There’s something to be said for that first cigarette after going without for so long. You realize the things that you usually take for granted: the feel between the fingers, how it sits between your lips, the smell of the initial burn, the long, slow inhale and soothing sensation as it rolls down the back of your throat and into your lungs, a cloud of softness comforting your nerves as it runs out your chest and through your arms and legs, spreading out and settling down.

For a moment, one blissful moment, it’s like meditating. The all encompassing ohm. It makes you wonder what all the fuss is about.

It only takes a shorter moment spent with a woman thrashing in your backseat, screaming as she claws at her arms to wretch out the poison that tears through her veins, that burns at her organs, the frothing of her mouth, the groan and snaps of her joints that spasm at unnatural angles, all in response to a voluntarily injected substance, to remind you that the same thing that drives her back to this point at least twice a month is the same thing that makes that cigarette seem so damn good.

Addiction is a hell of a way to live.

I would say that May in the back was learning that the hard way but she’d been going about things the hard way for as long as I’d known her and I’d known her for about as long as you can know anyone without having been birthed by them.

“We’re almost there,” I said to May’s reflection in my rearview though I doubt she heard me.

She hit a lull, a point where her body just jerked with full body cramps to a beat of a distant tune only audible to her. It took me a moment to realize she was trying to say something, that the sound coming from her lips was not out of pain or doped up daydreams but of actual effort to talk to me.

“N… n…” a hard constant of a stutter that eventually gained sensible anchor with a vowel, “no…” and she repeated it, again and again, the second word so hard to come by, so distant.

“‘No’ what, May?”

“No hospital!” she shouted, as if so happy to finally find the word that the whole world must hear it, her back arched, her feet pressed against the door, her head pushed hard into the corner of where the back seat meets the door, her hands out and gripping at air, one at the back windshield, the other just over my shoulder, fingers clenching once, twice, thrice before finding my shirt and bunching it in her fist.

“You need help, May,” I said as I swerved to dodge a car whose driver seemed oblivious to the siren and blaring lights that nearly tore through his back end.

“Y… y… y…” The stutter again, as if trying to gulp for air, and her hand was now digging into my shoulder, her nails clawing at me, as if they’d find the words she’s trying to spout from in there somewhere. “You…”

“What about me, May?”

“N… n… no. Y… you…”

“I’m getting you help, May.”

A gust of air and I’m slamming on the breaks as May manages to open the door at her head, forcing me to go from eighty to dead stop and toss her to the floor of the back.

“Shit, May!”

She was clawing and crawling her way out of the back before I got out and around to her. She tried to fight me off but did about as good a job of it as she had of talking.

“Y… you…” she said again as I grabbed her under her arms and tried to pick her up. “You will he… help. Help!”

She pushed off of me and fell against the car, sliding along the side and I grabbed her before she hit the ground.

And I realized she wasn’t saying “You”. She was saying “Eww”.

What the hell had she put into herself?

***

You’d think a pusher with a tendency to have his place raided would have a stronger door. Or maybe he just got sick of replacing it every few months so he just put in something cheap and inexpensive. He’d just need to replace it again sooner or later. Or tonight.

“What the fuck!”

Eww Tomb leapt off his couch and fell over his coffee table as I came in with May in my arms, May fighting all the way.

“Whatever you sold her, Eww, you damn well better have a fix.”

“You can’t just keep fucking coming in here like this, man,” Eww said as he pushed sweaty, stringy hair out of his eyes and back over his head. I laid May on his couch and tried to hold her down as gently as I could which was a whole lot harder than one might think. “Where’s your warrant?”

I looked at Eww who raised his hands as if to shield himself from my glare.

“Fix her, Eww, or else.”

“Shit.” Eww turned and disappeared down the hall, his curses bouncing about as he went from room to room, tearing through wherever he kept stuff.

May’s convulsions started to ease a bit but not from a lull. Her eyes started to lose focus, started to roll.

“May!” I shouted as I smacked her and she jarred but her eyes still were gone. “Hurry up, Eww!”

“Fuckin’ coming!” Eww came back into the room and dumped a pile of stuff out of his arms and onto the coffee table. “Hold her shoulders down,” he said as he came around with a tube and sliver of metal. “Get her mouth open.”

I leaned onto May to hold her down and pried her clenched mouth open. Eww slipped in the metal and followed with the tube, pulling away the metal and nodding toward the table.

“Gimmie the can.”

I grabbed it and handed it off, Eww screwing the end of the tube onto the can’s tip and spraying the can.

May’s eyes quickly focused and widened, her body stiffening as Eww emptied whatever was in the can into May’s lungs. May’s hand grabbed my shirt and pulled, though whether it was voluntary or not was beyond me.

“Alright,” Eww said, pulling the tube out of May’s throat and letting her gasp for air. Eww bounced aside to the table, grabbed something, the bounced back, pressing small plastic cylinder to May’s neck. A snap and a hiss and May started to relax, her body easing, her eyes fluttering before she passed out.

“She’ll be out for a couple hours,” said Eww as he whipped hair from his face again. “She’ll probably be starvin’, but she should be as good as new.”

My hand coming around his throat caught him by surprise, though not as much as my motion, my lifting him into the air, spinning, and slamming him through his coffee table and onto the floor. The whole thing was more for effect than actual practicality, but sometimes effect has a practical purpose.

“Shit, Jack,” he croaked and I tightened my grip to shut him up.

“What was she on?”

“Inhalant called teft,” croaked Eww. “Some synthetic shit passed down about a week back.”

“What’s it do?”

“Small doses it makes you feel like you’re having a fuckin’ orgasm for the length of the rush, twenty to forty minutes. A little more and you feel an orgasm like the opposite sex would.”

“How much would do that?” I asked, nodding toward May.

“Just a little more,” said Eww with a shrug and a smirk.

I pulled my hand from his throat and stood up with a growl.

“What the hell kinda purpose is a drug like that?” I asked as I rubbed my face, exhaustion and frustration mixing for one hell of an effect.

Eww stood up and shrugged again.

“I’ve heard it’s for anything from throwing off the enemy to a top brass unable to please his mistress or himself wanting to have a little extra fun. They don’t tell me what this shit is for, I just…”

“Yeah, yeah, you just push it.”

Eww with his damn shrug.

The problem with being a nowhere town is that its people are nobodies.

The city’s a dumping ground for the nation’s refuge, unwanted problems to be swept under the rug quickly and quietly. Retired spooks who know too much, supernatural things that no one’s supposed to know anything about, former druggies in the employ of the government now tasked with testing its latest developments on a populace no one really cares about anyway.

