse fell to the ground she spat on it and in the distance heard something that made her skin turn white.

She jumped as soon as she heard the laugh, her gun now drawn she aimed it at the darkness. The laughter stopped, but now there was clapping. A figure emerged from the shadows, “Very impressive my dear Vivian”. It was a man’s voice only one man other than her father have ever called her that. “Trané” she whispered into the darkness. He smiled as he stepped into the light, “Who else would it be”. She took a deep breath and lowered the gun. “How long have you been there”, she asked. “I followed him from the bar as he was following you. He was making so much noise, he didn’t even notice I was there. It was so easy.”

She looked at the man at her feet and quickly searched through his pockets and cursed her bad luck when she reached into the breast pocket of his leather jacket. Trané looked at her “Interpol”? She nodded, and he chuckled.

She got up and took his arm. “Did you not wish to help defenseless little ole me.” He smiled again as he motioned to the body behind them, “My dear when you are defenseless, that will be the day the world ends.” Now it was her turn to smile. “What do you want Pierre for surely coming to watch me in action cannot be the only reason you are here. I need the two of you for a job.” She laughed. “Well the Cat is out of the game, has been for many years now, but I am available.” He looked at her, this was no good he needed them both. “Well let’s pay her a visit anyways talking in an alley is never a good idea.” It must have been his timing because as soon as he said this, a couple stumbled into alley and started making out. The woman noticed the body and saw the two of them walking away. She screamed.

Pierre grabbed Vivian and took off. I was afraid of that. He continued walking briskly through the streets with Vivian in tow. Constantly changing direction he did not stop till they were a few miles away then he hailed a cab. Once inside he finally spoke to her. “So shall we go and find your older sister.” She looked at him, her green eyes alive with anger as she said “Not until you tell me what this is all about.” He lowered his head. “All in do time my dear, all in due time first we need to find your sister.” Vivian sighed, “She is not in London.” He smiled, “I know.”

Open Waters - This is actually a collaboration which started out as a role play scenario with one of my two favorite writing partners is the story of a Pirate with a past whose latest conquest proves to be more than just that. This one is currently on the back burner and a stuck. but here is an except nonetheless.

It began as any other day, though not one they had seen in quite some time. The sun for a change had pierced through the dark clouds in the sky. He looked out onto the horizon and noticed for the first time in ages, just how beautiful the sea looked when it was calm. The ripples in the waves gave the scene a much more innocent view than reality ever could. As they crashed against the hull of the vessel known as the Vanquish they made a quiet yet forceful sound. Truth be told, this was very ironic as it described him perfectly, quiet yet forceful. Few actually knew of him and even fewer got into what was called by those who knew him well to his inner circle. Currently that honor was held by just two people, though he was always on the lookout for that one person who could pull him out of this life.

At first, he like everyone else in the profession, did it for the usual things, gold, treasure, the soft pleasure of a woman’s touch and of course the notoriety. These days however it was all about the challenge, different ways, different tactics, anything that would set him apart from the average person in the trade and of course that only that which made him the best.

He had to stay ahead of the game, after all how many had survived as long and as successfully as he had. Now a days they couldn’t even measure up to the name, let alone the distinction. He was last of the great ones, the last of a dying breed, the only one left who could still call himself with honor….PIRATE

And what a fine one he was, heartless and cruel but yet in the end fair. Though the stories never told this, he would always let the Captain of any ship he captured, to choose his own fate. That is to say he would let the man choose how he wanted to die, whether by Khan’s hand or his own. An honorable death, there was no shame in it, he made sure of that. Each Captain’s death was treated with the honor and respect of his rank and in the manner in which he lost. However if a Captain gave up his ship without a fight then his death was treated as that of a coward and his body was merely tossed overboard.

There was no room for cowards, not in the mind of this former soldier. The crew of the ship that was taken were always given the same choice. You can join or you can die. Those who chose death, joined their Captain in his watery grave, those who chose to join were forced to prove their loyalty before they could be trusted. However once they passed the test they were like family, it was the only way he had survived this long, distrust led to mutiny and mutiny to certain death. He was too smart for that. The stories came from everywhere, and although most of them were not true, they helped to add to the legend. Khan took no prisoners it was said that he also killed all the women and children. None of this was true however women and children were the ones who fared the best. He would look after them, it was the one kind spot in his heart, the one thing the separated him from the others. He never hurt the innocent.

Untitled Project - Another collaboration this one written with my other favorite writing partner was originally started as a way to get my muse going. There is not set story as of yet as so far it’s just write as we go.

Molten sunshine awash in the brilliant reds of pre-dusk

burst into the heavily curtained living room

alighting everything in its path with a fiery hue.

Her freckled shoulder leans against the screen-door frame

wisps of hair floating up and away from her face

as the room’s only fan oscillates in her direction.

Sometimes – it’s good to go home.

Familiar sights and smells…

Man!

