Vote for ME!

DailyWritingTips.com is in full swing with their short story contest. I have submitted a short story called A Raven's Lanyard. Go over there and read it and vote for me today! Don't worry, it's not too long. Less than 1000 words (1.5 pages).

Link: A Raven's Lanyard.

-Les

[photo: Felix]

Guest Post: LSD Summer Part 2

LSD Summer Part 2

DavidCGarcia.com

Sometimes all you really need is some good old fashioned adolescent fear to kick your ass into line. I remember when I was in Venezuela, I showed up to school high as a kite one day. Bloodshot eyes, total disorientation, the works. Me and some of my friends had smoked a Tommy Chong-sized joint before class, and when I finally staggered into class, I was sure I was going to get expelled. I spent the first hour-and-a-half of school hiding my face and obvious paranoia from my History teacher. I never got expelled, but I decided not to smoke weed before school any more. The same "oh-my-god-I-am-going-to-be-in-so-much-trouble" fear is what put an end to my pilgrimage to Crazyville.
--
I had to be at work at 3:00 PM that day. I woke up at 10 AM or 11 AM and decided that I would take a few hits. I figured I would peak long before work and be able to maintain some semblance of normalcy through the day. I took a few geltabs and sat down to watch TV. After about an hour, the acid finally began to pry open my brain to let a little more insanity in. I kind of spaced out for a while, and when I came out of the clouds, I realized I had to go to work. I hopped in the shower, got dressed and looked in the mirror. I focused on my face, and there were little visual distortions happening. It was nothing I couldn't handle, but I was still a bit worrisome. I had never gone to work under the influence of a psychoactive drug. Opiates? Yes. Speed? Yes. LSD? NO! HELL NO! I realized that I had put myself in an awkward position. I was still peaking, and I had to be to work in 30 minutes. There was nothing to do but to go. I hopped in my car, and drove to work, little distortions and irrational ideas making their way into my reality every few seconds.

When I finally got to work, I was drenched in sweat. It was summer, and the heat in combination with panic made me perspire like I was running in a sauna. I jetted past my coworkers, my managers and the huddle of customers at the information desk and went straight to the bathroom. Once again, it was me looking at me in the mirror. I told myself to get a grip. I took a few deep breaths, and everything seemed to slow down. The panic washed away, and I was just me in my sweaty shirt.

Phew! That was a close one. Note to self, David: Don't drop before you go to work.

I looked at the schedule. I was scheduled to work at the music information desk. I moseyed along, confident that all was well, or at least well enough. I leaned on the desk and started watching out for customers. Then it started to happen again. Goddamnit! What is this Devil acid? Why won't it leave me alone? Crawl back from whence you came, foul destroyer of brains! I have work to do! I have to shelve music and teach these imbeciles how to say the alphabet! Oh boy, here comes a jerkwad now. Brittney Spears in Pop/Rock under "S"!

My paranoia had come back, and it had come back with a vengeance. I was having trouble hearing, and my vision was all distorted. I "helped" the customer find the CD and then hustled back to the music desk. I'll just head to the bathroom and pretend I have a real bad stomach ache. I can't get in trouble if I have the shits. I ducked out to the bathroom and found some peace there. It wasn't just paranoia. The acid liked my brains, and it had invited itself back to my mind for seconds. I stayed in the bathroom until the end of the hour. Crap! Cash register duty.

Unlike the music station, I could not escape the registers. Customer service, in all of its overrated glory, is not an essential part of the shopping experience. I could duck and cover from patrons at the music info desk, but everyone eventually comes to the cash registers. It was like a nightmare. I was still tripping. I was dripping with sweat. I wasn't sure if I could speak because I hadn't really done it for the past hour and may have been out of practice.

So I just stood there at register number 3, quiet and scared.

Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck! Go away!

