NaNoWriMo!

November is National Novel Writing Month, and I have been plugging away in an attempt to keep pace along the way. The goal is to write approximately 1,700 words each day, giving you a grand total of 50,000 when the month comes to an end. This is a daunting task, but it is also very doable if you stick to the plan.

I’m slightly behind at the moment after a busy weekend, with just over 26,000 words in the book bank. However, I plan to use the rest of this week to get caught back up and on-schedule to finish NaNoWriMo strong.

There are a lot of local groups that help other writers network with like-minded individuals, and I’ve enjoyed meeting and speaking with a few local writers. Rick Amburgey who works with the Herald-Citizen has been involved with the project, and was kind enough to speak with me about doing a WriMo piece for the newspaper’s White County page. It has been a big motivator to speak with others who are as passionate about reading and writing as I am!

If you are a writer who would like to take part in NaNoWriMo, it is easy and free. Just visit their webpage at www.nanowrimo.org to get started. You may not make it to 50,000 words, but you will definitely be encouraged by a community of writers who are all making their own mission in this world to add to the literary world.

Poem – Brief

Life is short, and the time must be used wisely.

Enjoy.

Brief

Fresh light spills through glass

New mist forms in air

Breath draws in for first time

Born into world of care

Mist burns up so quickly

Sunset slips through glass

Final breath departs body

To eternity’s station pass.

Randall Madden

November 9, 2014

Poem - Nightmare Macabre

I've been sitting on the majority of this one for a while, with plans to polish it up and post it on Halloween. I could go into details about the best-laid plans and all that, but suffice to say it simply got away from me. Running with a three-year-old and trying to get in at least one traditional Halloween movie made sure that I was late, as usual!

This one was a great exercise for me, as I truly enjoy letting the Poe side out. I also completed this work in iambic pentameter, to mimic the beating of a frightened human heart. To read it appropriately, each line should come faster than the last. (For an understanding of iambic pentameter, check here)

Terror awakens a different dimension of the human mind, and I always feel more alive after allowing those creative juices to flow. Enjoy!

Nightmare Macabre

Awake in the night, sleep usurped by fear

A short ride is needed, myself I tell

Cannot shake realism, nightmare’s cold grasp

Buried alive in an eternal hell

Feeling so foolish, held awake by fear

Yet a feeling that cannot be pushed back

Is that a leering face in the corner

Awaiting my approach for an attack?

“A drive it will be,” I say to myself

In the vain hope that this feeling might pass

Yet that fathomless terror comes back now

When the monster looks back through smoky glass

I exit home, make my way to the truck

Am I caught in some nefarious game?

Candle burns in the house across the road

Home abandoned, yet light burns all the same

I pull from the drive and start down the road

Not sure where to go, but sure that I should

Bloodied teddy is gripped in the hands of

A little girl who stands alone at the woods

She smiles and waves as I drive by her tree

Rotting flesh is flaking from her cold hand

I press the gas as my heart starts to pound

Is it madness that has taken this land?

A light rain falls as my journey begins

High overhead, the moon rots from the sky

Birds fly backward as they return to nest

Where fell offspring feed on men as they die

The steady drizzle becomes a downpour

Then the downpour becomes terrible flood

Windshield is spattered with warm viscera

As the rain from the dark sky turns to blood

As I drive I’m haunted by dark whispers

And tales that men are nothing more than meat

I’m told these grim truths by a bloody fiend

A demon who sits in passenger seat

I turn back to home, for night is too dark

And the nightmares are escape from new real

The world has become too gruesome and grim

And the moon rises once more over hill

As night resets I return to my bed

There I will hide from the phantoms that stalk

Then the shadows detach from their objects

And to my fear-wracked form they start to walk

A fathomless terror besets me then

And the feeling becomes thicker than air

I hear a terrified voice, screaming, near

When I turn then to look, no one is there

I’m left with little sanity to tell

From the dreams dreamed, and the horrors I sight

And the dark shadow creatures come closer

As the thirteenth chime sounds at black midnight

And now as their prey I’m left to wonder

Considering dark places that I’ve flown

Can I ever return to sanity

After the depths of madness that I’ve known?
“This is still just a dream!” some voice tells me

But I realize as the shadow-things creep

That the dream my mind formed was a falsehood

And my tortured self was never asleep.

Randall Madden

November 4, 2014

Progress Report – Initial Readers, Here I Come!

It has been almost ten years since I had the dream that formed the beginnings of my novel. I wrote the first page when I was in college, saving it in a folder titled, “here is a book idea to get you started.” In June of last year, I decided to pick it back up when I was dusting off all my old writings.

I finished my initial draft several months back, and after several setbacks that left me behind my intended schedule, I finally got around to the dreaded editing process. I attacked this with gusto for the last few months, and then set back to writing a new character that I felt the story needed.

Edits, late nights, and borderline insanity came and went. I’m happy to say that the printer is chugging, and my first “official” draft is complete. Tomorrow, I will hand my book to my first test reader!

I have so many people to thank for listening to me along the way. My wife, Brittany, has been absolutely instrumental in keeping me motivated to this point. She was always happy to listen to parts of the story along the way, and I have spoiled almost every plot twist for her from start to finish. Josh Griffin and Elisabeth Perkins also get a big hand, for they listened when I really felt like I needed someone’s advice on the book.

