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    Writing Crash
    Writing Crash
    Writing Crash
    Ebook131 pages1 hour

    Writing Crash

    By Jamie J. Buchanan

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    About this ebook

    Michael Forster is the wunderkind of gritty, urban fiction - a Tarantino-esque rise to literary fame that has taken him down a dark road to excess, debauchery and expectation. And now, as the pressure of continuing to keep the bright white burn of street-cred relevance increases, Michael is facing his biggest crisis yet. New writers are emerging, threatening to over-take him as he faces the demons that success has brought him.

    He starts to write again but, just as he thinks that he may just have the panacea to his chemically induced writer’s block, indecision clouds his vision.

    Is art imitating life? Or is it the other way around?

    Could it be the drugs, the alcohol, and the bingeing have created an alternate world clouded in amnesia and just out o reach?

    Or is it all in his head?

    And, more importantly, who really is Desiree?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJamie J. Buchanan
    Release dateJul 30, 2016
    ISBN9781370211203
    Writing Crash
    Author

    Jamie J. Buchanan

    Jamie J. Buchanan is based in Perth, Western Australia. He spent many years playing in rock bands, mostly loud, fast, punk rock and heavy metal bands - the sort your parents warned you about. He is currently playing guitar, singing and writing songs for melodic punk band "Incomplete" based in Perth, Australia. But he has always been writing stories - long and short. Jamie has had a short story "On My Goat" published by Cardigan Press in 2006 in the anthology "Allnighter" as well as having several short stories published on the Smashwords website for free download (www.smashwords.com). The short story "Sanguine Saviour" won second place in the monthly "Darker Times" competition (www.darkertimes.co.uk) and was included in the inaugural Darker Times anthology as well. The short story "The Woman on the Pavement" is published in an upcoming Editor's Choice anthology by Stringybark Press called "Hitler Did It". Jamie's short story "Battle of Wits" has won the Raspberry and Vine short story comp for 2012 - you can read it here: http://home.people.net.au/~raspberryandvine/ Jamie has had several stories short-listed as well including "Insights" in the 2013 Carmel Bird Short Story Award and "Imagine This" in the 2014 Bundaberg Writers' Writefest Award 2014. Jamie's short story "The End of Death" has won the "Spinetinglers" short story competition for Jan 2015. His short story "Mr Shmoopie" has also won 1st Prize in "Spinetinglers" short story competition for October 2015 and both stories were supposed to be featured in an upcoming anthology of award winning short fiction. (http://www.spinetinglers.co.uk). You can read them below (soon to be published late 2017) Jamie enjoys the films of Robert Rodriguez, The Coen Brothers and Guy Richie, music by Bad Religion, Muse, The Offspring, Clutch, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica, and books by James Ellroy, Irvine Welsh, Chuck Palahniuk and Stephen King. His only hates are people who talk about themselves in the third person. And Brussel Sprouts. He hates Brussel Sprouts.

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      Book preview

      Writing Crash - Jamie J. Buchanan

      Writing Crash

      By Jamie J. Buchanan

      Notes

      Smashwords Version

      Copyright 2016 Jamie J. Buchanan

      Thank you for downloading this eBook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for con-commercial purposes provided that the book remains in its original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to smashwords.com to discover more works by Jamie Buchanan.

      Thank you for your support.

      Table of Contents

      Prelude

      The End of Death

      The Floodgates

      Casualty of Life

      Closure

      Vivid Whispers

      Temporary Relief

      The Seduction of Proposal

      Memento of Excess

      The Penny Dropped

      Strange Bedfellows

      Finding Fault

      O Tannenbaum

      The Older Brother

      An Easy Death To Handle

      Phoenix

      Therapy in Absentia

      Forgiveness

      Déjà vu

      Beginnings

      Prelude

      The spine cracked as I entered virgin territory. I curled back the cover of the paperback gently, a soft arc as I perused the opening page.

      Season Pass, by Jerome Bordeaux.

      The pages crisp/clean, that new book smell wafted out of the pages and promised so much. A brand new book, a fresh author I’d never read before. It was an anticipation that was like a drug to me. I love that anxiety, the feeling that I’m about to discover something original and exciting as I open a new tome. It’s a different feeling to reading the latest novel by an author you’ve read before. You know the style, you know what to expect. But a new author? It’s a whole different sentiment.

      It’s like sitting at a comedy club and a comedian you’ve never seen before comes on stage. OK funny guy, make me laugh. I’ll give you a few jokes, I’ll give you a chance. I know you’re nervous, but I’m willing to work with you for a while.

      Jerome Bordeaux was the new wunderkind of Crime Noir (my agent told me I was a new Wunderkind, but that was before all of this happened). His work was dark, thoughtful and full of long words that I had to assume I knew the meaning for. I’d get the gist of the sentence and, from that, determine an approximate definition of the word. I mean, who uses ‘eschew’ in day-to-day conversation? Honestly?

      I knew this because I was three pages into the book and already I could taste its pretentiousness. The precociously short sentences. The awkwardly arranged alliteration.

      Dammit! I liked it!

