Write Like Your Hair is On Fire

... and only words can put it out.

I can't recall where I first came across that quote about writing - but right away, I loved it.

It refers more to getting first drafts down in this explosive and energetic fashion, always moving forward - rather than the slower, brain-stretching activity of editing a story into shape. The editing I am referring to is not copy-editing, making sure you kill unneeded gerunds (adverbs almost always die on sight) or when I have forgotten, again, to put the apostrophe in "lets"; I am talking about the work of understanding how a story is told, and how it can be told better. That's some B.A.editing (big-ass).

But what happens when you don't have the time to really do that - as in, what if you are writing a serialized story where you have promised to post something every Friday. And by that I mean, EVERY FRIDAY!

The smart thing to do would be either have a bunch of it written before hand (I only had about 5 chapters), or write a bit every day so you can leave room for editing, and still hit the Friday deadline. That's a pretty damn good way to do it - unfortunately, I never seem to be that organized.

So I have decided, instead, to use the aforementioned Hair on Fire method, or HOF (who doesn't love acronyms? If you do not love acronyms, Please Leave This Blog Now - PLTBN).

The beginning of Bent Highway was simply a man (M), unleashed in time. Sure, there were echoes of Billy Pilgrim from Slaughterhouse Five, P.K. Dick's Time Out of Joint, or a number of time travel short stories bouncing around in my brain - but to be honest, they slid to the back when I let M onto the highway.

Writing the story has become quite a rush - and besides trying my best to clean up any typos, missing words or just bad sentences, the tale just comes out of me. I have never been a big plotter, more interested in following where a story goes (than forcing a direction). George Saunders in an interview talked about stories are similar to growing crystals - they form and develop in interesting and beautiful ways if you let them.

I don't pretend to fully understand M's story (is that a shocking admonition to readers? As in, I don't know what the hell I am doing? Or where the hell I am going.) But I am liking the journey. That sounds a little cheeseball. I am having a great time just letting this story grow like a crystal - and it's not like I have zero idea of where it is going. It is more like I have ideas of where it might go.

On that note, here's where I could use some feedback. I would love to hear any and all comments from readers of Bent Highway. I know since I started publishing every Friday the readership has grown by quite a bit. Pre-Bent Highway, this blog got a few hundred views a month. This has grown to close to 2,000 a month - with views on Fridays and Saturdays always the highest (Last Friday hit more than 200.)

So here's some question readers:

1. Where do you think M is going? And what is he about to do?

2. Who does Chalk Girl want M to save? 

3. Who is Walt?

I look forward to your comments.

And as always, stay tuned for this Friday.

Bent Highway: Chapter Seventeen

Line

Every damn scientist, theologian, mathematician, and super-funked out guru since forever ago has been trying to figure out time. Is it a line, a circle, an inverted cone, or a can of silly string? I’ve seen it every which way these past days, hours, moments. For the most part, one thing follows another - or at least that is how my brain tries to make sense of it. For instance, when the bad-ass I know as Harold got out of his car, he walked with purpose to the Charger, where I sat with the good ole boys. A moment after he got out, the boys both closed one eye and took a bead on Harold’s forehead. Shortly after, or maybe at the same time, the girl with the perfectly bowed lips and increasingly tragic smile, got out the passenger side. The driver sporting the Nascar hat yelled something about cutting down. I didn’t really hear him over the R and B blasting out the car speakers. For me, time kept getting snipped - it was like those crafts in grade school where you fold over a piece of paper and use your scissors to take out chunks and bits. It seems like you aren’t doing anything but making a mess on the classroom floor, and then you open up a beautiful little snowflake. Ain’t that a kick in the head?

I didn’t want a snip taken out. I wanted everything to stop. I needed to walk out there on the road, go up to Chalk Girl and ask her what the hell was going on. Scratch that - I didn’t care what was going on - I just wanted to get the hell out of here, maybe after kicking Harold in the nards. I wanted to go to a place where things happened one after another. You drink a beer, then you follow it with another, but only after the first one is emptied. That’s how it works. Or was supposed to.

