This is seeming like a very good idea right now, although I acknowledge even my usual judgement may be impaired (apparently, having eight hours sleep in three days gives me a headache). I have decided it's time to put my words where my mouth is.

I'm going to include two fragments from two different stories I wrote going on a year ago now.


MAYBE I HAVE USED SOME BAD WORDS I DON'T REALLY REMEMBER BUT THIS IS PROBABLY GOING TO BE AT LEAST A LITTLE BIT GROWN UP BECAUSE I AM A MASSIVE PERVE AND THINGS TEND TO END UP THAT WAY AROUND ME OKAY?

Breach for Breach

The pencil scratched across the clean page, deftly copying down the spidery script from the heavy tome.

Salt is of the Earth and belongs to the Earth. It is the cause of much fear in otherworldly creatures as it shows the strength of the bond between the Earth and her creatures. Indeed, such is the power of salt that no otherworldly creature shall be found crossing a circle of it making it a powerful preventative measure.

Slowly the young lady arched back from the table, rolling her shoulders. She brought her fingers up to her eyes, rubbing at the bridge of her nose and let out a jaw-cracking yawn. She dropped her pencil on her notebook and closed the old book carefully. She started when she heard the door open. Her face became a mask of grimness and she slowly turned her chair to face the intruder of her room.

“Hey, Alana,” Audrey said brightly.

Alana scowled as the blonde girl entered without asking. “Who let you in?”

“Oh, your mom said I could come up,” Audrey answered. “So, how've you been?”

Alana rolled her eyes. “Oh, absolutely fantastic,” she snapped. “Having the time of my life.”

A wounded expression crossed the other girl's face and she made her way to sit on the end of Alana's bed. “No need to get snippy,” she said with a quiver in her voice. She continued in a forced tone, “Have you thought about what college you want to apply to?”

Alana felt a familiar rage spiral up in her chest, threatening to choke her in its intensity. Her voice was level, cold and hard. “Wherever has wheelchair access, I imagine.”

The dark girl felt a bitter twist when she saw Audrey's hurt. “You don't have to be so mean,” the blonde said. Her eyes gleamed wetly.

“I didn't ask you to come here. I don't want you here. You're fucking pathetic, Audrey, and I don't want to waste my time talking to you.”

The blonde didn't reply, hurtling from the room with tears trailing down her face. Alana quivered, her fists clutching at her chair. Her anger and bitterness were lodged in her throat. Her pulse pounded in her ears. Her eyes were squeezed shut. Her breath rasped raggedly. For an instant she was in the movie theatre again, could feel her legs again, feel the searing pain of-

“You shouldn't chase all your friends away,” her father's gravelly voice brought her back to reality. Part of her hated him for it.

“Sure,” she replied. “Forbid the only way I can chase anyone ever again.”

Her father's soft brown eyes looked at her softly, compassionately, pityingly. Suddenly, she couldn't take it and spun her chair around and stared out the window intensely. She felt his broad, warm hand on her shoulder and she tensed.

“They'll be there for you, if you let them,” he said quietly. “They can help you.”

She savagely turned her chair, glaring at her father. “Tell me, Dad, which one of them can make me walk again? Because it sure as hell isn't you.”

He sighed . “Don't do this, Ally.”

Her lip curled. “Or what? You'll ground me? Send me off to military school? Forbid me from going to gymnastics training?” She bared her teeth. “Gee, Dad, I think you're going to have trouble punishing me.”

“I don't want to punish you, Ally.” He shook his head. “I just wish you didn't want to punish yourself.”

Her eyes widened. “Get out,” she growled. He didn't move. “GET OUT!”



Rite of Passage

My name's Noah, and I'm a demon.

Okay, so I'm a half-demon. Still, that's more demon than you are. Unless you're a demon. Or another half-demon. Or some sort of fraction-demon where the fraction is higher than one half. But still, y'know, I'm a demon and I think that's kinda cool. I certainly think being a demon should have more pull with the ladies. Here's a free tip; telling the ladies you're a demon in the sack does not, I repeat, NOT impress them like it should. They run off screaming if you prove it's literally true, too.

Of course, being a demon isn't as great as I'd hoped. I mean, it might be. I wouldn't really know. I don't have any powers. I don't think. You see, I haven't been a demon very long. That's not true. I've been a demon for eighteen years. I just haven't known I was a demon until about a week ago.

