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Author Topic: Looking to start a project...  (Read 1063 times)

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duckboy53

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Looking to start a project...
« on: 18 Dec 2002, 23:40:08 »
I have written the first page of a new novel I am writing.  I need some feedback on it (good or bad are both good).  I might turn it into a movie script if people really like it so it would be ready for a mission (if someone was interested, I have no mission making skill whatsoever).  Thanks a bunch.

-Duck

Here it is:

Journal: 12/18/02   

I sipped the sweet honey tea Amelia had just warmed on the kettle.  It had been five years.  No one on the island could forget what happened here.  Slowly everything had returned to normal, but we'll never truly know what normal is or ever was.  People are trying to put the whole event behind them.  It is getting harder and harder as the days pass though.  No one will ever be able to forget what happened here.  All the bloodshed, all the hatred, all the pain and suffering was a scar on the souls of all our people.  Geronimo said my brother knew all this was going to happen.  He said this would all lead to bad places.  He wanted to get away from all the pain and suffering he had seen.  It found him though; it killed him.  

My brother said when we were little that he wanted to be a soldier.  He wanted to be like the people in the movies that he saw at the theatre.  He used to bug me for nickels so he could go see it again and again with his friends.  He thought they were so brave.  I remember once, it was a balmy Friday night at home.  The gnats that usually flew around your head were absent tonight.  Instead, the quiet song of crickets filled the atmosphere.  I had just finished my homework and went downstairs to get a glass of water.  Mom smiled at me as she dried the dishes from the earlier dinner.  I turned the faucet and the clear, crisp Carolina water filled the glass.  I took a sip as I turned off the faucet and looked out of the window.  My little brother, Victor, was sitting next to our father as he was reading the newspaper.  I walked over to the screen door and took another sip of water.  As my father read, my brother would tug at Dad's trousers.  Dad would look down at him and Victor would ask a question.  Dad would look up for a moment, as if asking the stars for an answer, and turn his head to Victor and respond.  It seemed to be like a factory of questions and answers.  I'm surprised Dad ever got any time to read that paper.

When I was away at college, about six years later, I got a call from home.  Victor had joined the army and was shipping off to Vietnam the next day.  I was so flabbergasted by the situation.  Hadn't Victor listened to Dad's war stories?  Dad lost his three best friends in Korea and his father in World War II.  Obviously Victor had mistaken these stories as being some of Dad's tall tales.  I asked Mom if I could talk to him but she said he was at James Gastovski's house studying for final exams.  She asked if I wanted her to call him, but I said no.  I knew it was no use.  He was hell bent on joining the Army and no one could talk him out of it.  I said goodbye to Mom and hung up.

The last time I saw Victor was back in ‘76.  Dad's heart gave out while Mom was cooking dinner and she couldn't get him to the hospital in time.  We weren't expecting him at the funeral.  He had called Mom and told her that he might not be back from the base in time.  She understood the situation, hiding all of her pain and suffering from him to make it seem better.  After Pastor O'Conners said a prayer, the casket was lowered into the grave.  My niece Claire pointed up to sky as a helicopter hovered over the graveyard.  A black rope came pouring out of the chopper and Victor came sliding down.  His all black Spec-Ops uniform was perfect for the occasion.  He scrambled over to the grave and hugged Mom.  He patted me on the back and looked down at the grave.  Even with his mask on, you could see his emotion.  A dark spot appeared on the sewn fabric around his eyes - he was crying.  I had never in my life seen Victor cry.  Even as a child, Victor just never cried.  It was like his body was incapable of showing emotion like that.

That was the last time I saw Victor in person.  I spoke to him on the phone a few times but they were very brief.  I wasn't able to contact him after 1980 though.  He had moved to a base in the Far East, on some island named Malden.  I found out from Geronimo that he moved to another nearby island, Nogava, and settled down there.  When war broke out, he led a Resistance effort and successfully freed the island from Soviet Union control.  He didn't live to see any freedom though; he died after blowing up Soviet bombers.  No one will ever forget my brother, they named the Nogava Air Force base after him. I moved into his house which, remarkably, was still standing amidst all the chaos.  I met up with all his living friends and visited the graves of his deceased friends.  I'm having lunch with James and Geronimo tomorrow.  Hopefully I can catch an early flight tomorrow morning.  I wonder if Sam Nichols can give me a ride in his jet over to Everon?  I think he owes me a ride or two after bailing him out in poker with Armstrong and Hammer.  Just thinking of that, I should probably give Fowley a call tomorrow…he owes me!                            
 

