I'm Famous! Well, Sort of...

I got a story published! It's a non-paying gig, for a free online e-zine called The Piker Press but it is an actual, real gig!It is a story titled: The Prisoner. It was originally a short story that I wrote in Junior High. Then when I discovered NaNoWriMo I took it as an idea for my novel. I was able to stretch it out to over fifty thousand words, but not without losing the real heart of the story and adding a whole lot of dirty wordcount tricks! Then, when a good friend suggested I submit something to the Piker Press a few weeks ago, I decided to get it out and dust it off a bit. I chopped at it mercilessly, down to novella size and submitted it.And they liked it! They really liked it!So it will be published as a serial for the next few weeks, each new edition of the Press comes out on Monday. So if you like my stuff, here is a chance to see my first real published story!

Hooray!

Monday November 17, 2008 - 05:46pm (EST)

NaNoWriMo 2008 - Day One...

(Image is the symbol of the SSWD, created by me...)
Tiriak woke with a start.
So begins my latest NaNo novel. Not as impressive as I tend to want my first lines to be, but I had to start somewhere. I sat there in the IHOP, at a table with about ten other NaNovelists and realized that although I had a pretty good idea about where I wanted my story to go, I was nowhere near deciding where to begin. Should I begin with the vision that my MC Tiriak has on his coming-of-age vision quest? Or should I begin earlier, in his childhood with a little bit of character development? Should I begin with some background on the antagonists the Soul-Stealing Weasels of Despair? Or should I shoot right to the action and fill in the rest as flashbacks?
I decided that the vision quest is really where the story begins, so I will start there but that is no guarantee that I won't change my mind later. That of course is the beauty of NaNoWriMo: I can just write what comes into my head and then go back and fill in the blanks later.
For November anyway, only the wordcount matters. After one day, I am at 3,352 words. Not a bad beginning!
Happy Novelling!
Saturday November 1, 2008 - 10:40pm (EDT)

© 2008 Tyler Willson. All rights reserved

NaNoWriMo 2008!

It's that time again... Carpal tunnel irritating, sleep depriving, frustration generating, plot ninja creating, write-in attending, flickguy tormenting, 50,000 words in 30 days.
For some reason the first thing people ask when I tell them I write a novel every November is whether or not they get published. I always laugh out loud. Mostly because the dreck that I pound out to make sure I keep up with the minimum 1667 words per day would not be good enough to paper a birdcage if you printed it out on gold foil. That is what happens when you turn off the inner editor, focus more on quantity than quality, and just enjoy telling yourself a story. Characters wander around and refuse to stick to the script. Plot bunnies and ninjas drop in out of nowhere to create great gaping plot holes, and to get you out of them. You have long rambling conversations between characters about random topics having nothing to do with your story, just to meet your daily wordcount goal.
At the end of the month, you are so sick of these disobedient children and their interminably dull conversations that you upload the words to the NaNoWriMo word counter to get your cheesy downloadable certificate, and then you save it to some dusty corner of your hard drive and hope to never see it again. And you tell everyone how much fun it was. Because it was. You accomplished something. It may have been silly, it may have been useless, and you will most likely never see your name on the bestseller list. But you did it! And that is the entire point.

Friday October 31, 2008 - 09:02am (EDT)


© 2008 Tyler Willson. All rights reserved

The Law of Average (Continued)

This is a continuation of a previous entry, which may have some potential for a complete story... (you never know, right?) http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-w.JhfIQlbKO2KozdighgcIzL?p=34
Jaime was once again, utterly disgusted. His team had won tonight, spectacularly even against their primary rivals. A thirty-point lead at the end of the fourth quarter had been the only thing that had finally prompted the coach to put Jaime in. For two plays. Then, it was back to the sideline.
Jaime reasoned with himself that he really should be glad to have played. That was better than most games, in which he didn't even get a single play. But for some reason, he felt even more depressed than usual. Worst of all, instead of just going home to feel sorry for himself, his ride to the game was staying for the customary dance afterwards. Jaime was not sure it could get much worse. He showered and dressed, and slowly wandered up through the deserted school to the cafeteria where the music was already thumping. Spirits were high, especially among the football team. To defeat the team from the next county by such a large margin was certainly reason for celebration. On top of that, many others like Jaime had gotten some playing time, and they were certainly primed for celebration. Not Jaime though. He found an empty chair in a dark corner, and determined to spend the night feeling sorry for himself.
Fish was one of Jaime's team mates, and probably one of his best friends. As far as friends go, Jaime really didn't have many, although he was generally well-liked. It just seemed like that same law that kept him from achieving anything really extraordinary also kept him from forming any really deep friendships. More than anyone else though, Fish was the exception. Tonight there was a girl with him.
(Sorry, real life intrudes. More later... I hope!)

