This is probably the most common question that any professional writer (or any writer really) gets asked. And the answer is usually the same: You read, you write. But beyond that there are some questions you need to answer for yourself.
The first, and most important, is why do you want to write? Most people don’t want to be writers. They want approval, recognition, money – all things that there are easier and better ways to get. Pretend, if you would, that your future self showed up on your doorstep tomorrow and told you that you’d never get published, your work would never be shared outside of whatever reading group you joined, and you would die in a house fire that would also consume all of your works, preventing any from being published posthumously. Would you still write?
If the answer to that is yes, then the next question you need to decide on is what type of writer do you want to be. There’s an attitude among those that make a living at writing that unless you’re drawing a paycheck then you aren’t a “real” writer. And they can’t be blamed for this. It’s a tough racket and you need to tell yourself something to feel good about it. But it’s also hogwash. Emily Dickinson didn’t make dime one off her writing and if you want to tell me she wasn’t a writer I’d say you deserve a slap in the face. Conversely, Stephen King is a writer and he’s got more money than Algeria.
So do you want to write for you? Or for someone else? The most successful writers ultimately write for themselves, but spend years writing for other people. Stan Lee spent decades writing what other people told him to write until he got so fed up he finally wrote one book the way he wanted and was stunned to find that it was an outrageous success. But he wouldn’t have been able to do that if he didn’t have the tools writing for other people had given him. Another writer I’m acquainted with spent years writing copy for a wood catalogue (wood, as in planks of) until he finally developed the skills he needed to successfully write his own stuff. Trust me, spending a few years figuring out how to make wood sound interesting will sharpen your pencil better than an MFA.
My only advice in this regard would be that if you want to make a living writing, never write for anyone else unless they are paying you. Otherwise, thank them for their time and go back to your copy editing job. Can’t find a job writing? Find a job that’s interesting (EMT, lawyer, teacher) and write about that.
If you want to write for yourself, your task is really no less difficult. Although, if you’re in this situation your either an insomniac or you’ve carved out a chunk of time every day to write, you’ll ultimately be beset by doubts that you are wasting your time. And that may be true. There are over 7 billion people on the planet, a good chunk of which want to be writers (or perhaps just creators). What makes your voice unique? What do you have to say that isn’t being by said by everyone else?
Even thinking about the enormity of that task makes me want to cry a little. You’ll spend years in solitary work trying to answer that question. When you find the answer, though, it will be no different than the monk who awakens from his daily meditation to realize he knows who he is. When you figure out who you are and how that informs your writing, validation from outside sources just doesn’t have the meaning or weight it once did.
So there’s the simple fact that what type of writer you want to be has a lot more dimensions to it than the type of financial success you want to achieve. So start with deciding what type of writer you want to be, which is about as complicated a question as deciding who you want to be as a person.
Select the play button above for an audio reading. To start with the first chapter, go here.
The Duke fell back into my arms as his life fled. I left my blade in him to keep blood from pouring out, pulling him behind the altar. Chand stood there, eyes agog, managing to stammer out, “What are you doing?”
I continued to pull the Duke’s corpse, his weight preventing me from making speed. “Help me with him!” I commanded.
“Are you mad? Can you not hear the RedCrosse Knights butchering these fools?”
Of course I heard. Every scream and clash echoed through the high-ceilinged chapel. From under the Duke’s weight, my eyes must have made this clear for Chand added, “Drop him and let’s make haste away!”
I spit, “If he’s discovered as a part of this, her Ladyship and family will meet the Requiter’s ax.”
Chand stared at me as if I were mad. “She’s tied to the altar! They were going to – ” He recoiled from the Duke’s corpse as I dragged it toward him, clearly eyeing whether he still carried the monstrosity between his legs.
“That won’t matter!” I yelled, “They’ll blame the whole lot if they know he orchestrated this. Now help me!”
His eyes dodging to the tabernacle wall and the altar beyond it, I could see the hatred for her Ladyship burning in Chand’s heart. “So let her meet her fate.”
I glared at Chand, weighing him anew. “And her son? Will you let them murder the child as well?”
