False Impressions

Since I've been really fucking lazy lately, I am going to lie for two reasons:

1) I haven't written anything for days, and I really need to get a new post up before this just gets pathetic. Yet, I currently have no ideas, topics, or inspiration.

2) If I say I just begun writing my book, and this is new, than it seems like I manned-up and decided to just write something. It also seems more pressing to read just because it's "new".

Now that the confession is over...

The semi-fictional novel, tentatively entitled 'False Impressions', is a compilation of mostly true, some embellished, stories from my life, carefully woven together to resemble an intriguing story line.

This excerpt equates to a prologue, and will be directly followed by the 1st Chapter. It's purpose is to get the reader introduced to me (the main character) and accustomed to my writing style.

With no further ado...



I look down, the sweat from my brow is making my hair stick to my face. It’s way too fucking hot. My work shirt is a bit too tight, and the ex-hole in my work khakis seems to be dropping the ex. She had patched and sewn it after I tore it on a corner somewhere here or there, but like any repair, it can only last for so long.
The unexpected blaring of previews catches me slightly off-guard. I quickly realize to close the theatre doors, not because it’s my job, but because I hate this commercial.
Arms stretched wide, in a breath-stroke like motion, I put enough pressure on the dual doors until I hear the clicks signify them closing. I collect the broom and handled dustpan that I had discarded in the wall/trash can niche moments before and head down the checkered hallway. Right foot for red square, left foot for black.
When working a weekday shift, there’s no choice but conjure up your best facade. Nothing to do, no one to talk to, only options are to appear busy or duck into a theatre and don’t appear at all. The charade becomes quickly monotonous, I need something productive to do.
“Hi Christian.”
The voice is calm, pretty maybe, but somehow unsettling. This voice strikes me as familiar, I know this voice.
I walk with my head down, not sure why, have never been sure why. I chalk it up as a habit while my mom chalks it up to the length of my hair. Looking up, I struggle to focus for a second, tilt my head slightly to the left, and attempt to use my meager recognition skills.
Names I can do, but faces always take me a bit longer, especially with one contact in. Mrs. Kettle, ninth grade English, sans pregnancy, I don’t remember her without the baby bulge.
“…Hey.”, my voice trails, as if I’m short on words. However, I’m never short on words, so I must be reluctant to be courteous.
“How’re you?” I ask, but she has already disappeared into her theatre.
Mrs. Kettle and I, we’re not friends. To be frank, Mrs. Kettle is a bit of a cunt. She’s one of those teachers who I have a personal rivalry with. It’s for no other reason but because they know I’m more intelligent and they have no business teaching me anything. I remember publicly undermining her at any given opportunity, I guess in attempt to assert my prowess.
I stand there, with the “Hi Christian” lingering in the air, so nonchalant, so pseudo-mature. My eyes turn into peering slits, and I want nothing more but to hate fuck her. Something I had dreamt about it in my days sitting in those uncomfortable desks, listening to her ham-handed lectures, thinking, “Is this the standard they teach at universities now?” It startles me to think about how teachers don’t have to major in their subjects, which leads me to wonder: What are the qualifications otherwise?
Mrs. Kettle has a young, attractive face, bob cut, and a thick body. Not fat, I’d never call her fat, but she’s not a thin woman. The kind of thick like Topanga in her later years on Boy Meets World, the kind you wanted to dig your nails into.
Every man has one, and by one I mean at least one, usually many more. A woman they can’t help but to hate so much that it crosses the line into fatal attraction. You want to fuck her, with complete lack of intimacy. You want to hear her screams and inflict a touch of pain. You get off on the sex, but you really get off on the anger.



I've decided that I am going to do my best to step back up to the proverbial type writer, and continue to peck away at my book. I have put it off for much too long, and if I am ever going to be a successful writer, I must learn a certain discipline and drive for writing my books.

I'll try to throw some more excepts up along the way, but nothing major. It's nearly impossible to get something published that has already hit the internet.

I hope I've seduced you into anxiously anticipating my first novel.



P.S. "This is a memoir, but please understand that (to any good writer with a good imagination) all memoirs are false. A fiction writer's memory is an especially imperfect provider of detail; we can always imagine a better detail that the one we can remember. The correct detail is rarely, exactly, what happened; the most truthful detail is what could have happened, or what should have happened. Half my life is an act of revision; more than half the act is performed with small changes. Being a writer is a strenuous marriage between careful observation and just as carefully imagining the truths you haven't had the opportunity to see. The rest is the necessary, strict toiling with the language; for me this means writing and rewriting the sentences until they sound as spontaneous as good conversation." - John Irving, on Memoirs