      My agent had the temerity to call me ‘wunderkind’. I’m 47 years old – hardly a child in any language. True, though, that I had only written two novels. The first one, Dancing With Strangers, was a mild success and it enabled me some money so I could finish A Sliver of Light.

      Yes, I know you’ve heard of that one.

      It was the right book, the right style, the right time.

      It was the literary equivalent of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.

      The literary equivalent of ‘Pulp Fiction’.

      And now I’m stewing over my third book and not really getting anywhere.

      Actually, the comparison with Tarantino (‘Pulp Fiction’) is appropriate really. ‘Dancing With Strangers’ was my ‘Reservoir Dogs’ – mildly popular, cult classic, well received by critics and peers. And, like ‘Reservoir Dogs’, it was more widely acknowledged after the sophomore effort – when people checked the limited back-catalogue to discover the mega-success’ predecessor.

      Cries of how did I miss this? resounded.

      ‘A Sliver of Light’ was my ‘Pulp Fiction’. Where ‘Pulp Fiction’ resurrected Travolta’s career, gave Bruce Willis street cred and established Samuel L. Jackson as ‘one cool motherfucker’ (I know you said that in your head using Samuel’s voice), ‘A Sliver of Light’ – and the subsequent screen version – brought back Russell Crowe just as he was disappearing into the bloated Kiwi most Australians thought he was. It made John Waters sexy again. It made us all scared of Hugo Weaving – really scared too. It was his John Jarrett ‘Wolf Creek’ moment – a far cry from Hugo’s attempt at menace in ‘The Matrix’.

      Now I had just finished the first chapter of Season Pass by this new guy Bordeaux…and it had me hooked. Like an addict’s relapse into the forbidden, my taste of this was sweet, addictive and sensational. I liked it so much that I wished I’d written it. I also knew that I liked it so much that I would have to finish it and, if I’m reading something so damned good, then I can’t be writing my own stuff.

      I put the book down and picked up the tepid tea – Earl Grey and far too sweet. I wondered if it was okay to absorb some of Jerome’s style into my work? The guy was twenty years younger than me…was I too old to be influenced?

      The answer was obvious and I knew that my ego would have to take a back seat on this one. If it’s good, be influenced by it – that was my pragmatism speaking and he almost always won over my ego. My ego really wanted to hate this book – revile it and denounce it as pappy, arrogant trash. But my ego had no option to concede that it was good and my new novel (such that it was) would have to wait.

      Novel…yeah right.

      I had been avoiding my agent’s insistent questions about what the story was about, or how far into it I was, or when he could read at least a chapter or two. The fact was I had no idea what it was about. I knew how it would start but, beyond the first chapter, there was nothing.

      I had no plot, no characters, no second or third act. Hell, I didn’t even have a first act! The first chapter was, at best, an okay short story. But I had no idea where it was going.

      I put down my tea and picked up Bordeaux’s novel.

      It was then I knew what my new book would be. It would be a journey for me. As I was reading Bordeaux’s work, I realised that part of the excitement here was that I did not know what was coming up. I didn’t know where he was taking me – most of what was written on the back of the book had taken place in the first chapter…I had no idea what the rest would be like. I’m sure Bordeaux did, but that’s his story to tell. I liked the excitement of adventure. I wanted that form of inspiration for when I was writing my novel. To not know what the future held – to be unsure of where the characters were going, or taking me, and taking the reader. I didn’t even know how many characters there would be.

      It was the literary equivalent of ‘Seinfeld’ – the show about nothing.

      So that’s what I did.

      The End of Death

      And this was how it started.

      Smash!

      Although, for Tobias, it was in slow motion - the smash was more of an elongated crunch. His mind distorted time, twisted reality and obfuscated the truth. A self-defence mechanism, protecting itself against future pain.

      The car left the road at 95 kilometers an hour, sliding sideways across the empty lanes of blacktop as its tyres aquaplaned through the pools of water. The wheels spun, hopelessly inadequate to gain traction, completely useless against kinetic energy.

      Incessant rain + poor drainage = a deathtrap for Tobias’ Ford Falcon.

      It was a disaster waiting for him to come along and take up his role in it. In an accident waiting to happen, the vital ingredient was Tobias.

      And the pedestrian too - he played his part.

      The kerb jutted up from the black-top like a ski ramp ready to launch the jumper into glory. As the car’s wheels collected with the concrete edge of the road, Tobias felt the world stop. Time ceased, motion paused. His heart skipped slightly as he realized that he was no longer in control of the vehicle - he was as much a passenger within it as his jacket on the back seat, or the fluffy dice suspended under the mirror.

      Whilst he slid across the road, he maintained an illusion of control - perpetuated by the steering wheel. He gripped that wheel for dear life, ripping it left, then right violently but with zero effect. No matter which way he turned it, the car continued a wide-arced pirouette, the rear of the metal beast slowly turning as if to overtake the front half.

      Control, time, sequence…all of it illusory as reality blurred and paused.

      Airborne.

      Tires left the road, the engine screamed as Tobias braced for the inevitable landing. His heart felt

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