This freed Chand from his hostility. His eyes did dart down, making certain that whatever possessed the Duke had left his mortal flesh. I didn’t dare look, but whatever Chand saw must have been enough for him. He grabbed the corpse under its arms to help me.
A small door behind the reredos led to an opulent rectory, the room meant for a humble servant of God, instead gilded and draped in velvet. While holding up his end of the Duke, I believe Chand still found a way to palm a few valuables on our way out.
More importantly, the vicarage had another door that let out into a courtyard, not dissimilar to the one we entered by, complete with a tunnel that led onto the street. We pulled him into the center of this small terrace where I dropped him and removed my blade, causing blood to spill out in earnest onto the cobblestones. As it pooled darkly around him, I couldn’t help but smile. “There. Now the Redcrosse Knights will think the noble Duke of Glevum was murdered so his estate could be used for this heretical ritual. That will spare her Ladyship and her child from the Requiter’s ax.”
I turned my smile to Chand whose dark eyes practically glowed in the pale moonlight that pierced the Dunhill sky. “Then let us fly before the Redcrosse find us standing over the corpse!”
The voicing of this obvious concern roused me from my revery, and we both rushed into the tunnel. We bounced off its narrow walls and into each other, almost like boys blagging, rather than a pair fleeing from conspiracy and murder. I felt like we could fall into each others arms at any moment.
The Redcrosse Knights must have all been inside, for the street we stumbled out into was as empty as before when we entered. Or so I thought. Our roughhousing turned to laughter, spilling out into the street’s emptiness, catching the eye of a Blackcoat hidden in the fog. An, “Eh! You! Stop right there!” was as all the constable got out before we disappeared into the dark. We ran, our laughter trailing behind us.
We ran far and fast, until not even our laughter could catch us. We awayed from Knights Crossing, dodging down alleys and up Dunhill’s hills, and along the Tamesis. We ran along the docks, making our way through the ladybirds and sodomite sailors that roamed there, plying their trade or looking for forbidden companionship. We ran until Chand pulled me into an alley by the nape of my cloak, so strongly my hat nearly flew from my head.
Pushing me against one of the walls, Chand leaned back to peer out of the alley, searching for any pursuers. His manic smile returned to me, telling me we had none. “What was that?” he asked, the question encompassing the entire wild affair.
“The ritual in the chapel?” I asked, unsure of how to answer such a broad question. I was unable to take my eyes from him as I felt his hot breath on my pale face. He nodded, his brown eyes looking into mine. For the first time, I didn’t turn away, letting him see the infatuation in which I studied him. Unwilling to let the moment pass, I answered his question with another, “What is the first rule of the Church?”
Chand blinked, the concrete question giving him pause. As if I were trying to trick him, he cornered me by putting a hand against the brick wall of the alley on either side of my head. “Thou shall have no other gods before me.”
“Exactly.” I smiled, burning at his proximity. “Such a pronouncement does not forbid the existence of other gods.”
“What was that thing the Duke became?”
“I know not, but from the words I could understand, I would wager they tried to bring something into this world from another. I suspect Lord Guillem’s good fortune in life may have been attributable to such an agreement.”
“Well,” for the first time, Chand broke his gaze from mine as I stared at him. “At least there’s a few less devil-worshippers in the world.”
“Perhaps we can figure out a way to move to robbing nobles rather than molly houses,” I smiled at him, his sudden uncertainty emboldening me. “It would certainly be more profitable.”
“Certainly. And more dangerous.” Glancing towards the alley entrance again, a ghost of fear crossed Chand’s face. “You’re certain he’s dead?”
“Yes. And soon we shall receive payment from her Ladyship.” With Chand’s hands on either side of me, I dared slide mine under his cloak and onto his hips.
My hands drew his attention back to me. He pulled himself up to his full height, taking a hand from the wall to remove my hat. “I’ll take my reward now I think,” he whispered and leaned forward, his lips slightly parted.
I had never kissed anyone before. Not in this manner. I had lost anything resembling purity long ago and never felt myself worthy of such a gentle offer. Even with the stubble on his chin, it was softer than I expected. Chand leaned into me, his lips covering my own until his tongue moved into my mouth. That was wholly unfamiliar, sweet, and awakening in a way that made me yearn for him like I didn’t know was possible.