Sunday June 22, 2008 - 08:22am (EDT)


© 2008 Tyler Willson. All rights reserved

August Rush

So I am going to write a movie review... I haven't had much luck with these in the past, I usually cannot remember all of the great details that a good movie review needs to have. However, I recently watched a movie that moved me more than any movie has for quite some time. So I feel a great compulsion to share my thoughts with the world at large. (Or at least whoever happens to read this, which is admittedly not many.)
August Rush is first and foremost, a fairy tale. Unabashedly, it takes us through the fantasy of an orphanage-raised boy who dreams, as most children in such a place do, of finally finding his parents. Whether or not he does in the end is almost never in doubt. It is almost never unsure of whether or not this movie will have a happy ending. Nevertheless, the tension and suspense are far greater than anything I have ever witnessed in a cinematic experience.
But first, I suppose I really should outline more of the story before I give away the climax.
Evan Taylor hears music, feels music all around him. "I believe in music like some people believe in fairy tales." And he believes that this music originates with his parents. Despite the taunts of the bullies who live in the boy's home with him, he continues to believe that if he can only learn to make the music he hears that he will somehow be able to call to his parents and they will return to him.
Through flashbacks, we learn that his mother and father are two very gifted musicians who meet only once on a magical night where music brings them together. His mother plays the cello in an orchestra, and his father is lead guitar and singer for a rock band. One night, they each have absolutely amazing performances, seperately of course. The magic of cinema however melds these two performances together into what has become one of my favorite tracks on the movie soundtrack as it jumps back and forth from the formal concert hall to the dark and smoky club joining classical Bach with a heartfelt rock ballad that really must move anyone with the smallest love of music.
After their respective concerts, the two musicians, still dazed with wonder at the intensity of their performances are dragged to a party by their friends where they meet on the rooftop where they have both gone to escape the crowd and ponder on the wonder of their music. In a beautifully directed scene, they meet, talk briefly and then, to the sound of a street performer playing Van Morrison's "Moondance" on a harmonica they fall instantly in love.
The next morning, fate intervenes to seperate them. He by his bandmates, she by her controlling father. He never knows that he has fathered a child, but continues to pine for her, even writing a song about her which is another great track on the soundtrack cd.
She carries the child to term, but before giving birth is hit by a car and when she wakes up in the hospital, her father tells her the child has died.
Both parents fall into a depression, and abandon their music. Meanwhile, Evan grows up in the boy's home, hearing the music and hoping for a chance to play it for a large enough audience to call them back to him. Eventually, he runs away from the home and makes his way to the city where he does finally get a chance to learn to perform music. Robin Williams plays an eerily insane character who is easy to love, hate, and fear simultaneously. "The Wizard" is a sort of modern day Fagin who teaches his youthful gang to panhandle for money by playing music instead of thievery.
Eventually Evan is discovered by someone who is able to get him admitted to the Julliard school where he writes the August Rhapsody as the piece of music that will finally bring his parents back to him. His innate musical genius is such that he is even given the opportunity to have the New York Philharmonic perform his work in a concert in Central Park.
Although the final climactic scene is largely predictable, I found myself holding my breath with watering eyes as Evan's music crescendoed. I think it is the music as much as anything that allows the dramatic tension to be preserved, and which keeps the viewer invested in the final scene despite its formulaic happy ending. As his parents make their way through the crowd, drawn by the music that they have both been hearing throughout the eleven years of their seperation one feels almost to shout at them to find each other, and to find the wonderful, sweet and talented son that neither of them knew that they had.
In the end, the ending is happy; and that is no surprise. But I was left breathless by this wonderful movie. Most of all, the soundtrack is the driving force behind everything good about this movie. I have nothing really bad to say about it. It is a movie that I will not hesitate to watch over and over again, if only to listen to the wonderful music.
If you have any love for music at all, or would like to, then you must take the time to watch August Rush.
You will never be able to listen to music in the same way again.

Monday May 19, 2008 - 11:11pm (EDT)

© 2008 Tyler Willson. All rights reserved

Sue and The Bureaucrats - An Excerpt

(No new news here, just another excerpt. Enjoy!)