O Neil

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Re:Looking to start a project...
« Reply #1 on: 19 Dec 2002, 06:25:58 »
Hey

I think it's a great story, not my interest, but I look for word qualities. You should read that book from Gary Provost "Make every word count" its real good.

I'm doing the same thing as you. Not a jurnel though. And I'm 15 in college so I don' got much time to do it, but this is what I got as well:

                                                                      Prologue
I remember, one night I was lying in bed, it was 10:20pm and I was looking up at the dark white ceiling, thinking about things as usual. But as my eyes adjusted to the dark, I noticed the bright, ghostly light coming in through the window. So, out of curiosity, I leaned over to the other side of my bed and gazed up at the moon through the window.
It was an extremely frosty night, and as bright as the moon was, the frost obscured all outlines of the landscape and made the moon corona glow for miles.
It was hovering on top of the hill that rose up from the river bed. I couldn't see that of course. In fact, I couldn't see even the dark silhouette of the hill; it was all a dark white.
The only features I could see were the tops of the pine trees here and there that were planted on the hill. But even those, were very faint.
The only things I could see were the two Willows', and they weren't far from my bed side window.
Then my eyes dropped down. I noticed the balcony fence, also, a dark white. It looked very simple.
My eyes dropped further and the CD I was listening to on my headphones changed track to a really nice, sad song. It sounded like a game I used to play, Final Fantasy IV.
The outside balcony floor is black, but what caught my eye were beautiful, silver puddles made by the rain earlier on that day. They just sat there, very still, so still that it looked unearthly. It was eerie, in a way; I could see the areas where the moons light reflected off the smooth puddles, but where the reflection had not hit, where it was black, well, it didn't look black at all. It was……"unexplainable."
I lay there, listening to the song and feeling sad for no reason.
I lay there for a long time until my head and neck started to ache. But I didn't dare look away; this was a very special moment.
I kept staring until I fell asleep and instantly started dreaming.
It was the dream that I had a few time before. It was the waves. I was at a beach and the sky was a dark blue and the sea was green, an absurd green, and the sun was pink. I was sitting there with mum, I never looked at her but I knew she was mum. The beach was just an endless, straight white line getting smaller and smaller. Five yards from the lapping sea was a very steep elevation of sand also going along the endless beach.
So, naturally, I went to jump up and down the "Cliff." As I got closer, the beach sounded louder too. It had a more "Booming" quality in it than a "Swoosh." But as I was dreaming, I didn't care.
I got closer until I reached the endless cliff of sand. I walked further still and dropped down it so I landed sitting down on the cold sand. The waves still had a loud boom that kept coming every now and then.
But just then, A massive wave rose up over me and my heart felt like it was getting smaller with fear. I kept rising and the sound kept getting louder, but then the wave stopped in mid air, but the booming kept carrying on. Everything started to get darker and darker until it was all black. But this time, the booming only got louder, and louder.
Then, I woke up……..

That's just the prolouge. I'm makin it into a campaign, where your a Resistance fighter agains't indonesians.

Anhoo, the words are good enough to make a book outt of ;)

Phantom

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Re:Looking to start a project...
« Reply #2 on: 21 Dec 2002, 17:50:01 »
hey
that's pretty damn good mate
now i consider myself pretty damn knolwedgable on sf and the like, and one thing i know is that some guy isn't gonna come fast roping out of a chopper in his gear to go to a funeral, and i don't think that anyone would be there staring at him, instead biting his head off for being so damn disrespectufl. and another thing, a black op is actually a type of operation, where the government will deny all knowledge of the op and the K performing it. so that's the closest thing to what could be called a black op. A K is a deniable operator, but their not so much soldiers as spies or mercenaries for a government. but calling him a K would still be quite acceptable as a name, though u might want a glossary to explain it to some people who don't quite know what a K is.
other than that it's pretty damn good.

keep up the good work.
and if you ever need an advisor to check it, i'd be more than happy to do it

Phantom