After what felt like a sweet eternity, Chand pulled away from me, leaning over me from his greater height, one hand back on the wall as the other reached up to caress my cheek. “I knew you were that kind of boy.”
That phrase, almost exactly as my uncle had uttered to me my first night in McDowell Hall, skinny, frightened and naked, snuffed out my yearning and desire. My eyes must have gone cold, for Chand’s disposition changed, becoming wary. “Look, mate – ”
I found this reversal to be even more provoking, slapping his hand away and snatching my hat back from him. “I’m a man!” I pronounced loudly, feeling my voice did not sound much like one as it cracked. Stuffing the hat back on my head, I felt the flush leave my skin, my pale flesh cooling from hot desire to a cold anger that asphyxiated thought. I pushed Chand away, surprising him with my strength and force, knocking him onto his backside, landing roughly on the hard alley ground.
He looked at me in hurt and surprise, and I found this angered me even more, the vulnerability in him making me hate my own shame. I wanted to say something, something defiant and angry, or at least something that made sense, but my lips were sealed. Unable to control whatever had seized my soul, I stomped out of the alley. I could feel Chand’s gaze following me. He said nothing more, though, and did not follow.
I roamed Dunhill until dawn, unable to shake myself free of the emotions warring inside me. I had wanted what Chand had freely given, even teased it out of him, and yet I was walking alone, cold, hungry, my feet attacking the cobblestones with each heel-strike. I did this for many hours before I began to feel the presence of my uncle in every gas lamp shadow and the dark of every portico. This only grew until I turned to one, convinced I would find him there, naked and waiting for me, with the Duke’s snake reaching out for me from between his legs, pulling me to his putrid flesh.
When there was nothing there but a shadow and my uncle continued to be dead, it was only then that I realized he had nothing to do with my desire for Chand. But he had ensured that I could not feel the touch of others without his stain. My anger became shame at how I had treated Chand. Finding him in the crushing crowds that rose with the dawn of Dunhill would be impossible, making me feel infinitesimal as the mills of the city ground on.
The air was clear enough that when I returned to McDowell Hall hours later that I could see Inspector Rotella outside it. I dodged in through one the side entrances, opening the front door for him from the inside.
Under the portico of my Hall he stared at me, no doubt fatigued and cross from being up all night. “Master McDowell, where have you been? I’ve been waiting for an answer for quite some time.”
“I was asleep,” I did not care if he believed me.
The inspector’s dark eyes did their job and appraised the state of my dress, the black of my cape unable to completely hide the sweat and coal dust. He did not press this matter, though, instead continuing with, “I have need to speak with your uncle, Master McDowell. The invitation that you say he received has opened a matter that demands answers from him.”
I stepped back, enough that the Inspector could step into the Hall if he wished. He did not move even when I answered, “Lord McDowell will not be returning. His actions have besmirched the family name to the extent that we have chosen to handle the matter internally.”
“We?” Rotella peered past me into the vast emptiness of the Hall. “There are others of you to make this decision?”
“No,” I answered plainly.
Rotella returned his eyes to me. His uncertainty at my discombobulated form and emotionally vacant state was clear. With Chand sitting on the alley’s cobblestones still in my mind, I would have stabbed Uncle Daman right in front of the Inspector if it would rid me of his ghost. Even if it meant meeting my end in the Requiter’s Square.
Whatever he found in my countenance caused his consternation at having waited so long to cool into a practical decision. He let me know this with the words, “You are either the most honest noble in all of Dunhill, or you can hold a candle to the Devil. I’m uncertain as to which.”
Remembering that I was still wearing it, I took off my hat, pulling my dark hair into a messy halo around my skull. “Perhaps when you decide, you can let me know.”
Another long stare from Rotella ended with, “Indeed.” Stepping back from my threshold, he continued, “Perhaps we will see each other again.” He paused, then added, “Lord McDowell.” I nodded and closed the door.
I was deep into my cups when an escorted coach bearing the Guillem heraldry arrived at McDowell Hall. Even before I stepped out into courtyard, yeoman were taking a lockbox from the carriage and placing near the gate house. I waited until they left before inspecting it. Aaron and Erin delighted to find the chest was filled with gold crowns.
