The Happening

[camus]

Just an opener, wondering if it's worth carrying on with?

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This is all about what happened whilst I was waiting for something else to happen.

I’m sitting alone in my bedroom waiting for something to happen. I was listening to music rather intensely, now I’m not. I can hear the faint tinny sound of Tom Waits lost in my headphones, moaning from under my bed where I dropped them. I’m not up to much, I rarely am. I deal with the necessary instincts as you do: eat, sleep, fornicate, sometimes in different orders, I meet my needs; because I have to, we all have to.

I believe something will happen to me, something extraordinary, it’s just a feeling but one I’ve contained for five years now, since I was sixteen. I left school one day, it was hot as I recall, and I felt like I was at the end of a film and that film was called Grease. All the kids whooping and a hollering, running about as if their lives were about to start, except, I wasn’t exactly in the film I was watching from the inside, quite lost, in awe of their all-knowing futures. I remember walking from the school gates for the last time, the whooping and a hollering fading into a sudden screech of brakes, and a:
“Wake up, fuckwit”
Which proved quite symbolic as it happens; I’ve been trying to wake up ever since.

My parents tell me I’m lacking direction. I say there are too many directions to choose from they get all snotty, then ignore me for a few days, which suits me fine, then they start all over again. I could of course counter their abuse, turn it in on them, and question their directions, but I don’t. Perhaps they don’t need directions? Is there an age when you become justifiably directionless, you can then just cruise without any bother from bothersome people?

It seems they are worried about me. Of course in reality they are worried about themselves, of what other people may think about them rearing a failure. I’m reflective. This may seem harsh if you knew them, as they are a lovely couple, but still, I believe this to be the truth.

My doctor on the other hand, thinks I’m sick, ill, but is not worried about me, couldn’t care less probably, and that is how it is.

I’ll explain a little more about my present existence before I delve into the crux of the matter.

[David]

Just an opener, wondering if it's worth carrying on with?

It certainly is. The first line has the weight and rhythm of a line that people will remember in those conversations about great opening lines. The only caveat that suggests is - has anybody used it (or something like it) before? Hopefully not!

As I sort of suggested in my post to Caleb's honking piece - (that sounds vaguely rude, but I shall move on regardless) - it's easy to underestimate the sheer physical effort involved (I think) in writing prose successfully. It's a marathon, or possibly several marathons, not a sprint.

Because this is a very interior self-searching sort of opening, it's hard to see where you're going to go with the action. It actually seems more like the start of a good short story than anything longer, but if you can write a good short story you're a better man than I am Gunga Din.

But do keep it going Kris. This is too good to waste.

David

[camus]

Thanks David.

I have a vague idea of what the "Happening" may be or involve, the question is indeed, which direction to take it in.

I've just Googled the opening line - nothing so far!

cheers
Kris

[pseud]

honking huh David? So you won't insult me to my face, you have to go to Kris' thread with your vague complaints, eh? Coward.

haha.

Kris - I agree with David. That opening is pretty good.

Just don't blow it by making your next installment suck like Dickens did in A Tale of Two Cities. Still you have to hand it to Dickens that so many people read the final two hundred pages book on the energy of an opening paragraph. Okay, so it wasn't that bad. Near the end it picked up a bit. Predictably though.

Definitely keep going Kris. Don't disappoint.

- Caleb

[camus]

Don't disappoint,

Fuck it, I give up!

[pseud]

hahaha. Loosen up. You haven't failed at all. The piece has me interested in the present situation - that's more than half the work done right there. What comes next doesn't have to be spectacular, just as long as it sets up the relationship with the parents well. It's the writer's trick: be interesting now so you can be boring later. That's how plot details get sneaked in. You could write about trigonometry for all I care, I'd probably read it for a time.

I'm just saying try to preserve this quality in whatever comes after the opener.

Sigh, you're right, it's unfair to apply the pressure so quickly.

- Caleb

[camus]

Ha Ha,

No, I totally agree with you and David, sustainability is the name of the game, I'll take it slow, may add some more today though, I'm quite excited about it all!

I'm glad I ventured into the prose arena, it's another outlet if nothing else.

cheers
Kris

[Minstrel]

Not the first time you've ventured here. I intended commenting on 'Asylum Seekers' which I think is a quality piece.
A bit early in the story to make any proper judgement but I'd certainly turn the page and the injections of humour lift it considerably.
As David says, there are a few marathons of difference between story telling and poetry. Yet both irrevocably linked and there's nothing more irritating than an unfinished piece of gossip. Im still waiting for Keiths next thrilling installments.

Congratulations on the begining, admiration if you deem it worthy of continuation.

[camus]

"admiration if you deem it worthy of continuation."

Of course.

[cameron]

Blimey some discussion/criticism in "Post Some Prose". Whatever next?

You have an intriquing, disaffected, anti-hero here. What's his name? But the main problem, as the others have mentioned, is how to keep it moving. The first person narrative suits the situation perfectly - see The Wrong Boy by Willy Russell (written in the form of letters addressed to Morrissey) - because it allows us inside the head of an introspective (odd) person. (Shouldn't talk about myself here.)

You need to think plot lines, I think. The parents and the doctor. How can you bring them in and make it interesting?

Lots of promise.

C