I'm not sure how well of a following I can established through this, but here are my aims: I'm currently beginning a rough draft of a novel I do, for all intents and purpose, plan to write and publish. I've written novella-length stories in the past though it has very much been out of some lesser ambition. The story I have constructed for this particular project is something I've worked on for a very long time. It's not a breathtaking plot necessarily, but I feel it will deliver strongly on a deeper level, and hopefully will be be creative enough linguistically to cater to everyone in some way. I have titled the piece but I'd really rather not reveal the details, because like I said this is something near and dear to my heart, and it isn't something over night.

Since feedback and interaction, even negative, is what fuels my desire and compassion for writing I figure I would make this public. Everything I post up will be a very rough draft in that you're going to get all my words and thoughts as they come. No editing or dwelling in thought. Simple free-concious, quick writing. In that light alone, please try to excuse grammatical and spelling errors. My real aim is to get some feedback on the progression of the story, the plot, and as I fill this thread more thouroughly, some criticism on the story in its entirety. I'll really appreciate the criticims and compliments and I would love as many readers as possible.

Since this is intended to become an actual book it's not going to be the average run-of-the-mill story you encounter in this place. And by that it is to say this is going to be long. Five paragraphs isn't a chapter, it's a seventh grade essay. So bear with the length, or at least what I'm expecting to be lengthy, and just take it on a case by case basis. That's kind of the cool thing about me doing this book this way, that you don't have to feel pressured to read steadily, as it's going to take time for me to make updates anyways.

With that said, the first chapter should hopefully be up be week's end. I'm sort of making this as a reminder to myself to persist through working and not being the lethargic asshat I usually am. Look forward to writing, and I hope you'll be along to read.

Also, do not jack my shit. I will beat you with a linguistical hammer

Quick Ref/Index:

Coming sizz-oon. Sit tight.

I don't imagine any of this will stay, style included, but I kind of wanted to get a feel with how the story will begin and this is the small introductory chapter that I've drafted thus far. It's actually nowhere near as long as I would've liked it to be, nor as poetic (even for a rough rough draft,) but whatever. It paints the picture, I think, of what I want. Let me know what you think. Thanks.

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Chapter 1

Those miserable antics. Slowly and unsteadily, the clock raced from one score to the next, dictating our release. I watched carefully as our instructor, a women in dress and heel sheer black of night, swept back to her desk in a stream of tears. Concealing every droplet in a folded tissue was her most amiable of attempts, yet it was to no avail. A stirring of our heads, the students, was a constant. Everyone could see in blatancy that this was really the end. I was smiling fiercely.

We'd just been delivered an address of resignation. It wasn't the kind you'd formally expect but a rather professional, albeit loving goodbye. Us – the famed Westfield graduating class of two-thousand and eight - were on the path to exit. Some still tended to their last breathing assignment and had managed to persist on, pencil to paper in describing their best and worst of times in these halls. For me things were well past a point of emotional attachment. Things needed to end. I needed to go. It's not that I didn't enjoy school and in fact, I loved it. Maybe there was something about moving out and on to the next phase that I just couldn't resist.

You see, I'd been the kind of guy all my life that serves as the center of attention. In all honesty it was never a need or desire of mine to uphold that kind of public image or to please anyone. People just loved me for....well, me. From academia to athletics onwards and up through personality and flair I was preconceived as the best of the best. Renaissance Man. Throes of expectation kneeled at my very being. A close friend of mine had always said, "well, if you can't do it, nobody can." And by a close friend, I of course mean all of my friends. And family. And frankly, everyone who'd ever met me. The great humor in it to me was that I never aspired to be anything great or anything above the societal norm. No unflinching persistence was applied to my studies or personal endeavors, either. I was just naturally good at whatever I set myself towards. Although I wouldn't be one to complain of this kind of energy considering it had gotten me a lot of things. Full ride world-wide and captain of any God damn sports team you'd like. Best friend to everyone, and hey, need a hook-up?