And a handful of people in place to keep it all in check.

“Who all have you given this stuff to?” I asked.

“Just a few or the diehards.” Eww started scratching at his all too fresh trackmarks, more in thought than in itch. “May, Joey Lowe up on the north end, Tiff tried a hit the other night.”

“Tiffany Gordon?” Eww nodded. “Your girlfriend?”

“Curiosity’s a beast, man.”

“Is that it?”

“Yeah. They didn’t give me a whole lot to begin with.”

“But they gave you enough for May to get like that?”

“It doesn’t take a lot.”

“Do you have any left?”

“Just a couple doses.”

“Give them to me.”

“What?”

“Give them to me.”

“Shit, Jack, you know I can’t do that.”

“I know I can make your life a living hell if you don’t.”

“Oh yeah? And what about the feds?”

“You think I can’t make it look good?” Eww narrowed his eyes. “You think I can’t hide a body?” His eyes weren’t so narrow anymore.

“Shit, Jack…”

“‘Shit, Jack’ me one more time, Eww,” I said, pulling out my cell phone and starting to dial. “Just one more time.”

“Alright, alright. Just give me a sec.”

Eww disappeared back down the hall and I put the phone to my ear.

“Pierce, it’s Diamond. I need you to run uptown and drop in on a guy named Joey Lowe. Yeah, same one. Call me when you check him, let me know how he is. You’re just checking to make sure he’s not convulsing on the floor or dead. Yeah. I’m being purposefully vague, Pierce. Just do this, alright? Alright.”

I hung up as Eww came back in with a shoebox.

“That all of it?” Eww nodded. “And the antidotes?” He nodded again.

“What do I tell them when they ask about this shit?”

“You tell them to call me,” I said as I walked to the couch and looked down on May for a moment. Out like a light. So peaceful.

“They aren’t gonna be happy, Jack.”

“Yeah, well I’m not too happy either, Eww.”

***

May woke slowly, her eyes blinking open as she stretched and looked around, getting a feel for her surroundings, figuring out where she was. She saw me sitting in a chair across the living room from her couch and cocked her head, as if trying to remember me.

“Jack?”

“How are you, May?”

“What happened?” She sat up as she ran a hand through her stringy hair, groaning as she moved, getting upright and then leaning forward, ungodly skinny elbows on her equally thin legs, and she hung her head.

“You tell me.”

She looked up with visible effort, her head seeming to weight a ton. She tried a smile on but it only came out half way, a smirk that just amplified the look in her eyes, the one so sad and tired.

“Oh, Jack. To the rescue once more.”

“Almost didn’t make it.”

“Like last time?”

“Worse than last time.” I pushed myself to my feet.

“You know you don’t have to do this, Jack. I’ll be fine.”

“Just because you haven’t died yet doesn’t mean you can’t.” I picked up a glass off the coffee table as I walked around.

“You don’t trust me?”

“I don’t trust what you put in you. Drink this.”

She took the glass from my hands and began to drink as I sat down.

“Eww’s not dealing to you anymore.” She nearly choked.

“Jack…”

“I told him not to deal to you anymore and if he does he’s done.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I can and I will.”

“The feds…”

“The feds will come down on me and I’ll give right back. Don’t worry about the feds. You just worry about staying clean.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“I know you’re a stronger person than this, May. And I know that I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. But I can’t keep saving you, May.”

“Then why are you always there, Jack?”

My phone rang before I could reply and I stood up as I answered.

“Diamond.” I started pacing. “He’s what? How long have you been there.” I stopped and looked at May. “Uh huh. Okay, just stay held up. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

I hung up.

“What was that?” May asked.

“What’s Eww’s number?”

“What’s going on?”

“What’s Eww’s number, May?”

She hesitated and then gave it to me.

“Keep yourself clean, May,” I said, dialing as I headed to and opened the door. “Don’t make me lock you up.”

“You wouldn’t.”

I left without an answer.

***

Joey Lowe hovered ten feet off his front lawn wearing nothing but a used condom and a large, toothy smile. I focused on the smile.

“How long has he been like that?” I asked as I approached the group of mixed dressed city’s finest that stood at the curb and did their best not to stare.

“He was like that when we got here,” said Al Pierce, the only other detective in this town and one of the many people who seemed to take a great dislike in my existence. “Neighbor says she heard some noise early this morning, around two or so. Peeked out the blinds and saw him wandering the streets in about the same state.”

“She call it in?”

“Said she didn’t think much of it. Seems this is normal for Joey.”

“The wandering, sure,” I said. “This, though…”

Our small group all turned to look at him now, in all his naked, blissful glory.

“Any idea who he used that thing on?” I asked, pointing in the general direction of his flaccid member.

“No one’s in his house,” said one officer, flatfoot named Bill Greene who’d been around for a few years. “I wouldn’t put it past him to have done it himself.”

“Normal for Joey,” said Pierce, shaking his head.

“So what do we do?” asked the other officer, a fairly green kid named Franks and whose first name I never could remember.

I looked to my watch. “We wait.”

“For what?” Pierce asked.

“For when I say we’re done, Al. Patience.”

Luckily Eww was early. The fear of God will do that to some people.

“That’s not normal,” Eww said as he approached, digging through a bag as he came.

“No shit,” said Pierce and I held up a hand to shut him up.

“What’s in him, Eww?” I asked as I approached Lowe’s hovering body.

His arms were outstretched and head leaning to one side, feet crossed, a crucifixion in mid-air. And his eyes. There was something about his eyes.

“Not sure,” said Eww, crouching next to me and setting his bag on the ground, pulling out a couple bottles and a syringe. “Last visit he picked up some of that teft, a couple hits of guano and some tranq.”

“Tranquilizer?” asked Franks.

“It gives the guano a bit more kick,” said Eww as he half filled the syringe with the contents of one bottle and stuck it in another for the rest of the fill.

Guano in this case wasn’t bat shit. It was ground up vampire bones.

“So the guano’s making him float?” I heard Pierce ask as I started circling Lowe.

“It doesn’t usually do that,” Eww said.

“Depends on the source, though,” I said, “doesn’t it?”

I was behind Lowe when he suddenly spun around, the move catching all of us by surprise. I jumped back and noticed Franks and Greene pulling out their pieces.

“Hold your fire,” Pierce said as I held my hands up to emphasize the point.