David's first customer. I was afraid what I would do. All of a sudden I could not trust this maniac drug. It had turned on me. I could deal with the aches and pains and insomnia. But LSD had become unpredictable. We had had a deal: Work on making me crazy outside of work and school. But when it's time to go back in the box, go back in the box. But alas, this had not happened. The monster that was acid was full-grown and thinking for itself. I was at the cash registers, helpless, and the beast had followed me out of its box.

The customer was an idiot. But his idiocy was no match for my stupidity combined with apparent lunacy. The customer had found a book and wanted to know if the cash registers had the ability to determine if a credit card's balance is sufficient to make a purchase. My rationale had screeched to a halt. All my mental energy was busy doing battle with LSD, trying to keep it at bay. I didn't once think to tell the customer that his request was absolutely moronic. Instead, I scanned his book then swiped and charged his card.

"Yep, sir. You had enough to get the book."

"No, I wasn't sure if I wanted to get the book. I just wanted to check and see if there was enough money on my card to get the book if I decided I wanted to."

"Hold on."

Angry that Joe Idiot had interrupted my mental civil war, I sweated over to the intercom.

"Manager, please come to the cash registers. Manager, please come to the cash register."

Joe Idiot was a mental invalid, so my conversation with him was not a good way to gauge if my speech was coherent or if the LSD had taken over the speech center of my brain and invented a language all its own. I may have sounded like this:

"Dick Cock! Manager! Shit, Cunt, Mother! Graaaaaar! Manager! Peckerface! Register!"

The manager came over, and I desperately tried to make sense as I told her what happened. It probably didn't work. She gave me a menacing look that said, "You are totally fired. I'm watching you, you fuck up."

The manager retreated from me and my mania, and I settled in once more to do battle with my dissolving mind.

Then another customer arrived. I managed to get through the transaction with ease. I tried not to look her in the eyes because I was sure once eye contact was made, the weak barricade holding back my fear would crumble and I would piss myself.

"Um, do you all do gift wrapping here?"

Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck! What do you think? There's a giant goddamned gift-wrapping station over there that has a sign that says "GIFT WRAPPING AVAILABLE." It may even be flashing...but I can't be sure of that.

"Yes we do, ma'am."

I don't even think I asked her what kind of paper she wanted. I just picked the Christmassy looking one. After all, it was July. I set the book down. Gift wrapping: This should be easy. I've done it a million times. Just keep quiet and wrap it up nice and good while the acid sodomizes your brain. The customer will leave, and all will be good.

Hands shaking, I tried to wrap it, but the paper was made out of some sort of brittle. I couldn't get it right. Each time I folded the paper over the book RIIIIIIIIP! This was getting impossible. Worst.Retail.Day.Ever. I tried again and again, but I could not wrap that book. Maybe rectangles are just a really difficult gift-wrapping shape. I looked behind me, and an army of three had amassed at the register line, waiting to torment me. I couldn't take it. My mind was about to explode. I hoped it would, because this was just miserable. I paged for backup, and once again I wasn't sure if I did it right or gave the Borders intercom system an R-rating:

"Motherfucker! Hate, Spit! Satan fucks your children in hell! Backup to registers! AAAAARRRRGGHHHH Backup!"

One of my coworkers ran up and handled the customers with lightning speed as I tried to figure out if the paper I was using was part water. It just didn't work. The only thing I could wrap this book in was sweat. And panic.

When the customers had been served, my kindhearted coworker came to my aide. He could see I was in trouble. I had probably lost Borders a customer.

The customer walked off, probably to file a report with the Health Department alleging Borders Books employs rabid lunatics with profound sweating problems. My coworker asked me if I was okay, and I explained that I did not feel well. I asked him to cover for me while I took a cigarette break.

I went outside. All alone and without the imminent threat of customers, it actually felt cooler outside than it did in the air-conditioned store. I looked at the street. It was wobbly. By the time I got inside, it was time for someone else to take over the register. I looked at the schedule, and angels sang. I was scheduled to be shelving for the next two hours. I packed up my insanity, and moved to the computer section. Anybody who needs a computer book would likely know what they are looking for, and if they asked for help, I could justifiably act like an idiot this time.

