r/writers

I'm curious. For those that have written many things, when you complete a work, how many of those works did you enjoy so much that you re-read them several times afterwards because it was just that enjoyable?

hello! I have never written a real story before, and this is my first. I already have the plan laid out, but currently I have only written 3 chapters (out of 10-11). I only wish a more experienced writer may read what I did so far and give his/her opinions, suggestions and criticisms.

First time poster here. I’ve been working on my first novel and I keep stopping because I just don’t feel good enough…. Every time I read, I find myself comparing the authors work to my own and feeling like there is no way I can make anything remotely as good as this, so why even bother? My wife keeps encouraging me to continue writing and I am mainly doing it as just a creative outlet, but again, it keeps happening and I keep stopping my work because of it.

I’m sure plenty of other people here run into this. What helps you get out of your own head and continue writing?

I posted this just hours ago, and yet some people let me know the writing style wasn't very pleasant—and God forbid (no sarcasm implied), too much like a certain website programmed to aid writers...

I have had a phase of being addicted to the site, so I knew the moment I opened my chats that they were right, so despite not being very confident in my style, I've decided to share a snippet of chapter one rewritten in my previous fashion and ask:

would you keep reading?

CHAPTER 1- Our Spy

The night was calm, accompanied by a pleasant breeze.

The pair walked the main boulevard, sliding in and out of shadows and glows of the streetlights in peace, and yet a storm brews beneath.

Sheriff Adams barely had time to turn before a man came stumbling toward them, gasping for air. 'Sheriff—!'

Kenneth stepped forward and caught him by the shoulders before he could collapse. 'Hey—easy. Breathe, son. What happened?' The man tried to speak, but the words snagged in his throat, his eyes wide and unfocused; 'Our whole department—'

The sound of sirens swallowed the rest, tearing through the air from the south urgently. A second later, the smell hit: burning flesh, intense, and loud.

Kenneth froze, and his jaw tightened. He knew that smell. It never quite left his nose—how it rolled in thick and sour, clinging to the back of the throat. The young officer behind them reacted the strongest of the three and gagged, doubling over as he emptied what little was left in his stomach onto the pavement.

'Car. Now.' Kenneth demanded. No one argued.

Ngari shoved the officer toward the backseat and climbed in after him; Kenneth slid behind the wheel and floored the gas before the doors had fully shut. The city blurred past them in uneven, hazed strokes.

Up ahead, the night sky pulsed with red and orange, like the horizon itself had split open. Heat seeped through the glass, through the metal, through everything—the closer they got, the louder the sirens became, until they morphed past noise into what that made Kenneth's heart beat achingly fast.

For once, the sound of police sirens didn’t make the people in the dome feel safe; it made even the cops flinch.

Kenneth gripped the wheel tighter. He knew what he was driving toward—some part of him had already been there—and yet, it wasn’t enough to prepare him for the picture painted with the dome in mind, proud and bold:

The world had already come apart, and the building had burned from the inside out. Flames clawing through windows and the rooftop, and too many bodies laid tangled together in familiar blackened heaps. Some were still moving, some not. Screams accompanied them like a horror soundtrack.

'…shit.'

The smell dragged him elsewhere.

Heat, smoke, gunfire—all blended in a nauseating mix. A voice, sharp and formal, cut through it all: 'Soldiers. Fellow warriors. Today, we conclude the Seven-Day War.'

Kenneth's breath hitched, and with it, the present flickered, the past greedily holding his attention hostage.

Marching lines, endless; boots crunching through dirt and blood, and Kenneth had the misfortune of having heard half a million screams at once.

The memory fractured at last—heat became heat again, and fire, fire, but the smell… The smell never changed.

Kenneth blinked hard, and the world snapped back into place. He didn't give his eyes time to settle—he was already moving.

The car door slammed behind him before Ngari could react, the lock clicking down immediately after. He makes sure the car door remains jammed with the key left broken inside its latch.

Ngari lunged forward, breaking past her frozen state, and slammed her hands against the window.

'KENNETH! KENNETH, LET ME OUT! ARE YOU INSANE?!'

He turned just long enough to meet her eyes—'Don’t you dare come out,' and he was gone, running straight towards the fire.

Behind him, people shrieked, Some while running, though most didn’t move at all. Flames clung to bodies that still stumbled forward, arms reaching, voices collapsing into silent whistles, like their vocal chords were the first fatality of the fire.

Kenneth’s stomach twisted.

For a split second, he saw Ngari there—burning, reaching—He shoved the thought away and kept running. Not now…

'MOVE!' he shouted. 'GET THEM OUT! NOW!' But no one did.

An officer stepped forward, shaking. 'But sheriff—' Kenneth didn’t let him finish. He didn't decide, he just moved, grabbing a nearby bucket of water and dumping it over his head, and upon deciding he was drenched enough, he ran straight into the building.

Inside, the air hit like a wall. Smoke swallowed everything, and the ceiling groaned overhead, pieces of it already giving way, the metal warped and dripping.

Somewhere deeper inside, something hissed: gas.

This was not an accident. Kenneth pushed forward anyway.

'Anyone alive?!' he shouted, coughing. 'Sound off!'

A weak cry responded, giving him directions—a blueprint to follow—and he found them one by one.

A man, pinned under debris, a barely conscious woman just a few steps away, someone crawling to the side, their skin blistered and raw—he hauled each of them up, one at a time, and dragged and lifted and carried, anything to get them out.

In, out, and back again. It was automatic. After all, he had done this before.

By the fifth person, his arms trembled and his lungs burned. His vision was beginning to blur at the edges, but despite his urges screaming, begging him for rest, he continued.

Kenneth looked back toward the interior. There were still more, figures on the ground—some unmoving, and sme not, eyes tracking him, waiting. His throat tightened.

'Easy…' he rasped. 'I’ll be back. I swear.' and alas, he forced himself to turn away, however, on his way out, something caught his eyes: Metal, still intact.

A gas cylinder, half-hidden beneath debris, its surface warped from heat, but not yet ruptured.

Kenneth froze.

