A Festivus Miracle

While it is a couple of days past the December 23rd, Seinfeld-created holiday of Festivus, I still count a new entry to be a minor miracle. Another miracle is the content.

I talked a long, long time ago (feels like a galaxy far away) about one of my other writing projects, a zombie story that takes place during Romeo and Juliet (though barely featuring the titular characters). It does not, at least in any significant way, overwrite events of the Shakespeare play, but instead takes some of the supporting cast and lines from the play to create a new story and help explain some gaps in the plot of the original (Benvolio, a character with a decent amount of lines and ties to Romeo, disappears during Act III, never to be seen again).

It has probably been 2-3 years since I've done any significant work on the story (I know, probably best not to admit that). The story itself is...fleshed out (a bad pun that didn't work very well. Sorry), and I was in the fourth draft or so of editing. The one thing that I could never nail down was a sonnet that was both a parody of R&J's that incorporates the walking dead and sets up the story.

However, with the time past, it's hard for me to get down the same voice and tone that I used. So, anyway, enough babbling and time to get to the point. Without much further ado, here's the first chapter of A Plague Upon Thee. Enjoy (and if anyone requests it, I can put up a .pdf or other file format so it can be read properly on e-readers and tablets):

Chapter One - "In Fair Verona Where We Lay Our Scene…"

"I am hurt

A plague o' both your houses! I am sped.

Is he gone, and hath nothing."

"No, ‘tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a

church-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask for

me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I

am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o'

both your houses! 'Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a

cat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a

rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of

arithmetic! Why the devil came you between us? I

was hurt under your arm."

"Help me into some house, Benvolio,

Or I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses!

They have made worms' meat of me: I have it,

And soundly too: your houses!"

Romeo shielded his eyes from the blinding, mid-afternoon sun. Sweat mixed with dirt and blood as he watched Benvolio, his stick of a cousin, gather their wailing friend under his arm and shuffle off towards the nearest dwelling, leaving Romeo startled and bewildered in the streets.

"A plague o' both your houses!"

The words bounced inside Romeo's head. Dropping to his knees, he ran his hands through his shaggy, dusty brown hair, his eyes like those of a wounded, cornered animal. The blood of his friend made his hair stick up in crusty, copper tuffs. Something warm and sticky touched his midsection. Pools of crimson gathered on his shirt. His hands flew under the cloth and searched his stomach for a wound. Finding none, his hands returned to pulling his hair as though he could somehow decipher what had happened by pulling it out of his scalp.

"Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm."

Mercutio had been run through by a sword. Mercutio! Romeo's best friend and a kinsman to the Prince. With eyes bulging like a bloated corpse, his hands clasped over his mouth.

Oh! The prince is going to be pissed!

Benvolio struggled up the crumbling, yellow stone steps and crashed against a decayed, yet deceptively heavy, wooden door. Pain exploded in his shoulder and he let out a sharp hiss as he stumbled. He was no doctor, but he thought he might have separated his shoulder, all in his effort not to jostle his injured friend. Tears welled up in his eyes and he shifted his weight to hold onto Mercutio.

"Just hold on, Mercutio," Benvolio said. "We'll get you inside and your boy will be back with a surgeon before you know it. You'll be fine. Everything will be just fine."

That last bit was just as much to reassure himself as it was for Mercutio.

Mercutio gasped into Benvolio's ear. Mercutio was already dead, and he knew it. It was just a matter of time until his body caught on.

The door opened, a wrinkled woman peered out from the doorway. With fear wrought eyes, the elderly woman looked the visitors up and down, nodded, and opened the door to let them enter.

"A plague…" Mercutio choked out through chapped lips. The old woman stepped aside to let them pass. Benvolio looked left and right for a place to put down his friend. The house was dimly lit, the only source of a light, a small candle in the hand of the old woman. Benvolio took a couple of steps inside and stopped. His eyes needed to adjust. To the left, behind the old woman, was the home's bedchamber. In the waning light, he could make out stain covered sheets. The very thought of being draped in such filth made him gag.

"Hrm?" Benvolio asked. "What's that?"

"A plague on both your houses…"

"The plague?" the old woman asked. "He doesn't have the Black Death, does he?"

"Of course not," Benvolio said. He lifted Mercutio's hand to reveal the fountain of blood pouring out from his friend's gut. The woman clasped her hands over her mouth. Benvolio pushed Mercutio's hands back to his stomach. The lanky blond coughed and hissed.