I also owe it to the teachers along the way that helped me come to this completed manuscript. Mrs. Ford, my Kindergarten teacher, instilled a love for writing and reading in me that has carried through to this day. I also owe thanks to mom, for encouraging me to keep writing over the years when I was ready to just give up on my dream.

So look out initial readers, I’m coming for you starting tomorrow! Barring any major rewrites, I plan to start 2015 by looking for an agent to help sell my book.

All done, and just in time for NaNoWriMo!

Progress Report - Book Finished! Again...

For the second time, I am ticking off the “complete” box next to the first Dawnbringer book!

When I finished the first manuscript several months back I was discussing it with Brittany. She has been a great source of inspiration and insight when it comes to the inner workings of my book, and after one of our late night discussions I realized that I was missing a major story arc that I really needed to tell. The book takes place during a major war, and the entire civilian population of one side had been left out of the book. I was busy looking for a way to showcase some aspects of their society, and Brittany pointed out the potential solution that I wound up taking.

So here I am, another 40,000 words later, and the book is done…again…sort of…

I have to go back and do my edits now, and I have a handful of small chapters that still need to be written. Once all of this is finished, the book will be ready for initial readers. I’m hoping this will happen over the weekend, but if I’ve learned anything through the book writing process, it’s that patience is an important virtue.

Stay tuned!

Poem – Deliver Me

In my mind, poetry should speak honestly before all else. Without exposing raw emotion, it really falls short of showcasing the truest bits of our humanity.

With that in mind, I’ve written a more frustrated piece this week, hearkening to several weeks of hard knocks. The purpose was merely to vent some of the mounting frustrations that I had been facing.

In my desire to expose some element of raw emotion, I hope it delivers.

Deliver Me

Deliver me, O Lord

From a world of indifference

Cold numbers and statistics

Mark what should be much more

Cold slabs of meat

All that remains of humanity

Carcasses, still drawing breath

In a world of jaded despair

Where went our basic dignity

And respect for one another?

Lost, like the teachings of the Law

In that cursed Israelite generation

I scream, I cry, I rail

Cannot anybody hear me?

Songbird’s call drowned out

In the buzz of monotonous gray

Lord, please deliver me.

Randall Madden

October 2, 2014

A Poem and a Story

This past week has been a rough one for me. I was hospitalized with a very bad stomach infection, and actually wondered at a couple of points if I was going to die. To make a long and miserable story short, I was able to recover, and I’m home today with my family and with a new perspective on life.

I wrote a poem a few days back, and I understand its meaning even more now than I did before my ordeal. When I was laying sick in my hospital bed, I remember waking and feeling infinitely better, and knowing as I watched the sunrise that I was lucky to see its beauty once more. How many people passed away in the night, never living to see that beautiful change of the sky? I was given a good lesson: never take for granted the life you’ve been given, live every day to its fullest, and know that the things of this world are all going to decay and rot with time. Live and love like today is your last day, and never be ashamed of time spent having fun with those you love.

Enough rambling. On to the poem…

Journey’s End

The hurried man pressed on

Alone, through the wood

Each step moving forward

Quickly as he could

No nose for the smells

Nor eyes to sightsee

A schedule maintained

Meant places to be

On weary pace forward

By chance he did meet

Fellow traveler, all dozing

At mighty oak’s feet

This second man smiled

Content wave his greeting

The first scowled and moved on

No time for chance meeting

What a queer way to live,

The first thought of the second

One must strive to ignore

These distractions that beckon

Yet imagine surprise

When the first man did see

The second man once more

Asleep at the tree

“Have I circled?” he wondered,

“Or is he this fast?

How else could this be

That last man that I passed?”

The second sat up

With a wave and a smile

“Would you care to sit, friend,

And rest for a while?”

“Why do you tarry

And waste so much time

With challenges to face

And mountains to climb?”

“I’ve climbed my own mountains,”

Said man number two

“I walk the same path,

But I’m different than you.”

The first shook his head,

Smiled, mocking and sad

“You must learn to rush

If good things you would have.”

“Oh! Never,” he answered

While patting the tree

“The things here worth having

Are closer to free.”

With a snort and a shake,

The first man pushed on

Seeing no sense

In this second man’s song

Yet no matter how frantic

No matter how fast

The man made his pace

The second he passed

First once and then twice,

A third time, you see

The first man caught up

To that man by the tree

And too soon came winter

The trees fell to gray

The man became weary

As night replaced day

He stumbled and tripped

And the schedule did fall

For all clear the date

When that night comes to call

“Glad to see you!”

The second man said

As the two lay immobile

On hospital bed

“What happened to beauty?”

The first wailed in fright

“I worked to find peace,

Once I reached this twilight.

Yet I’ve found only pain

And despair in the cold.

Now the beauty is gone

And I find myself old.”

“The beauty is here,”

The contented man said

A wizened old finger

Gestured to the head

The first man thought hard

For mem’ry that satisfied

But his life had been built

On a system that lied

“You can enjoy the breeze

Or grasp for the wind

But death waits for us all

At this journey’s end.”

Randall Madden

September 21, 2014