The Author's Process

Bill choked and took a sip of water.

“I never thought I’d live long enough to scare Aurora Thompson’s great-grandson.

Bill swallowed and stuck out his hand. “Pleasure to meet you, sir. Please sit and enjoy some food with me before you go.”

“You didn’t scare me, I was surprised. I had assumed that you were either long gone or in jail, or –” Bill stopped himself from finishing.

“Or I was dead?”

Bill hedged his response “Well yes. No offense intended.”

“None taken,” Gaff said through the hint of a smile.

“So what do you say about it? You up for a little adventure?” Gaff asked his smile as wide as a shark’s now.

“Adventuring isn’t in my blood sir,” Bill said quietly while looking anywhere but Gaff’s pale blue eyes.

“Sure it is, how do you think I know Aurora? She was one of the best datacrackers of her age.”

“She was?”

“She absolutely was, and her father before that saved the whole neighborhood you call home. Died doing it, but still, he saved everyone.”

“I never knew that.”

“I’m sure there are lots you don’t know, but we can get you caught up if you want.”

“I think I’d like that.”

“Good, I’ll see you later tonight.”

“--O - Okay.” Bill said

Gaff only smiled and then took a fat-tipped marker out of his pocket. He marked a symbol that almost looked like a “7” above the doorway but it had a horizontal line running through it.

“What’s that?” Bill asked

“Oh just something so I know which house is yours.” Gaff answered and walked away without saying goodbye.

“What a strange man.” Bill said out loud. He even thought to himself that it wouldn’t be the worst thing if Gaff never came back to visit.

The sun went down and the street lights started to cast their amber light on the streets and walls of The Brambles. Finally, cool enough to go inside. Bill was more than a little intoxicated. So like a reasonable citizen of the Brambles  Bill packed everything up and headed inside. He turned on his viewscreen. It chimed to life, and he mentally digested what happened. The viewscreen talked about the latest up-and-coming lies. Whether it be the government or the corps each story pushed its own agenda.     If they weren't trying to push an agenda they were trying to sell you something you didn't need. All for a price you couldn't afford. What a world. Bill thought to himself and sat down on his sofa. The darkness of sleep fell over him. He was comfortable there. Safe. He always fell asleep on the couch faster than he did in bed.     It wasn’t more comfortable, but something about it lulled him to sleep. In what felt like moments, early morning sunlight beamed in through the metal shutters. Busted and broken metal security shutters that no longer closed completely. Instead they let razorblades of light enter into what passed for a livingroom. He stretched and this day passed like any other. Then the next day passed too.     So many days passed that Bill started to forget about the strange encounter with Gaff. He forgot about the threat of adventure and all the rest. Then one night when he was cooking dinner he heard a knock on the door. He thought to himself “who can be knocking on my door at this hour?” He opened the door and two people stood in front of him a tall slim woman in all white looked Bill up and down. Her companion was a tall man in brown and black. He was even taller than she was, his head shave and beard long. He said nothing. Luckily she spoke up finally. She sucked her teeth and asked“So we’re the first ones here then?” “First of who?” Bill was barely able to get out before they both walked in and hung their jackets on the hooks next to the door.

“I could go for a beer if you have it.” The man said, his voice deep and humbling.

“I’m sorry but who are you?” Bill asked.

“I’m Keeley, and that’s Dwayne.” Gaff told us to meet him here.

“Gaff? I don’t know anything about–” Bill was interrupted by another knock at the door.

Bill swung the door open and was presented with a short man with a cybernetic arm and leg. One side of his face marred. Bill thought some sort of horrible accident had befallen him. His eyes were bright and were the golden color that some cats have. The pupils also looked cat like as well. He seemed too happy to of had an accident. Bill banished the thought, because anyone could be happy even after bad things happen. Everyone knows that.

“Good evening Bill!” he said much louder than Bill expected and then made his way through the door bumping into Bill on the way.

You might be asking yourself what does pulling someone’s pants down have to do with writing. To that, I say “Not that sort of pantsing!” Pantsing in the world of writing is when you write from the seat of your pants. You don’t plan or outline and just let it take shape as you go. A really simple concept. Not the easiest to execute. Most people get to a certain point while pantsing where they just lose the story. It fades into the depths of their mind and then they start focusing on the new shiny thing that is less difficult to write. It’s an easy mistake that anyone can make; even seasoned writers. Then there are the days where you write for hours only to delete everything you wrote and then start writing the same thing you just deleted only slightly differently. I personally tend to do things slightly differently. I pants while figuring out the plot. At least that’s my intention. It's a hybrid of just letting the characters run wild within the setting I am giving them while figuring out what the larger plot is. It’s not perfect, but it works for me. It’s worked for me over and over again for long-form stories and when I don’t do it for longer pieces my writing suffers. So I haven’t really started figuring out the plot as of yet at least not really the parts of the plot I am sure of yet or want to reveal. That also is writing, stumbling around in the dark trying to make sense of what’s in there with you.

So far I’ve figured out some themes: Cyberpunk Fantasy Epic Fiction A large cast of characters

So that’s all I have so far.

BTS (Behind the Scenes) 1 — No edits with first postings

I struggled with what version I would post the parts of the story up in. Edited or unedited. I decided on unedited. It’s a choice to be sure, it may be flawed (well it will be flawed) but it is the natural version of what I wrote. There in all its glory and stank.

I did some minor proofreading and spelling checks but outside of that, it’s all a seat of the pants writing in part 1. Scheduled to be published on Thursday. Meanwhile, I have the whole week to stress out about how it is going to work out, and what to publish in the meantime. So that’s why I’m here now. I’m writing about how the process goes. Step 1. Get excited by some new idea. Step 2. Write by the seat of your pants. Step 3. Stress. Obviously, this isn’t every single time but it's where I am now putting my whole process out there for the world to see.

So I’ve decided that I was going to go back to my roots and come out with a weekly story that builds upon itself in order to keep myself accountable. Also hopefully, it will distract me from what I’m working on normally. It might be interspersed with my own commentary on the previous week's work, it might also have notes on things I might change going forward.

This will be my writer's board and workshop. It’s a first-draft work-in-progress story. It will be imperfect, it will be flawed and yet it should be beautiful in its own right.

Thank you for coming to read my work. I hope you enjoy it.