A Story in 200 Words – They Killed Our Parents

I recently listened to an episode of Start With This, a podcast about harnessing creativity by the creators of Welcome To Night Vale. Their most recent episode was on repetition, something which has been the bane of my writing style for some time now. I used to think repetition was emphatic, but it really isn’t. But, I listened to the cast to see if there was something I missed, and perhaps there was. I still don’t like the way I used repetition in the past. But, with some guidelines, I took down their assignment. I’m… strangely pleased. I’m not a very big fan of any work that is short. It ties my hands. This time it seems to have done something that at least feels interesting. The constraints were to take a single phrase and use it five times in a work of no more than two hundred words. I came in with twelve words to spare on the first try.

This is the raw result, using only Grammarly for the first draft:

They killed our parents and shuffled us into the system. She was fourteen. I was nine. They told us it was an accident. We held each other’s hands. We cried. But we knew. They killed our parents.

We started to look in all the wrong places and came up with the right answers. They killed our parents because they knew where the hidden things lay. They knew the names. They knew the lies. So, they killed our parents and thought it was done.

When they killed our parents they got more than they wanted. With no one to stop us, no one to tell us that revenge wasn’t the answer, we learned how to hunt. We sharpened our knives. We learned to see them when they thought they could hide. We found they were monsters and skinned them alive.

When the work was done, we went through their lair, and what did we find there? Two trembling forms, one seven, one five. Barely aware of the change to their lives. We killed their parents, and the books weren’t right. So, two more child creatures died in the night.

The assignment asks for the meaning and change of impact each time the phrase is used, which is what makes the difference. In this case, ‘they killed our parents’ is the phrase. The first time it appears it is simply a statement of fact, followed by an immediate result. The second time it’s mentioned at the end of the same paragraph, it’s accusatory and foreshadowing. The third time provides a reason for the killings, knowledge of things one is not meant to know. The fourth time sets up what the killers thought the narrator’s parents would bring about by their murderous deeds. The final time, it draws out the consequences – if the narrator’s parents hadn’t been killed what came next would never have had to happen.

The final paragraph uses the phrase not at all. Catharsis has come and a new cost is introduced to the narrators who learn a dark and terrible thing about themselves. There’s is then a sixth, unspoken time, that the phrase is no doubt uttered by the monstrous children just before they too are dispatched – they killed our parents.

I felt good enough to come out of my author blog cave to write about the experience and post it. I guess that’s something, huh?

I think I shall turn it over some more in my head, see what I can expand from this. I think an Edward Gorey style poem perhaps could come of it, a burst of new signals at my other site.

November 18, 2019 0

A Dream Altered

Being creative seems to come with a lot of baggage, both real and perceived.

When I was a kid I felt art inside of me wanting to burst out. I wasn’t afraid to fail. I kept at it. Every day, there was something new to try or a thing I could experiment with. When I was a young adult in college I had nothing but time to do this. I lived it, I breathed it. I got out into the world at my first job for design and I did well (though not well enough to survive our buyout). I went back to school. Got better at programs and systems I hadn’t used before, got educated a little on things I admittedly should have gotten more out of. I went out to work in the graphics world again. And then… I got poor. I stopped trying to be creative, stopped wanting to be poor. I cashed in chips and started in the technology sector. Because Diabetes Type II sucks, and it costs a lot of money to not die slowly (good luck getting health insurance as a self-employed artist, even with the ACA).

And while I was chasing the money to keep a roof over my head, fix up my staggering college debt, and maybe even get ahead, I just… let it go.

I know this because I found sketchbooks this morning. Old ones. A small stack about seven pads deep, mostly full. Many were from High School when I was struggling to figure out who and what I was. I still had a lot of social chains on me. A lot of peer abuse and stigma – real or perceived, again – but art and music were my solaces. I see it on those pages.

Back then, I pictured myself in the future with bookshelves full of sketchbooks, maybe those cool, big metal boxes with shallow trays big enough to put in canvasses or large format drawing papers and blueprints. An office full of cool design tools, and a black book full of contacts.

It’s not turned out the way I’d hoped. Well, I have the office, but right now it’s not the dream of the nineties. There are two computers in here, a few tools both traditional and otherwise, more pencils and pens than I probably need, and a drafting table given to me by friends back when I was still trying to live the dream. But, that perfect office is missing the years of successes, realized dreams, and profit.