Some things just never change…

A whispery slide of lashes across sun-kissed cheeks

as thoughtful cerulean blue eyes sweep across the room

And then again, some things are bound to.

Outside on the back porch he rocks slightly on hammock…He stirs as the last rays of sunlight caress his face.

Opening one eye, the nausea sets in almost immediately. He reaches for a bottle of water and tries to calm his stomach. As the dizziness subsides he tries to get up only to fall back down on to the hammock.

His behind misses the hammock and he falls to ground hard. The whole world is spinning now as he continues to resist the urge to vomit, all the while he was thinking to himself as he looked out at the beach in front of him. He relived the meeting in his now spinning head.

The day had started out just like any other. He went to the store to get “supplies and stuff to make lunch and dinner” As he was paying for his goods he saw her. She was asking around about him. The townsfolk were playing it up, but she was not buying it. As she walked around he ducked out the back and headed to the Sandy Crab where he had proceeded to get obliterated. There he had stayed till Missi had piled him into a cab and sent him home. And now here he was, hungover with spoiled meat in a bag and now a sore ass.

What happened? Why did she come back? The pain was beginning to subside but the questions still remained

The summery smell of saltwater permeated everything.

Skin sticky from the palpable humidity

despite fanning herself with a tourist map of the small island.

That’s how she had spent the day.

Just your average tourist, seeing the same old sights,

listening to the wonderful old stories

fanning yourself into carpal tunnel

Catching up on local gossip…

Most everything was in its rightful place… the names may have changed here and there but there was no real chance of getting lost.

She loved that feeling of safety that enveloped her whenever she crossed over to the island.

A smile played at the corner of her lips as she pushed away from the doorframe and stepped fully into the house.

Her feet shod in leather flip flops hisses as it crosses the hardwood floors

adding to the trail of sand leading in from the front door.

A momentary pause as a curious thumping reverberated through the weathered house.

She tapped on her teeth with her fingernail while contemplating the noise and its consequences.

She hadn’t necessarily had a plan when she walked through the door.

Hesitant and unsure of what she would find she paused in the kitchen

A quick glance around provided a knife laying on the butchers block

promptly it was in her hands and held before her as she reaches the back porch.

Lying on the floor the pain is now all over his body, not just in his head. Still he manages to hear a noise behind him, someone was in the house.

With what little strength he had left he looks around for something to defend himself. He sees nothing but the bag of now rotting meat and the rest of his probably now spoiled groceries.

He grabs he bag of meat and twirls it around, till it becomes a projectile. Then he waits obviously heading into the house is not a good idea as he has maybe one really good assault in him and he would need all his strength for that.

His ears are working now, trying to down out the pounding in his head. He hears someone in the kitchen. They are close now. He tries to gain control of his body and turns to face his intruder.

The screen door opens and first a knife appears then a head. He can’t tell who it is so he launches the bag of meat at the head, knocking the intruder back. With the last bit of his strength he gets up and bum rushes them back into the house, using the screen door to knock the knife out of their hand. As the door falls off it’s hinges he falls on top of the intruder.

It’s fortunate that she had to catch the wretched scent of unrefrigerated meat

She reflexively pulled her head back into the house

The bag of food managed not to penetrate the screen but the effect was the same

She cried out in pain as the door was slammed on her wrist

she dropped the knife instinctively as the door repeatedly banged against her arm

Everything is moving in slow motion as its contents crashed to the ground

she found herself being thrown back as the impact of his body hit the door

“What the hell is going on here!?”

Her words were breathless and fierce as she struggled against the broken screen door

Pinned as she was to the ground by the screen itself and the man behind it

she gave up the struggle and strained to see the face of her attacker instead

It took mere seconds to recognize the profile and piece the events together

“Get the hell off me, will ya? I was trying to protect your house! I heard noises out back and thought it prudent to investigate…”

It was a graceless move but she managed to roll out from beneath him,

but not without more abuse from the now destroyed screen door.

Pouting and fighting mad she cradled her wrist and leaned back against the cabinets

Her knees drawn up to her chest she took stock of the injuries incurred.

Mumbling to herself she spoke once more

“Well Sadie…welcome home…”

He was sitting now and his jaw was on the ground as he saw her. Though he had kept the house in the same condition since the day she had left he never expected to see her these again. After all she was the one who had left.

He pulled out a cigar and lit it. Years ago when this was their house this act would have sent her into a rage but now it was his house, and he could hardly give a damn.

His head was throbbing now, no doubt the impact of literally throwing himself through the door had a little to do with it as well. He stood up and looked for something to clean up the meat which was now causing to fight the urge to throwing up.

Realizing his supplies were on the deck. He pulled the spayer out of the sink and turned the pressure high. “Sadie you might want to move out of the way.” He didn’t wait, seconds after he said that he aimed the sprayer at the mess and fired.

