Fragments & Poppycock

A chapter taken from one of my novels. Felt the need to post something writing-related, so here it is. Woot.
-V

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It was bitingly cold outside, the wind howling its own misery and despair through the trees.

Jodi quietly stepped outside of the house and onto the front porch to clear her head and get some air. The police were already done “investigating” and questioning the three that had called them about Kaylis’s alleged “suicide”. Now all they had to do was write up their reports and decide whether James, Jodi, and Vincent were telling the truth.

“If this was a suicide, then why’s that boy out front’s name written on her arm?” one surly officer had asked Jodi, glaring at her with beady little owl eyes.

“He didn’t kill her. They were dating and he broke it off a few days ago. You can ask anyone at the party that we were at before we came here; they’ll testify that none of us were present at the time of death. We just found her like that,” Jodi explained with her arms crossed and eyes unwavering. The officer stepped down, although regrettably, and waved her away.

James had called Kaylis’s mother and what he thought was her older sister’s number in her cell phone to tell them of the news. He was currently leaning against the door of his Acura, arms crossed and expression sullen. He’d stepped away to allow Jodi a moment alone with Vincent, who was resting his back against the house on the other side of the door in a droopy fashion.

A cigarette was perched between his lips and every few seconds he would blow out a cloud of smoke, watching it dissipate listlessly in the passing wind. He had retracted back into his shell.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Jodi began quietly. Her breath came out looking as a cloud in the cold air.

“I don’t,” he murmured, continuing to stare into the shadows of the night. He pinched the end of the cigarette and slipped it gingerly from his lips. “But I do now.” He exhaled slowly, creating a steady stream of smoke and breath.

After a beat, Jodi took a few steps toward him with a sympathetic expression on her face.

“Hey, it’ll be all right--”

“Wrong. It won’t ever be fucking all right,” he said, cleanly cutting her off midsentence. He hadn’t expressed any emotion in his words, although in Jodi’s head it seemed strange not to put any emphasis on one word or another. He spoke like he was talking about dreams, about lovely, plushy, happy dreams. “It can’t be. Jodi…something’s changed in me. Something’s happened and I can’t explain it but it feels like a fucking black hole in my chest. I don’t understand it but it hurts, okay? I can’t…I can’t…” He grabbed at words, his tone suddenly different, and in the porch light, Jodi could see his lip wobbling and eyes glimmering. He cursed and shoved his palms into his eyes, grinding his teeth. “I can’t feel anything. I…it feels like I died back there. It’s like I’m a ghost now, or some shit.”

Jodi knew whenever he had talked to her before he put a filter on his words to be courteous, but now it was anything goes and he didn’t care. She could easily see it in his dull, inexpressive blue irises. He was losing himself and there were no rungs on the ladder to bring him back. He would just keep falling away, piece by piece, into madness.

Jodi wanted to hug him. She wanted to hug him badly, but she wasn’t sure how he would respond, if at all. He needed something she couldn’t give him. He needed something she wasn’t sure anyone could give him anymore. He seemed to read her thoughts and shook his head in agreement before pulling something out of his pocket.

“I gave this ribbon to her and told her to think of me and how much I cared when she wanted to self-harm…I guess it backfired. And I don’t want it. So you should take it and remember her whenever you see it. Please,” he asked, placing it in Jodi’s hand without her permission, but she took it anyway. “I’ve got enough memories to last me a lifetime. I don’t need any reminders.”

The spinning, silent police lights on top of the cars illuminated his face in blue and red, flashing through his eyes as he stood there, gazing at nothing and wondering everything.

“Well, I guess it’s time to go home. What are you going to do, Vince? The party is probably going to continue well into the morning.”

“There’s no way I’m going back there tonight. Fuck all those happy people; they don’t deserve it,” he lashed, although his tone was still cool and calm. She had no idea how he managed it.

Jodi closed the distance between them and placed a consoling hand on his shoulder. “I didn’t mean go back to the party. I meant where are you going to sleep? What are you going to do for the rest of the night?”