I needed to tell her that I was sorry I couldn’t help her back in the trailer, all the times we had went back. I lost track how many times, but they flipped through my head like a spinning Rolodex full of tears. Walt told her that some things can’t be changed. Trailers burn. People die. Even young ones. Life sucks. And so does time.

I wanted no more of Harold and whatever shit he was trying to pull. He got into her life, her memories, her line, and he tore it apart. I know she was not the first, or the last, that Harold would do this to. The fuzzy headed freak liked things that way - scrambled, the more messed up the better. Walt found me in that field all those years ago, wandering, unsure of where I was, and more importantly when it was. There was something in my head that kept blipping out the memories - they flooded back in from time to time - but they always faded. Walt had been trying to take out Harold for years, decades even, or probably longer. I guess he figured somehow I was the guy to finally put it through the uprights, drop the three-pointer at the buzzer, sink the long putt, or just plain flush the bastard down the john.

I looked back to the highway. Harold's sword was covered in a maze of ornate lines that would have made a samurai jealous. He held it high above his head and was about to bring it down on the back end of the Charger. I had no doubt that it was some ancient blade, sharp enough to cut through steel, rock, bone or flesh - whatever was needed. I watched the blade and waited. It didn’t move. I realized that Harold was in freeze-frame. Turning around in the car, I saw the good ole boys were also frozen, as was the driver. The music had stopped, outside the wind had went still. One of the boys had a gun pointed out the window. About an inch from the barrel hung a bullet, floating in the air, a puff of smoke drawn behind it.

Well, this was convenient. 

A knock on the passenger side window made me jump and knock into one of the statue boys. The door opened.

“You coming or what?”

“Are you doing this?”

“Me and a bit of Walt. Does it matter?”

I looked out the back window at the frozen Harold.

“If you can do this - shouldn’t we take him out?”

“You been riding with these hillbillies too long. Let's go.” She turned and started walking down the highway. I got out of the Charger and followed her.

“How long?”

“How long what?”

“Can you make it last?”

“Ha. That’s supposed to be what the girl asks isn’t it?” She laughed again.

I glanced back, waiting for that sword to drop, for the bullet to rip through the air, for the carnage to begin. The road rippled under my feet.

“Here he comes.” Chalk Girl pointed to a dark spot that appeared on the edge of the horizon.

The spot widened, the ground shook, and I squinted into the distance. Something was coming fast, just ahead of the dark spot.

“Why were you with him?”

“Hmm? Oh that. Walt’s idea.”

“That’s him coming isn’t it?”

“About damn time too.”

My next question was blocked out by the sound of screeching metal - a blade cutting into the back end of an orange muscle car was my guess. Wind swept up and over us. The ground had moved from shaking into heaving. Behind me guns went off, more screeching and clanging. Someone emptied a cartridge. I didn’t look back - it was hard enough just staying upright.

Walt’s sedan was a half a mile away. The black crevice was a half a mile and about 100 yards.

“Why did Walt want you with Harold?” I yelled over the wind.

“We need to run.”

It was the crazy-ass Olympics, charging forward, leaping over rippling asphalt, the yellow lines whipping like a snake. An engine fired up behind me, squealing tires and smoke filled the air. Chalk girl reached into her jacket and brought out a shiny piece of metal. She tossed me the gun while leaping over a three foot high chunk of road. I grabbed it and jumped, coming down hard on my ankle. I tripped and half-fell, half-rolled onto the shoulder.

“Slow him down.” She yelled back to me.

“What?”

