December, 1919 – Chapter 9

Welcome to chapter nine of “December, 1919″, a serialized novel written by Oliver Gray. New chapters will be published every week. Links to all published chapters can be found here. 

Chapter 9

He introduced himself as Reginald “but you can call me Reggie” Buckner. He announced on licorice tainted breath that he was here at the behest of the Internal Revenue Service, and would be performing a final inventory. He smelled like musk left to dry on old paper. He smiled like a card shark about to drop a royal flush on an unsuspecting table of players who were all in.

The brewery staff lined up like weary soldiers; Virginia, William, and myself as front line vanguards, scouting out the inspector’s tactical positions. His pacing was methodical and practiced, the deliberate, probably counted steps of a dangerously bureaucratic man who took his job very seriously and liked it very much.

“I know this may be uncomfortable, but if we can simply review what is in stock against your final purchase orders, we can have this done quickly.” Buckner said, flipping through sheets of paper attached to a clipboard. His pencil darted across the page, grating graphite engraving an epitaph on our legal tombstone. “First things firsts, let’s discuss raw ingredients.”

The hired laborers had piled the remaining bags of uncracked malt into a tidy pyramid directly in the middle of the brewery floor. Loose kernels spilled from small tears in the cloth, the sugary life blood of the brewery seeping out through a hundred tiny cuts. Buckner kicked a sack,covering his shiny black shoes in yellowish dust. “Malted barley first. The confirmation slip from your last delivery says you accepted forty five, one hundred pound bags of American two-row barley from Shipley Malting Company. I only count 32 bags. Where are the other 13?”

I spoke up. “We brewed a stock ale two weeks ago. It used nearly twice the malt of our normal recipes.”

“And who are you, boy? I’ll take my information from someone in charge, thank you.” He said, nose turned skyward, as dismissively as possible.

Virginia’s knuckles stretched white. “This is Jack Cooper, sir.” Her voice slashed through the tension in the room, a delicate but deadly axe. “And he owns this brewery.”

Buckner looked down at his papers, then back up at me, then back down at his papers. “This is Jack Cooper?” The condescension fell off his face while incredulity climbed up it. “I’m sorry. I just…I expected someone…older.”

Virginia snapped, defensive and bitter. “Jack’s plenty old enough.” A fire, hard to define as anger or angst, flashed across her eyes.

“No need to get upset, ma’am, I’m just trying to do my job. Anyway, Jack, you were saying about the missing malt?” His tone shifted back to hard and professional, but the subtle change in his body language betrayed embarrassment.

“The stock ale took extra; about 300 pounds worth. We lost a batch of English style barleywine to infection last month, too, which should account for the difference.”

Buckner scribbled something hastily on his paper. “And do you have anything to account for this loss?” He asked, locking his eyes to mine. Grey, cold, probing.

“Nothing on paper,” I said, ” but our logistics manager, William, can verify.” William fidgeted, cracked his knuckles, and looked straight at the floor.

Buckner ran his finger down the paper, stopping abruptly and tapping when he reached William’s name. “Ah, Mr. Johnson. Can you verify?”

William sputtered, his words tripping over his tongue like a drunk on a midnight stumble home. “Er, yes. We brewed with it all. It’s gone.” William could barely make eye contact, and his fidgeting grew more pronounced the longer he stood at attention.

“You seem nervous, Mr. Johnson. Are you not feeling well?” He asked. Virginia’s elbow nudged mine subtly, but noticeably.

“Will cut his hand badly yesterday; I think he’s still shaken about it.” I said, deflecting.

Buckner walked closer to William, and asked to see his hand. Will raised it up, chest high, turning his palm over to show the dark red stains of dried blood on the white linen mummied around his fingers. “What happened? That looks serious.” Buckner said, keep his distance from the bloody hand.

“I…I cut it on the grist mill. There was some sharp metal and I wasn’t pay attention…” Will trailed off.

“I told him he should be resting. He’s afraid of blood. Last year our cooper snapped a hoop on one of the barrels, and it nearly took is arm off. I thought Will was going to faint.” I said, ” Unfortunately, we were all frantic to prepare for your visit, and, like my dad always said, a brewery is a dangerous place to rush.” I nodded at William, and he seems to calm down. A little.