Along with the many coins, there was a note. Judging by the handwriting, I surmised it belonged to Lady Pawlett. It simply read, “I know of others that may require your services.”
Chaos is a wave, unpredictable but moving in a pattern. When it went out in the late 20th century, people panicked because it revealed things on the shore of reality that it had covered before. Grant knew that this was nothing, though, compared to what was coming when the wave came back in.
Select the play button above for an audio reading. To start with the first chapter, go here.
Guillemin Hall was as dark as such a mansion can be. Heavy curtains blacked out the windows but for the occasional seam of light that broke the monolith of the Hall’s facade.
Earlier in the evening, as Chand and I watched from a nearby corner, the servants left, often with children in tow, smiling at the surprise of free evening. Under the gas lamps, the streets hid in the quiet murkiness. In a narrow, dark space between two mews, I smoked my pipe while Chand vibrated with anticipation. With Guillemin Hall dominating the Knights Crossing district, its slumber lay like a blanket across all the streets around it, as if smothering the pedestrians or horses no longer there to make noise. In Dunhill, usually dense in its activity, even at night, such silence felt unnatural.
“Why are we here?” Chand asked, not for the first time.
“To rescue Lady Pawlett, of course,” I answered tapping out the pipe on the heel of my boot.
“To what end?”
“Chand,” I whispered his name, savoring it. “She’s promised us a handsome sum. She can’t pay us if she’s the victim of whatever his Lordship, her husband, has planned for her. I suspect that, whatever it is, is a factor in her desire to rid herself of him.”
“She promised us a bounty for her husband,” Chand replied, fiddling with his cane. “From what you’ve told me of your conversation with that Blackcoat, the Redcrosse Knights are going to take care of that for us.”
“Precisely.” I pointed the long stem of the pipe at him. “We need her to be alive and aware that we’ve removed him from the situation in order to receive our crowns.” I shrugged. “And if that does not turn out favorably, perhaps in the confusion raiding the lockboxes is still an option.” Putting the pipe in a loop on my repeater holster, I added, “None of which we can do from out here.”
If Inspector Rotella had indeed managed to get the Redcrosse Knights to act in time to catch the Duke, they had not yet arrived. I checked my phial box and cartridges, rapier and pistol. “You can stay out here if you like. I would understand reluctance to rescue a woman that has wronged you and yours as she has.”
“And let you disappear into that Hall of hellions and never return?” Chand snorted in a way that, even in the dark and danger of that alley, pierced me with a desire that his professed motives were only an excuse to accompany me. “No. You’ll need someone to back slang this when your ridiculous scheme fails.”
I couldn’t help but let out a mad laugh at that. As if daring him to chase me, I dashed from our espying spot and across the street. A small tunnel, only wide enough for a single adult, burrowed through the massive tick that was Guillemin Hall. This led to a small courtyard, decorated with nothing but rainspouts and a set of stairs that led down to a modest wooden door. This was one of the servants’ entrances to the Hall, one that was recommended by Lady Pawlett as our main point of entry if we had decided to poison Lord Guillemin within his home. I crouched by the door, trying to use the lessons Erin had given me on lockpicking.
I was still fumbling when Chand approached at a nonchalant pace that, with his new top hat and cane, made him fit right in with the wealthy setting. Only someone who somehow noticed his darker skin in the night would be able to tell he didn’t. At my continued failure to unlock the door, and thus impress Chand, I felt embarrassment heat my skin. This became greater even than the fear of being caught as he stood over me.
“Would you like assistance with that?” I could hear the smirk in his voice, infuriating and charming all at once. I didn’t know if I wanted to kiss him or throw my glove in his face.
I pivoted to him from where I knelt by the door, the tools Erin had lent me still in hand, “When I’ve seen such success?”
Despite dimness of the sequestered courtyard, I could see Chand’s grin transform into a smile. He took the picks from me, his hand on mine sending a charge through me. He crowded next to me in the narrow doorway as he bent to the lock. “Let me take care of that for you.”