The Charger was coming down on me - the fuzzy headed driver held the sword high out the window, a trail of black smoke followed him like storm clouds from hell. I could have used some of that time-stopping ability about now, or at least a slowing down. I closed an eye and fired. Sound waves bent and warbled around me, the ground, the road, even the air moved out of focus as if someone had twisted a lens. A long golden line shot out of the gun, over the hood, and plunged into the windshield. The entire car lit up - a skeletal image of Harold flashed, his mouth wide open, his eyes as red as the headlights on his car. The line whipped and pulled the Charger with it, flipping it over and dragging it like a hooked trout off the highway and into the ditch. The last of the line left my gun and snapped in the direction of the twisted orange muscle car.

My leg pounded, a line of blood ran down my thigh. Edges around me sharpened, Walt’s sedan came into focus. The crevice would be on us in a few seconds. The door was open, her white face bent toward me, the lips formed a single word.

“Come.”

Bent Highway: Chapter Sixteen

8-Track

The inside of the Charger vibrated with the bass beat of a honky-tonk old-timey western band blaring over the 8-track, jammed with two match covers to help the warbly sound - and I mean it made the ancient bleached tape warble even more. The boys in the back nodded in time, the ends of their cigarettes dangles in perfect beat, somehow the ashes didn’t drop. I started to say something to Mr. Nascar, who was holding it at a steady 83 mph, but was silenced by him reaching over to turn up the volume. 

He nodded at me and said, “Blaupunkt.”

“Fuckin’ A,” said the trucker twins in the back. I swore they said it in harmony, the guy with the handlebar mustache taking the third up.

I settled back into the sheepskin seat covers and tried to figure it out. All of it. The boys in the Charger had first tried to put Walt out of commission, and then good ole Uncle Lester and his shitkickers. Now, somehow, they were helping Walt out. I knew we were headed ti find Harold, though I didn’t really understand where he was - or more importantly, who he was. Some kind of super-boogie man with chaos and destruction on his mind? An evil force? A bad-ass Lex Luthor with an out of control ‘fro? But I had to remember that’s how he looked to me growing up together - I pushed that out of my head, as I knew we hadn’t really grown up. And to Chalk Girl he was some sort of lover, or husband, or… it hurt my head worse than the whiny vocals on top of the razor sharp fiddle sounds blasting through the car. Fucking dire music is what it was. No wonder they sang songs about killing themselves.

Chalk Girl. Damn. I couldn’t ever complete the task she kept bringing me back to - and now I knew Harold was behind that too. When did I meet her? A long line of events lined up in my brain, a stack of calendars or back issues of Time, Look and Life - I flipped through them like a sped-up newsreel. Again, I wondered how long I’d been on the highway. I knew by looking into Walt’s face, it had been a helluva long time - before asphalt maybe.

Outside a fat moon climbed over a copse of black fir trees. How long had we been driving?

The hell with time. I focused on the now. It didn’t matter what came before, or how much of “before” there was. Damned if I didn’t catch myself nodding to the music as another number, so much like the others it was hard to say it was new, came on and drifted back to the rhythm section behind me.

Mr. Nascar reached over and hit the eject button, shooting the tapes and matchbooks onto the floor.

“Got company.”

In the rear view mirror a green sedan grew in size.

“Looks like them Duke boys got themselves in a heap of trouble,” said the mustached one.

The other one whooped and I heard guns being pulled and racked.

“Shit.” I cranked my head around and saw the sedan coming hell-bent and the silhouetted fuzzy head behind the wheel. The headlights glowed a deep red, probably lousy for sight lines, but damn chilling.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Only one thing to do,” Nascar said and held his hand up. “Elvis.”

An 8-track was slammed into the hand - one of the boys in the back had pulled it out of who knows where.

“Little less conversation, little more action.” Nascar jammed the tape in and the speakers found a new level.

The bass exploded and the drums slammed into my chest. Nascar gunned it and buried the speedometer.

“Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Three-part harmony, I swear.

A pair of red headlights shrunk in the rearview.

“Piece-o-shit Ford!”

“Call us when you get a real car.”

More hoots and back slaps. The seats, the dashboard and the ashstray pulsed as the Pelvis dulcid tones swept through the car. I admit, I hooted. Just a bit.

