03/06/2024

03/06/2024

I lay sprawled on my back, staring at the ceiling, mourning yet another dream of a happy life that will soon fade from my memory, leaving only a sour taste of what could have been. Waking up in the morning has become a real uphill battle, to the point I have to pry my consciousness from the deepest recesses of my mind and force it to go through another day.

My eyes adjust to the influx of light as dawn breaks through the cracks of the blinds. My gaze settles on the picture of what once seemed like a perfect couple, embracing each other, drowning in the ocean of love. Underneath it, the text reads, “Jake and Christina, 14/08/2019.”

I almost long for the nights when sleep rings the doorbell and then runs for it, with the darkness pressing on me heavier as the little old alarm clock ticks the night away.

A cliché way to start a story, isn’t it?

But this is my story, and clichés are called such because these are experiences every person goes through in one way or another. My life took an obstacle course, hitting every single one on the way.

Growing up, I was a troubled boy with a tough upbringing, navigating life through the harsh realities of poverty. Sports became my escape, a realm where I excelled and found a sense of identity and popularity. It defined who I was, but then an injury abruptly ended that part of my life. As I faced being forgotten and sidelined, I struggled but eventually managed to get back on my feet. I found work and strived to live the best life I could, embracing a new identity and purpose beyond the field.

Yet, the feeling of loneliness and not belonging remained. I often found myself lost in thought, daydreaming about different worlds, searching for one where I truly 

belonged.

As I turn to look at my wife sleeping before I go to work, I can’t help but think, how did I come to be in this situation? I am thirty, on the brink of a divorce, with a woman I once thought of as salvation now being the cause of all my issues.

Another lie, something I’ve grown accustomed to recently, especially when someone asks how I am feeling. There was yet another person, someone who became both a bane and a blessing.

For almost three years, things with my wife have been bad. She shut me out of her life, closing the door in my face, never communicating the issues. It was as if a switch had flipped in her head, and I was no longer good enough. 

In the first of those three years, I worked on bettering myself, hoping she would notice that I cared and return to her old self. In the second year, I wanted to die when I realized all my efforts were futile and that divorce was the only option. In the third year, I met someone. 

She was going through the same thing, understanding the painful lack of attention and companionship. Though our circumstances were not exactly alike, we bonded over our shared loneliness, filling the holes left in our hearts by our partners. Soon, people noticed our smiles when we were together or chatting over work apps. Lunch breaks and coffee after work became our solace. But neither of us wanted to cross the line out of respect for our partners.

Yet at one point, she was ready to take a step further, no doubt tired of wrestling with the bottled-up feelings. But it was my cowardice and misplaced sense of duty to my wife that put a stop to it.

Deep down, I knew it would have been the right thing to end things with my wife then and there. I had already sinned and given my heart to another person, but all my insecurities and doubts kept me chained to a life I built for myself.

She accepted it, but I could sense the pain rearing its head in her words. Even though it tore me apart and everything in me screamed against it, I encouraged her to talk to her partner, thinking of all my sleepless nights and not wishing them upon anyone. And she did. What didn’t work for me reignited the passion between them, and soon all the texts, calls, and coffees were a rarity.

Even though we agreed to stop flirting, she promised our relationship would stay the same. But it didn’t. It made me feel used. I was there to comfort her and help her work on her own issues, and I outlived my usefulness.

I know that is not true. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be in this world anymore. It’s simply natural; I became a hurdle to her happiness.

Once her partner got suspicious over the long string of texts we exchanged, I knew even those rare messages would stop, even though I was content with being just a friend. You always realize what you are missing once you have it and lose it. Life gave me a way out, offered me a chance for true love. All this time I knew it; I was just afraid to act on it. I have completely and utterly destroyed myself.

Too late I realized that I am not unhappy due to divorce. I got over that a long time ago.

My unhappiness stemmed from my inaction, unwillingness to take a risk and close one chapter of my life.