"You have a bit of your father in your eyes son, the way you looked at me just now. Not the crazy mad kid that I have raised for all these years, I figger that comes from your ma. But the cold hardness of a man who has faced his fears and found himself stronger for it. You got that in you, you know?" Sue was not so sure he did, but not wanting to contradict the sheriff now, simply nodded."Alright, enough beating around the bush. I was following your pa one night just before you and your ma drifted into town, he had left the saloon early and headed for the hills. I think I was able to catch him unawares because I didn't follow him directly. I watched which direction he rode and made a guess as to where he would end up in the pine bluffs just north of town. He was taking the trail, which goes all the way around the bluff, so I just cut across and went straight up and over, cutting the distance in half. Even so it was a close thing. Had I come upon that clearing thirty seconds later, I would have just ran into a scary old man in the darkening evening." The sheriff took off his hat and rubbed his bald skull with a handkerchief. Sue was surprised to see beads of sweat forming all over the man's head. Once again he was impressed with the great weight of dread this man inspired in people."I rode over the top of that bluff and down into a wooded valley just off the trail. I tied my horse to a tree and set off on foot towards the trail, hoping that I would be able to see him as he passed so I could get an idea where he was headed. But then I saw a flash of light off to my left, and..." here, words seemed to fail him. He appeared to struggle with himself for a moment, then continued in a shaky voice, as if he disbelieved the words coming from his own mouth."Kid, I tell ya', that light was not like any light you have ever seen. It wasn't from a campfire, or a candle, or a lamp. I even traveled to the city once and saw some guy light one of them new 'lectric lights, and it was nothing like this. This was a cold white light that seemed to come from the sky, like a star was leaking light down on just this one spot. And in the spot where this light hit the ground stood your pa." He shook his head, but continued nonetheless, his eyes boring into Sue's with an intensity that excited and alarmed him in equal measure."He was standing in that light, and talking to someone, just like I am talking to you right now. Then he reached out his hand and made a little gesture, and the light was gone. I was so dumbstruck by what I had just seen that I must of made some kind of a noise, and his head snapped around and found me hiding in the brush at the edge of the clearing. At first, he looked mad, and I figgered that my time on this earth had reached its logical conclusion. I thought of reaching for my gun, but my arms wouldn't move. After a second, he smiled, that grim humorless smile of his, and waved me over to him. Just like I couldn't draw my gun, I couldn't resist his invitation. I walked over there, and he laughed, and held out his hand as if to shake it. I was still too scared to move, so I didn't shake his hand. Then he spoke to me." The sheriff shook his head, and a nervous laugh escaped him. "Just like we were old pals and I hadn't seen him just talking to a strange light from the stars. Asked me how my family was doing. What do you think of that?" Sue shook his head, not quite sure what to think. The sheriff continued: "I couldn't really answer any of his questions, just sat there like a fool with my mouth hanging open, and then, out of nowhere he asked me if I ever met an alien before. I wasn't even sure what that word meant, and I told him so. He laughed again, and asked me if I had ever met anyone from another planet. I was still pretty perplexed, so he pointed to the sky, and said 'from the stars, up there. you ever meet someone from the stars before?' Well, to tell the truth, I still had no idea what he was talking about, and I guess he could tell that by looking at me. He laughed again at my confusion, and then he reached out and clapped his hand on my shoulder. 'Sherriff, I think you may be the first man I have met on this planet who has had the guts to even try to figure out who or what I was, let alone follow me off into the darkness. I want to tell you a few things, and it is important that you try to remember them word for word, since you ain't gonna understand most of what I gotta say. Pretty soon I am gonna disappear. Shortly after that, a lady and her boy are gonna show up in town looking for me. When they do, I want you to make sure that they stay in this town. When that boy becomes a man, he is going to be a lot different from his peers, and he will need a little nudge in the right direction. I need you to give him that nudge. Bring him to this spot, and give him this guitar. If he is the person I think he will be, the rest will come natural to him. Can you remember all of that?' he asked me, and I stood there with my mouth gaping open until he laughed again, and slapped me on the back. 'I knew you could. I guess there is no reason for me to stick around here. You remember what I told you and make sure that boy gets here when he is ready. Don't bring him too soon, or too late. I think you are the kind of man that understands what I am trying to say. Have a good evening!' he smiled friendly-like at me, and then walked back to the center of the clearing. He pulled something small and silvery out of his pocket, and poked at it with his finger a few times. Then the light came back, shining right out of the sky just like before. He turned around, tipped his hat at me, and then dissapeared." sue stared at the Sheriff, trying to guess the meaning of his words. Was he putting him on? Of all the folks in town, only the Sheriff had never ridiculed him for his station in life, for his name, or for the strange things he did or said. Was he finally joining them in creating some hugely extravagant joke to ridicule him? Yet watching the play of emotion across this hard frontier lawman's face he didn't think so. This was a hard man, one of the hardest he had ever known, and yet he was scared to the core at the memeories he had just spilled. Not scared for his life, not scared for his soul, but scared like a person who just realizes how small they are in the grand scheme of things. The way a man will feel who has been raised in a city when he is first confronted with the wide openness of the prairies, or a towering rock tower in the desert. The feeling a man gets looking down from a great height. It is not fear of death, it is fear of the unknown, fear that forces exist in this universe much greater and more powerful than anything our pitiful intellect can imagine. As Sue pondered this, another thought entered his mind. While the fear in the eyes of this man he had known for so long was strange and discomfitting, none of the things he had told him in themselves caused him any fear at all. Quite the opposite in fact, as he pondered the thought of people who came from the stars, or who called down starlight from the night sky and then disappeared into it, he felt a twinge of familiarity, as of a forgotten dream suddenly remembered. Excitement rose in him as he realized that this crappy town, and the hundreds like it that he had wandered through with his mother were as small and insignificant as he had always thought them to be. Suddenly the universe had promise, and the future held hope. Suddenly he was on his feet. "Let's go! Take me there now!" The sheriff nodded, as if this was exactly what he had expected. Tossing back the rest of the whiskey in his glass, he pushed back from the desk and stood up. "Alright son, let's go and see what it is your pa left for you."