Then, like the eyes of a python opening, a pair of red circles grew in the mirror. In a few seconds the rearview was nothing but red. The boys in the back leaned out and started firing. One of the eyes went out. Nascar speedshifted into some unknown gear. Just as fast he slammed on the brakes. A long screech that wasn’t from a guitar split the air. The back end of the Charger spun and at least two of the tires lifted. I kinda hoped that Nascar had installed a roll bar along with the supercharge.

I waited.

The cyclops sedan was framed perfectly by the back window.

The boys kept firing.

I waited.

Time slowed and stopped. Everything was so still, that if not for the g-forces of the spin, I could have reached down on the handle, got out of the car and went over to kick Harold in the nuts.

That did not happen.

The track skipped - a fast skiffle beat, coming in hard on the chorus.

Yer the devil in disguise.

We came back into the skid hard, the Charger enveloped in smoke from the outside and the one’s dangling from the boy’s lips. A long snip was taken out. And we were frozen stiff stretched across the highway. Harold’s one bloody eye stared at us. The tape ended.

“Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em boys.”

Three butts hit the floor of the charger and three zippos flared.

“Any chance you have a plan?” I asked.

“The best I had was Elvis.”

“Right.”

Harold got out of the car carrying a long sword.

That didn’t surprise me as much as who got out of the passenger side.

Bent Highway: Chapter Fifteen

Milk

Walt looked even bigger than his usual gigantic self. Maybe it was how he was tucked in behind the corner table in one of the darkest bars I’ve been in – and that’s saying something. I expected to see a line of shot glasses splitting the table, so the tall glasses of white liquid threw me.

“Milk? Are you kidding?”

“Drink up. Good for your bones.” Walt drained the last of his glass, leaving a mustache that made him look more regal than silly.

“I thought the whole reason—”

Walt slid the glass in front of me.

“Things change,” he looked at Chalk Girl as he continued, “ don’t they?”

“Can I get a real drink?” she called over to the bar. “Something dark and murky? You know, bad for my liver and my self-esteem.”

The bartender brought over a green bottle and poured three fingers into a highball glass. Walt turned back to me.

“Didn’t really think I’d see you again. There’s been a turn of events.”

“Where’s Harold?” I asked.

“How much do you remember?” Walt’s voice dropped even lower and reverberated threw my chest like a hi-fidelity woofer.

“I’m putting it together.” A pain shot across the back of my skull and down my spine.

Walt pointed at my untouched glass. I lifted and chugged back half of it. It was thicker than I’d thought, milk-like, but there was more than bovine juice in there. It dulled the fire of pain. I drank some more, and it was if the fluid travelled down every nerve ending, soothing and enveloping them in a blanket of safety.

“Introduce me to this cow sometime, Walt.”

Chalk girl had refilled her highball.

“Take the bottle and go sit by the bar. I need to talk with M.”

I watched her leave, the edges of my vision blurred.

“So where are the Charger guys? And can I get some more of this damn milk?”

Walt gestured over to the bartender. Only now did I realize we were alone, except for Chalk Girl. I could have swore there were people in here when we entered. I looked over to the bar and suddenly she was gone.

“What's going on, Walt?” The words came out of my mouth like slowed down reel to reel. 

A dome of light appeared over the table, and glowing white walls slid down and around us. I could just see the rest of the bar through the light cave that had formed around us.

“You have been on the highway a long time - I don’t expect you to remember it all. We have been in this place before and many like it. But this is the closest we have ever come to stopping him. He fears you, though he doesn’t show it.”

I nodded. A low drone emanated from the light walls, if Gregorian chants would have started up, I wouldn’t have been surprised. A flash of memory back to a stretch of land, people wandering, some wrapped in rags, some with their face covered, a burning stench.

“How long?”

“It doesn’t matter. We have help from an unlikely place.”

“The trailer park boys in the Charger?” 

“Yes, among others.”

“The ones that tried to put a hole in Lester and his truck? And us. Wait, you said he fears me?” My voice had went back to its normal speed, though it had a lilt to it, almost sing-songy.