I caught myself thinking about her all the time, missing her each second she is not around. The way I feel about her is something I should have experienced with my wife, that feeling of wanting to spend a life with someone, of good mornings and good nights shared. But that never happened, not even in the beginning. Looking back, my understanding of love was shallow. I see now that I confused trying to fix being broken with genuine care.

The truth is, I spent my teenage years chasing fleeting moments of popularity and relationships, and when it all crumbled down, I rushed into marriage, clinging onto it like it was my only purpose in life. Now I see that it was only to fill an endless void, a desperate attempt to find a meaning where there was none.

Each morning, the work commute was a battle against an urge to swerve off the road, thinking that the ending it all would be a merciful way out of my problems.

A coworker I used to drive with got transferred to a different department, and I am left alone to battle my inner demons. It’s not like we talked that much about issues, we are not some good friends, but just someone there to take your mind off of it with usual small talk is enough. Whoever said men need to just get strong and deal with it was a fool. There are pains one should never fight alone, and life being life, you usually are.

My mind wandered off to all of the overtime coffees, when the offices would suddenly go quiet as they left home to their families. Nature of our work would keep us tied up, alone we found solace in yelling to each other across the hall, acting out the manager’s reaction to it. Sometimes we’d race on chairs, both keeping in mind that playing around would just keep us at work longer. Perhaps we both wanted it, trying to find distraction from our personal lives.

F**k this song!

I don’t usually pay much attention to radio, but the somber song hit a little too close to the home, causing me to almost break the volume down button on the steering wheel.

By the time I realized that I had arrived at the company’s parking lot, people had already begun to stare as I must have looked like a schizophrenic, hitting the steering wheel and cussing out loud. I didn’t care, there was too much going on to worry about what people think of me.

As I entered the office my eyes were drawn to five tables, neat, clean and organized, belonging to people who built up their careers and lives, or were in the process of building it up.

Mine? The sixth table, messy, papers strewn all over, sticky notes covering most of my monitor, caps mysteriously missing their pens, one truly has to wonder how I get any work done here. And I resented my work. Numbers, papers, analysis, presentations for higher ups, constant pressure. Like I said, my whole life is a cliché, straight out of some drama TV show.

And here she comes!

Before the question even came, I let out a sigh. Andrea was smart, intuitive, and probably the only person I’d consider a friend from my office. She was the first to notice when my marriage started falling apart and the first to notice my developing feelings for the other girl."

“You feeling better today?”

I could feel the wheels of her chair getting close, even tho my back was turned towards her. The forceful dragging of the one wheel that kept getting stuck told me she really wants to know.

“I feel the same as yesterday, and have a lot of work to do, we’ll talk later.”

I couldn’t see her, but I sensed the shrug and disappointment.

“We can talk a bit before diving into the boring e-mails.” she sighed. "I may not know all the details, but you know I am here for you?"

She was right, but in all her intelligence she really couldn’t read the room. Sometimes it felt like it was all about her and what she wants to do, but her heart was in the right place and I knew she only wanted to help me.

For a moment I even considered opening up to her, but as fast as that thought popped into my mind, it disappeared even faster. I wanted to be left alone, but I couldn’t bring myself to be harsh on her.

“Maybe after a fire drill, it starts in twenty minutes, or did you forget already?”

“No I didn’t!”

Somehow her face was in front of mine, and her genuine smile was there trying its best to cheer me up.

“You really gotta let me clean up your table one day,” she said while plucking the sticky notes off of my monitor and throwing them into the trash bin. “We finished these assignments weeks ago!”

I wanted to get irritated, but I knew she was just trying to put my mind at ease, to change the topic and bring back the usual cheery atmosphere we had going in the office. And she was totally right, I handed them these assignments and reported on their status yesterday.

Perhaps more stern than I wanted to be, I scoffed at her. “Don’t worry about my table, I get by the best in my own mess, if I cleaned it up now it would take me a week to catch up.”