“Hello, Jack Diamond,” Joey Lowe said, rolling his head as he spoke.

“Hello, Joey.”

“Not Joey, Jackie-Boy.” His eyes. Pupils so dilated that they overran the iris completely, just dark pools of black surrounded by bloodshot.

At first glance they looked like any other drug induced crazy eyes.

Second glance, though, coupled with his tone…

“You figuring it out, Jackie?”

“Which bat did this shit come out of, Eww?”

Eww shrugged and Lowe laughed.

“How many did you know, Jackie?” Lowe’s voice was gargled, phlegm in the back of his throat churning with his words. “How many took so much from you.”

Son of a bitch.

“How’s Constantina, Diamond?”

Joey Lowe’s body suddenly arched and he screamed in pain as Eww jabbed the syringe into Lowe’s back. Lowe spun around a swiped at Eww who was just fast enough to dodge the blow, already scampering back to Franks and Pierce who still had their guns out and ready.

Lowe’s body spun back to face me, teeth bared, a snarl, a growl.

“You know this isn’t over, Jack Diamond.”

“Yeah,” I said, “it rarely is.”

He made a weak lunge at me and I easily stepped aside, Joey Lowe’s body collapsing onto the ground where I stood, out cold.

I nudged his body with my toe, a groan the only response. He was still alive. I walked across the lawn and back to the group, passing Franks and Greene along the way, cuffs already out as they ran toward Lowe’s unconscious form.

“What was that stuff, Eww?”

“Just a half shot of efedra diluted in holy water.” Eww shrugged at the glances from the others. “It gets the guano out.”

“All your guano, I want it.”

“Yeah, sure,” Eww said, nodding rapidly, his eyes set on Lowe, sweat soaking him.

“Old friend of yours, Jack?” asked Pierce with a shit eating grin as he nodded toward Lowe’s unconscious body.

“Something like that. I expect a full report, Pierce.”

I ignored his protests as I walked back to my car.

I climbed in and sat there for a moment, my hands on the steering wheel, staring at Lowe laying there in his front yard.

Hell of a way to live.

I sighed and started the car.

2009.  September.

My first day in the psych ward scares the shit out of me.  After less than 2 hours of sleep, I feel a hand shaking me and what seems like shouting in my ear.  It actually is shouting.  “CATHERINE! The doctor wants to see you.”

It’s 7 am – what doctor arrives this early?  I mumble an acknowledgement and careen into the bathroom with my standard issue toothbrush and generic toothpaste.  I try to get the comb through my hair but it’s an exercise in futility.  The light in the room is terrible and the dark circles under my eyes look like bruises.  I can’t remember the last time I’ve looked this bad – even right after giving birth to my sons.  I give up on the comb, brush my teeth, and stagger out into the fluorescent hallway.  People are moving around.  Some of them have a weird, shuffling walk.  The first person I see is a chubby woman dressed in a pink sweatshirt and purple sweatpants.  The sweatshirt is stained and her hair is thinning and standing on end.  Her mouth hangs open and her eyes are dead.  No one is home, though I force the words “Good Morning” out of my mouth of sand.  She moves her eyes in my direction and sneers.  Immediately after she goes back to her dead look and shuffles down the hallway.

I don’t belong here.

Fay is the first nurse I meet. She’s the loudest person I’ve ever known, but she never stops smiling and laughing.  She gestures to a chair and hooks me up to a blood pressure cuff, takes my temperature, and asks how I slept.  She also has the most interesting way to saying her words.  I mumble an answer around the thermometer in my mouth, and she yells to me, “Make sure you get to breh’fast . . . need to eat, girlfriend!”  She pats me on the back and points to a door down the hallway where I am told to line up to meet with the doctor.  No one tells me what kind of doctor it is, so I sit quietly and try to blend into the wall.

I meet my next two guests of the ward then.  I am scared shitless.  The first is Bella, who is singing “Amazing Grace” at the top of her lungs.  The other woman is pacing around and has a huge frog tattoo on her neck.  The frog is intersected or really, more dissected, by a horizontal scar that runs from just below her ear to the other side of her neck.  (Later, I am told I do not want to know how the scar was received)  She is extremely agitated and keeps saying, “FUCK THIS NOISE!” in the direction of Bella.  I find out later her name is Mandie.  “GODDAMN, shut the FUCK UP!” she screams at Bella.  Bella sings more loudly, humming and nodding her head.  She’s also clutching a bible.

I don’t belong here.  Seriously.

I hear my name being called, and I almost run for the door.  Turns out “the doctor” is the medical doctor, there to be sure I don’t have a cold or difficulty breathing.  He does the usual doctor things, looking me up and down, feeling my glands with his ice cube hands.  He declares me “fit as a fiddle” (except for my descent into madness!) and sends me back down the hallway for medication time.  The line now stretches down the hallway, and I go to the back of the line.  More shuffling and more than a few people who haven’t showered in at least a week.

The common theme in line seems to be “hurry the fuck up so we can smoke”.  Willow Hill has the most outdated medication system.  Even in my depressed and sleepless haze, I’m analyzing their system and finding ways to make it better.  The smokers, which make up 90% of the ward’s population, grow increasingly impatient.  More “fucks” are muttered and one woman actually shoves the guy in front of her when he moves too close to her.

I make it to the window finally and am given double my dose of antidepressants.  I haven’t seen the psychiatrist yet, so I’m not sure who made that decision, but I swallow the pills anyway.  The pharmacist stares at me, then points to her mouth.  I realize what she means.  I stick out my tongue and bend my neck back so she can see I did swallow my meds.

Still don’t belong here. Why wouldn’t I take my pills?  If I really wanted to die, I’d have stayed home, contemplating mixtures of household medications and figuring out what magical combination would put me out of my intense misery.  I’m weak, but strong enough to get help when I need it.

Breakfast means we are unlocked and, like kindergartners, walked down a long hallway to the cafeteria.  We eat in shifts – the juvenile ward first, then us, then the army’s PTSD group.  Rubber pancakes, thick syrup, gelatinous eggs, and an incredible realization:  there is no caffeine it the cafeteria.  Tea, decaf.  Coffee, decaf.  Water, apple juice, orange juice.  My head is already splitting from withdrawal, but there will be no relief today.