As the last diminishing cry of the bell had gone and everyone had risen I noticed a very palpable energy. There was despair pressed into each slouching footprint. These kids were so emotional. These teachers, they were worse. We all exited the very embellished hallways of this 'fine' school and made our dues. I got a thousand-and-one waves on the way out. But I didn't feel much in it.

Fourty five minutes of walking and I'd been place to place and it had ended briefly on my welcome mat. Little brown hairs by the thousands brandished with a rubber black "Welcome Home" was placed so warmly in front of my maroon door. From the outside my house you saw something clean cut and polished. Very upscale suburban. You'd think ideally of the perfect environment. Inside there was maybe a mother who'd spend her days near a window sill reading quietly or perhaps baking according to the television's agenda. In the evening the father figure would return home and after placing his shoes next to a small hallway table would go off and kiss his darling pride of eleven years. With a son of Valedictorian reserve and International Baccalaureate degree, they'd find themselves proud to seat softly at the dining table, a family off three relishing in a very friendly, fulfilling meal. Tasted like sugar from the outside, it did. Everyday however, I walked upon that mat knowing full well that passed it's shell of perfection I'd have descended into something much darker. The homely flower arrangements and porch furnishings made no amends to the atrocity inside.

At the ripe young age of six my father had felt he could no longer do justice as a parent, and so he left. With his recent fortune and vagabond esteem, he packed a small bag and left one chilling Spring afternoon. I remember no single moment in my life as clear as that. The old family socialist walking through that very maroon door, reminiscent of blood, and turning back to the six-year me. "I know your mother doesn't understand this, but I'm sure in time you'll come to explain it" he said, turning and stroking his silver hair. It was with that stroke that he seemed to run through all the problematic energies he was leaving behind. When I stood there watching him walk down the front pathway and out of my life I never could have imagined that in just two years time, I'd have lost my mother as well.

Cancer came swiftly calling, and as if the late night bouts of gin and tonic had ceased to bring a warming calm, my mother fell further and further from grace. She had married her old marriage counselor and brought him rather swiftly into my life, like some kind of consoling ruse. The truth was that I was in no way bothered by my father's decision, but I know that inside it had destroyed the fabric of my mother's living will. When she did pass, I was relinquished to the old authoritarian step-father. Man of a thousand meaningless words and a blues record collection of hundreds. His best of attempts in fulfilling my mother's parental legacy was to bring back his old highschool sweetheart, the loving Ms. junkie. Her intrinsical desire to care for me wasn't so much in genuine love as it was in the blue, red and yellow pills she popped by the dozen. Strong mental dysfunction was no excuse for a three course breakfast, lunch and dinner of uppers, downers, pain meds and sedatives. Between the mood swings and overdoses I began to feel that the only reason she felt the need to interfere with my life was so that she could at least indulge in a sense of control somewhere through the day. She'd clearly lost all control of herself and I was there to pick up the slack. Funny as it was, I didn't really mind the nuisance as much as one would think. I had such a positive relation with the rest of the world that my home troubles never really hit me where it hurts. If ever the New Dad came home and got blistering drunk or exercised a verbal lynching of his wife, I turned innermost to my ambitions. Lock and key would keep me upstairs and tending my desk, where I'd fill out my assignments to the brim. Essays and charts and all matter of academic creature. I certainly didn't mind home life, but the notion of escaping it seemed at least more fruitive. With a sure-fire shot to university and the greater life beyond I felt that it was imperative to be the best student I could be. From the moment I lost my father right up to this morning, I'd been the best student possible. Things were looking up too. I'd earned full ride to my University of choice, and a more prominent one at that. In fact, in just three short weeks I was going to be on my way to excellence. I'd made a joke of every challenge I'd been extended thus far in life, and perhaps I was ready to continue in my methods. My methodology, according to the New Dad, had rendered insignificant the difference in the meanings of 'madness' and 'beauty'. I only offered one reply, and that was to quick with the Poe or alcohol, whichever it had been.