It was obvious she cared and the regret of talking back in such a way quickly washed over me, yet I was way too absorbed in my self-pity to actually apologize. She pulled her legs from under her chair, resting her arms on the sides of it and spun around, scratching the floor on the way back to her desk.

Same old s**t in mails, calculate this, calculate that, we need to impress our buyers. Nothing interesting to move me a bit, and my mind wandered to her again.

I stared at the chat app. Last message was two months ago. My fingers itched, fighting hard against a reflex. For a year my days at work started with a ‘Good day starts with the good morning, so I wish you the best morning.’

The grumbling in my stomach got more intense, I had this gut feeling for past two months, every day. Like attending funeral, and trying your best to stomach the tears. Fitting as I really want to scream and cry whenever I looked at her profile picture. Then a feel of disgust over my obsession, giving off creep vibes. If you love someone let them go, because if you truly love them you want them to be happy, even if that happiness is not with you. What a joke. I remembered lyrics that describe this feeling, something about her being a star on someone’s sky, but wondering why it can’t be mine. What I wouldn’t do to have another chance.

No, no, no.

The fire alarm echoed throughout the building. These drills are annoying, but as the leader of a team of five, it's my duty to ensure their safety and lead them out. But, of course, I was so lost that they all left without me.

Man I really don’t need to get punished now.

Running down the stairs in haste, I needed to catch up with my team. Even these routine drills factor into evaluations for salary adjustments.

Just a few more steps! Why is that woman screaming, and why am I looking up? Did I really just fall?

Pain surges through me, making it hard to breathe.

Will she ever stop screaming so I can find peace? I wonder if she'll miss me. Is this truly my final thought? I am disgusting.

Reviews

[JayG]

Okay, take a deep breath, because what I have to say will sting. But given that you want to be a writer, it’s necessary, and about issues that are invisible to the author until pointed out.

The good news is that they’re unrelated to talent or, how well you write. In fact, the trap you’ve fallen into is the single most common one — so common that I call it, The Great Misunderstanding.

Simply put, we leave our school days believing that writing-is-writing, and since we have that taken care of, we need only a good plot idea, a knack for storytelling, and perhaps the blessing of a passing muse.

If only... The truth is, in our school days, because their objective is to make us useful to employers, the skills we learn are both general and focused on the needs of employers. And in writing, the most common assignments from employers are reports, which is why you were assigned so many in school.

And the objective of a report? To inform. The approach is fact-based and author-centric, which is a fully dispassionate approach, because only you know the emotion you want placed into your words. The reader has a storyteller's script, minus performance notes.

But fiction reader want to be entertained. They don’t want to read the words of someone they can neither hear nor see, talking about events and people without making them seem real.

Look at your opening as that reader:

•I wake up in pain every morning.

So, someone unknown, in an unknown place, in an unknown year, claims to wake up with an unspecified level of pain, of an undefined kind, for unknown reasons? That’s data, not story. It’s effect without cause.

Lots of people wake up with pain. So what? A reader won't care, unless you make it meaningful to THEM.

Sol Stein put it well when he said: “A novel is like a car—it won’t go anywhere until you turn on the engine. The “engine” of both fiction and nonfiction is the point at which the reader makes the decision not to put the book down. The engine should start in the first three pages, the closer to the top of page one the better.”

• And that’s if I get any sleep at all.

Again, since we don’t know the character, the reader has no reason to care. But...being made to care for the protagonist, and be interested in their life situation is why people read.

• Such a cliché way to start a story, isn’t it?

Not really, because any story submitted to an agent with that opening will be rejected there. So, you don’t find it in published work.

Compare that opening to the opening line of, Breaking the Pattern:

Linda sat, hunched forward in the rocker, chewing her lip and trying to ignore the pain that came with each breath as she studied her husband.

