Excerpt - Blog Posts

They are having a tickle war like they always do; his small body curled into itself, trying to tuck it within its own bounds, to not have to bear this joyful torture.

They are not people anymore, they are two shrieks of laughter. They are an odd sight to look at: a tall girl, almost a woman, and a toddler of six; an unlikely friendship that looks bizarre but radiates so much joy you cannot help but feel warm.

The girl turns into things she isn't; just for this boy, she turns into a sunny disposition, a pleasant version of herself and she has the gentlest voice. She has hands that do not hurt, she has eyes that smile and she is bubbles of laughter come to life.

The boy comes back year after year to meet his sister; they aren't really siblings, they are distant cousins but there is a lot of love here. And where there is so much love, you feel obliged to put a label. So they were brother and sister, and the oddest duo of the lot. As the years pass by, she sees her brother transform into things she resents; no longer a sweet child, he throws tantrums and uses his hands and fists like the men do. But he isn't a man yet, he is just a little boy.

He is nine and he already thinks it is okay to do things you do not like others doing; he thinks that it is okay to destroy what isn't yours because you could not have it or to scream and cry until you hand him what he asked for. These are trivial things, he is just a child after all.

She walks in on the boy destroying something that isn't his and he throws things at her, makes her mad. He takes pleasure in irritating her; she can tell; he takes her things and claims them as his and she lets him. She feels something come over her; makes her way towards him and traps him in her hold. She tickles his neck and she scratches him.

The boy is screaming and crying and she is devastated. She sees herself transform into things she thought she would never become. She sees an image of her lineage in her. Is this what we inherit?

Suddenly, she is small again. She is not herself, she is the little boy. She is nine, she is seven, she is five years old. She knows she is small so she bites the hands of those who reach out because her fists are still a little girl's fist, even though the size of the fight in her is quite big.

She doesn't recognize herself anymore.

Is this what we inherit?

No.

It runs in the family but this is where it stops.

Bless the hands that fed us, and may there be scars on those who harmed us. May we never become the things that hurt us.

She is twenty-five years old now. And there is an odd friendship in her life that no one understands, but there is a lot of love there. There is a little brother waiting for her.

Do you think that if you love a certain thing, it is supposed to be constant throughout and it loses its charm when it stops being exactly that?

I think that the idea of loving an entity as it changes and transforms is much more endearing than going "Oh. This doesn't resemble what I initially fell for."

I think that especially with people, you have to know that they're constantly moving and they are experiencing things, and they change. To hope that something stays exactly as it was when you fell in love with it doesn't sit right with me. Haven't you changed? Do we have the right to tell something to remain stagnant when we aren't?

I think I personally have a skittish attitude towards things that remain constant; on the other hand, change feels so natural. I think I see it in this light: to be with someone or something as it changes is to get to discover more things to love, new things to love about them. I also believe that there are certain things that always remain the same. Even when the person is entirely someone different, there is always a set of habits or a preference or something specific to just this one person, that still remains constant. I find myself fascinated by the fact that even after this landslide of a change, there are moments where you can see them be the person you first go to know or how even after such an elaborate transformation, there are things that still somehow remain the same.

I think there are tiny constants even in the grandest of transformations. I quite ardently believe that people are much more endearing when they embrace their changes rather than thinking that the people who loved them when they were someone else will stop doing so as they grow into another person. I think that if the people you know do not fit the life of who you want to be or who you have become, you should let them go. So no, I do not think that anything I love owes me the grave burden of being in a state of constant; in a state of stagnancy.

-Anika

The Murder After: Preview

From chapter one. Terrance calls 9-1-1 to report a dead body belonging to his roommate Jacqueline. If you like what you read, go to the book's profile below. And before you ask, nothing happened.

I would like to joke that waking up next to a dead body is the best hangover cure ever.

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Dispatcher: “9-1-1, what’s the address of your emergency?”

“There’s a dead girl on my bed!” But it’s her room, stupid.

Dispatcher: “What’s her name?”

“Jacqueline. Luna.”

Dispatcher: “What does she look like?”

“Brown hair, really really pale- “your voice cracks- “but-but she has a big cut on her neck and-and blood on her pillow! That wasn’t there before!” It keeps cracking, but tears aren’t falling.