The hiss was louder now. Too loud, too close—not to him, but to the victims, the cops, and the pillars that barely held the roof together, bent under its weight.

Outside, Ngari’s voice cut through the chaos. 'Kenneth!!! Did you seriously just lock—'

'GET BACK!' he shouted, stumbling out of the doorway. 'GET AWAY FROM THE BUILDING!'

Heads turned, and yet, no one moved. They didn’t understand, they didn’t see it.

Kenneth did.

Distance or time, there was not enough of either. His pulse erupted past his ears, blood and sweat hotter than the flames.

Gunfire echoed in his mind once more—endless, rhythmic. One shot after another, one for each lost soul, each empty bunk bed back in the base, each empty chair in a family's dining room. Reload and fire, again and again, until their arms collapsed and they cried no more.

And yet, his step died halfway forward.

His own face on that pile of burning bodies, he saw it clear as day, like it had always been waiting for him—and in a sense, it had been; the moment that graduation picture for the final ranking exercise had been snapped, he gave away his rights for life with it.

Kenneth looked around, desperate. Maybe, just maybe, someone else will step forward, though he knew it was false hope. It should have made him hesitate, the thought of being another face in a photo frame catching dust by a stranger's attic.

It didn’t. He couldn’t watch it happen again.

He ran straight toward the cylinder before he could stop himself. 'KENNETH!' Ngari screamed.

He didn’t stop.

For a moment, everything went quiet—muffled, like the world had drawn in a breath, and once it was released—

Light heat, impact, and nothing more.

Hi all!

I’ve been dedicating multiple years of my life to this one book I plan to publish, but no matter how hard I work… it never feels good enough.

I still plan to publish it… but getting through this final revision process is like pulling teeth.

I look at my chapters and decide it’s too amateurish, just to start over or rewrite scenes… and then it’s still not good enough.

I don’t know what to do and I just want to be done so I can start the next project.

TSomething in the Bushes

Days are long and hard,

the road remains unseen.

I’ve looked in all directions

and still not a thing.

Although it dark and lonely

it’s the only path with means,

Something is in the bushes

and staring straight at me

. It just waits for me it seems

. It stalks me in my dreams

pulls me away from all good things.

I fight and I fight

but still there’s no end in sight.

Just as a glimmer appears

so do my fears

again I find myself in the rear

. So full of sin,

it seems I can't win,

this battle, this fight

, the struggle to do right.

That something in the bushes,

that something in the wind,

leads me astray from the road they say I’ve chosen.

What lies ahead I cannot see,

but by the end of this road.

I'll know me.

For all those that may cross my path,

I apologize for the bad it may bring,

I only ask that you know,

I’m trying my damnedest to do the right thing

. Just look deep into my eyes

and you too, can see,

all of those beautiful things that make up me

. Pride stops me from asking when I need a hand,

I won’t beg, steal, or borrow but,

I sure could use any advice to help me with tomorrow. If

you see that something in the bushes, show it to me,

point it out. Only then will I be free

. My path has lead through thick forest and over many hills

. A lot of it has been smooth sailing.

Most of my troubles have been me failing.

I failed to claim that which was mine.

I sat when I should have stood.

I’ve been that something in the bushes

that something no one else understood.

The treason I felt some say

happened for a reason.

I once let others tell me who I was.

They painted my pictures,

I let them just because.

They took all those things that make a picture great

and left nothing but those bushes and me full of hate

The green in my trees snatched away at three

The stars that made up my sky at almost five.

I suddenly felt I had no reason to be alive.

No longer a mother, there wasn’t a color in sight.

I stepped into the picture they all said I might.

I lost my will, my will to fight.

I just laid there night after night

The path I was placed on, that dark and lonely one

helped me on my way to the woman I’ve become.

Although I still can’t see what lies ahead,

I feel my journey is half done.

The green in my trees is now five.

I’m finally again, feeling alive.

Those stars in my sky, six.

And now I know it’s me that needed fixed.

Consequences I must face

and I will with a little hope and faith.

When my dues are paid, I’ll lead the parade,

be the ace of spades, say good bye to all those long hard days,

no more mays or delays,

I'll live for us like today is are last day.

And that something in the bushes... will just be amazed

I want to write for Bollywood(Indian movies). Screenplays or scripts or stories. I am a stupid 21 year old boy in India.

I know this is a stupid dream, and this can never happen, but I think if i don't become a writer, i might as well just die. I can write or read books for hours without noticing how many hours have passed. Although I am not very good at writing for now, i am thinking about putting my heart and soul into this craft. I am willing to invest 20 years if that's what it will take.

I have an engineering degree going on right now and that will be my side job.

I want to fix bollywood and how cliche and bad it has become. The plots are not good anymore, it's generic it's trash, it's not good. I want to take our cinema to Hollywood level.

Could it ever be?

I used to write. I used to love writing. My writing excited me. I am not great at picturing things except for the ones I’m writing about. I’m not great at writing either, but I loved the time I spend with myself, the way my brain worked while I was writing.

Then I went to uni. I studied creative writing and I hated every second of it. Not because the course wasn’t great (it was), but because I lost every spark of passion I had for writing. And I have not written anything since I graduated 3 years ago.

My goal is not to be a published famous author; I really couldn’t care less about that. My goal is to write again, just for myself and my sanity really.

Please, share your favourite writing exercises and any piece of advice that worked for you. Not prompts necessarily. Just things that work for you when you simply cannot write.

Help a fellow writer out.

I appreciate there's more to do with editing and whatnot, and that it's a novella and therefore shorter. But after so many false starts through the years and the limited time and head space that comes with being a parent I'm so happy to have been able to see an arc through to the end.

I’m wondering, when writing a story thats ment to be visual (lets say manga) if the art isnt the great but the story is still easily understood from the art. Should I start? My drawing skills arent great but I have had a story in mind for a while.

(If this is the wrong subreddit, please direct me to the correct one, sorry)

He pushed himself inside her again, the full length of him reaching deep within her womb.

She cried, her nails clawing into his back.

 How had he let himself get to this? He couldn’t know.