That was the last time I dropped acid. All I needed was a little fear, and that day, fear had been plentiful.

I was blooming into quite an experienced drug user. LSD was just an item to add to my resume of abuse. When I stopped doing acid, there was no residue of insanity. Everything went back to normal: Once again, I was desperately bored, still culture-shocked from the U.S., and all-in-all depressed. I was 19 years old and completely jaded.

A few weeks later, I got my hands on some beer. I had done my fair amount of drinking in Venezuela, but the drugs had afforded me better highs. I had forgotten about alcohol long ago. After acid though, beer was refreshing. I chugged three or four beers and thought to myself, Alcohol. This is nice. I could get used to this.

For more on David's writing please visit: DavidCGarcia.com and Thesestoriesaretrue.com

The New Author Guest Post

Not too long ago I found a great site called The New Author. Brian, the owner of the site, is an aspiring author and the blog his dedicated to tips and tricks involving all aspects of writing and publishing. If you are an aspiring author too, I highly recommend his site.

I wrote a two-part article for The New Author and both parts are now posted on the site. The article is about giving and receiving critiques.

You can read part one here. And Part two here.

Tomorrow I will be posting Part 2 of David C Garcia's guest post: LSD Summer.

LSD Summer Part 1

[David C Garcia, TLDS's resident Hispanic is back again for another guest post. David has so many stories that neither his blog DavidCGarcia.com, or his other blog TheseStoriesAreTrue.com can hold them. This week David explores the world of LSD, my favorite world. Have fun kids! -Les]

LSD Summer Part 1

When I was just a wee little boy, my father brought home a DEA-created pamphlet called "Illicit Drugs From Around the World," or something to that effect. It had nice, glossy, thick pages, each of which had pictures of the assorted narcotics and illegal substances from across the globe. My dad and I would sit down and look at all the stuff. He would explain which ones were bad and which ones were worse. In the "Hallucinogens" section, right next to PCP, there were a whole bunch of pictures of sheets of LSD seized by the DEA and other law-enforcement agencies. The sheets were formed out of connected blotter strips of acid, all of which looked like stamps. My dad told me that these were not good stamps and that they made the person who licked them see terrible things. My dad's description mortified me and made me wonder why anyone would ever use this stuff. It's just seemed like a dumb idea.

Throughout my childhood, I would hear all sorts of stories about acid, most of which were likely rooted in truth, but like the "I caught a fish this big" stories most of these LSD stories had grown into fantastic lies. When I was in fifth or sixth grade, one of my classmates whose father was also a law enforcement officer told me that his dad had heard about some guy who had taken too much LSD and eaten the flesh off of his own arm. I would hear these other supposed "facts" suggesting that anyone who consumed a certain quantity of LSD in their lifetime was considered legally insane by the U.S. government. Whatever.

I know the amount of horror stories that I heard about LSD dwarfed the amount of happy stories. Everyone always mentioned their "bad trip" or "flashbacks." All that crap. Even when I got older and would ask my friends if they took acid or if they would consider trying it, they would immediately say they were too scared. The whole LSD mythos had crept into the social conscious of my generation and freaked us all out.

That being said, I was never a big fan of psychoactive drugs anyways, and I didn't think I would ever touch the stuff. The first time I actually got high from smoking weed, I freaked the hell out. I was always a bigger fan of pharmaceutical opiates -- stuff that would mellow me out but not distort my thought process too much. During the last year of my drinking, I entertained the notion of getting into "marijuana maintenance," hoping that sustaining a nice pot-based buzz would take the edge off my cravings for booze. Each time I would give it a shot, I would get paranoid and go for a drink (or five) to overpower the THC.