Satisfied, Buckner walked back to the pile of sacks, scribbling more notes. “If Jack can answer the rest of my questions, feel free to go home and rest, Mr. Johnson.” Will looked at me, and I nodded. He quickly made for the door, thanking our dutiful inspector before grabbing his hat and coat and vanishing into the snow globed afternoon.

“He’s an odd one.” Buckner said, looking at the doorway.

“Yea, but he worked for my father for years, and is great at keeping orders straight.” I said. “What’s next?”

The rest of the inspection played out smoothly, all the actors knowing their roles, remembering their lines. The hop leaves, all sticky with yellow powder, were placed into large wooden boxes, and hauled out by two of Buckner’s behatted lackeys. After explaining that our yeast was nearly older than the brewery itself, and that to destroy it would be to destroy a piece of Philadelphian history, Buckner decided to let me take a small bottled culture home, on the one condition that I deliver it to the University of Pennsylvania’s biology department within the week. His men made quick work of the sacks of malt, loading them onto the back of a wooden framed truck, to be hauled away as contraband to warehouses unknown.

I signed the papers. Buckner seemed pleased, and thanked me, on behalf of the US government, for my understanding and cooperation during this period of transition. With a tip of his hat, he said, “I’ve always liked your beer.” He turned and looked at the kettles. “It’ll be sad to see this place turned into a stinking fish den. But I have to do my job. No hard feelings, I hope.”

“None.” I said. “The law is the law.” Buckner seemed very pleased with the obedient nature of my last comment. He turned and left, head down, reviewing his papers one last time.

Virginia grinned at me. I threw a smile back.

Beneath our feet, tucked under some old planks and almost forgotten rusted grates, hid thirteen pristine sacks. Just shy of 650 pounds of American two-row barley.

To be continued…

December, 1919 – Chapter 8

Welcome to chapter eight of “December, 1919″, a serialized novel written by Oliver Gray. New chapters will be published every Wednesday (or Thursday, sorry!). Links to all published chapters can be found here. 

Chapter 8

Blood dripped and slipped through the rollers of the mill. William cradled his hand, wailing inconsolably, like the machine had ripped it clean off. I turned his palm upward to examine the wound, careful not cause any more undue pain. It was an ugly slash, glistening red and slick, but nothing some iodine and fresh bandages couldn’t fix.

“Oh, William, this isn’t so bad. It’s pretty superficial.” I said, half-lying, trying to keep him from panicking.

“I could have lost my hand!” He said, unsatisfied. “That thing is a death trap.” He pointed at the grist mill with his good hand, keeping the other, wrapped in the now crimson and white of his over shirt, close to his chest.

“You’ll live,” I said. “There’s some aspirin in my bag. You should probably take some before the throbbing kicks in.”

He shuffled off, so I continued the disassembly work. When in use, the mill heaved and chunked, its joints creaky and achy from old age and rust. It should have been replaced years ago, but my father had sworn the gap between the rollers was so perfect, he dare not mess with it. In defense of his eccentricity, our grists had been finer and our brew days smoother since he unlocked the magic of the ancient mill, but as I sat with a wrench and screw driver, separating sheets of sharp, worn metal, I realized just how dangerously out of service it had become.

William had made a deal to sell it to a local wheat farmer for much more than it was probably worth, and given that Nate hadn’t paid me after my little mayor-fueled disappearing show, I needed the money. William continued to whimper like pathetic puppy even though the bleeding had stopped. His quiet sobbing summed up the feeling in the brewery, embodied the sinking emotions of everyone having to pack and box up their jobs, their dreams, their lives, all so the now illegal parcel could be inspected and checked off a list by some nameless IRS lackey in the coming days.

From underneath the shoot, with catcher removed, I picked out large bits of old malt, briefly turning on the motor to clear out any smaller, hidden grains. The mill spun violently, twin rollers moving in opposite directions, inhaling soft, fresh, sweet kernels, mangling them, exposing their unprotected insides before unceremoniously dumping them onto the floor.

But without that brutal journey through and transformation at the maw of a many-toothed monster, the malt would never fulfill a greater destiny, never start the great cycle of conversion and consumption, of birth and decay, of disparate parts coming together to make a greater whole. My father always extolled yeast as the veritable mother of all brewing, but to me, a beer’s real life began at the mill.

