Zuh?

Another post? So soon? Writing is going well, aided by Milo and Earl Grey tea every night. If I keep up this rate, I should be done with the chapter within a month, which is scarysoon for my usual speed.

Just hoping to get some feedback on my dialogue. First draft dialogue always sound incredibly hammy and forced, so if anyone reads this, help me tidy it up, huh?

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Aus jumped up onto the rock. “Mind if I steal your place for a while?”
“No.” Pal looked over to where the girls were resting on the far side of the lake. It would be nice to talk to Rei, he thought, but pushing himself into the middle of their girl talk would be awkward. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Aus smiled. “Good. I want to talk to you about something.”
“Something?”
“Nothing bad. Just ideas.”
Pal sat with his back against the stone, Aus hanging overhead. “We… um… don’t talk much.”
“I know. And it’s my fault. Are any of those peaches still alright?” He took the tin from Pal and inspected it. “Still good. It’s only grass.”
“You had ideas?”
Aus squeezed a piece of peach between his front teeth, and juice ran down his chin in a sticky river. He licked around his lips, thinking. “Yeah. Pal… lying is wrong, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“But you’ve lied, yeah?”
He shrugged. “I guess. Everyone has. Why?”
“Just thinking. Sometimes, you have to lie, even though it’s wrong. It’s better for everyone if you don’t tell the truth. So is it really wrong?”
“It depends, doesn’t it?”
“It does. But sometimes, it would hurt someone more to tell them the truth than to lie and let them find out the truth later. For a while, you need to hide things. And then later, you can make up for what you did wrong, and it’s all okay, yeah?”
Pal felt hairs on his neck beginning to stand. “Like you said, sometimes. What’s this about?”
“Nothing important.” Aus coughed. “Just trying to get things straight in my head, I guess. Sometimes you need to bounce ideas off someone else to make them work. So, is it sometimes okay to do wrong things if you know that they’ll help people in the end, if you absolutely know it? I think it is. What do you think?”
Pal stood, suddenly feeling stiff and uncomfortable. “I guess. But there are some things that are too wrong. You can’t… have an excuse for everything.”
“What if you need to do it to survive? What would you do if you needed to?”
He knew now what Aus was talking about. The memory of his dream crashed back, fingernails like claws tearing through his flesh. “I think…” He stopped and turned his face to the ground. “I think you could have pulled him up.”
“No,” said Aus, and his voice was unusually calm. “I don’t want to die. I can’t die. And you wouldn’t have held him for a second. You would have just dropped him and watched him sink, but I held on until I couldn’t anymore. So you understand now?”
Pal baulked, expecting the swing of a fist at any moment. “I don’t.”
“We need to survive, “ Aus said, “and sometimes, to do that, you need to do wrong things, or let wrong things happen. Because if we don’t, you’ll die. We’ll all die. Do you understand now?”
“I do,” said Pal, his mouth dry. “Can I go?”
Aus nodded and patted him on the head. “You can. Good kid. You’re a good kid.”
Pal shook to his core and ran.

Writing more than I expected

Doubled my word count for this week. I’ve discovered that my muse comes much more easily with pen and paper.

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There had been something wrong with the horizon since the night before. It had been too dark to make out, but there was something curious about the night sky, as if there was more of it than usual. Rei commented on it, “There are more stars than yesterday!” but Marissa laughed at her curiosity and that was the last they spoke of it that night, although she dwelled on it more than she let the others know.
By morning the sun was rising fast through a cloudless sky, and Marissa conceded that Rei had been right, in a sense; in the distance was a huge lake, mirroring the blue above. It stretched so far that the land beyond was invisible, lost behind the glare of sun on water. The wind blew Pal’s empty plastic bags out behind him like streamers, flapping about his head no matter how he tied them to his bundle. He batted them away and licked his lips, dry and chapped against his tongue.
Finally, he thought, a clean drink. Beside him Alix smiled. “Finally, a good bath.”
After an hours march, the lake had grown again. They could see now that it extended far off to the east, and almost certainly wound off to the west as well. “Maybe it’s a river?” Rei suggested.
Marissa shook her head. “I don’t remember any river this big,” she said. “Then again, I don’t really know this land at all.”
“Is it in our way?”
“There’s always something in our way.”

Run Down & Onwards Chapter Six!

Finally got off my arse and REALLY started work on chapter 6 of Weathermen today. I find I get so much more done writing by hand in my little notebook and typing it up later; all my best dialogue is written down in there. The most powerful moments seem to come to me on the tram.

For extra viewing pleasure, here is the short film I did for my Media and Meaning class, in Industrial Design. Tis an experiment in product placement with parkour thrown in for giggles. Enjoy!

Boilerboy – first draft

To take a break from Weathermen, I’ve been working on a short story in the Steampunk vein for an indie zine. It’s called Boilerboy, just over 4000 words. Any ideas, feedback, shenanigans? This is just a first draft, hoping to polish it up over a few weeks.