"A plague…"

Benvolio attempted a wry grin, to little success. Not only was his friend very quickly bleeding to death, but said blood was getting all over his clothes, and everyone knows how hard it is to get blood stains out of anything.

"You keep saying that, but you forget I am a member of the house of Montague. And I have never done a thing to harm you," Benvolio said. "Or anyone for that matter."

The slender blond man continued to gasp and wheeze as the pair was led to a stone table in the middle of a sparse living area.

"You can set him there," the woman said. She motioned to the table, put down her candle and, with a sweep of her arm, cleared the table of her belongings.

The candle was knocked on its side, bathing the house in an eerie, flickering glow.

"A plague…"

*Cough*

"A plague…"

*Cough*

"He keeps repeating that. What does it mean?"

"He blames the feud between the Montagues and Capulets for his current predicament."

"Oh. Seems to be more serious th'n that, way he keeps prattling on about this plague. You're sure he don't have the plague now, does he?"

Benvolio shook his head. His cocoa brown hair swayed gently with each turn.

"No, he does not." He frowned. "At least I don't think so."

"Good. ‘Cause if he did…"

Benvolio didn't know how to respond to that, so he just nodded along in agreement, lest he make the old coot angry.

"Ben…Benvolio…" Mercutio choked out. Benvolio remembered he was carrying his friend, felt the warm blood on his skin and gasped out a quick apology. In his haste, he dumped the body onto the cold, gray table.

The body landed with a thud, one arm fell over the side, the other still pressed to his stomach in a poor attempt to keep as much life fluid and entrails inside.

"Sorry," Benvolio muttered. Mercutio managed to twist his mouth into a smile.

"I wouldn't worry." Mercution forced a smile. "Not like it'll make me deader."

Even at death's door, Mercutio cracked jokes. He coughed again and blood erupted from his mouth.

The housekeeper, as the old woman must have been, as it was inconceivable for women to own property, gasped in horror and clasped her hands over her mouth to keep herself from shrieking. Her eyes looked like two ripe grapes ready to burst.

"Shouldn't…shouldn't be long now..."

"Oh, Mercutio," Benvolio said, looking pitifully at his dying friend.

With an unexpected surge, Mercutio thrust his arm from his wound, which had stopped overflowing, to grasp Benvolio by the collar, blood smudging against cloth.

"I didn't forget."

The light from the candle burned Mercutio's smile into his brain. Mercutio laid back down on the table, wheezed once, sputtered out another, "a plague," and then was gone.

Horrified, Benvolio looked down at his bloody, soiled clothes as though the devil himself had just laid his hands upon them. This will never come out now!

"Well. That was something."

Without so much a second thought, Benvolio spun around to address the old woman, who stood unmoving, her mouth agape and unchanged from the moment blood first spurted from Mercutio's mouth.

"I must go tell young Romeo what has happened."

"But what about him?"

She pointed to Mercutio's bloody corpse.

"I shall return for the body momentarily. I must tell Romeo that Mercutio is no more."

Before the old bat could raise another protest, Benvolio had gone. The current left in his wake blew out the candle. The house was now completely dark and as silent as the tomb, which, technically, it kind of was.

Out in the blinding sun, Benvolio stumbled down the steps and fell down onto the street.

"Oomph!"

Great. Now I have dirt and blood on my clothes. Can this day get any worse?

The sun was still high and bright in the Verona sky, exactly where it had been before. Though it had seemed like an eternity, the passing of Mercutio had taken no more than five minutes.

Turning the corner, Benvolio saw that Romeo was still exactly where he had left him; on his knees, crying like a little girl.

Jeez! What a whiny little woman! Is there anything that won't make Romeo break down and cry? His cousin looked up and watched him with bloodshot eyes. Oh, he sees me approaching. Better pretend to show some concern.

"O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio's dead!

That gallant spirit hath aspired the clouds,

Which too untimely here did scorn the earth."

There. That was good. I should be an actor.

"This day's black fate on more days doth depend;

This but begins the woe, others must end."

            Wow! That was laying it on a bit thick there, don't you think? Oh crap! There's Tybalt. I am not going to stick around for this…

With Tybalt's approach, Romeo's sorrow boiled into rage and he rose steadily to his feet like a snake coiled to strike. Sweat poured from Romeo's forehead like wine at his father's parties. Benvolio knew what his cousin was about to do and there was nothing he could say to stop it.