Virginia moved silently, like a cat trying to avoid detection. The purple-black under her eye had faded to mottled yellow and brown. She’d come in early and said nothing to me, scouring the inside of the mash tun as if we were going to brew. The rhythmic shick and slide of her coarse sponge on the stainless steel played a background beat to the rest of our work, a somber melody of shuffling sacks and tired sighs. George made no appearances.

As I wrenched loose the bolt holding one of the rollers in place, Virginia passed behind me, moving towards the fermentation tanks. My nerves stood at full attention, sending a shivery salute down my spine when my nose caught the waft of her shampoo.

“Going to be hard to brew without a mill.” She said, an ethereal whisper dissipating into the cold air.

I turned to respond, but she’d already moved out of earshot. I figured after that night, after George had discovered us and threatened us, that she would have given up this crazy crusade. But apparently I was wrong. Always underestimating. Never quite finding that rarefied wavelength where Ginnie buzzed so beautifully with life. Her brown mop bobbed back and forth as she scrubbed.

William caught me staring.

“It’s OK, Jack.” He said, much calmer. “I know you’re both young, but it’s pretty easy to see what’s going on here.”

I looked at William, stoicism giving away to boyish embarrassment. “It doesn’t matter anyway.” I said, trailing off.

“Because of George?” William plopped down next to me, right hand firmly squeezing left. “He’s her father, sure, but she’s allowed to make her own decisions. She’s nineteen. No longer bound to his direction, legally.”

I knew George didn’t give a damn about the law. “Thanks, William.” I said, forcing a smile.

“No one knows what’s going to happen. This new law might only last a year or two. Or it might go on forever.” He said, looking across at Virginia. “My point, and the thing you should be focused on, is that we don’t have much certainty to cling to these days. When there’s a sure thing, and you can feel the truth of it so deep in your bones, you should probably go for it. Consequences be damned.”

His words swam around my brain like an Olympian doing laps. I’d allowed my December days to fill to the brim with anger, regret, crippling self-pity, meanwhile ignoring all the potential beauty of a brand new January.

After a brief silence, he nudged my arm, and asked for help up. Once back on his feet, he hugged me, announcing he was going home to have his wife, Mary, nurse his hand. Soon after William, the last of the day workers we’d hired said their goodbyes with tipped hats, leaving the two of us alone, again.

“I’m going to tell William not to sell the mill.” I said, clanging my wrench on the metal still attached to the hopper. “I’ll find a way to make money. Maybe more hours at the paper.” The declaration met only with silence, so I walked over to the tank Ginnie had cloistered herself in like a spring robin on her nest.

“I ruined the perfect gap,” I said, waving the loose roller in front of my face, “but I guess that’s OK. I’ll set it up myself this time.”

Virginia climbed out of the fermentation tank and stood in front of me. “Good.” She said, wrapping one arm around my waist. “And I agree.”

“Agree with what?” I asked.

“William.” She whispered, resting her head against my chest. The sun hovered halfway down the horizon, throwing its rippled twin across the blue and green sprawl of the Delaware as the planet, and my heart, embraced the coming night.

To be continued…

December, 1919 – Chapter 7

Welcome to chapter seven of “December, 1919″, a serialized novel written by Oliver Gray. New chapters will be published every Wednesday. Links to all published chapters can be found here. 

Chapter 7

The wind whipped, fierce and angry, in random blusters that felt like ice-cold fists to my face. I’d known some cold winters in the city, but the weather now seemed crueler, more foreboding than a typical New Year’s eve in Philadelphia. I shrugged the wool of my coat up higher, to cover some of the exposed skin of my neck. I hadn’t had time to grab my scarf.

Mayor Moore plodded beside me. Behind, Berman lurked, collar up and hands in pockets, hat pulled down to the point where his eyes looked like a snake’s. Moore’s mustached lip curled ever so slightly up every time another gust cut across our path; the only sign he felt the cold at all. Nate would be furious I was gone, but who was I to deny two such lofty and prominent branches of the Philly tree of law?

We walked in silence for some time, Berman herding us at cross streets, leading us to destination unknown. We crossed the Schuylkill on 3rd, made a left on North 20th, and then sauntered past a ghostly, snow-dusted Logan’s Square. No one in their right mind would be in the park on a day like this. No one except the mayor, a detective, and some poor confused kid, that is. Just as I’d had enough, and was about to demand some information, we stopped at the bleach-white steps of the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter & Paul.