“The time of the highway is coming to an end. Harold, as you call him, knows this, and has been creating even more chaos than usual. Rips are increasing, both in frequency and size. I have tried to hold things together, and he has tried to tear it apart. That’s how it’s always been. But now, there is a chance to have closure.”

“Walt, can I just say, I haven’t got a fucking clue what you’re talking about.”

A rare smile spread across the giant’s face. It was cut short by the sudden disappearance of the light walls. The room around me short circuited - there was a flash, reality around me blipped in and out back in again, and then was gone.

I was on a road.

Again.

I’d been in Wyoming once – who knows when. I had gotten out of my truck and stood in the middle of a highway, staring as far as I could it in either direction. There was not a single soul to be seen, heard, or even talked about. I thought maybe I’d landed back there. I waited for the howl of wind.

Instead, I heard the growl of a bored out carb. I turned toward where the blacktop dipped and bent around a hill. The growl turned into a roar and a flash of orange appeared on the horizon. I stood my ground, straddling the yellow line. The wind picked up, but the engine noise beat it out. 

Sure, maybe it’s a stupid-ass thing to do, standing in the middle of a highway as a car barrells toward you - but I thought, if this was it, then this was it. Walt said the highway was going to close, whatever the hell he meant. But maybe I wanted to close with it.

The Charger grew on the horizon - no sign of slowing down. My leg started to throb, and I didn’t have to look down to know it was bleeding. I laughed and thought about the thing Walt must have told me a hundred times.

"You straddle the line, your body, your blood, needs to be in both places.”

In about sixty seconds my body and blood were going to be in a lot of places.

Tires grabbed the pavement and squealed, smoke spilled out the back of the Charger. Snips taken out of time again – the car almost on me, swerving by me, slowing down, spinning and stopping. The air thick with the smell of oil and burnt rubber. The Charger pulled up next to me, and the driver rolled down the window.

“I could have made you part of my grill.”

The wife beater was bright white, like he’d just bleached it.

“Get in the car.”

“Where we going?”

The driver spit, a brown goo landed next my black Lama boots. Not sure when I picked those up.

“Just get in the car asshole.”

“How about you ask nicely?” I admired the shine on my boots, and for a moment I understood what Lester was always going on about.

“Please get in the car asshole.”

“Tell your wife she used too much bleach.”

“What?”

I got in the Charger. Two good old boys were crammed in the back. The driver’s Nascar hat could have used a run through the washer. He slammed on the gas and we peeled down the highway. I knew a green sedan would soon appear. I just didn't know if it’d be behind us, or if we were driving right into it.

Crucial Conversations

 

Tangential to what I usually write about in this blog, but I wanted to mention this book. I have been leading a class in the art of Crucial Conversations (I say, art, because I have some to see it that way). About a year ago my wife told me about the book Crucial Conversations, subtitled: Tools for Talking When the Stakes Are High.

Now you gotta know that any book that even smells of self-help improvement profundity makes me run for the hills (or gag, as the case may be.) But hey, I love my wife, so I said I'd take a gander. I can always pitch it in the garbage the next day.

So here's the weird thing - it's a helluva book. It deconstructs very well how we converse so very poorly. Crappy sentence, but basically, we don't talk good. When we find ourselves in the middle of a convo where the emotions are high, and the opinions are opposing (you know, think of a talk with your teenager... any one... every one), in these kind of convos we usually show our worst selves.

I've been thinking about it a lot - mostly because I have been leading the class - go figure that I would actually be leading a class in it, after my initial response. But anyway, if you'd like your mind opened to the art of conversation, pick up this book. The information is not really new, some of it is actually just common sense, but as always, the best teaching is reminding.

This being a fiction blog, I do wonder about how my characters converse - I am guessing badly. But that's what makes good fiction - conflict, tension, when shitty things get shittier. As long as I can keep that on the page, and be better when I am with, you know, an actual human.