Harlequin

High above the hustle and bustle of his carnival, Harlequin sat slumped in his colourful throne, gazing at the moon. 

"Solomooon," he whined and turned his masked face - a grimace of despair - towards the raven perched on the armrest. "I'm ever so bored." 

The raven cawed, as ravens are wont to do, and picked a loose thread out of Harlequin's ruffled sleeve. The sound of firecrackers and children's laughter reached his prison, and, not for the first time, he struggled violently against the irons that shackled him to his throne. He let out a frustrated scream before falling silent.

Pretty Pictures

I urge you to visit http://ironicallydelicious.blogspot.com/, an art blog by my friend Francis. It has some very pretty pictures.

The Mine

I will try to update this here blog every day from now on. I will be posting one story - each of them 101 words long - every day of the week. Here goes nothing.

What little courage he'd had at the beginning of his descent was long gone by the time he and his team had reached the bottom of the mineshaft. They'd lost a man on the way down. To his merit, he never screamed as he fell. There was a scraping sound, a surprised intake of breath and the fluttering sound of a body plummeting into the darkness below. The rest of them - Dox, Rainwell, Moore and himself – had clung to their respective places on the walls in silence until they were sure none of the cave's inhabitants had been awakened. 

Self-important rambling

As a writer, I have an enemy. A nemesis, if you will, who insists on sabotaging my increasingly rare creative outbursts. Let's call him Steve. Steve is self-doubt incarnate. Steve is the voice in my head that whispers “No, what you're doing is wrong.” whenever I start writing. “People will think less of you if they read it,” he says. “Why not do something else to take your mind off it? Play some video games, perhaps?”

Steve is kind of a dick.

I know perfectly well that was Steve tells me is a pile of manure. I know that it doesn't matter what random internet people think of me or my writing. I didn't start this blog to gain fame and fortune. I started it to get better at writing. I'm well aware of my shortcomings, and that I still have many years to go before I can start resembling anything like a proper writer. But I'll never get there if I don't practice, Steve.

Furthermore, I am becoming increasingly sure that enabling ads was a bad idea. I find myself constantly checking my pageviews and how many people have clicked on my ads. Suddenly, it's become about the money. I don't want it to be about the money. 

Remember back in the days? When I first started posting? I was sure I'd post a story every single day. It quickly changed to 5 days a week. Then at least 3 days a week. At least once a week. And now, I realize that I'm updating for the wrong reasons. I'm updating to get more views. More money. More internet fame. Enough, I say! No more ads, no more fishing for hits. I write because I love writing, and It's time I started to act accordingly.

On a lighter, less stupid note: Short people.

Poem, I say.

So here's something different. Poetry. I've never written a poem before, but this is all about learning and experimenting, so here goes nothing. (It should be noted that I wrote this at four in the morning, where reality and wishful thinking have a tendency to flow together. I might wake up tomorrow and realize that what I have wrought is nothing short of an abomination). 

He comes from the darkness that connects humanity.
His grin flashes hidden dreams and razor-edged wishes.

A man in robes of shrouded clarity.

Arms spread, he locks us apart in our mind's niches.

In your mind rings ”eye for eye, tooth for tooth”.

You think yourself a virtue of diligence.

He will embrace you and whisper his truth:

”Lo, my name is ignorance.”

Edit: In retrospect, this was stupid and pretentious. Just ignore this whole post.  

Ninjas, Politicians and Gunslingers

The custom drawings I got from Christopher Hastings when I bought the first three Dr. McNinja books. For those curious, it's Dan McNinja, John C. Calhoun and Roland Deschain.

Thoughts

As I'm writing this, I have three stories - and possible books - floating around in my head. The first one - Zeke and Ugly Jack - you've already read part of. I'm still trying to figure out the setting (and everything else, for that sake), but at the moment it's something like this: a dark, dystopian near future. A war between Europe and the US has ravaged the world, both economically and ecologically. The oceans are mostly filled with oil, and any countries still up and running are sheltered behind walls and guns. Great Britain is one of the few countries where civilized society still reigns true. Barely. It is a crime-ridden slum ruled by equal part organised crime, over-eager politicians and police officers, all of which want to control the island. Zeke and Ugly Jack are two small time crooks, working odd jobs for whoever will hire them. I'm still not sure if they're the main characters, but they're certainly major ones. Mezzofinelli, one of the many assassins roaming the world, was raised on the streets. He's proud of his skills, and rightfully so.

The second story is the one I'm most hesitant about. It was a dream I had approximately six months ago, and - as dreams often are - the story was confusing and often nonsensical, but I will try to explain it as best I can. The story is set in feudal Japan. It's a beautiful spring morning, and two men are walking along a largely empty street in a small village. One is tall and serious-looking (heavily inspired by Toshiru Mifune, I'm sure) and the other is short, fat and merry-looking. His cheeks are round and red, and he carries a multitude of katanas in brightly-colored sheaths. He is some kind of festive katana salesman, I guess? The tall man carries a katana approximately 7 feet long. This is where the story gets a little... hazy. The two men - as yet unnamed - somehow get into some trouble. The local crimelord, a small girl (who is some kind of demon, apparently), want them both dead, and they flee the village, the girl's hired thugs in hot pursuit. Later, they arrive at a city. Its walls and buildings are made from some kind of pale, beige rock, and the architecture is middle eastern in appearance. There, the tall man fights some guy on a roof and - here the dream got a little trippy - falls through a portal. He appears on a busy street in modern day Copenhagen. Here, the evil demon girl shows up along with some red alligator-looking demon motherfuckers. The evil alligators have an epic fight with tall samurai man while evil demon girl hurls black and purple balls of fire at him. So, yeah. Still working on figuring that one out.

The third and final story is an autobiography of an evil henchman. You know the sort. A secret lair and a bomb big enough to cover New York in scalding hot chocolate fudge is all well and good for an Evil Genius, but if you really want to take over the world, you need some Evil Henchmen. The foottroops of any moderne villain. The ones that pilots your stealth-bomber, hijacks the train and kidnaps damsels, thereby putting them in distress. A single punch will knock them out cold, they are dumb as a pile of bricks and they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Or so the stereotype goes. But the main character (still working on the name) tells the true story of Evil Henchmen. They work in much the same way as private security firms, except, y'know, more "evil". Except, that's the thing: they're not evil. Sure, some of them aren't the most sympathetic guys in the world, but most of them are just regular guys with a wife and kids. The pay is good, they get dental, and in these hard times - with the recession and all - a guy's gotta take any job he can. I've never tried writing anything in first person, but the premise really appeals to me. I might give this a go for the next update.