I muttered something like a gratitude as he set to work, hoping the gloom hid my blushing as his lithe frame rubbed against mine. It wasn’t a quick process, even with Chand’s expertise, so I used it as an excuse to lay a hand on his back as I glanced between his work on the lock and the stairs behind us. I felt his heartbeat and breath, both causing my hand to burn with the wish there was nothing between my skin and his.
In a space of time too short for the satisfaction of my hand, the door opened. Chand smoldered back at me with a grin and wink. “Et voilà!”
“You’ll have to help me practice that,” I said, moving forward. The fact that I was in the middle of this ridiculous escapade and trying to plan an excuse for Chand and I to spend more time together in the future made me wonder at my sanity. We might not have a future beyond this night, so how ridiculous to worry about that now. And yet.
Beyond the door was a small room of plain wood, benches lining the walls with coat hooks mounted at regular intervals above them. Several doors led out of the room, but only one at the top of a half-flight set of steps. I wagered that one led into the Hall and went.
I peeked through revealing a banquet room, its emptiness lit by dim chandeliers hanging from a high ceiling. I almost retreated to see what might be through the other doors when the first sound that was not my own stopped me. It was a droning originated from somewhere deeper in the house.
I gestured for Chand to follow me and he did, each of us quiet on our soft-soled boots, listening intently to the sound we followed. As we moved through the manor the droning became louder until it was unmistakably originating from behind massive double-doors. Even closed, the powerful bombination sounded from behind it.
Not knowing of any way to open such a portal without notice, we dodged back into the servants’ halls and followed the droning until we reached a small servants’ door that hummed with sonic energy. It was fortunate that it was hidden by a curtain from the great room it let into. Large enough to be a ballroom, it was furnished in dark woods and candelabrums bright enough that they shined on all of the men dressed in black within it. They were separated into two groups that were indistinguishable from one another, but organized in rows so straight they could have been standing between pews.
The room felt as a blasphemous reflection of a church congregation, with the body dressed all in black and, at its head, the Duke of Glevum dressed in fine golden pallium with a white mitre, standing before an altar, a blanket covering an all too human shape before him. I recognized the Duke by his wife’s description and him being the only one of the fanatics that had any fat about him. Behind his Lordship, raised on the wall where a Cross might be, were the four-pointed Hands of God.
I tapped Chand on the shoulder to follow me, then led him along a colonnade that lined the walls in the room, its columns hiding us from the distracted cultists. As we made our way I realized our hiding spot was indeed within the Stations of the Cross. The room we were in was indeed the Hall’s chapel. Whatever Duke Guillemin and his Trzciniec were into was indeed sacrilegious beyond the pale.
Even if we had not been hidden by the pillars of the arcade, the Duke’s guests would not have noticed our presence. They were all rapt by his speech, ecstatic in their ritual as he raised his hands, beseeching some unseen presence. I listened to his words, my hands moving dexterously to my phial box as I did, removing two chemics that might be of use. I took out my dirk and poured a few drops from one into the sheath, sliding the knife back into the case, thus covering the blade with a lethal toxin.
The Duke cried out across the hall:
“We call forth Zaman, of the greedy eyes and wide-spread mouth,
You eat the pains of the world.
Zaman, show us the ancient track,
Zaman, remove the Hands that hold us back.
Come into the world to show us the way.”
At those words, the Duke pulled the shroud from the figure on the table, revealing a naked and supine Glenda. I could hear her struggling against whatever gagged her prodigious mouth. I was grateful, for both our modesties, that her higher place on the dais and altar kept most of her nakedness from us.
The Duke continued:
“We throw this orchard at your feet,
so you may come from past times that are eternal,
to rise from this womb as the moon,
as you inhabit your supplicant
to seed my bride with your brood.”
At this last pronunciation Glenda’s cries, muffled as they were, could be heard across the hall. The Duke continued without notice, sounding like a priest who was in love with his own homily. He showed no signs of stopping, so I whispered to Chand, “Let us round behind the altar so we can take him when he leaves.”
We crouched and snuck towards the altar, passing Our Savior as he went from being laid in his tomb to being condemned to death. It was then that Guillemin repeated, “Show us the way,” and began chanting. I would have thought he had begun to speak in tongues if it were not for the unctuous words that spilled out from him, the intonations dimming the bright chapel and thickening its air in the steady cadence of his speech. His unholy congregation of acolytes repeated his words, intensifying with each refrain.