I take my tray and try not to calculate how many fat grams and calories are in front of me.  I sit down alone at a table and start eating.  A few minutes later, Faye yells to me, “Hey, we don’t sit there.  Sit THERE.”  Apparently we are only allowed to sit in one section of the cafeteria, so I stupidly grab my tray and walk to a corner, trying to avoid everyone and everything.  The majority of the ward sits together at a very long table.  They are chattering and eating and sometimes swearing.  It occurs to me that not everyone is crazy.  The “crazies” sit and drool listlessly.  One boy – he’s not a man, he looks like he’s 18 – has trouble holding his silverware without shaking, but he’s still able to converse about a book he finished on the first atom bomb.  For the first time I realize there is a fine line between medicated and over-medicated, and I definitely want to stay on the medicated side of that dangerous fence.

My first breakfast is a silent one.  My head is now going crazy again.

Fat, fat, where is the gym?  I can’t eat this, but I’m so hungry.  Can’t puke either, the nurses are watching.  I’m going to gain 30 pounds here.  I am so alone.  None of these people like me. They stare at me, and they stare at the new guy with his crazy hair.  Why are only his big toes painted?  Why are his toenails painted anyway?  He’s huge, he’s hairy, I’m scared.  Are my jeans tighter?  They have light yogurt. I can just eat that.  I think I’m going to be sick.

After breakfast, we line up and head back to the ward.  The majority of the patients make a beeline for a door that faces what can loosely be defined as a “courtyard”.  It’s more like a prison’s outdoor area.  It’s the smoke break area, and the only time we are allowed outside.  I follow them and watch the cloud of smoke take over the courtyard.  I go to the furthest corner but it’s raining.  I get wet while breathing air, still tinged with smoke and frustration and sadness.  Some of the women are hugging each other.  One of them is crying at the end of the table, and a few patients circle around her, patting her and stroking her hair.

I wander back inside, where Bella the bible lady is watching the single TV.  It’s a religious show with a lot of singing and bad hair.  I am contemplating returning to my bed when my name is called and I’m ushered into meet with Dr. Patel, my assigned psychiatrist.

Dr. Patel is a tired looking woman, but she’s sharp.  For the next 30 minutes she digs and paws through my mind, asking questions, listening, writing a lot of notes.  She asks me again to contract for safety, and I agree.

“How are your moods?  Do you find yourself acting impulsively?” Dr. Patel scribbles something, then makes eye contact.

“Well, I’ve been told I’m impulsive.  I just prefer to consider myself decisive,” I respond, then laugh.  She doesn’t crack a smile, so I reign in my need to giggle.

She asks about my depression.  I tell her it’s crushing me.  I tell her I’m separated from my husband, and I can’t think straight.  I tell her that at night, I stay awake while my brain roars like a freight train around the room, demanding my attention.  I tell her about my eating disorder.  I don’t tell her how sometimes, in the middle of my depressions, I will become ridiculously energized and happy, almost spastic, and will clean the house until my fingers ache and my nose burns from the smell of bleach.

There are more questions.  She pauses a lot, then makes eye contact.  “I upped your Zoloft to 100 mgs,” she says.  “I don’t understand, though, why you haven’t been under the care of a psychiatrist.”  Stern look, in my direction.  “From now on you must be under a doctor’s care.  No more getting pills from your OB or your general practitioner.  This is too important.  You must manage your condition better.”

It’s odd that I don’t ask her what my condition is.  I assume she is talking about my depression, something I’ve been carrying around in my body for 20+ years.  She dismisses me and says she’ll be back tomorrow.  She tells me to plan on at least 5 days here, depending on how I do.  She tells me to rest, but doesn’t prescribe me anything for sleep.  I also find this odd, considering not sleeping is a big part of why I’m here, at Willow Hill, with the smokers and the crazies and the freaks and the other people who look just like me.

I’m starting to think I belong here.

What happens to a family when it suffers an emotionally crippling loss? How do the members of that family deal with one another? Will they move away, become alcoholics, wallow in depression or possibly step up and try to make everything better? How do humans react to loss? Now what happens when such a tragedy befalls a family full of teenage superheroes?

Tyler Matthews (18) – Telekinesis

Lives in a loft in San Francisco with three other people (his band). Two girls and a guy. He was the “team leader” and even though he left his family he’s replaced them with a surrogate family of sorts. Works construction during the day and plays lead guitar in a band at night. He spends all his time trying to fix his friends problems because he doesn’t want to deal with his own. He uses his powers to help him on his day job but he keeps it and his past a secret from everyone. One night after a gig the band is assaulted and Tyler uses his powers and experience to save them all. When he tells his friends his story the audience will learn it at that time. After learning about his past his friends try and talk him into going home to deal with his issues and family. He finally decides it is time to go and deal with his family and assures his friends he will be back in a few days maybe a week. Once he gets back to L.A. he learns his entire family is broken, not just him. He tries to take charge which puts him at odds with Ashley who actually has been in charge for the entire year he’s been gone. He goes to rescue Amanda and loses control and almost kills her dealer/boyfriend.

Amanda Matthews (16) – Concussive Energy Blasts from the palms of her hands

After her parents lost it, honor student Amanda found guidance in an older man. She fell in love with a 26 year old bouncer at a local club. He uses her for a plaything and got her addicted to heroin (on Vedas orders) so she could be more easily controlled. Her parents don’t notice that she disappears for a week at a time but Ashley does. Amanda has spent the last six months stealing money from her parents to pay for her drug addiction. Ashley, finally fed up, makes sure Amanda can’t access the bank account anymore. Out of money, her boyfriend forces her to prostitute herself to pay for drugs. When Tyler gets back into town he finds her and uses his powers to beat the crap out of her boyfriend and he takes her home against her will. The heroin has mad her body too weak to produce energy blasts. Her family forces her into rehab which she does reluctantly. Once she gets out of rehab her mom OD’s on pain killers and she runs back to her boyfriend. He is furious and beats the hell out of her. She lets loose with her energy blasts but they are too weak to do much more than stagger him. She closes her eyes and tries again but nothing comes out, from behind her Veda blasts his and kills him making Amanda think she did it. She panics and steals his drugs and money and hides in an abandoned building where she nearly OD’s. A mysterious stranger who we never get to see saves her by dropping her off in front of a hospital. When her family shows up she has been charged with murder

Ashley Matthews (13) – Super Speed, limited flight

Realizing her parents were too devastated by their feelings of loss and guilt and feeling responsible herself, Ashley takes over completely as the “grown up”. She makes all the financial decisions, she writes all the checks. She cuts Amanda off from the family bank account because of her drug habit. She visits Jason every Sunday after Church. Ashley is in danger of failing the 8th grade between her numerous absences from dealing with her mother and her borderline grades. Her mother tends to make huge messes all over the house when left unsupervised so instead of doing homework Ashley has to clean the house. She has developed a minor drinking problem. It’s not an every day thing but when a day is especially stressful she tends to drink until she falls asleep. When Tyler shows up Ashley feels threatened because she’s been the one in charge for almost a year, especially when Tyler brings Amanda home, something Ashley has been trying to do for months. She feels vindicated when Amanda gets arrested and blames Tyler but the blame quickly turns to guilt.

