Yes, I know I said that I wouldn't post every time I scratched out another crumb* or two of story. And that's true, I haven't.But I'm pleased that the crumbs keep coming! No, really. It's utterly fab. If you're in the peculiar business of stringing words together for something other than your daily bread, there is most definitely a certain satisfaction in any level of sustained output. You understand, right? Right, of course you do. So here's a fraction of a crumb, not the whole thing, just a bit, because why the hell not.
By this point, our phones had been beeping and twitching for some time, as various people in our extended scenes began to hear about the torching of Bethany's and wanted to know if we were there, and Oh My God I love Bethany's is it still standing, and was it true that Darcy had killed a jackboot with a shoe. Rumor mutated and spread through the data-filled air. The only one of us who had bothered to feed the mill was Putnam, adept as he was at sending messages while engaged in other activities. "Geraldine says she's got a squad of booth-chicks together and they're going to get hopped up and head over and add more mayhem," he said. I rolled my eyes.Really conveys the Majestic Sweep of my Epic Tale, don't it?
"There is nothing that crew won't do to further the cause of trendy violence," I said. "Is she drunk?" Somewhat rhetorical, as Geraldine often woke up that way, ready to slur through the day.
"Plastered," Putnam said. "Her text wandered off into something about parrots and whether she should bring them along." His thumbs flew over the haptic face of his phone and he used some sort of sonar to avoid bashing into oncoming pedestrians.
Anyway. I've decided to apply for the Breadloaf Writer's Conference, not because I have much in the way of expectations, but simply because it seems like it's time to do that sort of thing. Although that's something of a small lie. I have imagined in a daydreamy way about how it would be to say to my boss, "I got into Breadloaf and I simply must go!" As though that would demonstrate to all and sundry that: no, this place you see me in Monday through Friday does not constitute the whole of my life; I engage in mysterious and arcane creation in the wee hours of the evening and stress and fret over plot and characters instead of templates and procedural steps; I am Writer! Hear me piss and moan.
*No, I did not know that the conference's session newsletter is called the Crumb when I wrote this post or the post on 12/24. Co-inky-dink, honest.
This excerpt just made me really excited to read your book.
Excellent. I shall send you a copy of the manuscript when it's complete. And I'll sign it, so that after I've published three acclaimed novels and died in a tragic airship accident, you can sell it at Sotheby's and use the proceeds to found a subversive theater troupe.