Day 11

       23 page views!  Like Mike!  Michael Jordan.

       What's new today.  Doing this zen bullshit.  Trying to write as much as possible instead of just 1,000 words a day I think is the next goal.  I was going to work my way up to 2,000, but I'm thinking word count might be arbitrary.  The new goal I think is reaching that writing second wind where suddenly it all rolls off of your tongue.
      Studying cartoons for storyline hints.  The use of the "Deus ex Machina" in all stories favors a shorter storyline.  I've got pretty good at not using the word "seems" anymore.  Trying to get authoritative or whatever.  Definitely noticing improvement, now I'm figuring out why things have to happen in stories, so you can describe consequences and show character based on reactions.
       Moleskines are small enough to conceal in a pocket.  Maybe I'll get some good ideas at work.  I was thinking about calling someone on my lunch break today, and then I thought, "Hey, that's a great idea for something to happen in a story! There's a guy who calls someone every day on his lunch break!  That's a telling action!"  So I guess I should be a real person and do stuff, then I'd understand the implications of each stuff I could do.
       

            The harmonica player laid there with bullet sized holes riddling his crooked goatee.  The drummer was a six inch gash in his sternum, and was gurgling blood like a broken radiation.  The guitarist had gotten the worst of it, you couldn’t hardly tell he had been there at all. The trombone player tremored in terror in the corner, holding a symbal in front of him like a shield.  He rushed forward and closed the curtain when he saw the twin killers wave each other off and move over to the door.

            “Your trombone playin ain’t bad, but if you don’t learn some new toons by next week you’re outta the show!” The big man’s baritone belted out.  He grabbed a napkin off the table, wiped off the blade and tugged it back inside his huge swiss army knife.  The kids at the table stared up with wide eyes, and their father sat perfectly still like the ghost he had just seen.

            The coffee shop crowd exchanged glances with each other, avoiding singling themselves out to the crazy tall man by the door with his giant swiss army knife or the guy resembling Danny Devito’s penguin with the bloody arm. 

            “Just didn’t like the music!”  The big one said.  The Penguin guffawed and his whole body shaked.  He was a humming bird momentarily stopping, he looked unnatural trying to keep still.

            “Hey octopus face!” The big guy called out, making his way towards a guy who was scampering underneath tables and toward the backstage area.

            “Joel, don’t!” Octopus Faces’ wife shrieked between her hands on her face.  The shorter guy stayed by the door for a second before jerking the umbrella gun skyward and letting bullets fly threw the skylight.  A baby started crying, and he got this look on his face like he had just bit into a dorito the wrong way.  You know, the kind of way where it gets stuck between two of your teeth and even after you get it out it still feels like something is there.  And you floss, and maybe your teeth bleed a little bit, but now you don’t like doritos anymore.

            Lucky for Joel, the tables led in a straight line to the offices.  The swinging doors of the offices beckoned him, giving off light like a flashing beacon.  Behind these doors there was a hallway which stretched on for a distance, with a break room through a doorway on its left side.  He noticed an attic up above, jumped once trying to reach the latch, but upon failing bolted to the end of the hallway. 

            “We got your wife, Octopus Face.”  The big guy bellowed from a frequency Joel was especially sensitive to.  He felt his bladder nearly attempt to relieve itself before he caught it like a wine bottle, careful not to embarrass himself infront of the killers.  In an indignant moment he turned and furrowed his brow, but thought better of attempting to take those two guys on.  He went through his pockets and, finding his cellphone, started to dial 911.

            Just then, the doors of the hallway swung open and the bigger guy walked in with an air of nonchalance.  Turning to shout directions at his friend, he appeared as concerned with Joel as a constrictor with a mouse in a cage.  He stuck a big fat finger in his nose as he turned toward Joel, and took a Frankenstein stroll in his direction.

            Joel flew into the back room, frantically looking at the walls for weapons, the room for hiding spots, or a window for escape.  It was your average office, Joel considered taking the pictures down off the wall and shattering them over the lumbering giants head, but even in his fantasy this didn’t turn out positively for him.  He imagined the giant man simply taking the unwieldy picture out of his hand when he reached back to swing it, and what happened next he didn’t get to.  There was a window, which Joel proceeded to punch with his fist.

            The window didn’t react well to being struck with a fist.  It ruptured in much the same way Joel’s hand did, spouting glass in a concentrated birst directly into Joel’s face.  Joel attempted to stay on his feet, but the loss of blood and unbridled frenetic energy combined to take him down in a cyclone of activity.  Pulling himself up like a zombie rising out of its grave, he jumped through the broken shards of glass and into the street.

            Feeling the sharp pain of glass in his upper torso, Joel concentrated all of his energy on his legs.  The big guys head popped out of the window he had just fallen from, but he was now stuck like he was in shackles. 

            “FUCK,” He said.  “I’m fucking stuck.  What the fuck was I thinking?”  He let out a laugh about his predicament.

            Joel ran down the alley the opposite direction, and was faced with a dead end.  On the opposite side, the Penguin was assuredly waiting for him.  There’s no way he can wait for me and watch all of the people on the inside. Joel thought to himself. 

            Sure enough, the Penguin remained by the door.  Still a bundle of frenetic energy, he stood there waving his gun in the air, calling out in a shrill voice at every movement he perceived. 

Joel weighed whether or not to go back in and save his fiancee, Veronica.  She, after all, had been a lot nicer to him only since he got that big promotion.  His seaside apartment would attract many women, he could see how his neighbor from across the hall looked at him walking in with his briefcase and designer shades.  Most recently, she had tried to prevent him from escaping this grisly scene, and if he had done that he wouldn’t be out here on the street at all!  He may still be inside the murder scene with the rest of the cattle awaiting slaughter.  It was only moments before the cop sirens would come blaring to their rescue, he thought.  I had better go down the street and get something insubstantial to eat. 

       
          Ok that wasn't great but I COULD have kept going.  So that's something.