Trans/plant/portation

Here’s another bit of the YA novel I’m working on—pieces from chapters 8 and 9.

Pulling ourselves out of the sewers we found ourselves on a quiet side street. It looked vaguely familiar, and I recalled that this was a section of the original town square that I’d seen when Lucas was younger. I held him up while he steadied himself on his crutches. He pointed to a building at the end of this block, away from the main street. “We’re almost there.”

“We’re almost where,” I asked. I was no longer clean from my bath. “Somewhere where I won’t notice you smell like rotting garbage?”

“I would almost say you’re not appreciative of my efforts.” Read More…

Chapter Eight

“What,” I asked, “Why do people think I’m dead?”

Outside a rumbling sound cut into my shock, and Lucas scrambled to stand up. “Come on, quickly.” He crutched toward the hallway, back where I’d bathed at the end of the night. I bounded up after him.

“Where are we going? Who is that?”

“Jacqueline,” said Lucas, turning around to face me. The engines at the front of the house cut out; we heard car doors clanging shut. “I’ll tell you later.” Read More…

One-third of the way through the month, and that wasn’t so bad, was it? Only six more days until a bonafide habit has been established. So the work is all for something, awesome. But it’s Day 10, so that means we’re well into the weeds of this project, and if the manuscript draft is a third of the way through, we’re at or nearing a transition. Exposition is over, and we’re in the meat of the story. For me, that means I’m focusing on scene work. Read More…

It’s All Saints Day and this was the best day to be a Catholic school kid, because it’s a holy day of obligation, so I for one enjoyed the day off from classes, especially as it meant some quality time with my candy bowl. It seems fitting, then, that I began my month-long quest with a snack-sized Almond Joy and Nestle Crunch bar. Instead of going for the standard 50,000-word mark this year, I’m shooting for 60,000 words. Fingers crossed! Read More…

I’m gearing up to write a novel for National Novel Writing Month this year—for 2010 I plan to write a young adult speculative fiction story that will have LGBT themes and some homages to the 1970s, adventure tales, and classic time travel sci fi—so I had to put together my “to do” list before All Saints Day rolled around. For this novel, named PARALLAX, my list looks like this, in no particular order: Read More…

This is an excerpt of the novel I’ll be drafting this November as part of NaNoWriMo—National Novel Writing Month. Just a teaser. I may post excerpts on this blog from time to time as I make my way through.

One itchy elbow, right foot falling into a pins-and-needles sensation, and the slight stress from wondering if the glob of putty above my left eye was going to run down my forehead: this was the sum of my bodily annoyances. I tried to see the clock on the wall ahead of me, but with my glasses off I needed to squint to read the hands. Hopefully I was near the end of this test.

I heard a metal click but knew not to move in response to it.

“How are you doing, hon,” asked Cindy, the lab technician. That must mean it was okay to move my jaw to answer her.

“I’m okay. Itchy, and I think my right foot’s asleep.”

“Go ahead and scratch if it’s not your head, and shake your foot a little.”

I hadn’t moved more than two millimeters and the seismograph thing set up next to me went wild, scratching out thick, dark lines on the paper. Well, I presumed that’s what it was doing. I didn’t need to look at it to know what my brainwaves looked like. I scratched my elbow through my shirt, but that wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t dig under my sleeve without upsetting the wires. I pounded my foot on the floor, trying to get it startled enough to wake up. Without thinking, I reached up to stop the glop on my head from getting in my eyes. I knew better than to touch anything other than the tip of my nose, but once I’d started moving itches popped up everywhere, and I forgot myself. Read More…

Everyone loves a good character. The converse is also true. Weak, two-dimensional characters kill a story because what hooks most of us is our interest in the personalities depicted by the writer. After all, we’re writing, usually, about conflict between people, and most stories end by showing how someone changed from the start of the tale. Thus readers are looking for people who feel real, with whom we can identify or about whom we can feel superior, especially in the case of comedy. Read More…

It’s not as short as Hemingway’s shortest story (For sale: baby shoes, never worn.) but seeing as I don’t compare myself to him, it doesn’t matter. It is, however, my shortest story, barely scratching 450 words.

She feels the pressure at her knees, because this roof is on more of a slant than the hill behind her house, and she’s only used to running down dirt and grass. Something about this hard tile surface hurts.

Looking toward the sunset she’s excited by how far her vision extends. She’s only ever seen the curve of the earth when she visits the coast with her parents, and somehow, it never seemed as powerful a view as this does now. She wishes, for a snatch of time, that she could just extend this sunset into tomorrow. Read More…

I put all of my Friday Flash stories and a bonus short story in one collection, titled Spinning Around a Sun: Stories by Everett Maroon, and slapped it up on Amazon for their Kindle reader, at the bargain basement price of $2.99. Hey, as an author, I’ll take what I can get in terms of income, so hopefully $3 isn’t too much to ask for months of my work. Anyway, feel free to purchase one!

This is an excerpt from Bumbling into Body Hair that I may strike out entirely as I get my word count down to more publisher-attractive levels. But I thought I would share it here out of the goodness of my heart, and because it was a troubling moment within the LGBT community. One of the places I had the hardest time transitioning was among my queer peers, which shouldn’t have been the case.

Jeffrey and I were late to bowling. By the time we got to the alley, there were only five minutes of practice left. This was also annoying because in each of the previous weeks in this new league we’d joined, they ran behind schedule on the practice and start of play. Not so this week.

No sooner had I sat down to put on my shoes than the president of the league was sitting next to me. Buddy was a round, older, very smiley man who was every bit as laid back as the last president of the other league was over-engaged. I liked Buddy.

Buddy looked serious. “Everett, can I talk to you about something?” Read More…