“Let’s get out of the cold, shall we?” Moore said, lithely bounding up the steps. Berman lingered behind, the ever loyal sheep dog. I couldn’t refuse, and my bones wouldn’t mind the warmth.

The towering stone of the cathedral swallowed us up like spiritual down, wrapping me in soft, yellow, candle-borne glow and subtle waft of incense. I’d never been much for religion but always loved the churches themselves; such grandeur and sophistication, equal parts welcoming and isolating. A priest shuffled near the altar, arranging a piece of purple cloth, while another disappeared into the under croft through a tiny side door. The church hummed with latent energy, drowning out the whispers of the two docents near the entrance.

“I always come here when I need to think.” Moore said, leaning closer to me. He moved down the aisle towards the front of the room, gently waving, coaxing me to follow. Berman leaned against a pillar, but didn’t remove his hat or coat. I felt nervous but safe, somehow protected by the sanctity of the building, if nothing else.

“Father Donovan knows me well. My family has been coming here for decades.” Moore said, kneeling and quickly crossing himself before leaning back against the pew. “Do you go to church, Jack?”

“No…well not for a long time.” I said. “My mother was raised Anglican, but my father always said he was too busy to waste a Sunday morning away from the brewery.”

“A shame,” Moore whispered, “no man should ever be too busy for his spirit.”

I took a bite of the irony in his words. “My father was never too busy for his spirit. I’d say it was his spirit that drove him. He was just never one for genuflecting at someone else’s altar.”

“Hmm, having met him, I can believe that.” Moore turned around and looked at Berman. He hadn’t even shifted his stance. “I’m sorry about him,” Moore said, “He’s harsh, but effective. I needed to talk to you, and in private.”

The oddness of the situation made my head swim. Why would a man who directly worked for President Roosevelt need to talk to a seventeen year old nobody from Philadelphia? The dimness and heavy warmth of the church made the situation feel surreal, a dream Nate would snap me awake from any minute when he found me asleep on my desk. But Moore refused to dissipates into nothingness, and Berman refused to go with him.

“I know you’ve been following McGuire, and I know McGuire’s been looking into my office and associates.” He tilted his head backwards, starting straight up at the bas-relief dotted dome. “I know you’re looking for some closure, Jack. Your father was a good man, and the way he died was…regrettable.”

My mind dropped its clutch, shifting from confusion to anger. “Regrettable?” I nearly yelled, rippling an echo all the way down the nave and back. The priest at the altar turned, demanding silence with a steely look. I nestled back into the cushion of the pew, heart pounding, rage rising. “He was murdered.” I whispered, though gritted teeth.

“No, he wasn’t,” Moore said confidently. “It was an accident. The sooner you and McGuire accept that and stop hounding my colleagues, the sooner we can all move past this mess.” He turned his head, settling his square-framed eyes on mine. “You have to drop this and focus on taking care of your mother. I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you, or your family, or even your livelihood, Jack.”

My brain fumbled, and I dropped my words.  Moore raised his arm, beckoning Berman over. The sullen trenchcoat obliged, slowly.

“Berman will take you back to the Gazette,” he said, crossing his hands on his lap. “This is the last I want to hear about any of this. You do not want to see me again, understand?”

I forced a nod, as Berman grabbed the back of my coat and pulled me out of the pew. He jerked me back down the aisle and out the door, into a gentle flurry of the year’s final snow.

“Get lost, Cooper.” Berman all but threw me down the church stairs. “You know where you stand now, and it’s on the wrong side,” he said, knocking my shoulder as he walked past. “I’ll be watching you.”

I spit on the street behind him, but he didn’t turn back. The wind threw itself at my face yet again, nearly freezing the tears welling in the corners of my eyes. The church bells tolled, on and on and on, out into the coming storm.

To be continued…

December, 1919 – Chapter 5

Welcome to chapter five of “December, 1919″, a serialized novel written by Oliver Gray. New chapters will be published every Wednesday. Links to all published chapters can be found here. 

Chapter 5

“Are you insane?”

