***DISTURBANCE IN THE MACHINE***
Whenever I write a full-length novel, I always want to use
it as a platform to highlight important issues in my life. Occupy Wrestling is
not only about wrestling, but it’s about Mitch McLeod’s hot temper. Filter
Feeder is not only about environmental issues, but it’s about strained
relationships. Watch You Burn is not only about anime, but also about
schizophrenia. And last but not least, Demon Axe is not only about heavy metal
music, but also about PTSD.
Of course, these novels (first draft or otherwise) were
written long after a little anthology I had called Disturbance in the Machine,
where multiple mental health issues were supposed to be tackled. Think of it as
having the story structure of Tales From the Hood with the setting of an
abandoned insane asylum. The stories were told by an ex-patient named Eric
Bradley and they were listened to be the mother of a former patient Nicole
McShane.
While these stories were supposed to talk about mental
illness in a positive way, they ended up being “crazy” stereotypes. Serial
killers who used scissors, ninjas in diapers, McDonald’s employees with anger
management issues, and troubled teens with puppet fetishes were just a few of
the characters presented in this anthology. In the end, these stories didn’t
really accomplish anything, not even advancing the overall story to its climax.
And speaking of climaxes, Nicole McShane reveals herself to
be a detective assigned to bring Eric Bradley to justice, which would probably
make the reader wonder why she didn’t cuff him and stuff him earlier on in the
book. Why all of these pointless stories if the purpose was to arrest him?
Speaking of pointless stories, the anthology ends with Eric
telling a much longer story about an abandoned pig who ventures out to the city
with other animals to try and survive the cruel outside world. The animals end
up being therapy pets for a terminally ill child named Sam, who puts on his
favorite Pink Floyd song “Pigs on the Wing” to end the story.
Surely, not everything you touch as an author will turn to
gold. Sometimes it’s best to know which stories are worthy of being edited and
revived and which ones should stay in the past. Because of this, Disturbance in
the Machine no longer has a place in my archives. The main story made no sense,
the meta stories made even less sense, and the pig stories made even less sense
than that.
However, that doesn’t mean certain aspects of this
dead-on-arrival novel can’t be used for future projects. If I were to salvage
from the wreckage, I’d probably keep the title Disturbance in the Machine
because of how cool it sounds. Telling stories in a mental hospital can work as
long as the main characters of those stories are presented in a positive light
and the harsh conditions of the hospital are vilified. Remember, a truly
sympathetic character is the key to maintaining the reader’s interest (even if
that character is sometimes an asshole). Even the pig story can have some
meaning, but only as its own entity.
Another thing I’d like to keep from the Disturbance in the
Machine canon is the poem that preceded it of the same name. It might be a part
of Confessions of a Schizophrenic Savage, but I’m not entirely sure. It’s
basically a downer of a song describing the idea of not being human and going
through life on autopilot. Somebody on Deviant Art wrote a counter-prose to
that where he turned the gears and metal into flesh and organs and told the
machine to “live”. That’s easily one of my favorite comments I’ve received on
this site since I joined in 2005. Find Disturbance in the Machine (the song) in
my gallery and read it and the comments below it to see why I feel the way I
do.
Nostalgia: it ain’t what it used to be. That may be true,
but it’s still a lot of fun to venture into a creative person’s past and see
what he or she came up with back then. Although most of my creative projects
back in the day are embarrassing to read now, it doesn’t they can’t be
resurrected with my current writing skills and made into something beautiful.
That’s the nature of art: creating something beautiful from the ashes. The
movie Pink Floyd the Wall drives this point home when Pink smashes up his hotel
room and then creates a collage out of the destroyed pieces.
I’m not recommending any of you do what Pink did in this
movie, I’m just saying that creativity is the perfect therapy for rising from
the ashes like a phoenix. I hope to one day do that with Disturbance in the
Machine, whether it’s a novel, anthology, short story collection, or whatever. The
truth of the matter is, though, that there are other novel ideas in my archives
waiting to be realized. Booger the Clown and Chicken and Fries are the ones
I’ve been thinking about the most, but I haven’t really fleshed them out in a
scene-by-scene analysis yet. Maybe what I really need to do is randomly select
which novel I work on next, just like I do with books to read and characters to
use.
I wouldn’t mind working on Disturbance in the Machine again
with the skills I have today, but it’ll probably be a backburner project since
I don’t have any immediate ideas of what to do with it. Usually I have
characters an a brief synopsis, but nothing more than that when it comes to
novels. Maybe the point of this blog entry is to motivate myself to flesh out
novel ideas more often instead of just letting them sit there doing nothing.
I’d like to think that’s the case. I’m Garrison Kelly and I’ll see you next
time!
***MARIE KREPPS/ASHLEY UZZELL STORIES***
Over the past few months, Marie has been putting out short
stories under both of her pennames. I’ve already reviewed Hunting Vampires with
Grandma and gave it a passing grade. Now I’m currently reading Reaching For the
Light (a mental illness-themed collaboration with TL Katt). All I have to do is
read TL Katt’s half of the story and I’m ready to review this puppy and
potentially give it an extra credit grade. The other two stories that I’ll
eventually get to are Spunky and the Dolphin
Palace
***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***
I’ve already submitted my entry for the WSS’s contest and
it’s called Exile. There’s no need to advertise it again in this blog, so I’ll
get straight to the point with the Dark Fantasy Warrior pictures that’ll come
from that story. You’ve already seen Night Wolf and Maria Kevin on Deviant Art,
Good Reads, and Face Book. The final character from that story that needs
drawing is Stigma Dominick, the guilt-ridden necromancer. He definitely earned
his sad face in that story and hopefully it’ll reflect in his artwork.
***FACE BOOK POST OF THE DAY***
If a British exit is
called Brexit and a French exit is called Frexit, what does that make a Serbian
exit? Sexit? Sounds kinky. Of course, Serbia
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