"Before you do this, which is just a fantastic idea, by the way, I'm going to fetch Mercutio's totally dead corpse from where I left it. I kind of promised this old shrew I'd be right back and you know old people, they find just about any reason to complain."

But Romeo paid him no mind. Romeo was already shouting a threat to Tybalt, who looked like he couldn't have cared less about the young Montague. That was, until Romeo decided the best approach would be to shove the Capulet. Tybalt sprawled to the ground, twisted his supine body to gaze at young Romeo, and stared as though he himself had just been run through by the blade.

"Right. I'm just going to go, then," Benvolio said. He scampered off towards the house where the poor, slain Mercutio laid waiting. Now if he could only remember exactly which house it was.

"Ah. There it is."

Looking For Artist...

The other day, I tweeted a request to my fellow authors that I was looking for an artist to do a cover for one or more of my unreleased books and was looking for recommendations. I also said in that tweet that I'd like one that wasn't outrageously expensive. The tweet is copied below:

"any of my author friends have a cover artist/creator/maker who does good work on the cheap?"

My cousin, John, who supports my writing (which I am very thankful to have family that does) retweeted it, and that received some...responses, we'll say. One in particular struck me, because this person took offense to the phrase "on the cheap." (I've since looked up definitions for the phrase "on the cheap" and the most common one is "Relatively low in cost; inexpensive or comparatively inexpensive.") What this person assumed was that I was looking for an artist to do something of high quality and then give it to me for free. I apologize if anyone else thought that was my intent, but I assure, it was not.
 
What, and I'm not sure I can break it down any simpler than the initial tweet, I was/am requesting was/is recommendations from my fellow authors for names of artists who have done cover work, have done that work well, and is a good value for what they do. It's the same as if asking, "Hey, do you know a good dentist? Preferably one that isn't too expensive?" And I'd say, "Yeah, I have a really good dentist and the price is what initially attracted me to him (in terms of dentistry)." But no, seriously, I really like my dentist. And maybe you (fellow authors) have a guy who does your cover art and you really like them and feel they are a good value.
 
Now, I am not/was not asking for a discount. I understand that artists are professionals who charge for their work and I would not ask for anyone to reduce what they charge simply because I want them to (despite how often that is asked of me at my retail job).

Also, not sure how, but the conversation turned to contractors bidding for jobs and doctors charging less to attract new patients (which is how the above analogy about dentists was formed).

Kelly has a couple of ideas (at least one) about a cover for A Plauge Upon Thee, but that still leaves me looking for someone to create a cover for the next Project Zero title (tentatively named God Sent (I'll explain the thoughts on the title later)). Both are still in the editing phases, but I still fully expect both to be out some time before the end of the year. I also have some thoughts on what APUT is and what it is not (hint: It's not an attempt to cash in on such works as Romeo and Juliet and Zombies and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) that I'll share at a later date.

This is like, the eighth time I've promised this in the last two months, but I'm going to do my best to update regularly. I'm told more people will read it that way.

Writing Revisited

Every so often I like to remind myself (and thus, my readers) that I fancy myself a writer. That is, until I came upon a tweet that went something like this: "A writer is too afraid of failure that he never finishes anything is not a writer..."

Now, I know what you're thinking. "Mr. Kellen, if you look a it that way, you are too a writer. You've written stuff, even if it isn't very popular..."

And that's true, since I have finished some stuff (you can find it here and here), there are a number of unfinished projects that I'm sitting on for a variety of excuses (don't have the time, can't think of how to end something, etc.) and those might all be good and valid, but it can't help but make me think: am I afraid of failing?

Again, I point to my first finished work and say, I submitted it to publishers, agents, and the like, with little to no success (I had one whole agency pass it around to every agent before telling me every single one took a pass on it). So I have finished something and made the attempt to get it published traditionally before going the e-distribution route. But, what after that?

I swore up and down that A Plague Upon Thee was going to be different, that it was a unique idea that no one else in the world would think up. Yeah, you can read how I feel about my chances now here. Part of that, I would say, is that I sat on the manuscript for too long. I finished the second draft in early '10, but I always meant to go through and polish it up before submitting it to publishers and agents.

So...is that it. Is my early rejection leading to a fear of failure and therefor, a fear to even complete something so that I won't be rejected again? Not saying it is a certainty, just something to think about...