After dinner, which was served with a heap of compliments and "we're so proud of you!," I made with Godspeed to my room, locking the door behind me. From beneath my bed I produced a small lock box and upon it's opening, laid out many letters. In their entirety was hardly anything of value, merit or importance, except for the occasional two or three that had come from my real father through the years. In each of them was a great deal disclosed to me. Lessons and teachings that he couldn't have afforded me at the time of coexistence. True edict and propriety. The things school can not facilitate and teach. Things that of course only a father could. I did not reread them now for there was no need, but I made carefully certain that they were among the few things to be taken along in the move. I thought of the days passed when I had received each of them. They had never came when anyone was home, and I presume that if they had I would yet to have known of their existence. After placing them in a conveniently secure spot and freshening up, I relegated myself to the hold of sleep. Night had come, and upon the new day's rise I would have to face perhaps my greatest demon yet. Graduation.

The ceremony went off smoothly. All my friends and family were present with the obvious exceptions, and afterwards a few of us had all gone out to celebrate. None of my friends were really that close and so I felt no particular need to make remembrances of this lifetime soon past. Only one thing concerned me and it had nothing to do with the here or now. Quite a few days later, I was facing my final night at home. Purple and white streamers still lined my house, either as a testament to me or as a reminder of my parents' unwillingness to give up their only sense of pride left. And I wasn't even their child, imagine that. I didn't want to conjure the thoughts of how they'd be once I'd left. For having spent such a long, important time with these people, they were still strangers to me at best. Maybe they'd go on living. Maybe they'd die. Who could really say. I didn't care.

As the sun began to reside in the ridge lines of West, I heard the metallic click of the mail box shutting, and just before the last glint of daylight I rushed outside to retrieve what could have perhaps been the last piece of mail I'd ever receive here. I'd gotten used to so many letters from different schools and organizations coming that I immediately dismissed the concept of excitement associated with letters. It was the dawning of a very technological age and within that, the necessity within postal correspondence had all but survived. Nobody wrote letters, and the only ones you received were generally preconstructed on some computer in a dark copy room half the world away. If a letter didn't hold any weight to you, maybe it did to one of the other millions of recipients. Yet, I doubt any of them found meaning in it either. I grabbed the assortment of envelopes inside. Thrashing them down on the small cedar table just inside the house, I began towards my room without any second thought. But then, just as I'd cleared the hallway to the stairs, I stopped. Silence was all to be heard, and in that very manic and still moment I began to feel a dizzy of emotion. Some lingering bit of curiosity had compelled me to turn about and face down the hall. Picture frames and orifices melded into one stream of vicious blur and color slowly bled out of existence. The soft pads of my feet were devilishly light on the cherry stained plank as I danced in sleuth fashion back to the front room. Amidst all of the scramble of envelopes was one particularly large orange one that I'd somehow failed to notice. In bold black letters across the front it carried my name, and nothing more. There wasn't any proof of postage or address to be found which had meant that it had been hand delivered.

I opened it, and from it produced another letter with a small note attached. It was a small slip of yellow stickied paper with a name and address on it. The name elicited no response while the address in fact did. Whoever had left this for me to find was calling out to me. The street name belonged to perhaps one of the more industrial of streets in all the of the state, more than a few hundred miles away and not but a few blocks from the university. Whoever had sent this knew where I was now and where I was going to be, come the next night, and so in that very limited window I found a great sense of excitement. The letter itself was blank, but I had decided to wait on opening it. Its contents would undeniably do me a better justice in the morning. For now only one plan was firm. After a decent night of sleep and dream, I would wake and pack my things, heading upstate for my Aunt's. I'd stay there for a night or two until I could make arrangements at the campus dormitory. It wasn't conventional to move in so soon, but it's not like anyone ever said no to me. The universe seemed to work exactly to my standards, and so that would have to continue through the week. I fell asleep with the letter on my desk under the dim glow of a reading lamp. It had brought the most beautiful sense of the world about, because in all of my time with it, the house remained absolutely silent.