Richard Matthews (dad) –ex air force

Richard no longer shaves or combs his hair and he rarely takes a shower. He spends all his time trying to find the alien who gave his kids their powers because he thinks the alien can cure Jason. His investigation is being closely monitored by his superiors as they evaluate his mental status. Eventually they will determine he is a liability and give him an honorable discharge and deny him access to their information. He will then spiral even further into depression and he will spend most of his time at a bar getting drunk. When Tyler finally confronts him, Richard crumbles weeping to the floor begging for forgiveness. Eventually the family will gather at Jason’s bedside and his power will be transferred to Richard.

Jason Matthews (15) – Mild telepathy, psychic backlash which causes victim to fall into something like a coma

During the last “adventure” the Matthews brood fought a powerful telepath who turned Joshua’s powers against him leaving him in a vegetative state. He will never wake up, his brain is completely fried.

Katherine Matthews (mom) – ex nurse

She never recovers, spending the rest of her days in a haze until she accidentally OD’s on pain killers.

Stan (alien) – looks like a bald fat middle aged guy, (George Costanza)

When we first meet Stan he is hiding out among the homeless in L.A. He’s sleeping in a n alley when four gangbangers surround him with guns drawn. He’s a bit of a smartass and he shoots three of them in the gut and beats the fourth one for info. He finds out the “other” four know about him and where he is. He realizes its time to stop hiding and take action. He attacks Tyler in S.F. forcing him to reveal his powers in the hopes that it will send him home.

ORIGIN- (This will all be shown in flashbacks in part four. None of the origin will be revealed at first)

Richard and Katherine met when both of them were stationed at the same Air Force base in Nevada in the early 1980’s. Eventually they married and started a family.

Rick Matthews spent his entire life in the Air Force, eventually becoming a test pilot for experimental aircraft. Five years ago he test flew an aircraft the U.S. government had found crashed in the desert a few years earlier. While flying the craft Rick received a message from the original owners. It said that there was a terrible danger headed towards planet earth and the people on this ship were part of an intergalactic peacekeeping force. Unfortunately they couldn’t spare more resources than one ship and one pilot to come to earth and warn its peoples about the comic dangers. After the message a small door slid open on the control panel revealing some sort of alien artifact. Curious, Rick removes the artifact from the console, places it in one of the pockets of his jumpsuit and returns to the base. When he arrives back at the base his family is there and he runs into them on his way to a briefing. He stops, excited about what happened on the flight and he starts to tell his wife about what happened when the youngest child Ashley pulls the artifact from his pocket (going through her dads pockets has become a habit for the child). While their parents talk, Ashley shows the artifact to the other kids and they all try to take it at the same time. Once all four of them have their hands on the artifact it emits a blinding light and a loud boom.

After everything settles and they all realize they aren’t under attack, the kids step forward and tell their parents what happened. They give the artifact back to their dad and the military runs a complete battery of tests on them and determine that nothing happened to them at all. Several weeks pass without incident and then one night Richard gets a phone call in the middle of the night. He is told by his superiors that something has happened and the base had fallen under attack and one of their high security prisoners had escaped and for their own safety, he should bring his family back to the base. Being a follower of orders, he wakes his family up and tells them all to get dressed. Just as they are about to leave for the base, someone starts pounding on their back door. Drawing a gun, Richard goes to check it out and as he opens the door an alien falls through it, almost knocking him over. He tells them where he is from and that the kids now possess the powers that were meant to go to four adults. Unfortunately the powers are non transferable and they are stuck with them. On top of that, they are the Earths only defense against a new menace that has already started popping up, super villains. His enemies also sent a ship and a similar artifact that will give powers to four people who would use them for evil. The difference being his enemies ship didn’t crash as his did and his enemy wasn’t taken captive by the military and studied for years before he was able to escape. Most likely the other four are already out there and using their powers to amass wealth and power. He goes on to tell them that someday soon they would be called upon to save the world not only from the “other” four but from a much bigger threat.

For the next few years the Matthews family honed their powers and hunted the other four. In their last battle (nearly a year ago) they came across a serial killer with the same powers as Jason. They fought him for a long time but he finally managed to get the better of them all and in the end, used Jason’s mental sensitivity against him and switched off his brain, leaving him a vegetable. After this devastating defeat the other three kids gave up the super hero gig and went about their lives. Unfortunately their regular lives had moved on without them. After realizing he wasn’t going to graduate, and after a huge fight with his father about going into the military, Tyler packed a bag and moved away. Amanda fell in with a bad crowd and turned to drugs to deal with her problems. She spends most of her time in various underground clubs and abandoned buildings around L.A. Ashley blames herself for the entire thing since it was her curiosity that gave them all powers to begin with. She has taken over all household duties because her mother fell into a deep depression after Jason was hurt and much like Amanda has turned to drugs and alcohol, in her case the legal kind. Rick spends his days going over every scrap of information the military managed to extract from the alien and anyone who was involved with the interrogation. This is where the story begins, a shattered family a year removed from a horrible loss.

SAN FRANCISCO PEOPLE
Nina – Tyler’s sometime girlfriend and singer for his band.
Mick – drummer
Rae – bass
Sam – owner of a local bar
Chuck – Tyler’s construction boss
Various construction coworkers
Various bar patrons

VILLAINS
Four people in their mid to late 20’s, ethnicity unimportant. They have the same powers as the Matthews kids but since they are a bit older they have managed to hone them more easily and are a bit more powerful than the kids. For the most part they do their own thing but they know they are bound to one another so they keep tabs on each other. None of them trust the others except Anti Ashley who loves Anti Tyler as a father figure even though he abuses her horribly.

Quinton- telekinesis
Megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur, believes he was given his powers to save the righteous, believes that he is above the law and is better than human and therefore does not have to answer for his crimes, believes his powers were given to him by God.

Reno- mild telepathy, psychic backlash which causes victim to fall into something like a coma
Serial killer, ADHD style impulse control problems, completely unpredictable and most likely insane.