Forgotten in the chaos of passion.

Guilt had been something he held to in his youth, these times he spent with the Queen easing that grasp with each thrust of her hips.

If there was a salvation for him he didn’t want it. 

How could something that felt so good be wrong? Why had the gods let man experience the pleasures of sin if they desired for their perfection? Was it all a cruel joke? Only meant to lead them into the depths of temptation?

 His seed spilled into her. Her hand stroking his cock as it flowed into her hand, across her thighs and sex. He needed to get out of here. Out of the castle. Escape the hold that it had upon him. The hold she had upon him. He needed to leave. Needed to burn. Sick of this desire. Sick of what had trapped him here. 

   Thorne stumbled from her chambers. Wet silk clinging to him as he left, his soul still in her bed.

Still inside her.

The halls reeked of sex and death.

The blood of sin.

Of the pleasure the kings had been drunk upon, each in his time.

 Mothers waiting. 

Thorne thought, tears escaping down his cheeks. 

The Queens scent followed him down the hall. It still clung to him. Haunting him in the soul of lust. 

There were two graves that awaited him. 

One choice. 

He already chose. 

Stay damned and die. 

Paulson coughed and picked up the box full of treasures he’d promised to burn. He couldn’t help but smile. In his thirty year career as an English teacher, no one had ever thought to question the fact that he didn’t ever stay at a job for more than a year, or why he always chose girls-only schools. He’d been at Shilton Ladies for six months, and he already loved how safe he felt there. As with most private institutions, the richer the parents, the less interested they were in monitoring their daughter’s social lives; especially if they assumed their daughter’s weren’t their teacher’s type. After all, any single, good-looking man who loved poetry and didn’t get around in knee socks and shorts just HAD to be gay. It was no wonder he never got offers from any of the Catholic boy’s schools.

The painting he used to disguise the shelf in which he kept his treasure box was his second most prized possession. It had been in his family since 1949, and was a gift from the artist herself, a dying spinster whose house his mother used to clean. Paulson only met the woman twice, when he came to pick up his mother, but Clarissa was apparently so charmed by him that she had insisted the painting be his. His mother protested at the extravagence of the gift, so much so that Paulson only found out about it after cancer claimed her, but the note tucked in behind the frame made Clarissa’s wishes abundantly clear.

I cannot think of anyone alive who is more deserving of her.

“She” was called Love And Ashes, and the thing that enthralled Paulson so about her was the dark, empty maw where her face should have been. It communicated a truth that was common among most females, particularly the former owners of the contents of Paulson’s treasure box and Cindy, the young lady whose company he was eagerly anticipating today: they were all hungry. Fortunately, he knew how to feed them. His relationship with young Cindy was only in the preliminary stages right now, but he knew from the catch in her voice when she read aloud from Romeo And Juliet in class that she was one of those girls, one of those sweet, naive girls, who firmly believed that romance and tragedy went hand in hand. He couldn’t wait to introduce her to the painting and share the entire heartbreaking, completely fictitious origin story. Paulson looked out his bedroom window. There was no sign of Cindy yet, but if the past six months and, indeed, his life so far had proven anything, it was that Paulson had infinite patience.

There was that cough again.Worse this time.

He went to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. He sipped slowly, fighting the urge to spit it out despite the bitter, acrid taste which had not been there yesterday. The boffins who introduced fluoride into Melbourne’s tap water the year before in an effort to improve dental health assured the public that it would not make the water any less palatable but to Paulson at that moment, it tasted like rancid wine. He drank, then refilled the glass and drained it again. It tasted no better than it had the first time, but he forced it down his throat regardless, then poured another and choked that down, too. The fourth, fifth, and sixth glasses went down even less smoothly and most of the eighth invaded his trachea. Paulson doubled over, head hung to the side, saliva spurting out of his nose and mouth like a hose with a kink in it.

Cindy opened her teacher’s front door after her knocking went unanswered and stepped into the hallway.

‘Mr. Paulson? Are you home?’

Cindy wasn’t sure she should be doing this. Mr. Paulson did tell her the door would be unlocked, but he hadn’t SPECIFICALLY told her to walk on in. Then again, he hadn’t told her NOT to. She checked her hair in the mirror on his hall table.

‘Mr. Paulson? Hello.’

She followed the sound of running water to the end of the hallway and stepped into the kitchen.

Martin Paulson was only too happy to donate the painting. The first thing he did after his poor, dear wife’s funeral was to get the accursed-looking thing out from under his house, a location that didn’t feel far enough away for Martin’s liking, and lump it on his son, Christopher. His opinion of it was not at all improved when he took it off the bedroom wall in Christopher’s house and discovered what it had been hiding. The fact that a fifteen-year-old student had been the one to discover the idiot’s bloated, indigo corpse had already given Martin pause, but the contents of the humble little cardboard box that was stored in the specially made recessed shelf confirmed his suspicion with vivid detail. He strolled into the second-hand store with the painting under his coat and pretended to browse until the woman behind the counter served a customer, then he walked to the back of the store where a cheaply-framed picture of Marguerite Daisies had pride of place and, after looking back over his shoulder to satisfy himself that the two women were still talking, he swapped the mundane for the insane and joined the queue to pay for his purchase.

When she finally did get around to serving him, the shopkeeper congratulated Martin on his excellent taste in home decor. Martin nodded his humble appreciation, paid, and walked out the door like his arse was on fire.

Calvin walked into the second-hand store ten minutes before closing, willfully ignoring the scathing judgement on the face of the woman behind the counter. He had to find something to please his boss and, more importantly, his boss’s bosses. Calvin had known about the charity auction the company was hosting for six months but only now had he begun to realise that finding something that fit the brief would not be the piece of piss he’d assumed it would be. He and Gabby had been friends since high school and so, when the business he’d spent ten years building up imploded, she didn’t hesitate to recommend him to her human resources department, despite Calvin’s complete lack of experience or even interest in insurance. Now that he was being considered for promotion, alongside people with at least eight years seniority on him, he had to bear the double burden of proving himself and saving Gabby’s reputation.

