My project for this winter break was to edit the crap out of about 400 pages of my novel and look into sending it to a publisher or two. My sister even had some that she'd found for me, and they're saved in my bookmarks.
Well, I probably haven't spent as much time on editing as I could have, mostly because I've hit book 11 and have been rolling along with that. (This damn thing will be finished before book 12, dammit!) And I've been toying around with trying to do something with the short story that I wrote for my Craft of Fiction class last Spring, The Sunset Girl, and I decided, it's the New Year, why not go for broke off the bat?
I sent it to The New Yorker. We'll see what that turns up, but I'm really it's something positive.
Which, invariably, got me thinking. And let to me digging out the 2007 copy of The Writer's Market and, after looking through the table of contents, found this nifty section titled Contest/Awards. Most of them are geared to short fiction - short stories.
The one mentioned above comes in at a whopping 10,120 words, which, for most of the suggested contests, is too many.
Then I had another thought. I took Creative Writing my junior year of high school, and did a bunch of different stuff over the course of the semester. After some digging in my room and the hall closet, I cam up with some of the better stuff that I had written - which is actually really short. We're talking three pages, max, and there's actually some stuff that I can use other than resorting to some of my old AP essays (which I'm not touching with a ten-foot pole unless I get extremely desperate and even then, I'm going to look at them, be reminded of my English teacher from senior year, and shudder violently) with some moderation. There's also this really interesting thing I did, for my final project, called Memorandum from Eternity: A Brief Look into the Past, Present, and Future which looks at my journey through my writing career (mostly The Crossing) and finding bits of myself in my characters. I think it explains a lot, and I'm really curious as to what you all would think, and it's one of the better written things to make a reappearance.
So, into the proverbial archives we go.
The first thing that I thought of was this funny little thing that was originally written from song lyrics. It was one of those creative writing prompts (which leads me to this - Thank You to my junior English teacher, Mrs. Lasko, who also helped me start the process of getting published and was a major help in my first cover letter [my only cover letter, really, that's undergone some interesting changes and modifications]) where you think of a song that you really like, that really speaks to you, and you create a story from the lyrics. I've always had a soft spot for the Canadian band, The Barenaked Ladies, so I ultimately went with one of the songs off of their album Stunt, which was the first BNL album that I owned. The song that I picked was "Who Needs Sleep?" and it turned into something really fun and easy. It's also one of the ones that I want to revamp a little, probably edit, and find a home for it, because I really like the concept.
Walter
An insomniac is a person who suffers from insomnia. The definition of insomnia is the chronic inability to sleep. I've never considered myself an insomniac, but that may be changing soon. My first attempt to go to sleep happens around ten or ten-thirty, and I sleep for about an hour. After that, I'm free game for the sandman's evil twin brother, Walter, who runs around sprinkling anti-sleep dust on people's noses. He visits me every. Freaking. Night.
By the time five-thirty rolls around (five twenty-nine, to be exact) my eyelids finally close. Less than sixty seconds later the alarm goes off, blaring the same song every day: The Barenaked Ladies Who Needs Sleep? Funny. It always starts at the same line - "Who needs sleep? Well you're never gonna get it. Who needs sleep? Tell me what's that for..." Every day it does this. And since I have to be at school by seven-thirty via a bus that comes around six fifty-five, it leaves me no other choice but to get up and get around. Lack of sleep, however, does wonders for the human body. It makes me sluggish and eventually grumpy. If I'm lucky, then later on in the day I'll be slightly wired. This, however, will be a temporary high, and I'll crash somewhere around three, right in the middle of softball practice. That doesn't mean I actually lie down on the floor and try (pretend) to sleep, but the necessity to do so is there. All I get from that endeavor is a weird look from the coach.
School is a completely different story.
I do believe it was yesterday that I was running on maybe an hour of sleep, and we were having such a boring, and uninformative history class, that I figured, why not, and put my head down on my next (actually, it was more like it fell down with a solid thunk) and inevitably drifted off. My dream could have been classified as more than slightly insane. It was probably more along the lines of downright certifiable.
I was in this little room from the sixties, all tie-dye and swirls, and psychadelic mojo, and Walter was there, sitting on a bench. Now, Walter looks nothing like you'd envision a sandman looking like. No, Walter actually looks more like a carbon-copy of Oogie-Boogie from Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas - pillowcase-looking body, maniacal grin, and this little pointed hat that reminds you of a garden gnome (or demented Cherub). Walter carries a bag of anti-sleep dust thrown over his shoulder, and even though he's only four feet tall, nobody in their right mind wants to mess with him. So, why do I carry on conversations with him? I'm such a freakin' insomniac that we know each other well enough to be considered friends. It's a weird friendship, but it's still a friendship.
