The Crucible, The Rock and The Tree

The Abandonment

This was an assigned on-the-spot story. It's short and I don't plan to continue with it, so you can look and laugh at your leisure.

So Katherine Sleeps

There was very little conscious thought involved in writing this, but those created thusly are often the best of stories. I like this one. And so did the (young) women that were reading it in the coffee shop as it evolved.

The Cold Room

This was the first short story I ever submitted. It was also the first story I ever had rejected for publication. :-) The interesting thing about this is that I had no idea how it was going to turn out. And no, this was on purpose. I was experimenting with fluid train-of-thought writing at the time, and this was the result. I was as curious to see how it would turn out as anyone.

When Katherine opened her soft young eyes to the light of morning, she became very ashamed. Quickly she crawled over her close friend (much too close now she thought) and put all her little things back in her pocket book, the one pinned with tiny patterns of small kittens.

Her friend was waking, so she quickly mumbled goodbye -- before he could fully rouse himself -- and slipped out the door. In the room, the man was confused with sleep, but struggled out through the doorway after her. But she was gone and the hall was very empty. No emptier though than his heart was now becoming, leaning against his door, as he stared down the hall and slowly slid to the floor.

A fragment from 1992? From when I was experimenting with romance novels and the female point of view. Yes, some of my female friends thought it was strange, but they also seemed to rather like some of what came of this, so....

When Hands Hold

I started to put this up, but on second thought I'm going to keep it. At least for awhile.

It's a near-gothic horror story set sometime within the later half of the 20th Century A.D. It should be fairly obvious to anyone that reads even the first few paragraphs that I read far too much H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth as a child. Or perhaps just enough.

Obvious it is as well, that I write to be read aloud by a strong angry contemplative voice.

This started as poem to a young Autumn-eyed woman, who at the time I was quite infatuated with... as the strength of the first few dark and deathless lines testify too.

(a fragment of a poem later in the story)
"Franny,
	There are no more smiles
		Where the eyes see clearly
		or where lips touch against livid flesh"

Only Dying

This is the first three paragraphs of a storyline I was playing with at one time. I don't know if I want to develop it into a full novel at the moment, but I would like to get back to it in the next two or three years.

The Maidens' Holiday

This is an actual two-act play I wrote based on a storyline from an earlier prose work of mine called The Years of Man (1989). It started as a simple assignment for my British Literature professor (David Boocker), but I was truly obsessed with the works of Christopher Marlowe at the time. Mr. Boocker in turn motivated me in his class as few others have ever done, as you shall see as soon as it is completely transcribed from the old publishings. The basic premise was that many of Marlowe's works were lost, and Lo! What have we found here in this old cottage attic? At least two full chapters of the lost work The Maiden's Holiday (which did at one time actually existence, but was lost in a pie-plate incident centuries ago).

The Years of Man

For the curious, this is the original prose work the above was based on. It was written while I was attending a community college working on my Compsci Degree, just after the extremely troubled collapse of my first real relationship via parental intervention. This was written at one of the major turning points in my life.