The theme of the fundraiser was Cheap Culture and every person in attendance, (at least every person who worked in the first five floors of the building), had to bring something that they bought for eighty dollars or less to be auctioned off for the company’s latest pet cause; this year it was hot and thirsty people, or cold and hungry people, something to that effect. Calvin had trawled antique stores to no avail, so it was either find something cool at this god-sponsored tea towel emporium or smoke himself hoarse and feign the flu.

He looked at the clock on the wall and saw that he now had six minutes, and the scariest thing in the whole place was still the hell hound behind the counter. Then he looked among the cheap biblical reprints and pictures of kittens and flowers and found HER. The scrawl in the bottom right corner said the artist's name was Clarissa, and Clarissa must've been something, alright. The painted lady wore a nineteen-forties style cream dress with pearl buttons adorning the shoulders, accessorised with pink and peach floral buns either side of her head made up of peonies, roses, poppies, and hydrangeas. Calvin was sure that she would be looking down upon him from her faux gold frame with a mixture of regalness and coy detachment, if she actually had a face. He took her to the counter and threw money at the shop keep.

‘That thing’s been here for twenty years,’ she said. ‘It’s like a boomerang.’

Calvin set the painting down on the floor against his wardrobe and, for the first time in months, allowed himself to relax. Unless one of the other suck-arses had the mummified corpse of King Tut stashed away in their garage, nothing was going to beat his girl. Calvin had to admit that, although he did not consider himself an arbiter of taste, there was something about the Clarissa he liked. Where others no doubt looked upon her as a quirky relic that turned out not to go well with their couch, Calvin saw raw honesty, which was a quality he found incredibly attractive considering it was at such a premium these days. He wondered whether the second-last store he’d visited still had the orange and black, hand blown glass vase he’d rejected on his lunch break, and put her up on the wall to see how he felt about it by tomorrow.

Calvin’s wife, Athena, was acting for all the world like she was fucking a strapping, twenty-five-year-old stud. She was so into it, in fact, that he was afraid one of his neighbours would report him. He held his hand against her mouth.

‘Keep it down, Babe.’

Athena slapped his hand away and ignored him, rocking back and forth and screaming louder and louder, as though Calvin was following up some stellar ice pick foreplay by torching her from the inside. He tried to muffle her with his hand again just as she threw her head back and belted out what sounded like the aria from Hell, half expecting her to bite him this time, (he might’ve appreciated it a little), but she didn’t. If Calvin didn’t know better, he’d swear he couldn’t feel a mouth at all.

Or his hand.

‘OOOOOOOOHHH!’

Athena propelled herself forward, growling like a bear.

A bear with no face.

‘I. AM. NOT. YOURS!’

Calvin recoiled, his screams and Clarissa’s growls joining in a dissonant harmony until he woke up tangled in his sheets and turned to his wife’s side of the bed to satisfy himself that he really had been having a nightmare.

‘Fuck,’ he sighed, ‘I don’t have a wife.’

He looked over at the painting, which hadn’t moved a milimetre from where he’d left it, and hoped it would be one of the brass knuckles on the top floor that won her.

Calvin watched the semi-swells half-heartedly battle it out for for ownership of the Clarissa, flailing their paddles about like the worst players on a remedial tennis team, and wondered at the sheer pointlessness of it all. The war refugees to whom the bash was dedicated, (who ironically would NEVER qualify for life insurance due to their citizenship status), would eventually get their money, but half of it would be eaten away in admin costs, including the six course menu their benefactors were currently enjoying, and the gold-rimmed plates on which the food was served. It seemed to Calvin that the true purpose of the evening was to award all the participants a tax break that they needed like a third nipple, and to provide a hunting ground for the CEO to bag his latest affair partner.

Speaking of Satan, thought Calvin.

The bidding had reached a crescendo when Murray Berger finally raised his paddle and silenced the room. Healthy competition was fine, but you NEVER outbid The Man.

‘Two-thousand, four-hundred and ninety-eight dollars,’ he boomed.

Gabby had told Calvin before the auction that Berger was famous for his refusal to use round numbers at these things and with this lumpy little dodecahedron of a figure, the boss-of-bosses had tripled the previous bid. Calvin didn’t know if, for some ungodly reason, the man was genuinely interested in the painting, nor did he care. The Clarissa’s new sugar daddy was welcome to her. Calvin went home to dream of Halle Berry.

Berger poured himself a cognac and supervised the delivery man hanging his acquisition. No one at work had any idea how long he’d been searching for this girl. Love And Ashes was thought to have been the final self-portrait completed by the artist before she died in nineteen-fifty, and its existence was nothing more than a rumour, until now. Illness, both physical and mental, were at the core of some of the greatest art of all time, and this crazy bitch was going to contribute very nicely to Berger’s retirement.

The delivery man stepped back and regarded the painting with a grimace. Berger grinned.

‘It’s the same with all women, Mate; the loonies give you more bang.’

‘Are you sure you want her here, in your bedroom?’

‘Yeah. Right where I can see her.’

Berger was on the phone to his insurance agent as soon as the delivery man’s car was out of sight.

‘I don’t give a fat frog’s arse what time it is, Dale. I want the best coverage I can buy, and if I don’t ask you now, you’ll forget tomorrow! Right-O. Give my love to the Mrs.’

He hung up.

‘Again.’

He plopped down on his Chesterfield sofa, swirled his cognac, and sized up the Clarissa from top to bottom.

‘You’re gonna make me very happy, Sweetheart.’

Berger woke up at a quarter-past seven and knocked the empty cognac bottle off the coffee table in his haste to get to the toilet. His prostate, which usually operated on union hours and as such called strikes often and at random, had inexplicably decided to put in a good performance. The pleasure of having his best bladder voiding in years was such that Berger dismissed his stiff, painful joints and worsening headache as a well-earned hangover until he ran the tap to wash his hands and happened to glance up at the three-sided bathroom mirror.

He was a Pollock canvas.

Hundreds of open ulcers congregated on his skin, grinning at him from their oozing, saw-toothed centres. He grabbed a spot on his left arm that seemed to have been spared and pinched, hard.