In 26 words we learn our avatar’s name, what she’s doing, and what she’s focused on. Incidentally, we learn that she’s in pain of a type that gets stronger when she breathes — suggesting bruised ribs — that she’s sitting in a rocking chair, and that she’s deep in thought, related to her husband. We know that in spite of the pain, her thoughts are focused on that man.

So, the scene is set, both physically and emotionally. And, there’s a hook in the form that the reader wants to know WHY she’s in pain, and what her husband has to do with it, which means that at the end of the first sentence the reader cares.

Make sense?

We leave our school years knowing that we’re not ready to work as a journalist, or a screenwriter without more training. But because the pros make it seem so natural and easy, we never apply that to fiction. We forget that they offer degree programs in Commercial Fiction Writing, and do that because the skills they teach are necessary.

Using those skills, instead of talking TO the reader, we pull the reader into the story to love it in real-time, as-a-participant. After all, if we don’t make the reader view the situation exactly as the protagonist does, in all respects, how can they truly understand WHY the protagonist does and says what they do?

The short version: To writing fiction we must become a fiction writer. There is no way around that.

But...learning something you WANT to know more about is always interesting. And the practice is writing stories that are more fun both to write and read. So, what’s not to love?

For an overview of the major differences between fiction and nonfiction, you might try a few of my articles and YouTube videos. But for the actual writing techniques, I’d suggest starting with Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer. It's the best I've found to date at imparting and clarifying the "nuts-and-bolts" issues of creating a scene that will sing to the reader. And, it's free to read or download on the Internet Archive site linked to below.

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

So.... I know this is far from what you hoped to see, but since you’ll not address any problem you don’t see as being one, I thought you might want to know.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
Articles: https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@jaygreenstein3334.

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“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
~ Mark Twain

[akutasame]

First off I wanted to thank you, as this is a second time you gave me a rather useful advice.

Now a season writer told me once to never edit as I go, to just write and finish as the first book should ideally be my worst one. And then later come back, fix it as a whole, then each passage then finally each sentence.

However as I already noticed some of the critique you gave, and did plan on changing it I went against that and re-worked quite a bit of it incorporating your criticism.

I do generally write mostly for myself these days, transferring my own experiences onto paper/word document.

This one is truly based on my own experiences past few months, although what comes after is fiction, made up, but still grounded in actual feelings and thoughts of mine.

Once again, thank you

[JayG]

• Now a season writer told me once to never edit as I go, to just write and finish as the first book should ideally be my worst one.

That was bad advice, for reasons not obvious.

And with 29 books on the market today, I have picked up as few tricks, myself.

If you’re not aware of what a scene on the page truly is, for example, you’ll think in terms of a scene on the screen, which is the action taking place in one location, or one specific set of actions, like a car chase. It’s where the term scenery comes from.

But, if you use that approach, rather than the unit-of-tension approach of fiction, the problems can’t be fixed by editing, because it would require a complete revision and rewriting of the story flow.

If no one one told you that a scene ends in disaster for the protagonist, for example, and why it must, will you end them that way? No. If the short-term scene-goal’s purpose isn’t clear you’ll not take advantage of their use. As in any profession, here’s a LOT to writing fiction that’s not obvious

The advice to “Just write it, and fix it later,” only works if you know HOW to write fiction. And unless you’ve taken steps to acquire those skills, like everyone else, you left your school years owning none of them.

And when reading, we can’t know the decision-points, or see the tools that are in use, any more than going to a sculpture garden teaches you how to choose and use which chisel to use for a given situation. But we do see, and appreciate the result of using those skills, and will turn away immediately if not used. More to the point, your readers expect that. And that’s the best argument I know of for acquiring those skills. Be it hobby writing or going for publication, those skills are necessary.

Try a few chapters of the book I suggested. Or, for an easier read, Debra Dixon’s, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict.
https://archive.org/details/goal.motivation.conflictdebradixon/page/n5/mode/2up

Both that and the Swain book I suggested can be read or downloaded free.

Give it a try. I think you'll find the learning fun.