When I first got back to the U.S. after living in Caracas for three-and-a-half years and Uruguay for three years prior to that, I made sure that I was well-equipped, pharmaceutically. I had spent hundreds of dollars, on assorted pills, mostly codeine, lorazepam and diazepam (The U.S. street value of the amount of narcotics was probably in the thousands). I had some speed in the form of Phentermine HCl, but the downers were the main course. I had shipped over a large lock box packed with pills in it. Then prepared my "carry on" bag cramming a whole bunch of Tylenol, Flintstones Vitamins and Ibuprofen containers with enough dope to get me through the next few months until the main shipment arrived. (I did have plans to get more when the main shipment ran dry).

--

I came back to the U.S. in 1997. Within a few months of the arrival of the main shipment, the drugs were all but gone. My parents had found and confiscated the remaining contents of my big box o' drugs that was once thick and juicy. What was left when mom and dad got to it was just a skeleton that I had been picking at and rationing. There had been some "distribution difficulties," and the prospect of getting more seemed to be a pipe-dream. I had resorted to buying whatever drugs kids stole from their parents’ medicine cabinets.

Narcotics abusers, despite their apparently dulled senses, have keen hearing when it comes to the whispers of opiate availability. I had been working at Burger King for the first few months after high school. When I found out that one of my managers who suffered chronic back pain had just refilled her prescription for Darvocet, I immediately went into ninja mode. Seconds after my manager had stepped outside for a cigarette break, I was in her purse, a handful of Darvocet was in my stomach and the remaining contents of the bottle were hidden safely for when I got out of work. Unfortunately, that was a one-shot deal. The manager stopped packing her drugs in her purse and David was Darvocetless.

--

By the early summer of 1999, I was going through the motions in college and working a full-time job at Borders Books. I was desperately bored, still culture-shocked from the U.S., and all-in-all depressed. I was 19 years old and completely jaded. Pain killers became the rare treats that, when secured, would make my day. For the most part, I did a lot of ephedrine, the good old American truck-stop speed. In fact, I would go through handfuls of the stuff. My ability to metabolize drugs and develop a serious tolerance astounds me even to this day.

The trucker speed was getting old, though. I needed something new. Then it happened. A young kid, "Cowboy, " started getting his hands on some acid. The dude was tripping all the time. Maybe I want in on that. Do I? LSD?

What the hell. I was bored. The wellspring of drugs had long since dried, and I needed something new. I told Cowboy I wanted some acid. He was still in high school and dealing out of his locker, and apparently he had been getting a pretty steady flow of this particular product. Supply and demand, sir, the basic American business foundation. I don't know jack squat about street drug prices. I liked to consider myself a sophisticated drug abuser, pill-popping away and classing it up. I gave Cowboy 30 bucks and told him to get me whatever that would fetch.

When I saw Cowboy the next day, he handed me a little baggie with six hits of geltabs. Those don't look like the stamps in the book about drugs my dad and I used to read.

That night, I sat in my bedroom and looked at the geltabs. All the horror stories flooded my mind. Finally, after about an hour of debating whether or not to violate my precious spinal fluid, I put two of the geltabs in my mouth and let them dissolve...

It took a while for the acid to kick in -- about 45 minutes. It was a long wait. I'm impatient, and after 30 minutes I thought Cowboy had ripped me off.

Wow! This is a lot of fun! For the next four or five hours, my senses became hyper-activated. I was excitable. Colors did seem to be a bit richer, and I felt very, very happy. With respect to the hallucinations, I had a few, and they were mild. There was nothing traumatic about the experience. I spent the rest of the night in my room losing my LSD virginity. I have found that acid makes you very hyper. When you get tired, and your body just feels like shutting down, your mind won't let you. I remember trying to go to sleep that night, but it eventually became apparent to me that that was not in the cards. No matter how much I closed my eyes and focused on sleep, I stayed awake.

***Note: I have no concept of acid potency. Apparently, it was some immensely potent stuff in the 1960s. The stuff I had didn't seem too potent to handle. It was just right.***

The next day, I called Cowboy and told him I wanted some more. Cowboy delivered. David was happy.