It hurt.

A lot.

Five minutes later, he was still standing before the mirror, waiting for the dream to reach its natural conclusion, and for the shooting pain in his arm to stop.

Shit. I didn’t pinch it that bloody hard.

He looked down at the arm.

Who pinched me?

Then it occurred to him there was a far more pressing concern.

Where am I?

The first thing he noticed upon leaving the building was how bright it was outside. The light assaulted his eyes and his head with devastating flash-bangs that made it almost impossible to navigate the strange terrain. He had no idea where he was or how he had gotten there, but he did know that his father was going to belt his arse raw if he was late home again. The old bastard was always threatening to kick him out when he turned fifteen, but Berger knew he wouldn’t hesitate to send him packing three years early with even the slightest provocation. A woman who was the image of his sister, Dotty, walked by, and he lunged.

‘TAKE ME HOME!’

Dotty screamed and shoved him away.

‘Rude bitch,’ Berger snarled, ‘you’re just jealous ‘cause Mum loves me more than YOU!’

He reached out and yanked her hair, coming away with a good fistful of it. That’d teach her. Sibling rivalry aside, though, there was still a far more crucial issue at hand.

‘Where’s my mummy?’

It hadn’t taken little Murray very long to figure out that he did not like this school business, and didn’t want any part of it. He’d intended to go down to the creek and look for tadpoles, but he must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. Also, he was really hot and his head hurt.

‘I’m sorry I ran away, Mummy.’

He stopped and grasped at his chest. He wished he hadn’t listened to his rotten brother and puffed on one of his dad’s cigars.

‘Where’s my mummy?’

The good people of this part of Brighton were not at all used to seeing ulcer-ridden vagrants staggering the streets, clawing at innocent citizens, and were outraged that a man his age could let his addictions get this far.

‘Mummy!’

Barry, the manager of the corner store where Berger bought his cigarettes saw the scene unfolding from half a block away and dropped his half-smoked Marlborough on the concrete.

‘No way.’

He ran back into the store and summoned his daughter.

‘Lucy! Run round the corner to the coppers and tell them to get here quick! Tell them who it is; that’ll make ‘em move!’

The two officers who appeared a few minutes later weren’t certain how to approach him. Sure, he was either drunk or insane, but he was still one of the richest men in Melbourne. Tackling him to the ground was out of the question, however tempting a prospect it might be.

‘MUMMY! I WANT MY MUMMY!’

The old prick was slowing down now. The senior constable had an idea. He nudged his partner.

‘Follow my lead and don’t ask questions.’

‘Murray? HEY, MURRAY!’

Berger turned and walked toward them. The senior constable smiled.

‘G’day, Mate! Your Mum’s been lookin’ everywhere for you.’

Berger’s eyes narrowed.

‘Are you playing a trick on me?’

The junior constable swallowed a hard lump of bile.

‘What are those sores all over him?’ He whispered. ‘What if he’s contagious?’

The senior constable spoke through clenched teeth.

‘Tell the shop manager to call for an ambulance, and get some rubber gloves!’

‘Are you taking me to Mummy in your police car?’

Berger scratched wildly at his molting head, then used one of his furry, peeling fingers to pick his nose. The senior constable did his best not to shudder.

‘Even better. We’re gonna let you ride in an ambulance!’

Berger’s face lit up.

‘With the lights flashing and the sirens on?’

‘You bet!’

‘TOPS!’

Berger beamed from ear to ear with the few teeth that were left in his head, and the policemen were feeling reasonably confident that they’d have him tranked and on his way to the Happy House for observation before the media got wind of things.

‘Hello,’ said one of the paramedics, walking toward them, ‘what’s happening, Fellas?’

‘We were just telling young Murray here that you’re gonna give him a lift. He’s real excited about the siren, aren’t you Mate?’ The senior constable nodded.

Berger froze.

‘And the lights,’ he frowned.

‘Shit,’ said the junior constable, ‘he’s getting younger by the minute. What if he chucks a tantrum?’

Berger eyed him.

‘Shut up,’ hissed the senior.

Berger noticed the rubber gloves and ran.

‘Don’t take me back to the no-face lady! I hate the no-face lady! I HATE THE NO-FACE LADY!’

He made it roughly two metres before his legs gave out. The policemen and the ambulance driver towered over him like demons waiting to escort him to Hell.

‘BLOODY IDIOTS!’ he boomed, himself again now. ‘Can’t you see my legs aren’t working?’

They appeared to have heard him, but he couldn’t hear them. Were they actually ignoring him?

‘I’ve got mates in the service! They’ll be hearing about this! Where the bloody hell did you go?’

They’d disappeared. Up and left him. That, or he couldn’t see them.

Matter of fact, he couldn’t see ANYTHING.

A pain shot up his left arm again, far surpassing the last. Did he really pinch himself that hard?

And why did his mouth taste like he’d gone down on a metallic whore?

And why was there wet cement in his lungs?

And why was his skin on fire?

And where was his mummy?

The big bosses finally opened the conference room door at ten-forty-three. Gabby took Calvin by the arm and practically dragged him to the break room.

‘Berger’s dead.’

‘What the fuck? How?’

Calvin was both anticipating and dreading the answer to this question.

‘They’re still trying to work it out. Heart attack or stroke or something. He was walking the streets in his jocks, screaming for his mummy! They’re saying he was stoned or pissed or both, but he was covered in sores, and he looked fine yesterday.’

Calvin shrugged.

‘As fine as he gets, anyway.’

Gabby smirked. ‘Yeah, well, it’s all over the news. The big knobs are in damage control mode. They think he might’ve been sick for a while, and the painting just pushed him over the edge.’

‘P…pardon?’

‘One of the cops said he tried to run off ‘cause he thought they were taking him back to the no-face lady. How hilarious is that? The old trouser snake dodges tax fraud, insider trading, and THOSE allegations, then this happens! The Teflon king, taken out by a PAINTING! Couldn’t you scream?’

Yes. Yes he could.