My voice bounded and then rebounded off the tinny walls of the malt warehouse like it was playing tag with itself. Virginia had asked me to stay late and help her organize the malts for the upcoming inspection, promising George we could handle it and all but demanding he go home. It felt strange to be alone with her when the kettles were cold and dormant, but it was hard to refuse her when she got her heart and mind set on an idea.

“Maybe. But what else are we going to do with this place?” she said, holding her arms up and spinning around. “I’ve been thinking about this since they first took that nonsense before Congress. We’d never be suspected of anything, given your age.”

I shrugged, unsure what to say. She kicked a sack of malt, sending a puff of dust out across the floor. “I thought you’d be more into it. You’re the perfect cover,” she said, bumping her shoulder into mine, “well you and the fish.”

A simple plan. A stupid plan. But a plan, where I’d thought of nothing. The smell of the fish would mask the smell of malts and hops, but continuing to brew, right here, under the nose of investigators, seemed crazier than trying to give a rabid wolf a bubble bath. “Aren’t you worried?” I said.

“About what?” She jumped up onto the miniature pyramid of sacks. “I’ve been reading about the Caribbean rum runners,” she said, looking half a pirate herself in the subtle glow of the moon. “They got away with it by being sneaky. So we brew at night, when no one can see the steam. You keep working at the paper,” she said, nodding inclusively at me, “and make a formal statement that the brewery is complying with the federal mandate to close down. We give the fish monger a cut, and he says nothing. We roll the finished barrels and bottles down the docks, and load them onto a boat.”

The confidence in her voice resounded, filling the entirety of the space. She stood atop that malty throne like nothing in the world could touch her, like she was the queen of the quaff, the baroness of bootlegging. For a fleeting second I wanted to jump up there with her, grab her, kiss her, throw all my inborn caution to the winds of illegal fate. But I hesitated. My mother’s rationtionality ran thick in my marrow, and my bravery scurried off into the shadows.

“What about George?” I asked, mining my brain for any excuse to temper her. “He’ll catch us way faster than the police, and, um, how exactly are we going to brew without him?”

“Leave my dad to me,” she said, as if she had any control over George. “His pride won’t let him go without work for long. Soon enough he’ll be too busy to keep up with what I’m doing. If I’m bringing in money, he’s not likely to care where it came from. As for the brewing, you and I have been doing this long enough to make a few batches ourselves.”

I shrugged again. “It all sounds pretty wild, Ginnie, but,” my voice dropped. “Why?” I turned and look around at the kernels of malt strewn near the mill. “If the government wants to ban alcohol, that’s what they’re going to do. We can find other work, and move onto something else.”

Her expression shifted from conviction to dejection. She clambered down from her makeshift throne and over to me. Taking my hand, she guided me back into the main room of the brewery, to the rows of fermenter, the gleaming kettle, the maze of pipes like the nervous system of the brewery.

“Why?” she whispered. “This is why. Your grandfather built this place, and your father made it his life. This yeast soaked mess is our home, Jack. We break the law so we don’t break our spirits.”

She ran her hand along the kettle. “I don’t know anything or anywhere else, really.” I locked my eyes to hers in a brown and green tango of romantic shyness. “I don’t know anyone else, either.” She moved in closer, putting one arm around my back and resting her head in the nook of my shoulder. “This place is my everything, and I can’t just let it disappear like it never existed.” I hugged her, relishing the closeness.

“OK.” I said.

“OK?” She looked up at me.

“But we take it real slow. And give it all up at the first sign of trouble. And don’t drag anyone else into it unless we absolutely have to.” I said, trying to build in some insurance. “Deal?”

“Deal!” She threw both arms around my neck. I thought, as her face moved near mine, that she was going to kiss me, but she instead dropped her head next to mine, filling my mouth and nose with a bushel of sweet smelling hair.

“What the hell do you two think you’re doing?” a voice growled from near the main doors. Even George’s shadow, that massive creeping silhouette, seemed angry. You could almost smell the whiskey in his words. “I leave you two alone for a minute and this shit happens. I should have suspected it. Go home, Jack, before I take you there myself.”

“George, we were just…” I said.

“I don’t want to know.” he said, almost sounding disgusted. “I’m sure it’s Virginia’s fault anyway. Always with the boys.” He stomped further into the brewery, eyes red and glossy. I could feel Virginia tensing against me, bracing herself for the coming onslaught.