I was living with my parents at the time, so the poverty-level salary I got paid by Borders was enough to afford me food, gas, ephedrine and now -- acid. I would wake up in the morning, wash down a bunch of ephedrine, go to school and then go to work. When I got out of work, I would take a geltab or two and drive home. I did this almost every day for the first month and a half (excess was always my mantra when it came to mind-altering substances). I had become an official acid fan. It gave me something to look forward to -- something to break up the boredom in between life sessions.

--

After about two months into LSDfest, I was beginning to tire. I was not getting enough sleep. I was physically and mentally worn out. My short-term memory was being terribly affected, and for the first time, I was not doing my school work. Like a good little substance abuser, I rationalized a new plan: I would space out my acid intake. Every couple of days, David. All things in moderation, David.

I kept my promise to myself for the next few weeks, giving myself time to recuperate between doses. Then one night, I got out of work and went to a local Hardee's with my friend, Sobie. I had taken two or three geltabs right after Borders closed up, and by the time Sobie and I had finished our meals, I was cracking up, hysterically. I guess LSD is hit or miss (get it?), and this particular dose had HIT! It was amazing. I was all sorts of twisted and jacked up. Then swung into a really bad mood. It was like the geltabs had a happy crunchy outer layer and a desperately sad chewy center. I excused myself, went to the bathroom and rinsed my face off with cool water. The feeling went away. I remember the next part quite vividly:

I stood in the poorly lit bathroom looking at myself in the shitty mirror above the even shittier sink. I hated life. I hated Virginia. I hated everything. I was bored and lonely. My eyes were sunken and black because I hardly slept. Even on nights off from acid, I had enough ephedrine in my system to keep a bull elephant awake. I remember thinking about the "X" amount of acid makes you crazy rule, and I had most certainly sped past that benchmark during my first week with my new drug of choice. I remember making a conscious decision to purposefully drive myself crazy. I wanted to rewire my brain. I wanted to rev all my neurons and synapses up to a creepy, crazy frenzy. I reached in my pocket, pulled out the cellophane cigarette wrapper where my last two hits of acid were. I took one, and saved the last one for later.

I can't remember if I told Sobie what my plan was, but I am a man of principles and determination, and when I set a goal for myself, especially when it is a detrimental goal, I go balls to the wall and get the job done.

And I did get a little cooky. I was keeping Cowboy in business. I started sneaking my nightly hits in 30 minutes to an hour before work ended, so I was balls deep in Loonytown before I even got into my car and drove home. Every day, I dropped. I loved days off because I could start early. It became almost absurd. My self-destruction had almost become my own twisted personal comedy. In all honesty, though, I think I was enjoying it...

[Photo: Midnight-Digital]

New Banner by Web-Betty

You may have noticed that TLDS has a new banner. This is the first step of a long overdue overhaul of the TLDS site. The banner is the result of some hard work put in by Mellisa the owner Web-Betty.com

Web-Betty is not a template factory. No, they don't crank out mindless garbage to the masses. They wont make your blog or website look like everyone else's. In short: Web-Betty is not your average web designer. They create custom websites for the self-employed, small business, the serious entrepreneur, and now slightly mad fiction-writers.

If you are looking for high quality and professional solutions that are inexpensive but not cheap, look no further than Web-Betty. They will set you up with a custom designed site that you can be proud of.

Visit Web-Betty.Com today!
Follow Web-Betty on Twitter!



[Photo: HappyKatie]

On Character Development

Character Development

Writers of fiction are bound by their own craft. We create other worlds and people in our minds, and we are then obligated to bring them to life. There is no denying the importance of rich character development in works of fiction. The writer is tethered to their character, and the believability of the writer’s voice through their character, their creation, is paramount to the success of the story.

I believe that character creation can be regarded as a true art in itself; separate from plot mountains, and stylistic trademarks. The great writers through out time have been able to conjure not only a person and their likeness, but also an individual: more than just an apparition, but flesh to be touched and movements that define the story itself. So how does one create one’s own Holden Caulfield? Or better yet a nameless character with incredible depth like Cormac McCarthy is known to do?