Owing to his status as a collector, and to the fact that none of his childless ex-wives would want a bar of anything he had to offer them in death that he didn’t already pay out when they left him, Berger’s estate sale attracted substantial interest. So much so that speakers, monitors, and extra seating were set up in the front courtyard of the auction house to accommodate. In under two hours, ninety-four antiques and sixty paintings were scooped up at record prices. The rarest painting on the catalogue, Love And Ashes, whose provenance and real name was only discovered thanks to a dedicated outside researcher, was not among them. When Calvin approached the auctioneer and enquired as to the Clarissa’s whereabouts, the auctioneer shook his head.

‘Gone to God. It was going to be the final lot, too.’

‘What happened?’

The auctioneer threw up his hands.

‘Wish I could tell you. I went into the back room an hour before showtime to inspect all the lots, make sure they’re all dusted and whatnot and there’s the Clarissa, undressing.’

‘Undressing. You mean…’

‘I mean stripping. Peeling off a layer at a time, starting with the gloves.’

‘How?’

‘Got me.’ He leaned in conspiratorially. ‘Thing is, we don’t keep solvents or caustic materials in that room, or anywhere in this building. We had our studio workers inventory our entire supply, and every single drop was accounted for.’

‘How?’

‘What you should be asking is Why.’

Clarissa stepped back from the canvas and tried to think of an accurate term for what she was seeing.

Start-Stop.

The hard letters were shaky bugs, trying to crawl away, and the soft letters were prostrate, rigid. Decades from now, someone would read this and bear retroactive witness to her pain.

And to THEIRS.

Clarissa stiffened and forced herself into a chair to wait for the stabbing, needle-sharp pains to stop again. Painting, walking, and standing were difficult tasks that she knew would become impossible soon enough, which was why it was so important that she finish this piece, even if she had to set up an easel by her bed. She thought of the women in England who almost a decade before had gathered in a forest and formed what they called the Cone of Power, using witchcraft to try to invade Hitler’s mind and curtail any designs he might’ve had on ravaging their motherland. Some argued that it was the Nazi’s own ineptness and poor planning that fumbled the job, but the witches knew better.

Clarissa agreed and although forests were in short supply in the inner-city suburbs of Melbourne, she knew that it was the intent of the spell rather than the location that really mattered, even though she had only been practicing since the symptoms started. She spent many an early morning, including her last, standing on her succulent and bonsai adorned terrace, willing every single karmic arrow in her quiver to aim true, feeling all the more justified knowing that had she shared any of this with anyone other than her cleaning woman, she would be living out the rest of her days in a sanitarium getting “Treatment” for syphilis-induced delirium, one of the few indignities the disease hadn’t inflicted upon her.

Maggie Paulson had seen Clarissa through two violent marriages, three abortions, several torrid affairs, and social and familial ostracism, but unwavering loyalty could not put a stopper on death, regardless of how much Maggie wished it could. She swept Clarissa’s bedroom floor, delicately maneuvering around the legs of the easel that stood next to the bed. Much as the sight of the painting troubled Maggie, it was Clarissa’s final contribution, her legacy, and was therefore a gift to the world, even if they didn’t necessarily deserve it.

‘Come sit, Maggie dear.’

Maggie rested her broom against a chest of drawers and sat on the side of the bed.

Clarissa smiled at her.

‘I can’t honestly say you’re the only person who’s ever understood me, but you are the one person who hasn’t taken advantage of what you’ve learned. You’re true blue, Maggie. One of a kind.’

‘Thank you, Mrs. Nilsen.’

Clarissa chuckled, coughed.

‘I will never for the life of me be able to fathom why you refuse to address me by my first name.’

‘You’re my employer. It just doesn’t seem…respectful.’

‘How about we pretend that I’m not? Let’s pretend we’re just two best friends who help each other. You keep my house in order and listen to all my troubles, and I furnish you with gossip, gifts, and the odd piece of sage advice. Could we do that? Just pretend from now on?’

Maggie thought about it.

‘Alright, Clarissa.’

Clarissa clapped her hands, then grimaced.

‘Damn pains. They’re almost intolerable now.’

She nodded at the painting.

‘She’s done. Time to give her a new home.’

‘Give? You’re not selling it?’

‘Her, and no; I won’t be needing money where I’m going. She’s entirely too special to be exchanged for something as common as money, anyhow. I want her to go where she’s most needed and deserved.’

Clarissa sipped her lukewarm tea and let the idea marinate in Maggie’s head a while before she broached the subject again, in a manner that made it seem like she was changing it altogether.

‘How’s your boy these days? Job going well?’

Maggie’s expression took on the mixture of pride and crestfallen despair it wore whenever someone mentioned Christopher.

‘Oh, very well, very well. He’s still teaching form three English. His students just love him. He’s so devoted and passionate.’

I’ll just bet he is. Thought Clarissa. She’d met Christopher on a couple of occasions and had to admit to herself that she initially found him to be quite a winning creature. The velvet black hair, the piercing green eyes, the perfect smile; his physical attributes alone were enough to reel in any swoony, unsuspecting girl, but when you added his understanding of poetry and gothic literature, and his willingness to blur professional and personal boundaries by giving his prettier students rides home and extra-curricular ‘Excursions,’ the poor things might as well just have donned handcuffs and delivered themselves to him, gift wrapped. Clarissa would sooner drink poison than break Maggie’s heart by voicing any of this, but she knew Christopher’s kind.

She’d married it.

Clarissa’s art teacher didn’t quite have Christopher’s physical advantages, but he did know how to summon a vulnerable child with a smile, and how to encourage the interests that her parents and other teachers said were useless. He also knew that there were things one’s parents didn’t discuss with their kids, a fact as true today as it was then.

‘I would like to give the painting to Christopher.’

Maggie somehow managed to look both thrilled and appalled.

‘Oh! Oh, I couldn’t…let you…I mean, you’ve already been so wonderful.’

‘I know you think the world of that boy, and I know you worry about him, too.’

Maggie thought about the number of loans her husband didn’t know about.

‘Yes.’

Clarissa took Maggie’s hand.