“I don’t know, float around, and terrorize some people. I’m a ghost, remember?”

Jodi gave him a sympathetic, concerned look, but his eyes didn’t match hers. “Vincent, you know as much about psychology as I do and I know you know how much thinking those kinds of thoughts are going to screw you over.”

At this, his blue eyes stared straight into hers, but there was no emotion. There was absolutely nothing.

“I’m already screwed over, Jo. Go home and sleep. Goodnight.”

Three - Four Years Compiled Word Count

So, I was struck with the idea just the other day about how many words I've written (by hand or typed) my whole life. Now, I know this is not possible to know, but adding up all the word documents I have from the past 3 or 4 years is. So, I did it. It took a couple hours (and a few frustrating moments with Word in particular) as well as three whole Word documents to hold all the bits of information, but finally, I reached my overall estimate. Word decided to freak out and erase everything at around page 900, so I had to find out another way to calculate my overall word count as opposed to cramming all the words into one doc, since apparently the amount overwhelmed Word. And I wanted it to be as accurate as possible, although I understand without precision (which I didn't have) there are bound to be errors. However, I do believe the my answer is close enough to the truth. Just for a visual, I've included the amount of pages as well, although I know for a fact there are spaces and such.

First doc: 459,203 words (875 pages)
Second: 104,595 words (429 pages)
Third: 44,547 words (117 pages)
Which gives me a total of: 608,345 words (and 1,421 pages)

In the past 3-4 years, based off of what I've written and saved, I've written around 608,345 words. This number consists of novels - finished and otherwise - school projects (essays, research papers, etc.) and miscellaneous writing stuffs. My (rough) finished novels alone take up 205,733 words (29.57%) of that total.

....

Never would I have imagined the total reaching this high in just four years.

Anyway, time for the history of this endeavor. In my Faith and Reason class on Friday, my teacher mentioned something about an average word count for college-aged people that had compiled throughout their lifetime. Now, I can't exactly remember the number* he came up with, but I keep thinking it was somewhere in the 100,000's. Maybe in the 150,000-200,000 range somewhere. (I'm not entirely sure where he'd get such information, but I trust him not to just pull a number off the top of his head.) Regardless, I knew as soon as he'd said the number that I had most likely surpassed it, being a writer and all. Thus, this planted the seed of thought that grew into the desire to attempt to figure out how many possible words I've written in even just the past couple years. And there you go. This is my conclusion.

Phew.

To go even further into calculating this, I could try to figure out what the average word-per-day count is. Let's say roughly 4 years.
365 days x 4 years = 1,460 days
608,345 words / 1,460 days = 416.674658 words per day

Wow.

It can only go up from here! :D

Now I feel inspired to write more.

Ta~

V

*EDIT: I talked to him today about it - it was a calculation of hours someone might have spent writing and that number of hours would put them at a certain level from complete novice to professional writer. How different I translated that, eh? From hours into word count. Perhaps that's just the trigger I needed anyway. Well, whichever. Still intriguing (:

The Girl with a Borrowed Face: An Excerpt

AJ found herself lying in the grass beside a pair of railroad tracks, the sun setting behind the trees. She was a younger version of herself, much like the memories she had recently relived, but here she was much, much younger. It was peacefully quiet for all but the sound of her brother’s humming and the flutter of nearby bird’s wings. Sitting up slowly, she felt the tugging of familiarity on the edge of the dream - or at least it felt like a dream. It’s pretty vivid, though, she wondered briefly. Perhaps the dream had melted together with a vague memory; she could only guess.

Chambrey came over to her and smiled hugely, goofily. Such a big brother grin, she thought, and his hand came down to haul her out of the grass. The dirt bike they used to share stood loyally by the tree line of the forest they’d run through as children. Those trees were their babysitter and they never failed in giving them the best spots to hide and play.

“C’mon Junior,” Chambrey shouted from the train tracks. He was balancing animatedly on one track, making a show of pretending to almost fall off. It elicited a giggle from AJ. Oh how much she wished he were back so that they could do those things again, like the brother and sister they were. It panged her to remember how carefree and unknowing they had been, how they both had not even the slightest inkling that his life would end so suddenly.