Veda- Concussive Energy Blasts from the palms of her hands
Manipulative, very attractive, uses sex as a weapon and treats people as things, she keeps track of the Matthews kids and is responsible for getting Amanda hooked on drugs.

Crystal- Super Speed, limited flight
Severely abused as a child, emotionally crippled, schizophrenic, and incapable of making her own decisions. Used as a tool/slave by Quinton.

PART 1

Dream sequence
Intro Tyler in San Francisco
Intro Ashley dealing with her mom
Ashley at school talking to counselor about days absent

(This is a rough draft of the beginning of the first episode)

- Exterior nondescript
Dream sequence; quick cuts, hazy picture. Amanda and Ashley are unconscious on the ground. In the foreground is Tyler on his hands and knees coughing up blood. He looks up as the camera pans extremely fast behind him. We see the top of Tyler’s head from the back and in front of him Jason falls limp to the ground, eyes staring up at nothing.

Cut to- interior Tyler’s room
Close up of Tyler’s eyes snapping open. Camera pulls back to reveal Tyler in bed next to a woman. As the camera pulls further back we see they are on a mattress on the floor. Tyler is wearing boxer shorts and a necklace with what is left of the ALIEN ARIFACT. He sits up suddenly and the girl beside him stirs a bit. She turns over as he gets to his feet.

NINA:
S’matter?

TYLER:
Nothing, go back to sleep.

Cut to- interior Tyler’s loft
A curtain opens, it is the “door” to Tyler’s “room”. He lives in a loft that doesn’t have any walls. There are two curtained “rooms” set up side by side and we can see through the cracks in the second set of curtains that there are other people living here as well. Tyler staggers over to the kitchen area and grabs a pack of cigarettes off the kitchen table, a well used piece of 70’s era furniture. Tyler’s wallet is also on the table. Tyler leans over the stove and lights a cigarette with the burner. He sits down in one of the mismatched chairs and pulls a newspaper clipping out of his wallet.

Dissolve to- the Matthews house, the newspaper clipping Tyler was reading is framed and hanging above the mantle. As the camera pans across the mantle we see many happy childhood photos, sporting trophies, science fair awards and the other half of the ALIEN ARTIFACT. Adjacent to the living room is the dining area where Ashley sits intently reading a bank statement and once she finishes she drains the rest of her coffee as she stands. Her mother sits on the opposite side eating applesauce completely oblivious that she’s managed to drop as much on her terrycloth bathrobe as she has eaten. Ashley takes two pills out of a bottle on the table and puts them on her mothers’ spoon.

ASHLEY:
You take those mom and I’ll see you after school. Maybe you’ll feel like going to the store with me.

KATHERINE:
Make sure your brother eats his breakfast. He hasn’t been feeling well lately.

Ashley looks away from her mother with tears in her eyes. She nods to herself and kisses her mom on the head and grabs her backpack off the table and heads out the door.

Cut to- Interior school guidance office
Ashley knocks on the door and the guidance counselor waves her inside.

COUNSELOR:
Ashley Matthews, we need to have a serious discussion about your future.

ASHLEY: (sitting down, her voice a little shaky)
We do?

COUNSELOR:
Is everything ok at home Ashley?

Cut to- interior Matthews kitchen
Katherine has dropped the jar of applesauce and instead of cleaning it, she just walks away.

Cut to- interior counselors office

ASHLEY:
Everything is fine. Why do you ask?

COUNSELOR: (picking up a file off the desk and flipping through it)
Well, we’re only halfway through the school year and according to this you can only miss two more days before you automatically fail for the year.

ASHLEY: (shocked)
Seriously?

COUNSELOR:
Yes Ashley, seriously. Now I ask again, is everything ok at home.

Long pause

ASHLEY:
My mom has been sick and I’m the only one who can take care of her.

COUNSELOR: (leaning in, actually concerned)
What’s wrong with her?

ASHLEY: (looking around as if for an exit)
I’d um… I’d rather not say.

COUNSELOR: (sitting up and taking a long look at Ashley, as if to size her up)
Tell you what, if you can bring these grades up to the level you were at a year ago, I’ll see what I can do about doing some home schooling at least for a little while.

ASHLEY: (happy)
Really? That would be SO great. You have no idea how great that would be.

COUNSELOR:
I mean it though; a year ago you were a straight A student and now you’re barely making C’s. In fact, looking at these interim reports, you are in danger of failing two of your classes.

ASHLEY sits staring at the floor, biting her nails nervously. Her eyes dart quickly back and forth between the counselor and a spot on the carpet.

Ashley goes to the ATM to get money, finds out there isn’t any, says angrily “Amanda”
Intro Amanda passed/strung out at her boyfriend/dealers house (Dandy Warhols – Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth)

PART 2

Ashley cuts Amanda off financially
A talent scout wants Tyler’s band to cut a demo

PART 3

(This is a scene that will be the opening sequence to part three)

EXTERIOR – night in a dirty alley full of sleeping homeless people

Cut to-
Stan, a chubby, balding, middle aged man who looks like he could have been an accountant before leaving society behind and moving to this alley. He’s bundled up like everyone else in a mish mash of discarded clothing to try and keep the heat in. He is snoring softly lying under some newspapers. Several shadows fall over him and we hear the distinctive sound of four guns being cocked.

Camera pull back and swing around to show four young men of various ethnicity sporting gang colors aiming guns at Stan. They all stand with a kind of swagger and just as it seems like they may start to shoot Stan opens his eyes and casually looks up at the men.

STAN
What’s up fellas? Did I forget to pay my rent?

The four youths look at each other amused, and then back at Stan who has gotten a little more comfortable putting his hands behind his head.

STAN
I’ll tell you what, you guys tell me who sent’cha and I’ll let you all go, otherwise three of ya is gonna get shot in the gut and the other one is gonna get a broke face. Your choice.

All four gangbangers start laughing but before they can react Stan whips two pistols out from behind his head and shoots two of the men in the stomach. He rolls backwards as the two still standing put several bullets into the spot he was laying. Stan leaps up and flips behind one of his attackers and the other one accidentally shoots his partner in the gut. Stan drops the wounded man and kicks the last attacker’s legs out from under him, bending his knee backwards and causing the man to fall flat on his face on the asphalt. Stan stands over the one with the broken face, looking somewhat amused.

STAN
Told ya. (he turns his would be killer over) Now tell me slick, who sent you?

BROKE FACE
I ain’t telling you shit old man.