The pressure pushed the meat out the door, and on to the deck. When he was done, He dropped the sprayer and grabbed a tea towel from the counter. He wiped the floor, using his foot to hold the towel down. When the floor was dry, he went outside as he stepped out he said in barely a whisper the question that had been on his mind, since the day she left, “Why…Sadie…Why?”

With the collaborations you will see different writing styles but I hope you like it. If not feel free to comment and tell me my writing sucks. Trust me I can take it. More to come in the following weeks but for now, I hope this has satisfied your curiosity.

This past week I was making the stroll down memory lane. Since I did not bring my laptop along for the ride, I found myself unable to update the blog. First off because I could not remember my password and second because it seemed the free internet available in the hotels I went to made it impossible to spend any time not frustrated. So I decided to take the time off. The good news is you will get a lot of stuff today, the bad news is you will get a lot of stuff today and may end up hating me. Either way I have a better idea of how I want to proceed.

Since I spent the weekend off-line for the most part, I took lots of notes and decided that I would rearrange the schedule for the blog that I set up last week.

The smallest street in Prague, complete with traffic light.

Monday - Working on the Blog - an update of what is going on here

Tuesday - Travel Journal

Wednesday - WanderFood Wednesdays or Poetry Wednesday

Thursday - Photo of the Week!

Friday - Poetry Wednesday on Friday or another post.

As things progress, hopefully I can find more use for Friday’s post as I don’t intend it to be just a dumping ground. For now, that’s what it will be. Other things I am working on is moving this site to a more manageable location and a better background and visual format. As I said before this is a work in progress. Thank you for being patient.

As things progress with my writing, I hope to look back at these entries and chart my progress from the beginning. This is after all a journey of sorts, not sure where it is going to end up but I look forward to getting there. Just as with my book I think this is a great way to work on my craft. I am working on a business plan and a white paper to see where I can and want to go with this. For the moment however I am looking at a basic 5 day a week plan and taking the weekends off.

Monday - an update on what is going on here.

Tuedsday - Travel Journal

Wednesday - Wanderfood Wednesdays

Thursday - Weekly Photo based on the Journal of the Week

Friday - Poetry Friday

Either way from Monday to Friday there will be a post here. Like I said before some will be good some will not. I know for a fact I am too hard on myself, hopefully this exercise will change that. If you made it this far, thank you.

Ah yes the dreaded word, it strikes when you are not looking and always always gets it’s target. For those of you who do not know, I am a champion procrastinator. Back in the day or who am I kidding even now I can convince myself not to do something until 5 minutes from now or 30 or an hour or tomorrow, you get the idea. Anyway the reason I bring this up is that one of the things you can not do when starting out your own blog is to procrastinate. It is downright critical they tell me to write at least something everyday that makes people keep wanting to come back for more. When I started this, I told you all that some posts would be good, some would be bad, some would be long and some would be short. I am however doing my best to stick to writing something each day.

Another issue with starting a blog is what do you say, and can you say something different every day. Most blogs are specifically designed for a purpose, whether it be a travel blog, a news blog, a picture blog, a recipe blog etc. For now this will will be a little of everything and we will see where we go from there. In the meantime I spent the day writing, working on a book and some blog posts for other sites.

Also working on a few collaborations with others and maybe at one point hopefully finding myself on the road again full time and writing on the road.

It seems everywhere we look these days, people are starting blogs. From what their day is like to the traveling they have done, there is a blog on just about everything. Still though, the first thing I have learned about writing a blog is that though despite the fact that you want to make it a daily thing, if you don’t stick to that it can very easily get away from you. I have found in previous attempts at starting a blog that when that happens I overcompensate with extra long posts. Whereas this does give one the sense of accomplishment, it is a false sense as posts are then sporadic.

Back in my College days and for a little while after, I, like many of my friends started using LiveJournal. In many cases some of the oldest blogs out there came from people doing the same thing. But as blogging exploded, I becamed less eager to write something everyday. Today I was re-reading an article by a “friend” of mine Chris Guillebeau. Although we have never met, we have corresponded and his The Art of Nonconformity was really one of the catalysts to my taking my trip to Europe. Anyway the article I was reading was called Creating a Legacy Project. It is a long article but definitely worth the read.

It got me to thinking about a few things, like what is it I want to do. No small task I assure you, just ask anyone that knows me. More importantly it made me think what do I want this blog to reflect, and who I am hoping to reach. Some you may like it, some you may not and that is ok. I think part of the reason I have been so hesitant to start writing this is because I was putting way too much thought into each post. So I tell you here and now, not every post is gonna be good, some will be longer than others.

It also got me to thinking about what kind of message I want to be spreading and how to properly convey this message. In the coming days, I will be fleshing out what I expect of this blog and what you can expect to see in the posts. I know because I have been following a few of the travel blogs myself both while I was traveling in Europe and now that I am back,  I jotted down notes of all my travels in Europe and will start posting them once a week with some pictures and things I learned along the way.

Thank You and bear with me as I find my footing and figure this blogging thing out.