“Dad, it’s Jack. We’ve known each other forever. Let’s just go home.” she said, trying to plead with the man behind the drunk.

“No. He’s not the same old Jack. Andrew made sure of that when he left the brewery to him, not me.” His words slurred slightly, like his tongue was caught in a fishing net.

I stepped forward, putting myself between father and daughter. “George, I didn’t choose how this worked out, it just did. Don’t blame me or Ginnie.” George dominated the space, looming at least a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than me.

“I’ll blame who I want, boy.” The emphasis on the last word hovered in the air, a poisonous cloud of hate and anger. “Now move. I need to discipline my overly familiar daughter.”

“No.” I said.

George spoke next with his fist. A quick jab dropped me to my knees, ribs aching, air rushing out of my lungs. I tried to recover, but couldn’t move or catch my breath. George pulled me up by my hair.

As he pulled his fist back, knuckles white with rage, breath reeking, ready to single-handedly put me to bed, a sharp gunshot split the night in two.

To be continued…

December, 1919 – Chapter 3

Welcome to chapter three of “December, 1919″, a serialized novel written by Oliver Gray. New chapters will be published every Wednesday. Links to all published chapters can be found here.

Chapter 3

Yellowing teeth snarled from chew-scarred gums, billowing hot, noisome breath inches from my face. The beast crept forward, thick skin partially obscuring dark, bloodshot eyes. If not for a wall of chained links, it would have been on top of me, tearing my clothes and skin. I kicked  the fence near it to try to scare it off, but it only seemed to get more angry, dropping its head and growl to a lower, more serious pitch.

“Why do we always have to go this way?” I said, trying to refill my lungs. “You know that dog hates me.” I had toppled clumsily over the fence to avoid being mauled, landing awkwardly on my right shoulder. It throbbed in time with my panicked heartbeat.

Virginia laughed, watching me struggle to my feet as she sat on a trashcan at the end of the alley. “It’s a better way to the Inquirer,” she said right before crunching into an apple she’d magicked form her pocket, “you gotta get to know the city, Jack; the main roads will never teach you anything. Besides,  I wanna make sure you haven’t gone soft, sitting at that desk all day, writing.” Her inflection on the last word pierced my pride. She scribbled her hand in the air in a condescending pantomime.

“I haven’t gone soft,” I said, “there’s a lot of hard work in reporting a story, you know.”

Virginia rolled her eyes. She’d known me long before I was infected with the journalistic bug. She remembered a version of me who spent hours scouring rooftops for perfect blackbird feathers, a version of me who’d rather have explored, and adventured, and gotten into trouble than sit at some desk being tutored by old men in suits. We’d slipped apart as the years got leaner, meaner, cursed by war. She’d never been happy that I’d snubbed my father’s chance at apprenticeship in the brewery, mostly because she couldn’t see me as anyone but the 13 year old boy who lived in her memories. I couldn’t get angry; I was guilty of the same. It was difficult for me to look at her freckles and not see the girl I’d swooned over in the throes of adolescent love, difficult to see her now, made hard and cold, all that playful jeux de vie snuffed out by the world. By the world, and by George.

We popped out of the alley and turned left onto Fayette street to cross the bridge over the Schuylkill. The frozen water caught the sun’s reflection and distorted it like a broken mirror. I imagined the individual droplets rolling on in unrelenting mass exodus to the ocean, only to be scooped up by our little brewery, forever married to malt before moving into a new, glassy home. Father always said that life began in the water. Looking off at the horizon and seeing the little river disappear into some impossibly remote unknown, it was easy to believe him.

“This is where I leave you,” Virginia said, throwing her arms around me in the most platonic of hugs. “Gotta get back before the mash rest is done, or George’ll have my ass.”

I watched her hair bob down another alley near Bar Harbor. Sometimes she seemed incapable of walking down the side walk like a normal person.

The Inquirer building loomed. I used to think the current building was architecturally impressive, but I’d recently been by the site of the new building, a massive, 18-story behemoth that was still under construction. It’s skeleton towered over everything around it, monolithic, austere, a monument to news that could not be ignored, especially by the neighbors who now lived in its shadow.

