This is going to be a long post, but stick around. Or don't. It's up to you. I think it'll be worth it though.
I stepped on a scale tonight and I weigh approximately 197 pounds. Holy. Shit. The heaviest I've ever been that I've known about is 188 pounds and I thought I was enormous. Whatever. Don't think to yourself, "but I weigh (whatever)!" because that's not what this is about. This is about my body and what I'm comfortable with, and holy shit am I not comfortable with 197. I've noticed I was getting pudgy, but the number just reinforces it. Holy. Shit. I still wear a medium shirt and a 32/34 pant, but damn. I'm most comfortable at 170. That means that I need to close 27 pounds.
27 pounds!
Starting tomorrow morning, I'm refocused. I wish that the anonymous who suggested that we both do the Tumblr Summer Diet would step forward and show themselves. I'd love for us to encourage each other. I'm going to get in shape.
That's not all that this post is about though. Physical fitness is important to me and I'm going to take care of that, but this is about so much more than that.
Jewelie said to me that anyone that she every has a serious relationship with is not only going to have to accept me, but is going to have to be friends with me. We'll have to hang out with each other without her. She's right. That got me thinking about family and friends.
That got me to thinking. I've been a shitty friend. I've been a shitty son and a shitty brother and a shitty dad. I've been so caught up in myself that I've neglected that very people who could have saved me from all of this loneliness. How fucking foolish. I'm going to get in shape and be a better friend.
I've been reading a lot lately. I love it. I finished The Silver Lining Playbook, The Golden Compass, and Animal Farm in the last week. I started The Green Mile. I. Love. It.
And that's gotten me thinking about my own writing. I have dozens on stories ready to be written. I have notes on my iPhone and folders full of story and scraps of ideas sprinkled all over my room. I believe that 95% of them would not only pique some people's interest, but could also have some commercial success. As for my writing ability? I'm alright. I could be a lot better with practice. That's just what I intend to do. I'm going to get in shape, I'm going to be a better friend, and I'm going to write.
And then there's my own personal life. There's so much missing. There's so much that I want to do that I'm not even glossing over. I'm ignoring them altogether. I want to learn to play guitar and rock out with my buddy, Dave, at an open mic night (he can sing... I'll just play). I genuinely want to do a football and beer podcast with my buddy, Frederick, and maybe some other friends. Who cares if we suck? I don't have experiences for other people. I'm doing it for me. I want to play in a men's baksetball or football or softball league with my brother and cousin. I want to hike some of New England's 4,000 footers. I want to go caving with a couple of people that I know who could turn out to be pretty cool friends. I want to run some tough obstacle courses with any friends who are willing to sweat and bleed with me. I want to start living my damn life. I'm going to get in shape, I'm going to be a better friend, I'm going to write, and I'm going to start having experiences.
Basically, I'm going to start living. I don't want to be sitting around 50 years from now asking myself "Why didn't I?"
And for fuck's sake, I'm going to ask a woman to hang out with me because it's been too damn long and I have nothing to be afraid of because I'm going to be something that you're not going to want to miss out on.

The Tumultuous Travels of Thomas Drabble: The Novel

This is a sample of my less rushed, more focused writing. It’s certainly not any more polished — it’s still a first draft — by I think it’s better. It’s the very beginning of the first chapter of The Tumultuous Travels of Thomas Drabble. You’re welcome to compare it to the mini-story I posted a week ago. It’s fairly similar.

“Rachel King sat at her desk, the hollow tinktinktinktink of rain falling on the aluminum awning outside of her study was the only sound in an otherwise silent room. The flickering lantern on the back corner of the desk created long, wavering shadows on the cream colored walls. Every now and then, Rachel thought she saw those shadows take the shape of her characters past and she would shudder.

Aside from the lantern, the only things on the desk were an empty notebook, a full inkwell, and a very old pen. Rachel bit the nail on her left pinky — one of her many habits, along with one flaw, that she unwittingly passed on to all of her characters. Rachel picked up the pen and began to doodle in the margins. This wasn’t a habit. It was ritual.