How could I have known? The only sign I could have possibly had was my incredible sexiness. Normal childhood. Me and Mom and Alice all in the one house, Dad off living in Cleveland. We saw him every couple of weeks and Mom and Dad usually managed to not start clawing each others eyes out like rabid howler monkeys every time they saw each other, so we usually managed. Plus, divorced parents means two sets of presents for Christmas and birthdays. Let me just say cha-ching.

My eighteenth birthday will always stand out in my memory, though. Not because of the presents because those sucked. I didn't even get a new Xbox. And my parents said they loved me. Pah. No, my eighteenth birthday will always stand out because I had an Adventure, one that didn't include trying to get into the ventilation ducts so I could reconnoitre the girls' locker room.

Unfortunately, Adventures aren't all beer and skittles. At least not the ones I seem to have.


Feel free to adore me, now.

I just started laughing insanely when I read 'wheelchair'.

I actually said it explicately in that version? Must have been an earlier one.

"wheelchair access"

I just laughed.

Oh, the dialogue. Right.

Yeah, way back when I had planned to finish the story, Ally had a lot of amusing lines. She's a bitter, funny person. Realistically, of the two stories that have bits here, hers is the story I'm more likely to continue.

It's just not a big likelihood.

You should continue your writing, it shows natural talent that's only likely to improve.

I didn't stop writing, per se. I just tend to abandon stories when another concept grasps me. Besides, both of those technically fall into fanfiction because they were set in another author's world. I got tired of using the crutch that I find fanfiction represents, but original fiction meets with a much reduced potential reader base.

I only ever wrote prolifically in two situations; 1) When my fanbase was large and complimentary (at my peak, I was getting between 10 and 25 reviews for every chapter of a story) and 2) When I had a particular and devoted fan needling me for the next installment.

It seems the best thing to overcome my apathy was my ego. It's all very poetic.

I know how you feel. Our creativity tends to be the cause and destruction of our work.

I don't really write for my benefit. I write to gain more adulation. If I don't get it, I content myself with constructing the story mentally without putting it down on paper. The only stories I ever finished were the most popular ones I had at the time. If I had been putting three hours into a readable chapter, I wanted suitable response. I stopped writing for most of a year because the one person I'd been relying on for that ego boost and I had a falling out.

Then I didn't write anything at all for months. Then I made a cursory effort but I didn't want to use an old pseudonym and a new one doesn't have an established reader base of people who like your style, so I fell out of the habit. I've been considering getting back in the habit of writing in the next few weeks, but how much than pans out will depend on my Can Be Bothered levels.

Well, I'll read you work and pamper to your ego.

Funny, I liked the demon one better. I liked them both though. Isn't it interesting that so many us have stories to share? You know, ones that are fairly good or at least decent. All our weirdness makes sense now, artists are always a little loopy.

Noah is a self-absorbed, narcissistic, shallow ball of self love. What's not to like?

You forgot to say if he was good looking. Yes, it matters. Who would love a self-absorbed, narcisstic, shallow ball of self-love if he was an ugly twisted little man....But if he's hot, it's all good.

His successes with the ladies, or more pointedly his lack of same, has less to do with his looks than his flaky and oblivious personality. His best friend doesn't really help matters, either.

Writing can be pretty hard if you just have too many ideas and nowhere to put them. Or the opposite is also true.

Neither of those is ever the problem for me.

I just fake it until it's true. Like honesty, really.

I love the demon one i like how the words just flow and for some reason it reminds mme of Peirs Anthony work maybe its the wit
great work hope to see more

Ok, i must admit i was skeptical when i first started reading the first blurp. But i must say, once it got to the whole dad part, i really got into it. So much emotion, i can taste it and i want more. You have to post more of it, or something, i cant take it.

Wait...so Noah = House?

Will you be posting more?

I was a little scared to read at first, but it's not too bad. I kinda deal with the same problem of having too many ideas and concepts to keep up with one at a time. I probably couldn't make more than 2 handwritten pages before moving on...

If you do write more, post it here. I'm intrigued.

Great, now I want to get back into my Halo writings.

I like the first paragraph of the demon bit.

I'm a fraction demon, but not above half.

He doesn't have a limp and doesn't have sexy, sexy stubble. Also, he's more goofy than he is devestatingly insightful. And he's not misanthropic at all.