STAN
Geez kid, that’s too bad because, as I’m sure you know, the cops don’t really come down here so unless I take you and your friends to the hospital, you’re all gonna die from those gunshot wounds to the gut you all got.

BROKE FACE
I don’t got no gut wound.

STAN (smiling sweetly)
No, not yet.

Amanda’s dealer/bf makes her hook to get drugs (Atmosphere – godlovesugly)
Intro Veda, the supplier where Amanda’s dealer gets his drugs
Tyler uses his powers to save his friends (end of episode/issue)

PART 4

Origin Story
Ashley’s 14th birthday, nobody remembers, she celebrates with a bottle of wine while listening to something mellow (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – People Ain’t No Good)

PART 5

Tyler comes home
Tyler and Ashley argue about Amanda
Tyler finds Amanda
Richard is told he is being discharged from the military and his clearance is being revoked

PART 6

Tyler takes Amanda to rehab(Flaming Lips – Do You Realize)
Richard spends all his time in a strip club at the bar with his back to the girls drinking non stop.

PART 7

Tyler confronts his dad
Amanda gets out of rehab
Tyler, Ashley and Amanda go to group therapy as part of Amanda’s rehab

PART 8

Mom OD’s on pills and vodka
Ashley blames Tyler
Amanda runs back to her dealer/bf

PART 9

Veda frames Amanda for murdering her dealer/bf
Amanda hides out in an abandoned building and takes too many drugs, Stan takes her to a hospital, doctor tells Amanda “you lost your baby” which is a catalyst for real change in her

PART 10

Stan shows up and tells the Matthews kids about what they have to face. Tyler gets pissed and tells Stan to go to hell. Amanda says she thinks it’s the right thing to do and talks the rest of the family into it. Stan tells Richard that he has to transfer Jason’s power to himself if they have any hope of winning. Stan tells them that doing this will most likely kill Jason.

PART 11

The remaining family gathers at Jason’s bedside and Jason’s power is transferred to Richard. Jason dies.

PART 12

The family prepares for the big fight each in their own way. Ashley goes to church. Last scene of the series is the Matthews family standing on a rooftop in LA across from their counterparts, everyone powers up and blackout, end credits.

Daniel slid his finger underneath the flap, feeling the waxy paper crinkle in his fingers as he pulled against the glue that held it sealed shut. He was sitting crosslegged on his bed, in a room whose walls were adorned with the symbols of his heroes: a Chicago Cubs pennant, the Wade Boggs poster he had gleefully liberated from a well-worn copy of Sports Illustrated for Kids, and the shelf with his very own baseball glove and the foul ball his dad caught for him at the local minor league game.

His mother had given him permission to ride his bike down the hill to the Minute Mart for the very first time, and he could spend his allowance on whatever he wanted. His eyes had wandered past the racks full of chewing gum, bubble gum, and candy as far as the eye could see; he even passed up Necco wafers — his favorite! — until he found just what he was looking for. There, sitting neatly in a rack next to the cash register, was pack upon pack of baseball cards. The labels’ bright primary colors shouted their names at him:

“Topps!”

“Donruss!”

“Fleer!”

It felt like an eternity. How could he choose only one? So many decisions! Daniel pressured himself, knowing that every minute that passed meant one less minute he could spend with his new purchase before dinner. Which one would it be?

Finally, swayed by the offer of one stick of bubble gum inside, he plucked a tightly wrapped package of Topps cards from the rack and paid for his selection. Pedaling furiously home, his mind had already begun to wonder what surprises lay inside the package, tucked securely in his hip pocket.

Now, sitting on his bed, he could barely contain his excitement. Daniel’s hands trembled as he unsealed the pack. The bubble gum, which had cracked into many small pieces, tumbled out onto his lap. His dismay was soon forgotten, however; he turned over the cards one by one, each revealing a new name and face, and each image giving Daniel’s imagination one more opportunity to walk next to his heroes.

Got a complaint about the schedule? Show up and tell us. Otherwise, hold your water.

Assignment:

We’ll meet at Café Caturra on Pump Road @ 7:30pm – wine, food, coffee, none of the above, all of the above. Your pick.

The exercise: a springboard off of the writer’s-block discussion. To wit, let’s experiment with genre-bending.

If you write non-fiction most of the time, bring us a short story, or the outline for one.

If you write more fiction than non-, bring us a 300-500 essay or profile piece.

And let us know if the genre-bender gave you blockage, or freed up flow.

As lagniappe (for you, for us, your choice ;>), take a run at an exercise from one of my favorite mystery writers, Randy Wayne White: write either

• the dust-jacket copy for your about-to-be-published book
• the 10-years-from-today About the Author copy for your upcoming book (assume you’ve published at least one book before this one)

See you on Monday the 21st!

Casey Quinlan has spent her life breaking barriers – she takes after her dad, a US Navy fighter pilot who was among the first to break the sound barrier.

She spent grade school as the perennial “new kid” as her family moved from coast to coast following the fleet.

That experience came in handy when she was part of the first wave of women broadcasting engineers hired by US networks to prevent being sued by the gender police.

Getting arrested in passport control in Riyadh as she arrived to cover the Gulf War in 1991 gave her the title for her memoirs – the book you hold in your hands, “Welcome to My Country, Heathen Slut,” is the hilarious story of how she won over classmates, nuns, co-workers, rioters, and even the Saudi national police.

Beating the odds when facing armed dudes, nuns armed with rulers, cranky old-skool TV guys, and even breast cancer, Casey’s story of life on the front lines of change and gender politics will make you laugh, make you think, and make you glad you bought this book!

The sound of running water was the first thing I heard.

Which made me realize that I was under attack. By a fierce amount of cold water, which was hitting my back, and really annoying the fuck out of me.

“Wake up, princess. Don’t want you to drown while I wash the bourbon stink off you.”

Gee, thanks, dad. What would I do without you?

Maybe sleep off the my-head-is-in-a-vise hangover you woke me up to?

“Gaaahh” was all that came out of my mouth, though.

That, and a more than sneaking suspicion that what would follow that syllable would be whatever was left of the aforementioned bourbon if I didn’t close my mouth.

Why the hell had I gotten so far into the bottle last night?

Oh, right. The new client. Who was also my old lover. Who had tracked me all the way to Middle of Fucking Nowhere, Florida (it exists, and it’s hard to find) to beg me to help him stay alive.

“C’mon, princess. Kyle’s gonna be here in an hour, and you have to be a sentient being when he does,” said Mike, my father and now my partner in business – and sometimes crime. Fishing Expedition Investigations, LLC.