‘I guarantee this painting will set him up.’

Along with any other bottom-feeding, disease-spreading rogue it comes into contact with.

‘How many other Clarissa paintings are there?’

‘Forty-three,’ said the auctioneer.

Calvin’s left eyebrow twitched.

‘Is there a way to trace their whereabouts?’

‘Yes, but they’ve changed hands several times, and they’re spread all over North America, England, Africa and Asia. Most of the owners I’ve been able to track down so far have been men, interestingly enough.’

Calvin read the inscription again.

HE WHO GIVES ONLY PAIN IS DOOMED TO RECEIVE IT IN ABUNDANCE.

‘Just out of curiousity,’ said Calvin, ‘how many of those men are still alive?’

I'm just going to start this off by saying my answer to this is no, I don't think this should be a thing but with some exceptions for stuff like historical plot relevance.

But I'm asking because I have a character who would absolutely be the kinda girl that says it freely. However, as I said, I am white, while it would be okay for her to say it if she was real, that's not the case for me. So I was debating the ethics of a white writer writing a character who says the word, and decided that it's not plot relevant, there's no logical reason she would say it besides personality flare, and she curses like a sailor already. So I decided to just drop it. But then I started wondering what other people think of this topic? What other opinions do you guys have about this situation or similar ones?​

I am going through some older short fiction drafts, probably going to do some editing and possibly rewrites/expansions and start sending a few of these out to try my luck with Clarkesworld/Asimovs/Etc. This is one of a handful of pieces that feels pretty strong in it's draft form at any rate. I would greatly appreciate any feedback. What do you like? What needs improvement? What makes sense and what is confusing? Thanks!

Flowers for the Dead, A Long Road for the Mourning - 1983 CH

The world is a dry place in these strange times. If you want to honor your dead the old way, you’ve a long road to walk. River City and its spring blooms await the weary pilgrim.

The path stretches long and straight across the cracked soil of the high plains, grayish-red bricks a counterpoint to the muted yellow of the surrounding grassland. I’ve heard it said that the Pilgrim’s Road was originally laid by scouting parties preceding some conquering Roman legion on its long march across the countryside. This seems an obvious falsehood, given the relative unimportance of our little corner of the world, but I appreciate the romantic lie all the same.

Ahead, my fellow travelers stretch out along the horizon, made dusty ghosts by distance and the ministrations of an unforgiving sun on sensitive retina. I don’t know how long I’ve walked this road; my dwindling rations suggest something like two weeks, but boredom has a funny way of interacting with food. I’ve come to understand that the pilgrimage is a religious ceremony only in name. Flowers for the dead, a long road for the mourning; this is the way it must be if the sadness of us pilgrims should not suffocate what remains of the world. I’ve marked the travelers along my path, even made fast friends of a few if only to stave off grief a little longer. Most are like myself, world-weary and short on words. The boy is different though, the boy doesn’t belong here.

The boy stands no taller than my shoulders, young to travel these roads, but not so young as to be unmarked by the realities of hardscrabble living on the frontier. His cloak is new, but thin and cheap. His gait is awkward, as if his soft feet are unsure why they wander west with the rest of these hapless old fools. He seems content to walk along in his own company. I am too restless for such stoicism.

“Hail, pilgrim” I increase my pace to walk beside him. A chill breeze blows in from the North.

“Hail.” The reply is terse, quiet, he doesn’t look up from the dust of the road or otherwise acknowledge my presence. Another minute passes with only the soft scuff of old boots on brickwork. I decide to try again.

“Who do you walk for, friend?” Now this got a reaction. The boy stops with a childish immediacy, as if he lacks the energy for trauma and walking together. His tears had clearly been waiting to ambush him at the first opportunity, as they now flow free and unbidden.

“My Ma and Pa, sir,” he looks up now, grief writ clear on a face that couldn’t be more than fifteen summers, “lost em’ both in the winter. This just seemed right, you know?”

“Oh, I know…” I look for the words. They aren’t coming easy.

“The farm’s drying up. Everyone got sick,” he starts walking again, the words spilling out of him angry and sad now that the tap is open, “I’m gonna get to River City and honor them with flowers, just like the good book says. Maybe then it can make sense, right? Maybe then I’ll know what to do.”

A few more minutes pass, punctuated by footfalls and an uncomfortable silence. I thought I should probably comfort this one. I wish I knew how.

“My wife,” I blurt out. I guess that I needed to say it, needed to make I real. “47 years together and I’ll be damned if I’m not lost.” I turned now. The boy has stopped again, tear streaked visage exhibiting a picture of sympathy far too mature for its years. I am reminded of a painting of the Buddha I’d seen some decades ago in a traveling show, I don’t know why. A moment passes between us, friendship in mutual grief. It didn’t seem fair.

“Share our fire tonight, kid. There’s a woman from the low country that camps with me, a wizard with a pot of soup. The world’s shit sometimes, but good soup is good soup.”

“Alright, mister,” the answer came meek, but not without relief.

***

The day’s sun surrenders without fanfare, giving way to a hazy twilight decorated with the thin gray smoke of cook-fires along the Pilgrim’s road. The path begins to climb out of the prairie and toward some convenient pass through the mountains that block tomorrow’s progress, the many fires along its length giving the impression of stars brought low. In our own little sphere of light, the smell of boiling leeks and good, dry woodsmoke fills the air. Nearby, the old woman’s donkey quietly protests its continued attachment to her cart, while she leans against the trunk of a gnarled little pine, absentmindedly stirring our dinner. I wonder, and not for the first time, at her ability to procure fresh produce weeks into our journey through this nearly lifeless country.

The boy sits on his traveling pack, staring into the heart of the fire with his tears periodically dripping down to mingle with the dust at his feet. He has been like this since I set the kindling to burning. Again, I find myself unable to voice anything worth saying, and again I find myself grateful for the old woman’s presence.