"Whatcha doin', Walter?" I asked him, taking a seat on the bench next to him.
"Waitin' for you, Harriet," he said in that creepy drawl of his. "I brought a song I thought you'd like to hear." He turned on the little CD player by his feet that I hadn't seen before, and cranked the volume. I recognized the song immediately - it's the same one that plays every morning when my alarm goes off. Instead of being irked by it, Walter and I started singing right along with it, belting out lyrics such as, "There's so much joy in life, so many pleasures all around/But the pleasure of insomnia is one I've never found/With all life has to offer, there's so much to be enjoyed/But the pleasures of insomnia are ones I can't avoid!" The chorus came racketing around again, Walter and I doing a parody of a tango, and for a second it was like I was hit with some vertigo. The music wavered, but we were still singing right up to the point where the room wiggled and folded into blackness. The music was still playing in my head, of course, and in my head, I'm still singing. Which explained why when somebody shoved my shoulder and my head jerked off the desk, the first words out of my mouth, in perfect continuation with the song, were, "Hala hala hala."
My face turned the same color of the fake apple on Mrs. Blackstone's (our esteemed history teacher) desk. I also had the lovely feeling that said, you're screwed.
Mom yelled at me for falling asleep in class again when she got home from work. I shrugged it off, like I normally do, and went upstairs in hopes of falling asleep around eight-thirty. Sure enough, at ten, Walter was back with his damn dust, sprinkling it merrily across my cheeks. Only, I'd finally had enough. My already horrendous grades were starting to suffer further. In one swift motion, before Walter could react, I reached out, took his bag of anti-sleep dust, and dumped the lot of it over his head, the deserving bastard. Apparently, it must have a reverse effect on its carrier because Walter hit the carpet with a thud, snoring before the last of the dust had settled on the floor. I picked my little...buddy...up and put him in my moon chair - a great circular thing perfect for curling up and reading in.
Completely mindless of the fact that it was nearly quarter after ten on a school night, I broke out the Dyson and sucked the rest of the dust off the floor, surrounding clothing, boots, etc. that it had collected on. I even vacuumed my nose until I started giggling too hard and momentarily got it stuck to my cheek. Once the Dyson was back where it belonged, I took one last look at Walter and shut off the light. It was so peaceful, and I was tired. Bone tired. For the first time in what seemed like years, I finally drifted off to sleep. I even had one of those ridiculous smiles that you seem on people in Lunesta commercials.
My last thought, before sleep claimed me completely, was how cool my friends were going to think I was for having a four foot tall replica doll of Oogie-Boogie in my chair.
In case you were wondering, the lyrics mentioned in the above piece of fiction are as follows:
"Who Needs Sleep?"
Now I lay me down not to sleep
I just get tangled in the sheets
I swim in sweat three inches deep
I just lay back and claim defeat
Chapter read and lesson learned
I turned the lights off while she burned
So while she's three hundred degrees
I throw the sheets off and I freeze
Lids down, I count sheep
I count heartbeats
The only thing that counts is
that I won't sleep
I count down, I look around
Who needs sleep?
Well you're never gonna get it
Who needs sleep?
Tell me what that's for
Who needs sleep?
Be happy with what you're getting
There's a guy been awake
since the Second World War
My hands are locked up tight in fists
My mind is racing, filled with lists
of things to do and things I've done
Another sleepless night's begun
Lids down, I count sheep
I count heartbeats
The only thing that counts is
that I won't sleep
I count down, I look around
Who needs sleep?
Well you're never gonna get it
Who needs sleep?
Tell me what's that for
Who needs sleep?
Be happy with what you're getting
There's a guy been awake
since the Second World War
[Repeat]
There's so much joy in life,
so many pleasures all around
But the pleasure of insomnia
is one I've never found
With all life has to offer,
there's so much to be enjoyed
But the pleasures of insomnia
are ones I can't avoid
Lids down, I count sheep
I count heart beats
The only thing that counts is
that I won't sleep
I count down, I look around
Hala Hala Hala
Who needs sleep?
Well you're never gonna get it
Who needs sleep?
Tell me what's that for
Who needs sleep?
Be happy with what you're getting
There's a guy been awake
since the Second World War
[Repeat]
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