Thanks to my writers group that I’ve been a member of for quite some time now, I’ve been forced to write things that are completely out of my normal style of writing. It’s good to gain this sort of experience as a writer, because in the end it’ll only serve to make you better at your craft. In this particular piece, I tried to bring out the absolute torment that one feels when they love someone that they’ll never have.
You can read The Missing Piece of My Soul right here.
Author’s Note: Thanks to my writers group that I’ve been a member of for quite some time now, I’ve been forced to write things that are completely out of my normal style of writing. It’s good to gain this sort of experience as a writer, because in the end it’ll only serve to make you better at your craft. In this particular piece, I tried to bring out the absolute torment that one feels when they love someone that they’ll never have.
* * *
It’s dark. It’s always dark now. The sun comes up, makes its lonely journey from one side of our world to the other, and then disappears once again until it repeats the whole process all over again the following day. It’s been like this since time began, but only now do I understand the emptiness of such an existence.
I didn’t used to be like this. I thought I was happy…fulfilled even, but I was only deluding myself. Sometimes I wish I could go back to living in such blissful ignorance, but alas, those days are over for me. They have been since I first encountered the part of my soul that’s been missing for all these years. The day I met her was both a blessing and a curse, for never could I have imagined that one of such flawless beauty existed, and yet from the very first moment I laid eyes on her my soul has been in a perpetual state of despair…for she belongs to another.
The heart can be a cruel and jealous creature, for I hate this man as much as I envy him, and yet I can’t hate him, for his slight against me was never purposeful. In fact, he knew nothing more of my existence than I knew of hers before that first, unforgettable encounter, and yet a jealousy rages within me that I struggle to control.
“If I can’t have her, then no man shall!” my jealous soul calls out, and yet I could never deny her even one brief moment of happiness, for to my knowledge at least, she is happy…and so I remain silent. Not that I could ever truly believe that she could desire someone like me, but the heart cares not for such petty insecurities. The heart wants what it wants, and it’ll hear no arguments to the contrary.
So…I wait. I wait, and I pretend that my soul doesn’t cry out in pain each and every time I see her. It’s difficult to maintain such a facade, but such is life. I suppose all that’s left for me is to accept things as they are. To be satisfied with seeing her eyes light up when she smiles, or to bask in the gentle softness of her voice. Her mere presence radiates a warmth and a joy that’s almost unbearable for someone who sees her as the completion of his very soul, and yet is so cruelly restrained from expressing those feelings.
We don’t always get what we want, nor can we force someone to love us. All we can do is to suffer through the emptiness, and to hope that perhaps someday…no, I dare not hope for such things. It’s a fool’s endeavor at best to hope in such a way. Perhaps in the next life we’ll find one another, for only then will the longing in my heart and the emptiness of my soul finally be put to rest.
I belong to a local writers group that’s full of some really awesome people. The word “moist” has become this running joke with us, so this morning on our Facebook page, one of our people posted something he’d written that used the word moist. He called it his moist sentence for the day. Then another girl from the group, not to be outdone, posted something of her own using the word moist.
So…not to be outdone by either of them, I came up with this little gem…
“The worms crawled over his face, leaving several moist trails in their stead that his mind repeatedly traced over and over, seeing them as though they were streaks of light on a mask that hovered in the air before him. It was bad enough being bound and buried alive with nothing but a simple breathing tube to sustain him, but now he had far more to worry about, as those things that lived below the ground…beneath our very feet began to encroach upon his person. Would someone find him before they began to devour him as though he were nothing more than a heap of rotting compost? That was the question that plagued him as he suddenly felt something wiggling around his ear, as though it were desperately searching for a way inside.”
It’s been a while since I last posted an update. Mostly I just got burned out and needed to take a little break to recharge the ol’ batteries. In this case, that break involved burying myself in the game Witcher 3 for god knows how many hours now. My god that’s a long game. The amount of content and side quests in it are just insane, and it does get quite addictive.
I also got a new bass. I got one of the new Fender Elite American Jazz basses, and I fell instantly in love with it, so I’ve been spending a lot of time playing bass lately too.
On the bright side, I’m basically caught up with everything at this point, so I have absolutely nothing hanging over my head at the moment. I’m finally able to relax and enjoy life instead of feeling like every new thing that comes in is just something else on my back that I can’t get out from under. That’s been my life for months and months now, and I’m finally able to breathe again.
As for Cindy’s Story, I’m almost done with chapter 8 right now. I have less than a thousand words to go in it I think, so it’s about half done. I’m going to get back to working on it today, and then when I finish I’m going to really just edit the hell out of it with a fine toothed comb, because this is not only going to be the first book I make available in paperback as well as digital, but it’s also one that I’m going to attempt to farm out to agents. I didn’t have much luck getting an agent with my series, due in part I assume because of the sheer size of it, so I’m hoping that farming out a stand alone will get me better results and help me to get a foot in the door. We’ll see what happens. If not, it’s no big loss. I’ll still be self publishing in any case.
That’s about it for now. Cindy’s story has turned out better than I ever could have hoped for so far, and I’m really looking forward to getting it out there. There’s a lot of humor in this one, as well as one of the most hilariously irritating characters I’ve ever written. I just introduced her in chapter 8 and I really went over the top with that scene. I’ll try to pop in to post more updates here and there as things progress.
Smashwords sale through the month of July!
The entire Unseen Things series will be on sale at Smashwords throughout the month of July for 25% off the normal retail price. That means that each book will be available for $2.99 instead of the usual $3.99. There’s supposed to be a coupon code on each book’s listing to use for the sale I guess. I’m not sure how it works. This is the first time I’ve enrolled the series in one of their sales, but they say that’s how it works, so I’ll take their word for it. Anyway, they’ll be on sale all month, so if you’ve been thinking about checking out the series, now’s the time to do it.
On a quick note, Smashwords only offers Epub versions of the series, so you’ll need an Epub capable e-book reader to read them. If you’re using an Android tablet or phone, then I HIGHLY recommend Moon+ Reader (Free, Pro). It’s far and away the best e-reader I’ve found for any platform, and it has both a free and paid version. The free one works perfectly, so give it a shot.
By Duane • Uncategorized 0