After 20 hard years in the NYPD, winning my gold shield and losing at every attempt at a personal life, I’d retired to MOFN, FL to team up with my dad, a retired Navy intelligence officer.

Dad had originally planned his retirement around a marina and fishing-guide business – that was before the market crashed, taking a good chunk of his retirement fund with it. Now he had his Navy pension, the marina, and a fishing business that had drowned in the BP rig disaster.

And me.

I climbed up the wall of the marina shower room – crap, I was naked. Double crap, I was in the men’s shower, too. How the hell had that happened?

Last night was a black hole, with flashes floating up to the top in what seemed like random order.

Kyle and me, in the marina bar, the band playing the usual buffet of Buffett and Marley.

Walking on the docks after I’d had way more bourbon than is recommended before walking on things you could fall off of.

Oh. My. GOD. Kyle and me…making out? Or is that bourbon-induced psychosis? Because I would have to be psychotic to even consider revisiting the disaster that was Kyle-and-me ten years ago.

“I need a drink,” I said to Mike.

“A double.”

The exercise: a springboard off of the writer’s-block discussion. To wit, let’s experiment with genre-bending.

If you write non-fiction most of the time, bring us a short story, or the outline for one.

If you write more fiction than non-, bring us a 300-500 essay or profile piece.

And let us know if the genre-bender gave you blockage, or freed up flow.

As lagniappe (for you, for us, your choice ;>), take a run at an exercise from one of my favorite mystery writers, Randy Wayne White: write either

• the dust-jacket copy for your about-to-be-published book
• the 10-years-from-today About the Author copy for your upcoming book (assume you’ve published at least one book before this one)

See you next Monday!

Are you listening, Nora Roberts?

My coping strategy for blockage is very plumber-like. If you’ve got a blockage, it’s as important to get the flow going again as it is to determine the blockage. Anyone who’s had to troubleshoot a sewer line knows this at the cellular level.

When I’m working on a writing project, and the pipes lock up, I write some kind of non-project-related bullshit (a comedy bit, an email to a friend, a comment on an online piece, pick one, pick several) until the blockage dissolves and that crack whore I call my muse comes back from her little binge.

That said, some binges last longer than others. In those cases, I stack up useless comedy bits and online comments like cord-wood. And all my friends get plenty of updates…

It’s been several months since I’ve been able to write anything of substance, and I have no idea what to do. Well, I guess that’s not strictly true: I DO know what to do; I just haven’t been able to bring myself to do it. Pretty screwed up, huh? In most other things in life, I’ve been able to pick myself up by my bootstraps and move on, but this isn’t one of them. I guess a little background is in order.

In my teens and early to mid twenties, I was a musician. I would write a lot of poetry and I wrote a lot of songs, some of which I’m still very proud of. I played in a rock band that achieved a moderate level of success in my then home state of Indiana, and we were on our way to bigger and better things. However, the lifestyle caught up with me, and I had to extricate myself in order to have any sort of future.  Once I moved to VA and got sober, I tried actively to do the band thing here, but it just never panned out. I was too picky on whom I’d work with and the standards I had. For years, I did very little creative stuff. Fast forward 14 years, a marriage, two kids (one autistic), divorce, and single fatherhood. I was working at a job I really enjoyed that allowed me a tremendous amount of freedom. I had started to get some ideas (really, I had been scheming this one for a few years now), and I got laid off. Now, while that really sucked in a lot of different ways, I finally got off my ass and started to write, only to find that I really enjoyed it.

No words can describe this: perhaps some of you have had the same experience, but writing began to re-awaken that creative spark inside of me, giving it an outlet that I had not had since the last time I was in a band (early 1999), and I was digging it. I would write for a few hours a day. Some of it crap, some of it good, but I was writing. Writing fulfilled something in me that I can’t put into words. I knew I had found what I was supposed to do. I could tell that my technique, my technical skill level left a lot to be desired, but my ideas were solid and I believed in them. My novel was floundering a bit when I found NaNoWriMo (which is where I met some of you).

I LOVED NaNoWriMo. The pressure was on, and it wasn’t easy, but I did it, finished my book with a day and a half to spare. Some of it was pretty sparse, as I (then and currently) believe I’m an “add to” writer rather than a “cut down” writer. A lot of the books I had read on novel writing (Stephen King’s book was an immense help to me) had touted the virtues of leaving a manuscript completely alone for awhile upon completion, so I did. For a month or two, I was working on ideas I have for a fantasy epic: sort of a story about redemption and a “riches to rags” rather than a “rags to riches” story. It was going along nicely when the well dried up.

This post is more than I’ve written in the last 2 months combined. Part of it is that I was used to unlimited writing time, and now since I’m working again, I have very little time. Part of it is some weird mental block that just about makes it impossible to write, at least in my head. And that’s where I think the secret lies.

It’s in my head.

That’s not to say that I don’t have real problems or that I’m entirely sane or anything: what I mean is that when I let the idea that I can’t write build up in my head and I do nothing to contradict it, then I can’t write. This post itself is an attempt to eradicate the writer’s block that I’ve been experiencing. I guess what I need to do is to just write. I need a goal. Let’s say, at least 500 words a day. I know that sometimes it’s going to end up being 500 words about how I have no desire to write today, but it’s better than not writing (I guess).  Part of it is that I have to get over the idea that I’m not a writer. I AM a writer, I’m just at a very basic skill level and I’m really not used to all this yet.

So my next question is “What do I write about?” I don’t think I’m ready to start writing and editing my NaNo book yet, but I gotta have something to write. I found this neat little podcast called “Writing Excuses” (you can get it for free on audible.com or iTunes). Basically, the show is 15 minutes long where they discuss some aspect of writing, and then they give a writing prompt. Though I haven’t done any of the exercises yet, it does present some good ideas.

Basically, I just need to get off my ass and write! I can agonize and philosophize and strategize all I want, but I need to fucking write! (Oops, I said “fuck”). I don’t believe there’s a shortcut, and there damn sure isn’t some magic phrase or formula that’s gonna make me write. I need to ignore all the internal-antagonist crap that tells me I should just give it up and work at McDonald’s; there is quite a lot of that for me, and I’m willing to bet that I’m not unique in that regard. There are no shortcuts. There is no way around this. I have to go through it. I just need to write!

Sorry if this post seems over-long and superfluous. I bet you can’t tell that I’m using this to get my daily word count in, huh?!?!