Yeah, lot of third generation hybrids are less than half.

Double post. Reported.

More of Noah's tale because I had it lying around.


I hate waking up. My eyes hurt. It feels like I've swallowed my tongue and vomited it back into my mouth. My face is plastered to my pillow by a thick coating of spit. Gross. It almost makes me glad that Jenny Fletcher doesn't see me in the mornings, because I'm not even looking like half the sexy beast that I usually am. Then again, my room is so tiny that for her to see me in the morning, she'd practically have to be in bed with me. Now there's a nice image.

“Get up, doofus!”

Ah, the dulcet tones of my fifteen year old sister, Alice. It would be remiss of me to let pass tradition of years just because I'd turned eighteen. I hurled my pillow with an accuracy born of years of practice.

“Uh, there's slobber on it!” she wailed. “What are you, a dog?”

My pounding head didn't need this. “I'm naked under this blanket and I'm getting up.”

She made a choking sound as she backed away from my room. Such a darling. Only now I was out a pillow. Crap. Ah, well. It was probably time to get up anyway. I woodenly hauled myself out of bed and went through my pile, looking for some pants. As I pulled out a pair of jeans I wondered how anybody could think that I'm unorganised. I mean, I always know where my clothes are. They're in the pile. Somewhere. I think.

I padded my way into the bathroom and fumbled with the toothpaste. Alice always squeezes it from the top. She does it to spite me. Everybody knows you squeeze from the bottom to maximise your toothpaste to effort ratio. Eventually I undid the damage the little harpy had done to the toothpaste and began brushing my teeth. Mmm, minty.

While I scrubbed, I inspected my morning's growth. Truly sad. A sparse scattering of very, very black hairs. Not enough to look like a beard but too many to go without shaving. It clearly fell in the range of pathetic. I wish I could either grow a beard or none at all. I feel like an idiot shaving off the thirteen or so hairs that grow every few days.

My sleep-dulled fingers dropped my shaver. With a groan, I gripped my toothbrush with my teeth, bent down to pick up the razor and I bumped my head on the basin. Ouch. This was not an auspicious morning. I blinked woozily, rubbed my forehead. I looked up in the mirror and saw something completely alien looking back at me.

Before I got a good look, the towel I was standing on decided to slide across the tiles, cracking my head on the floor painfully. White spots danced in front of my eyes. I carefully rose to my feet. I surreptitiously checked the mirror but everything seemed normal, familiar. My usual smouldering brown eyes. My delightfully sleep-ruffled brown hair brushed my ears. Rows of even, squared white teeth gleamed in the morning light. My prominent nose with its barely noticable crookedness merely accentuated the god-like perfection of the rest of my face.

Weird. I spat out the toothpaste, rinsed my brush and splashed water in my eyes.

By the time I slipped on my shirt and ambled into the kitchen I was already forgetting the incident in the bathroom. Obviously I hit my head harder than I first thought. Mom was shuffling around. The aroma of bacon was slowly flooding the house. Roasted pig had no right to smell so appetising, coming from such an evil little creature as it did. I collapsed into a chair heavily and buried my wounded skull in the crook of my elbow.

“It's about time you woke up,” Mom observed, sounding more cheerful than I'd heard her in a week.

I grunted.

She pressed a kiss into the back of my head and ruffled my hair, ruining its tousled perfection. Just great. “Happy birthday, Noah.”

I shifted enough to look at her balefully – hair ruffling, along with spit-cleaning cheeks, is the bane of sons everywhere – but managed to ask the important question. “What did you get me?”

She smiled and waggled a finger in my direction. “Ah, ah, ah. It's a surprise.”

Mom always had good surprises. I perked a little. “Is it a stripper?”

Mom laughed and shook her head. I sighed as she took a couple of eggs out of the fridge to make me a birthday omelette.

“This day just gets better and better,” I muttered. “First the freak wakes me up, then I hit my head before finding out I don't even get a stripper for my birthday.”

“You want your mother to hire you a stripper? Isn't that 'uncool'?” You could almost feel the air quotes.

“You taught me humility, Mother,” I informed her. “I'm not so proud I'd turn down a stripper if my mother hired it for me. It would be rude to return a gift.”

“What about that sweater I bought you last year? You took that back twenty minutes later!”

“Yeah, but that was hideous.”