© 2007 Tyler Willson. All rights reserved

Who would play Sue?

(Photo is Christian Bale in "3:10 to Yuma" )

If I was casting actors to portray my characters, I would have to choose Christian Bale to portray Sue. Mostly because his character in "Batman Begins" has pretty much the same attitude at least when the movie opens and he is in prison in Asia. He fights because he is pretty much pissed off at the world, and being as pissed as he is, he is pretty good at fighting.
Of course, nowhere in my novel does Sue get training from a secretive Ninja master to polish his skills. Instead he stumbles on an interdimensional trip across the universe in pursuit of his father who "gave him that awful name." (Who of course, would be portrayed by Johnny Cash, were he alive to do so!)
Here is another small excerpt. Presented sans explanation.

Sue was about halfway through the bottle of whiskey when Mama Lisa and her girls came in. Residents of the local house of ill repute, they were on the prowl for customers and they quickly fanned out through the bar. One perky redhead fixed her interest on the scowling young man drinking intently near the doors."Hey there, care to buy a girl a drink?" she flounced down on a chair and latched on to one of Sue's arms. He looked sideways at her, his impaired brain working out a response. He decided to be surly, and instead of responding, slid his glass in front of her and sloshed some whiskey in it. Undeterred by the unfriendly response, she giggled, a high pitched laugh that rippled throughout the bar. "What kind of a girl do you think I am? I don't drink whiskey, at least not this early!" She snuggled up against him, and spoke quietly in his ear. "How about a nice glass of wine? Wine always makes me feel friendly..." she left the implication hanging there in the air, hoping this young boy was not already too far gone to catch her meaning."Don't seem as though you need much help in that area." Sue snapped, reaching across and recovering his glass. He tipped it back and drained it in a gulp and did his level best to ignore her. She decided to take another tack."I don't remember seeing you around here before, what's your name?" she trilled at him, one hand twirling his hair idly. Sue started at this question, and quickly checked to see if she was trying to make a joke. Apparently deciding she wasn't, he answered with the same surly tone."I don't have a name." The girl's eyebrows raised in curiosity, and she decided to pursue this line of questioning further."Aww come on cowboy. Everybody has a name. What does your Mama call you?" now more interested in this apparent mystery than in her pseudo romance she had pulled back slightly and was looking intently into Sue's face. However at the mention of his mother, Sue's face darkened even further, and he decided he had had enough of this game."Never mind my mama. I think you need to find someone else to harass." he snapped and scooping up his glass and bottle disentangled himself and moved away to another table. The girl, being a professional could tell when a man was not interested in what she was selling, and instead of wasting her time trying to change his mind she moved on to more fertile pastures. Two miners just off shift at the local gold mine were competing for the attentions of another of Mama Lisa's girls at a nearby table and she determined to help them resolve the conflict by offering herself as a consolation to the loser. One of the miners was immediately more than happy to abandon the battle and turned to the redhead."Decided you want a real man tonight instead of a boy?" The miner laughed, wrapping one arm around her shoulders and pulling her close against him."He didn't really seem to be in the mood for company tonight." she shrugged. Then added "and he wasn't too sure what his name was. Poor little guy..." she giggled and snuggled up closer to the miner. The other man at the table laughed out loud and said in a voice purposely loud enough to carry to the other table."I know why he's so shy about his name. I would be too if I had his name..." and then leaning towards Sue's table to ensure that he caught the next few words, "...or should I say 'her' name?" he guffawed at his clever humor, and the two girls, well trained by Mama Lisa tittered out of habit although they didn't really get the joke. Sue, on the other hand knew exactly what the man was getting at, and felt that familiar rage