The words made no sense, did not sound pronounceable by humans, but stopped me as they pierced my ears, circling my brain like a noose of piano wire, forcing my eyes shut and halting my will to go forward.
I forced an eye open, pushing through the shake in my soul. I looked up to witness the Duke’s mitre begin to glow with a phosphorescent light. As this grew in intensity, the two acolytes on the altar moved forward to undrape the Duke from his vestments.
With Glenda spreadeagled on the altar, I realized the Duke’s disrobing could only mean one thing. The robes fell away from him, revealing the pudgy, pale, privileged body of a middle-aged Dunhill noble, reminding me too much of my uncle and his late night visitations to me when I was young. My hands found my blade and repeater, prepared to storm up the altar to slay my way to the rapist.
Even the courage brought to me by this resolution was challenged by a thundering that boomed from the chapel’s rafters. Looking skyward, I saw that impossible lightning had begun to flash there, never touching the ground, but jumping from one space to another, connecting and reconnecting, as if Jacob were descending his ladder. As booming sounded, the bolts increased in their connection until each began to merge into four orbs, sickly glowing balls connected by palmate flashes of light the likes of which Dunhill has never seen. Or, at least, that is my hope.
I cannot say how long this thunder and lightning lasted. I stood frozen, my brain pressured to the point of crushing by the congregation’s chanting and the elemental forces they summoned. I willed my feet to move when I saw that the awful glow of his mitre had spread to the Duke’s being. His nakedness had too transformed, whereas his manhood should be was a twisting thing like a primordial snake, so massive and undulating it could be seen over the rise of the altar. Another horror brought to this unholy ritual kept me paralyzed under the chanting and thunder.
The eternity I stood there was only broken by a different booming, a sound like wild animals fleeing a predator, as if a herd were in the house and running from the evil emanating from the chapel.
The gallops grew louder, not fainter, though. The huge chapel doors burst open with such a racket to frighten even the worshipful cultists. Armed men with pikes, visored helmets protecting them from the sights before them, stormed in. Behind them, having ridden their horses through the mansion, knights bearing shields said to be blessed by Queen Gloriana herself, embossed with the red cross that gave them their name, raised sword and shield to strike out against the cultists.
The black-clad congregates turned and threw themselves at the Redcrosse Knights, suicidal in their disregard for their own safety. The two men with the Duke at the altar moved forward, drawing blades to defend him or, perhaps, whatever was between his legs.
As the two sides collided I pulled Chand with me behind the reredos, as afraid of being seen by the Redcrosse Knights as by the acolytes. The Duke continued his chant, its tempo and intensity increasing such that it could be heard even over the hooves of horses, clash of blades, and screams of wounded. Slowly, he began to move to the end of the table where her Ladyship’s feet were secured, his unholy snake dancing with anticipation.
I moved out from our hiding spot to throw the other phial into the head of one of the Duke’s attendants. It crushed into his skull, wounding the man and spreading its smoke, hiding the altar in a fog as he fell. This did not cease the Duke’s chanting, but I closed the distance and silenced him with my blade between his ribs. A man possessed, his mouth continued its utterances, but slowed and gurgled as he choked on his own blood and my poison. In the smoke, I whispered in his ear, “Your wife has made other plans.”
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The madness had been spreading for some time. No was exactly sure for how long. Decades, perhaps, but it was certainly older than the children who sprinted through the quad. Like the beginning of a marathon, there had been no activity, no rush, but then the square was filled with students. As the mad dash began, surprised professors, administrators, and security guards stepped out of their offices to stop the calamity.
Those that didn’t step aside, though, were trampled under foot, even the security that deployed wild and gratuitous amounts of pepper spray or swings from batons. The students pushed passed all of them, pouring out onto the Boulevard, crashing into cars, the blood and broken bones grinding traffic to a halt. Even then the students continued to run, first between cars, then over them as the street filled with collided vehicles. The children kept running, no one understanding where they were going, only that it was clear something drove them from here.