She sighed resignedly. “Your father called.”

“Did he get me a stripper?”

I got a dirty look for that one. “He left a message. He's got business for the rest of the week, but he's going to come and take you out for a weekend to do guy stuff.”

I tapped out a simple beat on the table top and mulled this over. “Strippers,” I concluded happily. I think I literally heard Mom roll her eyes.

“You're too young for strippers.”

“You're only saying that because you remember the good old days when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I'm not old.”

I grinned. “All your grey hairs say differently.”

“Oh, so you're not interested in eating today?”

“Hey, did I say they made you look old? That's not what I meant.”

“No?”

“Of course not. They make you look... distinguished.” That one didn't work. “Uh, well-travelled?” The frown got deeper, and I'm not sure but I think she may have been gripping a knife just where I couldn't see. “Sexually attractive to males and females of all ages?” I hazarded.

She heaved a sigh and shook her head slowly. “You're lucky it's your birthday, or I'd have to kill you for that.”

She juggled the pans and plates and then dropped a birthday omelette in front of me, extra cheese and extra onions – just the way I like 'em.

“Now this is a reason to get out of bed,” I grinned before devouring the meal.

Mom seated herself opposite me and just stared at me. This sort of mom activity always bothered me because it led to weeping about how her wittle boy was all grown up and that sort of thing cramps my style. That sort of thing cramps anyone's style. Only, the tears didn't come. This was a bad sign – if the tears don't come now they might be coming later and later could be embarassing.

“Let me guess,” I mumbled through a mouthful of egg. Hey, don't judge me! It was a good omelette. “You're all choked up because your boy is growing up.”

I guess I startled her or something, because she jumped at the sound of my voice. Which was weird. Mom didn't usually space on me. Her mouth opened a few times in false starts before she finally said something. I gotta say, it wasn't what I expected it would be.

“Jonah isn't your father.”

I blinked slowly. My fork hit the plate with a loud clatter. “What?”

She hesitated and gripped my hand on top of the table. “I want you to know that we both love you just the same as we always have.”

I pulled my hand out of her grip. “Am I adopted?”

Her face was full of anguish but I really didn't care. “No.”

“You cheated on Dad?”

She fidgeted around in the chair, twisting her hands. “Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?” I asked incredulously. I was furious. “As I understand it, sex isn't something you accidentally do when you bump into someone in the DMV line!”

“It wasn't like that.”

“Did you love him?”

“What?”

“The guy you cheated on Dad with,” I clarified. “Did you love him?”

“No,” she emphatically replied. “I only loved your father.”

I felt like I was standing on sand that was rapidly falling away. In under two minutes I'd gone from a much loved child from a since-divorced married couple to the bastard lust child of an adulterous mother. “Why didn't you tell me?”

She was obviously in pain. A small part of me was viciously glad. “I couldn't find a good time.”

“So you pick my birthday?!”

“I'm sorry, Noah.”

“Wow, now it's all better. Thanks for that apology, Mom. Without it I might have been a little upset.”

“There's more.”

“What? Do I have cancer?”

She took a deep breath. “Your father was a demon.”

“What?”

“He was a demon.”

I shook my head. I couldn't believe it. It was ridiculous. Impossible. But I did know I couldn't stay in the same room as her for even a second longer than I had to. “I can't handle this.”

“Where are you going?”

I didn't answer her. She probably knew. There was only one place I would have been going. The one place I always found some perspective.

Chris' house.

Spyder- Tease. Right when its gets interesting...you leave us wanting.

Yeah, I'm bad for that. I have a real tendency to just stop my story fragments when it hits a point where a break fits. This is often a cliffhanger or a really incomplete break.

I'm not a huge one for closure.

Still, this is one of the few stories where I actually remember what was happening and what was going to happen so if my ego is stoked, I'll probably churn out the last two thirds of this one. The other one, I'll want to redo bits of before I consider finishing it. I'm uncomfortable with the transitions I make in that one. Very little connecting scenes. It seems jarring.

LOVE CHILD...love child, never ment to beeeee....

Maybe it's intense frustration and despair, but I don't understand that reference.

Ah, yes, the standard emo-ness of a bored soul who decides to take a stab at writing. To be completely honest, I very nearly slit my wrists at the first italic part. That needed work. Lots of work. This is better though. MUCH MUCH better. Aside from some strained conversation bits - I sympathize, dialogue is hard at times - it was interesting. The main character is either very self-centred and self-absorbed (which I would place my bets on) or you have an interesting way of describing him.

