timwburke

This is the start of Chapter Ten of the horror novel. I have two main characters writing a childrens’ movie which will be a mix of “Wizard of Oz”, “The Blue Bird”, and “Night of the Hunter”.

After dinner, Wilma and I sat on the veranda with a couple of oil lamps to go over that day’s draft. The sun had almost vanished and pulled behind its blue shroud of night. Even though the electric lights had been installed and were brighter, the lamps had a warmer glow and drew fewer moths.
Wilma gave me a mimio of her re-write. I took my blue pencil from my hair, carefully to keep its grease from getting on my lace sleeve.
“So,” I said, “Little Doris’s house is swept away in a flood.”
Wilma pointed her cigarette holder across the estate. “We would bring everything here from the studio. I’m planning the camera placement so that we can use the duck pond for the river.”
“That could work. Then Doris’s house ends up in the River of Dreams and washes up on the riverbank. She wakes up with a bump on her head and finds Princess the cat and Lucky the dog are now people.”
“They have no idea why either. Not yet.”
I turned the smelly mimio page. “The first place they’ve landed is Goblinvania. The goblins frighten the hell out of the child. Princess goes up a tree. Only Lucky gets tough with them. The goblins get scared and begs their pardon and turn out to be nice.”
Wilma scratched the livid scar at her hairline. “The costumes look really good. They’re all rags and warts.”
“The goblins give Doris the ‘low-down’ as you like to say, Wilma. The goblins talk about the mean Sheriff who won’t let them build or learn, and about the Sunbeam Fairy who is wise and magical.”
“That part needs something to punch up the Sheriff’s greed.”
I turned the page slower to avoid the fumes. “Princess asks the goblins ‘Why won’t the Sunbeam Fairy protect you from the Sheriff?’ And I’ve got the Goblin President saying, ‘We ought to protect ourselves. That’s what the Sunbeam Fairy says.’”
“So you changed that around from last draft.”
“Yeah…”
She began laughing softly to herself. Since the attack, since her head injury, Wilma stammered as if sifting through thoughts, and got lost imagining, and whisper and laugh.

My story “The Flint Indenture” has been accepted by Stupefying Stories. My beta readers will know this as “The industrial ghost city story.”

Psychic alien hivemind located in Russia. Soon to be distributed on QVC. http://ow.ly/dPnLM

Almost done with another chapter.
Body count for this one: One masher driven insane, a moving picture parlor of shooting and stabbing victims.

Got jammed up this week and didn’t get as much writing done as I wanted.

Monday and Tuesday had me wrestling out the direction and arc for Chapter Eight. Wednesday had me finding the shape of the short story arc for that chapter; “arcs” are what I call “werre are the characters at the begging and the end, and how do they transform”. Wednesday got me a thousand words as the events unfolded as needed. Thursday found me a bit player (who was going to be a throwaway demonstration of Olivia’s abilities), who on Friday became The Victim For This Chapter. I’m going to try for something I saw in the movie “Session 9”, in which the characters see just see their own sequence of strange events, but the objective reader will see the total picture and hopefully have a nice bit of dread.

Friday had me scraping my 401k and mutual fund under one financial consultant.

The job I’ve applied for is still posted, so that’s still up in the air (the job doesn’t start until January).

Another mouse woke me up Thursday at 3 am, but like two of its predecessors, it was nice enough to have climbed into a trashcan. So I just took out the trash, leaving the bag open for it to climb out in the dumpster.

My brother had suggested many times that, seeing as I have little overhead, maybe I should get a part-time job and continue the creative life I now lead. I asked him, “Are you sure we are related?” Because that was unimaginable to the rest of my family. I wonder what things would have been like had I done that in my 20s. Now almost 50, so the option is tempting.

Saw “The Devil’s Double” – meh.
“Cosmopolis” – neat structure, Robert Patterson can act when he has a good director and co-stars.
“V/H/S” – a low budget, well-promoted horror anthology; written by guys in their early 20s, so women are the source of all things frightening.
Online TV seres: “The Booth In The Back” – a guy answers peoples’ wishes by having them do something against their morals. The action never leaves a diner booth. Gutsy choice! It gives the very good actors the chance to explore the very good writing.