The old building heaved under the energy of too many people into too small a space. The entrance saw younger valets running around trying to move cars, older valets handling the occasional horse and carriage. The coat-check revolved nonstop as visitors, reporters, and assorted law enforcement officers paraded in and out of the building on errands secret, private, or both. The hallways, lined with tiny one-desk offices, sang a cacophony of ringing telephones, tapping telegrams, scribbling pens, and enthusiastic conversation.

My desk was near a window; which, according to the senior staff, was incredibly lucky for someone of my age and inexperience. I flopped my coat over the old chair someone had found for me on one of the upper floors, and began the tedious job of transposing my colleague’s hand written notes into the clean click-clack-ching of typewriter pages. I’d barely finished a single paragraph when a stack of papers fell directly over my flying fingers.

I looked up. Nathan smiled. “More for you kid. I left numbers on each in terms of priority,” he said, pointing his pencil at the tops of the sheets. “You’ve got something from McGuire in there, so I suggest you do those first unless you want him barging in here in a huff like he does. He’s been such a pain in the ass since he won that award.” I wanted to like Nathan, but he always dumped his workload on me, usually so he could cut out early with that blonde who worked in the telegraph office. I nodded at him, pushed the papers to one side, and tried to finish what I was working on.

“Hey, Jack?” Nathan posed the question with that sympathetic intonation that heralds an uncomfortable conversation. “I heard about your dad. We all liked him around here. Great guy. Great beer. I spoke to Mr. Knight about it; if you need a break, we can cover for you.”

I looked up again. “Thanks, Nate. I think I’ll stay though. The work keeps my mind off of it,” I lied, “I might like to take this Saturday off though, to be with my mother.”

Nate winked. “Saturdays are slow in here anyway. I’m sure Mr. Knight won’t mind.” He cancelled out most of his kindness with a second pile of notes that he dropped on my desk just before he turned to leave.

I grabbed the stack of papers, and began to quickly scan the titles to put them into a workable order. McGuire’s piece found its way to the top, partly to placate him, partly because the stories he worked on were usually packed with local intrigue. As I loaded a new ribbon and set to my sisyphean labors, a few hastily scribbled lines in the middle of the notes caught my eye:

“Spoke to detective Berman about the “accidental” death of Andrew Cooper. Claims he wasn’t aware of Cooper’s politics. Story doesn’t add up. Will follow up in the next few days.”

To be continued…

No NaNo

Despite a strong idea, a somewhat realized outline, and an opening chapter, I decided not to do NaNoWriMo this year.

I “won” NaNoWriMo in 2011 and 2012, but swore that after the chaos of last year’s 50,000 word, several short-story sprint, I wouldn’t start another big project until I had graduated. At one point I even said I’d do NaBloPoMo (these acroportmanteaunyms are getting a bit ridiculous) to change things up a little bit. Now, staring down the barrel of my final grad school semester, with lots of big plans for this blog and my other writing, dedicating an entire month to a project that will likely rot, untouched on my hard drive doesn’t seem like the best use of my time.

But I want to feel like I’m participating, sort of. So for all you other people NaNoing your little fingers off, here are links to some of my favorite writing and grammar related posts from the series “Craft and Draft.” I hope they can help you capture those coveted 1667 words each day and maybe nudge you the 50k word mark with some lilting grace.

Plotting, Structure, and Pre-writing:
Go Small or Go Home
Literary Smiterary
Plotting Progression
Sheet Music
The Write to Read
Idea-logical

Imagery and Metaphor
Metaphor Galore
Imagine All the Imagery

Grammar, Syntax, and Word Choice
Branching Out
The Diction Affliction
Frag. Ments.
Resumptives and Summatives and Appositives, oh my!
Parallelogrammar
I’ll take words that start with “Ad” for $2000, Alex
Grammar (with an “a”, not an “e”)

Characters and Dialogue
Character Counts
Dialognostics

Editing and Proofreading
The Editor is Dead, Long Live the Editor!
Fixing What ain’t Not Broke
The Proof is in the Reading

I’m also happy to answer any other questions about NaNo, NaNoing, having NaNo’d, or why I’m so obsessed with English grammar.

Ask away!

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” -Robert Louis Stevenson

Three Shall be the Count…

…No more, no less. Five is right out.

And so we wrap up week three of NaNoWriMo. As I announced in my last post, technically, I’ve already won. That hasn’t stopped me though; in fact, it hasn’t even slowed me.