AJ ran over to Chambrey and yanked on his arm, sending him crashing into the grass like a shot down airplane. He began to laugh and she couldn’t stop.

Quickly the dream changed, turning into night and letting loose a flurry of nearly painful raindrops from the dark clouds. She found Chambrey in the same place she’d left him; lying in the grass. She realized though that they were both older - the ages they had been before Chambrey died.

Instantly AJ knew something wasn’t right. Her hair clung to her face like tentacles and she could hear a train’s horn rumbling in the distance.

“Chambrey, we’re too close to the tracks,” she said, grabbing his arm and trying to pull him to his feet so they could wait for the train to pass at a safe distance. But he didn’t let her. He just shook his head and smiled a smile she never remembered him using.

It was twisted and wrong, somehow.

“Let’s track hop,” he yelled, acting as if he’d had a few drinks. The horn sounded closer and AJ’s worry meter spiked.

“Chambrey no, we need to get out of here.”

He simply laughed and jumped up onto a track, feeling it tremble beneath his feet. AJ seized his arm and yanked forcefully, wanting him - no, needing him to get off the tracks.

“What are you doing? Chambrey! Chambrey!”

The train’s light bathed them both in bright yellow and Chambrey shielded his eyes, but his smile didn’t falter. The horn blew strongly again, warning them to get back. Chambrey didn’t heed it.

This is going wrong. This is going terribly, terribly wrong, she thought frantically.

“Chambrey!” she yelled, cupping her hands around her mouth. He cachinnated morbidly as the train neared, the horn going full bore.

“C’mon AJ! It’s fun!”

She shook her head vigorously and her eyes filled with tears as she backed away. Her hands started to shake; she clasped them together tightly in attempt to still them.

“I said come on!” he shouted back at her. Before she knew it, he was at her side, his arms clamped around her shoulders and hauling her toward the tracks. She fought against his grip, but of course she couldn’t break free. He had always been stronger than her.

The horn shattered her eardrums and light melted her eyes when he launched them both in front of the train.

As she cringed for impact, she was in her bed again, Ryan blurring into her vision when she registered his strong hold on her shoulders.

“AJ? AJ, are you okay?” he repeated over and over. Her throat was bound; she couldn’t squeak out even the faintest of sounds no matter how hard she pushed. Ryan continued to shake her shoulders, convinced that she wasn’t fully awake yet and completely expecting some kind of response.

He had shaken her awake a number of times much like that one, usually after a dream or night terror where her thrashing about was enough to break him from his slumber and come to her rescue. She was breathing her thanks that the train was just a nightmare.

Then he was on top of her and his hands were squeezing her neck.

“I’m coming for you. I’ve become you,” he hissed in a low, nasty voice that wasn’t his own. His eyes flooded with crimson and fangs grew from his mouth, a snake tongue flicking out between them. The fingers strangling the breath out of her turned into jagged claws and she felt liquid warmth pool around her neck before her vision began to fail her. Blood coated her throat and she coughed and gasped frenziedly for air, for alleviation.

“I’ve become you, AJ. And I’m coming for you,” the voice snarled again, filling her head like a multiplying virus. It just wouldn’t stop echoing.

The voice abruptly rushed out of her head and was replaced with silence. She felt warm arms around her and she struggled to get out of them, away from them. She kept her eyes closed in fear of seeing the blood and undoubtedly triggering a panic attack while she grasped at her neck, still attempting to get away.

There was no warm blood leaking over her fingers or gaping fresh wounds. Opening her eyes, she realized that the shadow man was cradling her to him. Those were the arms she felt.

The terror of the double nightmare hit her then, consumed her, and there was no way to stop the shuddering sobs once they had begun.

The shadow held her closer and she welcomed the comfort.

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So this is a chapter from the middle a book I just recently wrote a rough draft for. Like? Dislike? Neutral?

 -Vicki