rising in his chest, felt his face and neck turning red."I hear tell his daddy was a big man, but when he was born he couldn't stand that his little boy was such a girly little thing, so he named him Sue and then left town before he had to face the shame of having thrown such a disappointing little whelp." the miner was on a roll now, and the girls were still giggling uncertainly, although they had begun to sense that this conversation was quickly passing from harmless fun into something dangerous and ugly."Aww, forget about him. How about that drink you were going to buy us? Let me go get a bottle of wine for us all to share." the redhead tried vainly to redirect the conversation, adding her trademark lamely "wine always makes me feel friendly, if you know what I mean..." she pushed herself up against the miner, hoping that her advances would distract him from his apparent aim of picking a fight."Besides, he's just a kid. I don't care what his name is. Let's go back to my place and have that wine." Her attempts were futile. The miner had seen the reaction his words had caused in Sue, and had decided that it would be good fun to release some energy by pounding on this apparently soused teenager for a little while."Yea, its a good thing you didn't take him back to your place Sally, you might have been embarrassed when he asked to try on some of your frilly things. I hear she likes that kind of..." the miner's insult was interrupted by a whiskey bottle at high velocity that impacted his head directly between his eyes. It shattered and splattered all four occupants of the table with shattered glass and whiskey. The girls screamed and instinctively deserted the table and made a beeline for the doorway. This wasn't the first bar brawl they had encountered, and they knew that once drunk men started swinging, it was no place for a lady, even if she was a working lady.To his credit, the miner took the whiskey bottle to the head rather well. He was of course stunned, and the alcohol and blood dripping into his eyes stiung and blinded him but nonetheless, he had the presence of mind to grab the edge of the table and fling it up in front of him as he rolled out of his chair onto the floor. This unthinking reaction served to save him from Sue's follow up attack as the chair he had been sitting on impacted the table where the miner had been split seconds before. The miner scrabbled at his face trying to regain his vision while rolling away from the table and trying to get to his feet. For a split second he remembered the rest of the story that had been related to him about this kid named Sue, the part that warned that he was a powder keg when provoked. But more pressing matters than reccolections of ignored warnings were at hand. He had regained his feet just in time to meet Sue's flailing attack. Fists windmilling and feet kicking wildly he waded in to the miner to exact vengeance for the earlier insults. However in his blind anger, he forgot the miner's companion who had rolled to the side and recovered much more quickly. As Sue flailed at his partner, he picked up a chair and swung it at Sue's back. Fortunately for Sue, the swing was badly aimed and timed and he had bent to aim an uppercut as the chair struck. Still, it knocked Sue off his feet and the miner quickly followed his surprise attack with an attempt to plant both of his hobnailed boots in the middle of Sue's chest. Sue rolled out from under his attack and lashed up and scored a hit on the man's groin with one foot. He groaned and hunched over, giving Sue an open attack on his face, which he took immediate advantage of, windmilling both feet in a lashing attack on the man's face. One kick landed squarely on his jaw and broke the bone with a soft crunch. He collapsed uncouscious to the floor. Sue struggled to his feet, only to be met immediately with a flying tackle by the first miner. He was driven to the plank floor and his breath was knocked from his lungs. Feeling his advantage, the miner's hands found Sue's throat and he quickly got a grip and began squeezing. Sue panicked, feeling consciousness quickly slipping away and his hands scrabbled at the iron grip of the miner while his feet tried to inflict damage where they could. The miner had too much of an advantage however, and black spots began appearing in his vision and his flailings weakened until blackness overtook him.

© 2008 Tyler Willson. All rights reserved