Then again, anyone looking to get into the arts for profit… that part comes after you die (Sallie Mae doesn’t tell you that when you apply for student loans for a predatory for-profit school). A lucky few creatives get the status and wealth they want while still pumping their heart’s blood. I think that while we breathe, creatives are making art to make a difference. To get through to someone. To make others feel. Not even to feel what you feel, but to feel something. And, if we’re gonna be honest, the more the better in most cases. There’s a great shirt that a friend gave me several years back that I love, and it is a two-panel comic that is titled ‘A Brief History of Art.’ It covers it with minimal effort. I won’t post it here because of the artist’s longtime grudge against internet behavior fucking her over, but the jist is simple:

A minimally portrayed person says “Look,” in the first panel. There is no other content, not even in the background. The second panel (with the exact same drawing) this time reads, “Look at me.”

Reductionist? Sure. But, art is more or less meant to be viewed. I believe that creatives want that work out there on some level or they wouldn’t make it (an expensive pursuit, pouring heart and soul through mediums that cost real and emotional resources). I suppose there’s a few that break that mold. I know I myself make personal projects just for me, and even then, I probably show it to my wife after I get past the hurdle of believing what I’ve designed is garbage (this process is a well-known phenomenon for me and a lot of others). I have an artist’s graveyard, and eventually, when I die… someone’s bound to find this room full of stuff (because let’s admit it: anyone who knows me knows I ain’t ever gonna throw this stuff out), even if it’s only to pack it up and put it in a trash can. Might be right after, might be years after. Once it’s here in the world, it’s only a matter of time. It’ll be the same for all of us who leave something around physically, or even for us who keep our work behind passwords and firewalls. The determined will eventually get at it, or the gatekeepers. Something will be witnessed even if it’s just a file name and a preview. I suppose we could destroy our work, but… I don’t. And, when I ask why not, it always comes back to hoping to leave a mark. Something that people will see later. Maybe puzzle over, talk about, or just laugh at.

The art wants to get out.

And it is, for me, finally, just… it’s not the dream of a kid who was still looking to find out what he wanted to become twenty-five odd years ago. I’ve begun to truly dedicate myself to something on the regular. Every Monday and Thursday, I put out a little piece of a larger, bizarre quasi-narrative at A Strange Signal’s website. I promote it on Facebook and Twitter, and I have plans for a store. I write as often as I can, often times with a couple thousand words falling out of my hands at a time. It’s a different representation of the dream, but one I’ve been trying to kindle the fires of. Other friends are meeting with success at Smart Rhino, Oddity Prodigy, or in their NaNoWriMo sprints. I also have one of those Patreon things. I’d love to get more Patrons, so ‘Look At Me,’ sums it up right now.

Keep looking.

Because the art wants to get out.

November 16, 2018 0

Becoming Maurice

I wasn’t always Maurice. Well, I was, but I didn’t embrace it.

Let me explain.

I was born and promptly given my father’s name, which was also his father’s name. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. I was supposed to be Sean (or, if you were my sister, I was supposed to be Diggity Dog – and also a pony). Mom was knocked out on painkillers after going through a full-throttle natural birth, and dad was looking at me there in the nursery. At that moment, my father locked eyes with me and saw his father staring back at him. So, he signed the papers. And like that, I was a Third.

I’m stunned that my parents aren’t divorced.

It was done. My mother didn’t kill my father (though I’d say she had a right). The state had a name for me. A few days later, my sister and I both had Social Security Numbers (she was out of the system for several years). The heat died down on my father’s decision, and life resumed. It was kinda hard for me to remember being, you know, less than a year old.

I’m told by my mother that during those early years she did her level best to get my name established. She knew it would be a problem having two people with the same name in the house (she’ll still yell ‘SEAN!’ in frustration if she needs me to come running). But, it just… didn’t take. She tried my name in full in the beginning, then tried shortening it to ‘Reese.’

Ossua reese — Kinda dodged a bullet on that now that I think of it. My name already confuses enough people.

She eventually used my middle name as my dad and everyone else did. In fact, everyone who knows me from the long haul uses my middle name. Because, until recently, I did not embrace my first name. The reasons were varied, but the biggest was that my sister and cousin made fun of it. Pretty stupid, but there it is. Nothing wrong with the name. And honestly, it’s better than the name I use on the daily. Habit now, though – hard to change forty years of precedent. My daily people still use it. Probably always will, and I’m okay with that. The only people who regularly use my first name are doctors, lawyers, and human resources. We’re not usually happy to see each other.

When I started going after my creative work, though, I made a change. I realized that if I was going to have a career as a creative, my name is my brand. Furthermore, if you’re going to be weird as a part of a life goal with a public face, you might need to distance yourself from that personality so you can work during the day. So… here I am. Maurice Hopkins. Trip if you’re feeling froggy.

It feels to me lately that my life has changed in such fundamental ways that… I don’t always feel like my day-to-day name applies. As I spend more and more time as Maurice (though we’re basically the same person), there are things I say as Maurice than I would not by my day job name. I’m a Gemini. Guess it comes naturally if you believe in that kind of stuff (I generally don’t).