“Don’t see many trees in these parts, do ya?” her folksy, low-country accent cuts through the droll of camp like her wicked little knife cuts through potatoes, “it’s odd what you take fer granted. Don’t notice what it means to ya until it’s gone.” Her unoccupied hand, as gnarled and leathery as the bark on the little dune pine she leans against, reaches up to gently thumb the bud of new spring growth on the tip of one of its branches.

“Had a big ol’ dogwood smack dab in the middle of my village. Grew up in its shadow, ya know? Played beneath it as a girl, kissed on this boy or that one under its shade in the summer, even married one of them boys in the end. Brought my daughters to play neath’ its flowers too. Stood there afore I was born and figured it would still be there after I was dead and gone. Wasn’t though…” With a flick of her wrist the little tributary branch snaps, she tosses it into the fire beneath the soup pot.

“One day, lightning come out of a clear, blue sky and smited that old tree like God had gotten jealous of it. Split the ol’ girl in half and set her to burning, and that was that.” She stops stirring for a moment, clearly lost in an old memory, “I cried more for that tree than I did when my feisty ol’ papa died, would’ve felt silly, being a grown woman with plenty of loss behind her, except that I knew that everyone else in town would be cryin’ too.”

She turns now, lifting the boy’s chin up with her tree-bark hand to meet her eyes, “you know what we did after we got done with the cryin’, boy?”

He sniffles and gently shakes his head.

“We pulled that broken trunk and gave folks a place to sit. We filled her belly with good dirt from our gardens and planted flowers in her stump. We thanked whoever was listenin’ for takin’ that old tree instead of our homes. That’s what life is like sometimes kiddo, makin’ the best of it.”

He nods at this, wiping at a dirty face with his dirty sleeve

“You’ll reach River City in a few days, boy. It’ll be a chance to make the best of things. Don’t lose sight of that, ya?”

***

The next few days blend together, each a new struggle as the Pilgrim’s Road climbs up and over the tall pass. Dry heat eventually gives way to the cooler moist air common to western slopes. We begin our descent into the heart of an emerging spring, the world around us beginning to take on new colors as our pilgrimage approaches its end.

The boy doesn’t cry as much anymore, every once in a while he even smiles as we sit around the campfire and the old woman recounts tales from her wild youth with a showmanship ill befitting her age. I begin to feel better as well. I miss her terribly, but companionship takes some of the sting from reality.

***

We finally stand atop the last foothill, overlooking the glacial valley that marks the end of our pilgrimage. River City stretches out like stained glass below, its massive fields of spring blooms almost otherworldly when compared to the drab palette of the surrounding landscape. Streams both great and small crisscross the blooming settlement, powering waterwheels and cascading waterfalls alike. Buildings hide within walls of ivy and great blooming trees, long-houses and temples in every shape and size and sporting symbology that spans the march of time. The air smells of lilac and pollen.

I manage to tear my watering eyes away from the city to truly see the boy for the first time. His cloak has been abandoned to the warm spring sunshine somewhere on the hill behind us, and the truth of the city has stripped away the illusions that made his pilgrimage possible.

His skin is incredibly pale, a bluish tint accentuated by the darker blue of his lips. Eyes glassy and unfocused stare out upon a scene in death that they never could have observed in life. His hair floats almost comically above his head, flowing unnaturally in the gentle breeze, a bit of pond scum clinging to one lock like a tiny green flag.

I do not discard my traveling cloak, even if the spring sun would have felt wonderful on my weary limbs; its hood covers my own truth and I am not ready to share it with the boy just yet. It had been no grandiose end, a trip to the herbalist for a gift of roses that ended prematurely when some enterprising highwayman clubbed in the back of my head for my purse. I wondered, and not for the first time, if my wife had been the one to find me laying there on the side of the road. I hoped not.

The boy, for his part, doesn’t seem to know that he is dead and for this I am grateful. The old woman had made my own situation clear to me early and often, pushing through rejection, denial, and plenty of anger before finally reaching something like acceptance. I had long resented her forwardness in this regard, but now I finally understood it; she had guided me to this moment, now it was my turn to do the guiding.

I place a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently as he turns to smile at me. “I’m not much for scripture, to be honest. Does the good book mention what color the temple bouquets are meant to be?”

He snorts at this, “All of em, sir. One color for each of the disciplines.”

“Well I suppose we have our work cut out for us, don’t we? Let’s get to it… I intend to rest my tired legs eventually,” we make our way down into River City, into whatever’s next. Only the flowers note our passing.

The Arsonist’s Method

I am a hoarder.

In my physical life, I am chained to the "just in case" and the "not yet." My shelves are heavy, my corners are crowded, and my physical reality is a record of everything I have ever touched. I struggle to let go of a single physical object.

But when I sit before the screen, the chains snap.

In my writing, I practice a deliberate, necessary entropy. Most writers build museums. They archive their failures and curate their progress in folders labeled "Draft 1," "Draft 2," or "Final_v3." They keep their ghosts.

I prefer to exorcise mine.

When a new draft begins, the old one must die. Not just archived. Not just hidden... deleted. Permanently.

There is a terrifying, holy rush in the permanent deletion of ten thousand words. It is the only place in my life where I am truly free from the weight of the past. By destroying the safety net, I force myself into a state of radical presence. If the previous version was better, it doesn't matter: it is gone. I cannot go back. I can only go deeper.

My prose is the tax I pay to the void. I burn the bridge behind me so that I have no choice but to reach the other side.

I don't write to remember; I write to evolve. Each version is a sacrifice of the person I was yesterday for the clarity I need today. In the silence of the deleted file, I find the only space I have left to breathe.

The Challenge: The Burned Bridge

To my fellow writers: I challenge you to an act of creative asceticism.

Take a project you care about; find something with weight and history. Write your next chapter, your next act, or your next full revision. And then, before you start the next stage, delete the version that came before it. Empty the trash bin. Remove the cloud backups of those early iterations.

Do not keep the "just in case" copies. Give yourself no choice but to be better than you were yesterday. Stop hoarding your mistakes and start trusting that the only parts of your story worth keeping are the ones you can remember.

Tell me: Could you bring yourself to delete your previous drafts? Or is your "Draft 1" too sacred to burn? What would happen if you did anyway?