The desk itself was typical enough, but Rachel thought it possessed a sort of deep, powerful magic. She could hardly imagine how many adventures had begun on that oak surface — how many great heroes had been born in this exact location on nights just like this one. The desk had belonged to her grandfather — a brilliant, unpublished author whose stories had dazzled Rachel since she was a child.

A flash of lightning momentarily erased the shadows from the walls. The tinktinktinktink was drowned out by the crack of thunder that followed. At the top of the first blank page, Rachel wrote “The Dangerous Journey of Justin Worthy”. She leaned back, causing the office chair to creak under the little weight it was supporting. She nibbled on the end of the pen. Frowning at the words she had just written, she scribbled working title in parentheses underneath them.”

This obviously doesn’t offer much. The story hasn’t even begun in these first four paragraphs, but I think it gives you a little insight to my writing style when I focus on doing it correctly. It’s not perfect. It’s not supposed to be. I’m just working on taking advice from the people who have been kind enough to offer it. Hopefully this sample gives you a much better pictures of the world that I’m trying to create than those rushed mini-stories did.

The Tumultuous Travels of Thomas Drabble I: A Run of Bad Luck

Thomas Drabble found a penny on his favorite reading stump. It was fine by him. He didn’t mind sharing his stump with strangers. The penny was half covered by one of the bright yellow leaves of early Autumn. The stump itself was nothing out of the ordinary, but it was large enough to sit comfortably on, and the surrounding area was peaceful and vibrant.

Thomas moved the yellow leaf and discovered that the penny was heads-down. It had been two weeks since Thomas had been released from his inkwell, and the Ink Boy’s life had become painfully ordinary since he had spilled from his last book. In fact, it was teetering perilously on the edge of mundane, which sounds far more exciting than it actually was. A run of bad luck might be exactly what he needed. He palmed the copper coin. Moments later, a spider crawled onto his hand.

“Hi Nancy,” Thomas said, “You’re not bad luck at all.”

Nancy had been visiting Thomas ever since he had discovered the stump. On their second meeting, Thomas had decided to name him after a friend — a very old trickster — that he had made on one of his first adventures.

Unfortunately, this Nancy had no tricks up his sleeves. Thomas felt a shadow towering over him and before he could look up, a massive paw came crashing down on the spider, crushing him flat on the back of Thomas’s ink black hand. The skies instantly started pouring rain.

Thomas got up from the stump, his spider-friend still splattered on his skin, and stood toe-to-claw with the villain, unsure of what he was going to do next. His mind was made up for him when the same massive paw that had splattered Nancy struck him in the side of the head and knocked him into the wet, muddy grass. The unlucky penny fell from his hand.

When Thomas lifted his head, his attacker was gone. The rain had stopped, the sky was blue, and the ground was dry; but his friend was still dead on his hand and he had an incredible throbbing in his head. He crawled over to the penny, which was heads-down again, and picked it up. He felt rain beating on his back.

He turned over and saw a giant rabbit standing over him. From Thomas’s angle, he appeared to be six and a half feet tall and nearly as wide. Thomas released the penny. It was peaceful again. The house-shaped rabbit was gone.

He struggled to get to his feet. Once he had regained his balance, he reached down, picked up the penny, and sprinted to the nearest tree. He could hear the rabbit’s long, powerful feet slapping the wet ground, slowly gaining on him. The Ink Boy scrambled up the tree just before his pursuer caught him.

“Give me the penny and I’ll leave you alone,” boomed the rabbit.

“Who are you?” asked Thomas.

The rabbit struck the tree and Thomas heard the trunk crack beneath him.

“Last chance. Give me the penny.”

Thomas cocked his arm to throw the penny and the rabbit threw his hands up, “Whoa! Don’t throw it. I’ll answer all of your questions if you just give me the penny.”

“Just tell me who you are and I’ll let you have it.”

“My name is Ricochet. I am a debt collector for the Just and Worthy King.”

“Where did you come from?”

“You said you’d give me the penny if I told you who I am.”

“Who is the Just and Worthy King?”

“That’s enough,” Ricochet shouted, just before he used his powerful legs to launch himself shoulder-first into the tree. The trunk snapped and Thomas came plummeting to the soggy ground. He landed with a sickening thud, penny still in hand, and scrambled to his feet, gasping for air, but ready to fight. He let out a painful sigh of relief when he saw that Ricochet was unconscious and pinned under the fallen tree.