One thing that really helps me develop a character is a “Character Sheet”. Character sheets are basically a survey that you fill out for your main characters. The questions require you to think outside of the normal physical description and force you to think critically about “who is your character”. It is my belief that for one to accurately describe themselves as a person, one must first truly know themselves. Likewise, to be able to accurately depict the person you have created, you must first truly know that person.

Here is an example of one of the character sheets I use. It is a modified version of the character sheets found here.

First Name:

Middle Name:

Last Name:

Age:

Strongest personality traits:

Weakest personality traits:

Needs of the character:

Ambitions:

Father's name:

Physical appearance:

Mother's name:

Physical appearance:

Sibling's names and descriptions:

Favorite sayings:

Interests and hobbies:

Favorite food:

Favorite color:

Pets:

Education:

Possessions this character values most:

What drives your character:

How does your character handle conflict:

What is standing in your character's way:

What vehicle do they drive:

What are your character's prejudices:

How does your character feel about love:

About crime:

What is their neighborhood like:

What is your character's philosophy on life:

What is your character's family life like:

In addition I also usually write a paragraph about their past. If the characters past is not relevant to the story that I am writing, I still write a character history because I personally feel more confident in filling that character out. Everything that we as people have done in the past affects our lives today in some form, and we draw on our experiences to help us make decisions. A writer’s characters should be no different.

So, what do you do to help develop your characters?

[Photo: Hiro008]

Old School

There is no way around it. It has been said by many writers including Faulkner, McCarthy, Hemingway, and even Steven King: There is no way around it, if you want to be a writer, you gotta write. Period.

For the longest time I have done almost all of my writing on the computer. I sit in my office and stare at the screen for hours sipping a cocktail, or pounding away on the keys till the early morning. But lately, I have found the computer to be a little distracting. When I get stuck on a part of a story I usually just look at stuff on the internet or check the news, and before I know it an hour or more has passed. This is especially true with The Red Canoe, and other longer projects of mine.

Instead of getting the story out, I want to make it as good as possible the first time around to save myself work later. But, I have realized that the only thing I am saving myself from is the writing.

Recently I read about a short story contest put on by DailyWringTips.com. It is a simple enough writing contest; accepting all genres and styles, with a word-count cap of a thousand words. I had a little idea of what I wanted to write about, but I knew I had to be precise. A thousand words is nothing, so to ensure that I didn’t go too far off course I wrote the story on paper first.

Actually, I wrote it three times, all with different endings and slightly different plots. I didn’t really flesh the story out, but it wasn’t exactly an outline either. I wrote in dialog, descriptions, and other details but they were not completely formed. I wrote all three in the course of an hour while I watched House. The results were awesome. I was able to write without trying to make it perfect. I was able to experiment while staying focused.

So Les, what the fuck are you trying to say?

I have gone back to the old school. I am now writing all of my stories first in handwriting in Moleskine notebooks.

I have been writing little thoughts, sketches, and poems in Moleskines for about nine years, but never full stories. If you are unfamiliar with Moleskine I will give you a quick rundown:
From the Moleskine website:

“Moleskine is the heir of the legendary notebook used for the past two centuries by great artists and thinkers, including Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Bruce Chatwin.”

It was actually Chatwin that coined the term “Moleskine” after its smooth leather covering. Chatwin and others purchased these anonymous notebooks from a small stationary shop in Paris where they were hand bound and sold. Now more recently they are produced by a small publisher in Milan, Italy.

I was lucky enough to receive three new Moleskines and a really nice pen for my birthday last month. So now I am writing a little novella all in handwriting first, and I am really flying along! Since the pages are ruled on both sides of the page, I am writing the story on the right pages and making my notes on the left hand side. With all of this writing I have come to really appreciate a good pen. It really cuts down on the hand and wrist fatigue.

So you writers out there: Do you write only on the computer? Or, do you use the ol’ pen and paper too?

Moleskine.com

See the pen I use here.

[Top Photo: mbgrigby All Other Photos from Moleskine.com]