What I’ve discovered though is that Maurice has always been inside of me, waiting to go public. I never ever sign any artwork using my first name at all. Never had, not until Until A Strange Signal. It, and my fiction writing are the only thing to use ‘Maurice’ as my familiar name in public. I strain to think of any time my middle name was ever used for creative endeavors either. Initials at best, but usually just HOP3 in my trademark chicken scratch.

So, I guess I’ll lean into it. See what this Trip guy has going inside of him. Explore the world. Let the middle name handle the familiar daily stuff. But, you can call me Maurice. And, I guess, a Space Cowboy. Or the Gangster of Love. But only this once. Don’t make this whole thing any weirder than it already has to be.

September 4, 2018 0

IT’S HERE – A Strange Signal (and Patreon) Debuts today!

I’m going to make things weird.

Well, I’ve been quiet for a while. And it’s not been because I was incapacitated, kidnapped, or had nothing creative going. I’ve been quiet for many reasons, but chief among them was a brand new thing that has been a long time coming. I’ll let you have a look at what it all means, but in short, it’s a brand new project: A Strange Signal.

In short, it was an art project inspired by a tabletop game plot-creating technique: Go out; take pictures of things that strike you as weird, odd, or out of place; come up with ideas behind them for your game. After a sixteen-hundred-plus picture trip to San Francisco, it soon became apparent to me that this was not going to go into a game. Not because it wouldn’t work, but because there was so much content that I’d never get to use most of it due to the time it takes to get a game up and running, let alone to play it. Soon I had characters, nascent plots, and all manner of great stuff to get out of my skull and onto my computers. The ‘new project’ was born.

It was the kind of thing that just kept building up steam. I remember thinking that maybe this was just a phase. Let it run out. I couldn’t possibly keep this up. I went from making one or two a day to making four or five. They started piling up around me. Even when I hit snags and had to come up with better ways to make each piece – which I individually refer to as a ‘Signal’ – I just came up with faster ways to make better Signals. I’m fast approaching a hundred of them.

And people liked them. I’ve found that most people who viewed my past visual work never really had strong opinions on it. I’ll admit that it stung – I don’t think there was an artist born who didn’t basically want people to look at their work and feel not just something, but something that stirs you from the center of your being. We like that kind of attention. At least to the work if not ourselves (let’s be honest – it’s usually both). And when I started posting them on my personal Facebook page, I got exactly that.

This was the first project I think I’ve ever done where people started talking about the work. Asking me when the next one would come out. Questioning about what they meant and where it was all going. If it would be collected as a book. How they could buy it.

That last one? That has never happened to me before this. I’ve worked spec for commissions, sure. But this was different. This was something, unasked for, that people seemed to want more of once they saw it.

Between the interest and my own compulsion, I can’t just leave these Signals be. They wake me up in the middle of the night some time to be made. I’ve pulled over to the side of the road to get source images. I tweak each one that comes through until I can find the right way to make it as unique and quaintly unsettling as I can. The crazed idea beast is at work now. And I cannot shut it down.

So, now I’m here. I have started a Patreon for my new endeavor, and soon, I’ll be adding an Etsy store (TBA soon). It’s terrifying. I’ve never put myself out like this before, never felt I had an idea good enough or marketable enough to put my name and a price tag on. But, that was yesterday And this is today. And today is full of Magic. And it’s also got you, here. Reading this.

So, Head on over. See what it’s all about. Dive deep into a weird otherworld where dogs are our masters, you should legitimately fear the ocean (more), and where doors can’t be trusted. I think you’re going to like it.

Just never trust a magician. They’ll only break your heart. Or other things you can’t get back.

August 29, 2018 0

Creative Dispatch – Publication and Tabletop Gaming, January 22nd, 2018

The monthly creative dispatch updates continue! While I’ve been working smarter and harder on my day work, the creative stuff continues to roll out.

My novel in progress, Hack Job, is continuing to move along at an acceptable pace. I’m about ten chapters in, and just shy of seventeen thousand words. It appears to be on target for somewhere around seventy to one hundred thousand words with the content I want to fit into it. I feel that John Ferryman, the protagonist of my love letter to cyberpunk science fiction, may even have a couple of stories to tell beyond the main novel, though any full-length follow-up titles are likely to feature new main characters. We’ll see how that goes.

On other creative fronts, gaming is looking to possibly blow up this year. I gave my dad a copy of Cthulhu Confidential for Christmas. While he got the physical copy, I got the PDF. We’ll take turns GM-ing over the internet once he’s gone off to Arizona. It’s a pared down version of the Gumshoe rules meant for one player and one gamemaster. It should solve some of our problems for finding a group provided we both get around to reading the rules soon.