Either way, you get half a cookie. Mostly because it tasted good and I ate the other half.

Whoa-oh. Once a good writer goes into fantasy-land, that's usually a bad thing. The minute you mentioned "demon" alarm bells were ringing in my mind. See, what I'm reading in your fiction are subtle hints towards the Bible, which leads me to presume a slightly Biblical theme. Well, not subtle, but glaring. Anyway. If you're going into that category, please crack open a Bible to get to the whole battle in Heaven thing. Facts you might want to get straight are that Satan doesn't have horns, a tail, or a pitchfork, his name is Lucifer Morningstar the Angel of Light; when sinners die, they don't go to Hell, they need to be judged by God first in Heaven; angels don't have wings, SERAPHS have wings; and finally, angels aren't God's creation, they've existed with Him since the beginning of time.

I'd hate to insult your intelligence if you already know this. Props by the way, for getting that demons were once angels that loved women at one point and chose to follow Lucifer into his war against God.

All this is just a post to hopefully dissuade you from possibly driving this fic into the ground with a few stereotypical fact-bases.

(Facts on Lucifer for the woefully ignorant - Satan means "enemy" in Hebrew, Devil is merely a title that Lucifer took up, the archangel Michael opens up a can of whoop-ass on Lucifer at the end-times, and I think Jesus calls Lucifer "Lucy" whenever he comes to chat with God in Heaven.)

Methinks you're getting your Bible and your Milton a bit mixed.

You know I keep meaning to crack open my bible but wow, someone has been taking some religious studies.

I can only guess (because I'm too lazy to check which part was the first italic part) but if it's the one I think it is, it wasn't supposed to be good. It was an idea I was toying with where it was a poor translation of a pretentious 15th century French guy.


Actually, you missed where that was heading completely. There was no Heaven/Hell battle, or any discussion about the morality of one born tainted or any of that noise.

It was originally a Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel the Series fanfiction. Anybody who's seen that, it has taken a very silent stance on God/Satan and things of a directly religious nature.


I know I do. All that wacky fiction.

There is no reference to the birth of Satan/Lucifer in the Bible. All information is contrasted by our ignorance of the socially accepted "truths" of the day. People have written theses tens of thousands of words in length based on a handful of words used in one translation of the Bible over another. Now you know.

And knowing is half the battle!

Am I the only one ethat went "GI-Joe!" out loud after reading that?

I know, I was responding to darkdragonh8's post, wherein he made several errors that you also pointed out.



Not even a little bit.

DUMBDE DUM DUM
DUM DE DUM DUM DUM

Triforceelf say: Give me more or I rip your eyeballs out. (You dont need those to type right?)

Goody, then it clears the mine-field. And I don't think I made any errors; more like assumptions. I hate to begin a book/story only to be irked by a slight misconception or incongruance in the text, so I tried to avert any such thunder-heads that my come up.

A really good story, too. Verbose has the story-teller voice going on, with great attention-grabbers and content that relates to much of modern-day culture.

Some more, please.

I do sincerely hope not. If you were, I missed my audience completely.


Only to avoid typing my left hand one set of keys to the right making all my sentences complete gibberish.


They like me! They really like me!




I may be able to slap something together. The universe has been caving under the pressure of my willpower and I may have a domicile within the week. Well, actually a week from today.

How about becoming less of a recluse and go back to your old posting self. Im bored.

the first bit: not so hot. The dialogue was a bit unatural and frankly all the descriptions were horribly cliche. I've read them eight hundred times before.
The second bit: better, flowed easier. A lot more real with a lot more originality. I haven't read the big long bit but maybe I will when I have more time, as long as its not like the first bit.

ok, started the third bit, much better

Okay, quick comment here on my behalf.

I don't remember and am too lazy to keep checking when I posted what bits. I wrote those about six months ago (from memory) and it's more helpful if you mention what happened in the fragment you read.

Wheelchair-girl was written in a different style to my usual with a departure from my usual themes and so it may suffer as a result.

Noah was a departure in style and perspective and so may have suffered as a result.

It's just not helpful to tell me one was bad, one was okay and the other was good. I need to know which and, preferably, how they're good and bad.