The Tumultuous Travels of Thomas Drabble 0: The Origin of the Ink Boy

Rachel King sat at her desk with a clean notebook and a full inkwell, fully prepared to create the greatest adventure in modern history.

In impressive, swirling letters, she wrote “The Dangerous Journey of Justin Worthy” at the top of the first page. Underneath the title, she scribbled all of the qualities that she believed a true hero should possess — courage, sharp wit, passion, brute strength, handsome features, strong leadership, and dozens of other features and skills — leaving nothing in the still nearly-full inkwell but an abundance of curiosity and a touch of superstition.

Her mind raced as she imagined all of the adventures that Justin Worthy would experience. He would fight dragons and warlocks, climb dangerous mountains and cross violent oceans. It all seemed so serious. She decided that he would need a sidekick to keep things light.

As her eyelids gained weight, her handwriting became sloppier. She was only three letters into “madcap companion” before she succumbed to sleepiness and collapsed onto her desk.

It was in that moment that the child that was never meant to be — the Ink Boy known as Thomas Drabble — was born. Rachel King, pen still in hand, knocked the nearly-full inkwell off of her desk, spilling the abundantly curious, slightly superstitious non-hero onto her bookshelf.

The Ink Boy slid through many of his creator’s favorite stories before he reached the floor. Along the way he attempted to help Winston Smith stand up to Big Brother, he tried to catch an enormous marlin with old Santiago, he feared the rundown bootheels of Randall Flagg, and rejoiced as he witnessed a group of young wizards vanquish He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

At the end of his journey, he narrowly missed the waste basket that contained the rest of Rachel King’s failed creations, and spilled onto the floor where he was born into the real world. Looking in on the crumpled, broken heroes-that-never-were hurt his newly-beating heart, and even his abundant curiosity wasn’t enough to keep him in that room.

Thomas Drabble crept out just as Rachel King began to stir. When she awoke, she looked down in disgust at the triteness of last night’s great hero. She crumpled him up and threw him away.

Unfortunately for Thomas, it never occurred to his creator that crumpled, broken heroes often become the most dangerous villains. Early that next morning, King left for a month-long book tour. She never emptied the waste basket.

For those of you who haven't given up on me;

Thank you. Seriously. You can never understand how much you mean to me.

I've been writing for six years. I haven't finished a story yet. Still, I know there are people who believe in me. 

You really have no reason to, but you do anyway. I'll never forget the people who have supported me. When I finally do finish a story, when I get published, when writing is my career and not just a hobby, I'll never be able to thank you enough.

And I will be a published author someday. Sure, I have a plan B, but I'll never be satisfied with it. I'll never be content with working at Market Basket. I'll do it, but I'll always hate myself a little.

There's nothing wrong with any jobs. There's nothing wrong with supporting your family with those jobs. You do what makes you happy.

But I'm a writer, dammit!

Writers write.

As I mentioned before, I haven't finished a story. That's okay. There was a time when I would be ashamed to admit that, but I've needed time to grow.

The closest I've come to finishing a project was a story called The Impostors. That was from NaNoWriMo 2007, I think. That was nearly five years ago. I might still write that story someday. I love the concept. If I do write it, I'll start from scratch.

And that's precisely the reason that I'm no longer ashamed that I've never finished a story. The writer I am is miles ahead of the writer I used to be. The gimmicks are gone. The literary devices that I leaned on like crutches are gone. The arrogance is gone. All that's left is a storyteller. A still-young writer who wants to convey his characters' lives with as much emotion and honesty as possible.

The first character who will have his full story told is a man named Zachary Reynolds. It's actually a collaborative project with a brilliant young woman, but telling Zack's story is 100% my responsibility. 

I can't remember the last time I was this invigorated with writing. The story is still in its infancy, but I believe in it. I've been writing longhand and it's definitely slowed the process, but there's something to be said for burying yourself in a notebook. It's a gritty story and I just can't get in the right frame of mind while staring at a computer screen.

Thank you again for keeping your faith in me. Thank you for your past and future support. It's been a long time coming, but I think it'll be worth the wait. Don't give up on me yet.

-Shawn