Additionally, the Starfinder module mentioned previously is about seventy-five percent completed. I have all of the encounters outlined, I know all of the supporting cast. My pre-generated characters are all ready. The starships are designed. It’s all written down in a usable format. Some last-minute monster design details remain. I even made a map! I have two potential playtest groups forming, with one ready to start as soon as next week.

I was also asked by a good friend to set up a fantasy game. She knows a group she lovingly refers to as her ‘tabletop virgins’. With that in mind, I suggested Pathfinder in order to DM a module I’ve always wanted to run: The Haunting of Harrowstone. It’s Ravenloft flavored, so naturally, it drew my eye when it was first released. If the players really like it, they can even continue. I have the entire six-part Carrion Crown adventure path that will take them from level one to level twenty!

Finally, I need to make a big announcement: a short story that I submitted last year is earmarked for publication! This happened almost six months ago and I didn’t want to say anything until I had a contract in hand, but I can’t hide this any longer! Things are slow to develop (which I’m told is the norm). I’ll let everyone know which story and what publication it will be in as soon as I hear more from the publisher!

January 22, 2018 0

Creative Dispatch – R.I.P. Bob, December 13th, 2017

So, way longer than anticipated since my last post, almost a month. My entrance into the gig economy plays a part as does taking care of an adorable dog. I’ve been trying to adjust to new realities, working the gigs, and spending time with family. But, I’ve also been creating again, and that’s left me little time to write about creating.

1998’s films are almost complete! Six more to go in the Personal Blockbuster categories. It’s a whopper – already looking at 4,000 words plus and that’s after removing a couple movies from the list when I realized I didn’t have enough to say about them.

Hack Job continues development too. It’s the first work I’ve done in which I’ve simultaneously had a critique group working with me as I produce it. It makes a big difference. The First Writes group has been instrumental in pointing out to me ways to tighten the work, make it more relevant, and to introduce me to dimensions of craft I didn’t pay much attention to – if I was aware of them at all. Possibly the biggest one is what we call ‘state change’. If a chapter doesn’t do something to change the status quo in even a small way… why are we using it?

I’ve also spent a lot of time reading. A lot of it is for reference – although enjoyment has been no small part of it. I’ve decided to go back to the cyberpunk era proper since Hack Job takes so much from it. Instead of rereading classics from my youth, I’ve decided to hit the ones I hadn’t read. I’d missed Russo’s ‘Carlucci’ novels. I’d missed Pat Cadigan’s ‘Synners.’ I’d missed Wilhemina Baird’s books. I’m starting to catch up now, to get the different flavors of cyberpunk. While Cyberpunk is technically a ‘dead’ genre, its back catalog will keep me busy for years.

Additionally, I’ve done a deep dive into Paizo’s ‘Starfinder’ roleplaying game. I have missed greatly the ability to have a schedule stable enough for gaming. A friend of mine, separated by significant distance now, re-introduced me to Dungeons and Dragons in its fourth reincarnation. Amongst the many other things I gleaned from it, I found a gaming format that you can really bust down into small components if you don’t have time for a giant game. The dungeon delve was a good option then, though the group (like most groups – and my own preference) opts for longer format stories on a schedule compatible with nine to six jobs. But, you can opt out of that if you want for a roleplaying-light, heavy-tactical kind of game. Starfinder seems to be a way to do that or to find a weird, juddering medium road. I’ve read through the core rules, the alien archive, the Starfinder RPG Guild materials. I think I have enough to work with, and I’ve completed a scenario. It even has a map which let me flex my Adobe skills a little! With a little luck, good timing, and some Roll20 access, this could all work out. Maybe even help me reconnect with some of those far-off friends on an irregular basis. I could use that right now.

And lastly, I spent some time thinking about my first manuscript. ‘The Many Labors of Bob’ took a long time to write. Twelve years in fact. It started in 1999 after I had worked my first corporate office job. It was completed in 2010 after having spent eight years in the trenches of an office environment, and several years learning more and more about Greek Mythology. I’m glad I wrote it… but it’s time for me to put it to bed. It’s been seven years. I haven’t put any work into editing it. Working on it puts me in a bad place. It drew from a lot of hard times, a lot of lessons learned. It injected the whimsy and fantasy I wish my own life might have. But… it’s not to be. At least not right now. I’m trunking it. Those who have read it, I give you my thanks. It was a bloated, weird, first shot at writing something long form. I just don’t think it has legs enough for me to ever finish it, let alone sell it. So, for right now, sayonara, Bob. I wish you godspeed (which you kind of already had).

And that’s all I have for right now. I’ll see everyone soon – hopefully, faster than a month).

December 13, 2017 0