Dispatcher: “I need you to calm down. Take a deep breath.” You do.

Dispatcher: “Do you see any weapons?”

“No.”

Dispatcher: “I’m going to send an officer to check on the situation. But first, I need to know your name and address.”

You give your name then leave the bedroom and run down the stairs, worsening your headache. You go to a coffee table in the sitting room. There is an envelope from yesterday’s mail. It has your townhouse’s address and door number, so you read it aloud.

Dispatcher: “Okay, the officer is on their way and will arrive as soon as possible. Now, tell me exactly what happened.”

“Well, I was drunk, and Jacqueline took me back here. She was alive when I passed out, but when I woke up, she was dead!”

Dispatcher: “That will be all. You can hang up now.” You hang up. Then, the realization clicks.

Carnival: Preview

From chapter one. This is the Call to Adventure. If you like what you read, go to the book’s profile below.

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Lakewood, Colorado. In an apartment unit, a dim lamp lit the upper right corner of the front room. Brain, Caleb, Jackie, José, and James sat on a grey couch right of that lamp. On the carpet floor lay Chaz, too sad to notice his friends. They glanced at him, then at each other, unsure how to comfort him.

“Why?” Chaz whispered to himself, “why, why, why, why, why?” A moment later, he said, “no use crying now.” He sat up, wiped the tears off his face, stood, and noticed his friends. They stared at him.

“Why are you staring, and how long have you—”

James stood, “you killed her, didn’t you?” Chaz blinked, “what?”

“You heard me.” He smirked.

“Phoenix is dead,” José whispered. He stood, but Brian pulled at his t-shirt. So, he sat back down.

“What makes you think I killed her!?” Chaz said. James shrugged, “I don’t know. Maybe because you don’t trust anyone—”

“I trusted Rebecca- “Chaz pointed at him- “and you know it!”

“Yeah, right. So, you decided to—”

“No, I didn’t.” He clenched his fists. “They said there was a leak in her car’s gas tank! I was here when it happened, and I didn’t know until Brian told me!”

“You probably poked a hole in it,” James said.

“I didn’t touch Rebecca’s car when she left!”

He pointed at Chaz, “you did something to her car to make it explode—”

“No, I didn’t! Why the fuck are you accusing me in the first place!?”

“You—”

“I DID NOT! WHY WOULD I WANT TO KILL HER!? I LOVED HER!” The room fell silent.

Chaz felt shaky, so he lay on the floor again. He cried again. James sat on the couch and lowered his eyes.

"Happy now?" Jackie whispered to him.

Brian stood and walked towards Chaz.

“Don’t touch me.” He found a box of tissues and placed it next to his friend instead, respecting his vulnerability.

Ten awkward minutes later, Chaz took a deep breath, sat up, used a tissue, stood, and turned to face Brian.

He said, “you said the police won’t investigate because as far as anyone knows, the explosion was caused by a gas leak from a bad fuel tank.” Brian nodded (as if it weren’t said earlier.)

“But they didn’t see any body!” Jackie kicked José's leg.

“Let’s go to Lakeside and find Rebecca ourselves.”

Lorax Rewrite Excerpt

Without focusing on Ted, the story can start earlier and show more of Once-ler's background trying to sell his Thneed. What bad influences did he have when it came to running a business? Some of the advice in this chapter are real things I've been told...

Excerpt below:

He pulled the Thneed from his neck, and spread it on the table. "Ah, you know what, let me just show you."

"It's brilliant," said the main representative immediately.

He was the shortest man and wore a sleek white suit. "The audacity is stunning. It's the perfect balance between essential and useless. Whimsical enough to capture the imagination, yet quaint enough to be marketed as a necessity. This is, indeed, something everyone needs. We would just have to make it out of a better material. For the most part, there's not a single thing that could be improved. However…" He looked up from his spinny chair at the long table. "There's one problem."

His colleagues in smaller chairs around him nodded their heads knowingly.

"Whaddya mean?" asked Once-ler.

The salesman pressed his fingers together and leaned forward. "To sell a product, you need to have a certain degree of charisma," he explained. "The creator's image is even more important than the thing itself when it comes to commerce. That is, you can't just come into a company in your dirty lumberjack clothes, dragging a mule, singing out of tune, and expect to be a success."

