The whole Tom Bleakly experience has been a mixed one so far. I mean, I’ve only written nine pages- and I was scared at first that was not enough to call a “Chapter.” But I’ve been trying to improve myself lately and pour all types of good and classic fiction into my head, and it turns out that Ernest Hemingway has a chapter (a first chapter, actually) that’s just four and a half pages. That’s a little bit comforting to me. I’ve been thinking a lot about writing lately- thinking in a vacuum, unfortunately, since I’ve had precious little feedback- and I think I’d like to try to get about four polished pages written every day. I’ll need to work up to that, since my comfort zone right now is more along the lines of two pages- but four on a daily basis and more as circumstances require seems like a reasonable thing to exact of oneself.
Enough random crap, it’s time for story.
It started with honesty, which the good people on television tell me is the basis of all healthy, functional relationships. Very early in our relationship, she told me as we lay in bed that I was not her dream man in any way.
“I’m settling, really. I mean, you’re an alright guy, and you’re not bad looking.” She grinned playfully. ”You’re more’n half-decent in the sack.”
I nodded thoughtfully. “The same goes for you, I guess. I mean, I’ve historically preferred blondes, and we’re not really the sort of couple people would expect. I mean, you’re an English major, I’m studying to get in to the CIA-”
“I’m sure you’ll get in, sweetie. Unless you don’t.”
“Of course. But I’d definitely say Sarah Wolfe’s more my type. Hell, sometimes at work I’ll just stare at her for a couple hours instead of really doing anything productive.”
She sat up a little. “Sarah? The blonde with the, the, the-”
“Boobs?”
“Yeah, the boobs, and she’s usually carrying around a book but you never see her reading it?”
“Yep, that’s her.”
She laughed. “She’s probably sixty percent of the reason I’m dating you. She’s going out with Scott Lodlah.”
“Lodlah? Load-law, the loaded lawyer? Drives that blue imported car, wears shades indoors? Looks kind of like a douche when he smiles for pictures?”
“Yeah, that’s him. Scott. God, I’d been trying to catch his eye for probably months when I met you.”
After that I said something mildly clever, she laughed, I started tickling her and things went down- (or up-!)hill from there.
Giggling and slightly winded, she came back to the subject: “So do you ever think what it’d be like to be with Sarah?”
I did my best to look thoughtful. “Yeah, well. I mean, it’d never happen. She and Lo-dilly-dah are attached at the hip.”
“What if they weren’t?” She looked at me with a glance that was half-playful, half pure evil, and all cunning.
“What, you mean like what if something were to cause them to break up?”
“Yep. Or someone.”
I chuckled. “Like if she were to catch him a little drunk with some hot little number on his lap-”
“Or if he were to discover she’d agreed to go out to lunch with someone behind his back-”
“Or if his boss were to discover some… highly inappropriate emails on his work computer?”
“Leaving them both all emotionally vulnerable.“
“On the rebound.”
“Looking for someone to fill that empty space.”
“For someone like you.”
“Or,” she smiled all fangs and she-devil, “in her case, for someone like you.”
“And,” I whispered, lips gently brushing her ear, “neither of them having the slightest clue that their newfound significant other is sleeping behind their back with-”
“You.” We giggled together.
She drew back to look at my eyes. “It’ll take some planning and very, very dirty fighting.”
It was my turn to smile evilly. “I’m the one trying to get into the CIA. Evil’s a subjective concept.”
“Which one of us is the English major again?”
And we planned into the night, our dark designs hardly more than whispers, our plans scrawled with fingertips on flesh, preparing us to rob the deepest vaults and ride laughing into the sunset.
She was the kind of girl I could grow old with.
—-
Tune in tomorrow for more Bleakly!
Tags: air theremin, ari goddamn collins, blonde, bonnie and clyde, creative process, criminals in love, crosswhen, gryfft, happiness, hemingway, hope, idiots, loneliness, love criminal, master chief, perfect match, relationships, short fiction, video games, writing
June 22, 2008 at 3:45 am |
Fucking awesome story. Last line did it.
Gretchen and I saw The Happening tonight. Good Shyamalan, though with no big twist as we’ve come to expect. But solid short-science-fiction-ish-tale-made-into-a-movie. And MUCH better than Lady in the Water, which we both kind of hated. Very ineffectually plotted movie, that one.
As to Bleakly, I think you’re putting too much pressure on yourself. I’m going to put 55aday back up tomorrow (for multiple reals), and I’ll link it prominently, and you’ll get feedback. Post it on Pages Unbound also to get traffic, and therefore feedback.
But to get back to putting pressure on yourself, if you post nine pages a week, maybe in two posts, that’s enough to keep people reading. (Though a page and a half post a day is also good because people can get a bit each day: check out hmm let’s see if html works in comments Tribe where AE posts exactly 333 words in each “chapter” of a pretty fun ongoing story. And I don’t think she does it every day. Sure, it doesn’t get as much traffic as her longer-chapter sex-laden Tales of MU story, but I think that’s due to the second hyphenated descriptor more than the first.
Later, Bobby Baby.
June 22, 2008 at 3:46 am |
Pretend I closed that parenthetical Area 51 back there.
June 30, 2008 at 11:25 pm |
I think several chapters in the Hitchhiker’s Guide books were only a page long (if that), so I think a chapter’s length should be whatever it needs to be.
And I was thinking about suggesting Pages Unbound as well. If you do that you might want to make page that just has the Bleakly links in it.
July 1, 2008 at 1:51 am |
Annoying:
I have a wordpress dedicated to Bleakly here.
I submitted to Pages Unbound on June 26th. I haven’t heard a word back.
Thanks for the solace regarding chapter length. I think I have a length in mind I’m shooting for at this point… I just need to make sure I get everything cleaned up enough. Typos Nooooo D:
July 2, 2008 at 12:05 am |
That’s cool. I was just thinking a separate page here that had the links on it, but a completely different page is good, too. I’m not caught up yet, if you can’t tell, but it’ll be nice to have a place to go to see if there is an update to the Bleakly story.
What do you mean, “Typos Nooooo”? We all make typos. At least, I know I do. A dropped word here, an added word there. ;( I don’t think I’d mind somebody pointing them out as long as they weren’t mean about it (and I could do something to fix it – I can’t fix comment errors, I’d have to get one of the site authors to do that).
Keep up the good work.