I’m up to fifty-five thousand, one hundred and twelve words. One hundred and thirty-six pages. Twenty-seven chapters. One betrayal, one death. More of the latter coming.

Lessons learned this week:

1. Hail the Outline: herald of all things good and organizational

Yes, I’m still talking about outlining. I never thought I’d say this:  the outline is the most important thing you can do for you writing (at least from my perspective). I don’t know how many times I’ve gone back to it, revised it, loved it, yelled at it. It’s reciprocated and been very flexible with my constant mental flux. It is the glue that holds my novel together. Without it, it would be a jumbled mess of disjointed scenes. I can’t imagine how anyone writes anything of length without an outline.

2. NaNoWriMo is a social event, which can be good and bad

Tiffany pointed out that a lot of people participate in NaNo for the social aspect. A community of people doing the same thing, working towards the same goal. I like the concept; people getting together is cool. But when the content you’ve written on the forums outweighs the content of your novel 30:1, you’ve kind of missed the point. I spent about 15 minutes looking at the NaNo forums and decided to never go back. There are plenty of distractions in this world without you actively participating in a distraction created by the thing you’re trying to avoid being distracted from. Or something. Keeping a small group of people who are interested in your writing enough to provide feedback is the perfect level of social interaction.

3. While we’re talking about distractions

I’m a pretty busy dude. I work full time, I’m on a business proposal team, half of a wedding planning team, half of a home owning team, I’m a cat-dad, I try to fix everything that doesn’t work, I like to read, play instruments, exercise, and play games. This month, I changed almost none of my habits. Despite that, I met my goal, and I met it early.

Distractions are bullshit. Bullshit you make up to avoid doing something you really don’t want to do. If you find yourself preferring Fark or FailBlog or FPSs over writing, you probably don’t really like writing as much as you think (or have convinced yourself) you do. If you love to do it (and get a thrill from writing a great scene that ties in well), you’ll make writing one of those things you actively want to spent time on, not the other way around.

4. The writing environment is important

I know a lot of people like to work in the same physical location: a coffee shop, a home office, a table at a local park. There’s method to this madness. The same, comfortable situation gets me in the right mental state and reminds me where I’m going with my story. It’s the same effect as listening to music while studying, or visualizing your performance in a sport before you actually play. Your mind builds associations with your environment, which leads to you quickly getting into the right state of mind. We’re all creatures of comfort; use that to your advantage.

5. Don’t wait for a muse, or inspiration, or a moment of magic

Years ago, I bought into the concept of “the muse”; the magical fairy that flies into your brain and defibrillates the creative part of your mind at random. I used to rely on this fickle mistress in college, hoping she’d show up sometime between when my papers were assigned and when they were due.

As I’ve gotten more comfortable with my wordology, I’ve found that the muse is fake. Like Mr. Peanut and Topcat. You are your own inspiration. The more you write, the more you’ll write. Go ahead, try it. It really works.

With one week left, I’m going to try and finish my first draft. From there, I get to enter the wonderful mystical realm of self-editing. I’m guessing it’s going to be more Tartarus than Elysium.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American readers!

Somehow, Mr.Peanut's astigmatism switched eyes in the mid-1930s.

Flying Time

In the midst of natural disasters, wedding preparation, proposal writing, work drama, digital distractions, and trying to decide what to do with my life, time has run off and down a rabbit hole. I’m still trying to figure out where it went and why it manifested as a white, stately rabbit.

It’s September 8th, already! Two days from now marks the one year anniversary of my elbow injury. My goal is not to dwell on the memory, but look forward to what will be a whirlwind of activity in the coming weeks/months.

I’m still planning to do NaNoWriMo, although my original idea has shifted somewhat. I can’t get a satirical sci-fi theme out of my head, so I’m going to run with it. I have to get some kind of outline down soon, otherwise I’m going to be pantsing my pants off (huh?), which never seems to work out very well. This entire process is new to me, so who knows what self-prescribed methods will or won’t work; only time, and my tenuous grasp on it, will tell.

I plan on updating this site with my status, because I’m sure after pooping out ~1700 words each day, the first thing I’ll want to do is write some more! Stay tuned, anyone who actually reads any of this, for wheels are in motion, and down a rabbit hole, I’m about to go.