Once-ler turned red. There were no barns in North Nitch, so he'd been taking Melvin everywhere with him on a leash. The buildings were so big it hadn't occurred to him there was anything wrong with it. Plus Melvin was such a well-behaved mule, or maybe it was just that he hadn't had any human friends in so long, Once-ler had unconsciously started to think of him as a person.

He also resented his spiffy new outfit being called dirty lumberjack clothes. The fashion of his old town must've looked that way to outsiders no matter how new or clean they were. He observed the stiff, sleek blazers the businessmen wore and took note.

"There seem to be two of you here right now, Mr. Ler," the salesman said, and Once-ler got the feeling he wasn't talking about the fact that he'd brought his mule.

"On one hand, I see a powerful inventor with an ingenious work ethic, capable of bringing impressive ideas to life. But you can’t let humility hold you back. My advice to you is to try and think of yourself a little more selfishly, if you know what I mean."

"No, sir… Could you expand on that?"

"I mean stop thinking of yourself as someone small from a lowly background. You have to imagine yourself as bigger than everyone else."

The salesman hopped from his chair and drew his own short body to its full height in front of the towering woodsman.

"It doesn't matter if you're the tallest person in the world, if you never think you can reach anything." The businessman threw a pointed glance at a geeky young intern with glasses and braces. "Isn't that right, Aloysius?"

"I get it, Dad." The teenager rolled his eyes.

The salesman folded up the Thneed, and handed it back to Once-ler. "You have potential, but come back when your marketing strategy has improved. Have you ever read The Virtue of Selfishness? I look forward to hearing back from you. In the meantime, have you considered applying to other job options at one of the O'Hare companies?" He handed Once-ler a pamphlet.

Once-ler walked out of the building buzzing with embarrassment. He'd butchered his delivery on his first try. Why was it so easy to sing about Thneeds at his family's farm, in the forest, or the privacy of his wagon? He hadn't expected to start shaking like a leaf the instant he started playing for other people. He needed to practice.

Full story here:

Excerpt from Otherworld: Volume One

Cluck. Jo looked down, one foot raised. Underneath sat an orange and white chicken. It tilted its head at Jo’s foot, blinked beady black eyes, and clucked again. 

         “Is that-”

         “Roast!” A deep voice called. Surprisingly, the chicken answered. It flapped its wings as it went running down the path. The chicken named Roast squeezed between two fence posts to dutifully return to its owner. 

         “Sorry, we’re just passing through,” Jo called to him. 

         He put his hands to his pointed phyrra ears and yelled, “What?” 

         Jo walked closer. “We’re just passing!”

         “Oh, well welcome. I’m Kho, this is Roast.” Taller than most phyrra, Kho was only a couple inches shorter than herself. He had sandy chin length hair, honey colored skin, and dark freckles dotting his face. A wispy beard decorated his chin and jaw. His clothes were dirty and patched over, and his hands were closed around a pitchfork that he set to the side to scoop up Roast. Kho lifted the chicken’s wing gently, waving it up and down. 

         “Hm,” Maven grunted over Jo’s shoulder. “Never seen that before.”

         “Her brother Toast should be around here somewhere.” Kho looked around the yard, shading his eyes against the sun. 

         “Toast,” Lola echoed over Jo’s shoulder. 

Cluck.

A brown and black chicken looked up at Lola from behind her. Toast drew back his head and pecked at Lola’s ankles with all his might. When she shrieked, Jo had to cover her mouth to avoid laughing. Not everyone else on the team had the same courtesy.  Kho looked between them.  “Where are you all… from?” 

“We’re… well…” Jo trailed off, unsure how much to share with this random farmer. 

“We’re headed from Lekonis,” said Lola carefully, “towards Ipbo. We hear they’re debuting airboats for the holiday.” 

Kho looked between Glade sweeping their tail behind them to ward off attacks from Toast, and Iila, who was trying on her most winning, and most terrifying, grin. “Alright then.”

The sun beat hot on the farm. Animals were sheltering under woven awnings and lapping at water gratefully. Jo thought about her own empty canister. “Would you by chance have water for some friendly passersby?” 

Kho looked apprehensively at the weapons at their belts and slung across their backs. He shrugged and waved them forward. “Thought you wouldn’t ask.” He didn’t sound happy; in fact, Kho’s voice was trembling.

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