NaNoWriMo Week Two Progress Report

Image from Pixabay

Commencing Week Two of National Novel Writing Month. I am still feeling good about my project but this is usually the time I give up on my WIPs. I see how much further along everybody is in their manuscripts and I give into the pressure. I’ll never catch up so why bother? But since I started off slow with 500-1,000 a day word counts, and I didn’t anticipate I’d actually make the 50,000 words, I am giving myself grace and using those power word counts from the community as motivation instead. I need it to light a fire under my belly to keep going and push through.

I have failed in my goal to write every day, however, but that is okay. I skipped the 14th, when I was exhausted after going out of town to visit friends. I also skipped the 10th. But because I know I’m playing catch-up I am using that as fuel to stay consistent with my daily writing sessions since then. Sometimes you need to make yourself sit down and write even when you’re tired, like making yourself go to the gym when you really don’t feel like it; other times it is better to rest, instead of to force creativity.

However, right now it feels like I’m endlessly playing catch up. But I am really proud of my progress so far.

I am currently at 17,299 words in my psychological thriller, and I have ramped up my daily word count sessions from 500 words a day to 1k-2k words a day. My goal is to exceed 25,000 by the end of this week. I feel like the momentum is lagging in this part of the plot and I need to raise the stakes and increase the external conflict and action, so I am planning on taking some notes to inspire me to push through the rest of the next milestone. I usually don’t outline much, I just daydream my way through; but I don’t want to write a bunch of muddled, boring chapters just for the sake of a word count that I will have to cut later. The word count isn’t as important as whether the words are good, and if the words are good it will motivate me to keep going.

That said, I am not getting bogged down by editing as I go. For me, as I am a perfectionist, that is a sure way to get mired in an endless loop of perfectionism. For instance, I realized a different POV served my story better; I switched to writing it in first person present tense. The first 10,000 words are all in third person limited, but that is too much work to change that as I go. I will never get anywhere in the plot.

The challenge now is since it’s a psychological thriller, I feel it needs to take place in a confined area. In this instance, it’s a haunted ryokan. So I am taking notes and daydreaming, visualizing my story as a movie, to try to increase the conflict even in a tight physical space.

But overall I am feeling good about my project. I am not giving up. I just need to be consistent and write every day because it’s fun and I need to know what happens next. If I am in suspense, the reader will find it unpredictable, too. This is part of what I find joyful about discovery writing, without a detailed plan to guide you. It is a more visceral, nerve-wracking way to write, and it’s what I need to keep myself interested in the story. It doesn’t have to be perfect; the magic happens in the editing. I just need to get the bones down.

Hope your Nano projects are going well. If you’re flagging, maybe it is time to re-evaluate your goals or your plot. Hang in there writers!

NaNoWriMo Week One Progress Report

Image by 0fjd125gk87 from Pixabay 

I’ve decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month this November, despite my utterly failed previous attempts in other years. I always think this will be the year and cave under the pressure. I finished my werewolf book in a very Nano-like manner, though, writing in chunks nearly every day, so I know I have the capability of doing it.

I am working on a sapphic romantic psychological thriller set in Tokyo, Japan, among expats and the yakuza; writing women this time is an interesting departure, but the world needs more sapphic stories. I decided to do an alternative NaNoWriMo and not stress about word counts; only try to write every day. I am aiming for 40,000 words instead of 50,000.

Normally I end up posting to Twitter and that’s that, but with the implosion of that platform recently I’ve taken a break from tweeting, so I’m only updating Instagram and the NaNoWriMo website. I miss some of the community that way, but it’s also much less distracting.

The first week has been slow going. I thought I’d try something different and plot this one out, but every time I tried to prepare a plot in October I became frozen and couldn’t even jot down simple scene summaries in the various outlining methods I’ve experimented with. So I decided to return to my pantsing ways. Writing by the seat of my pants. I am not editing as I go this time though because I found I just cut a lot of that in revisions anyway, so hopefully I will save time by just pounding it all out in one big fever dream. My goal is continuously think of the action and increased conflict in the next few scenes. My weakness in pantsing has always been that I can write well, my prose and my characters are strong, but my storytelling isn’t as good.

So because I was taking a wild plunge into my story, starting out was like molasses. 500, 600 words here and there. I didn’t write yesterday at all because I couldn’t force myself to the keyboard and I don’t like to force writing sessions. And I had intended my weekend to be my big catch-up time.

Thus Sunday was the day I had left. Today I managed 3,662 words, bringing my total word count up to 6,679. I feel a renewed vigor and interest in my story. I feel like I finally hit upon the hook and why this story matters for me, and I find myself daydreaming the next scenes and sensing the same pull to the pages that enabled me to finish my other book in five months of drafting.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings, but I am fired up about this project now and anticipate pouring out more than 500 words with tomorrow’s session.

Sunday Musings #1

Image from Pixabay

I’m starting a new column on my blog called “Sunday Musings.” This is where I will share insights into my publishing and writing journey this year and these will publish every Sunday. I hope to avoid focusing in granular detail on my emotional state and my word counts and instead offer useful and engaging posts about creating with mental health issues, creativity and productivity in general, publishing, marketing and the like.

This last week I learned the importance of sleep for your creative mindset. After having an extremely productive week I guess I just needed a week of laziness. But seriously, it’s difficult to be productive when you’re tired all the time. You have to force yourself to get to the computer and the excuse of “I’m too tired” becomes all the more compelling.

Sleep and the creative mindset: Check. I need to be better about having an evening routine and winding down electronics before bed. I am experimenting with writing for an hour after dinner in the evenings; sometimes it can be overstimulating, as I go to bed with my mind racing with ideas for my stories.

Meditation and reading essays, short stories and poems would help with that.

I turned things around and wrote this weekend, mainly focusing on a story I am serializing to Patreon before releasing it on Kindle Vella in my grand experiment in web publishing for 2022. It’s the tale of a werewolf reporter who moves back home to help his pack investigate a series of murders, only to find himself falling for the local homicide detective. Added about 3,000 words yesterday and 1,566 today, meaning I was able to schedule posts out for three episodes, significantly reducing the pressure.

I actually am really enjoying this web publishing game; I find it’s not really that much pressure, in fact. I’m having loads of fun with it. I’m still editing myself and giving it my best, of course; but it’s different than publishing a book. Got its own special magic. It’s part of my efforts at building a platform this year and attracting new audiences for my writing.

Speaking of platforms, I also need to think some more about reinventing my newsletter. Everyone says email marketing is where it’s at, but I’ve found more success with my blog than with my newsletter. People just don’t subscribe. I skipped doing a January update because I’m dreaming up some changes for more engaging content. I just read Mary Oliver’s essay collection Upstream and I’m considering doing something like that. Creative nonfiction expounding on the creative life and nature sounds interesting to me.

I’m feeling good about the week ahead on this Sunday, now that I have written all weekend. My goal is to keep working on my horror novel, which I have ignored far too long, and finally hit 50,000 words. I have an idea for the ending at last so that’s not what’s stopping me. Guess I just get distracted by all these shiny other projects and ideas. Curse of the writer, eh?


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December newsletter published!

My December edition of Bizarre Ink is now out in the wild! Read it here and be sure to subscribe for future updates!

Inside you’ll find updates on my writing projects, a roundup of links to short stories and blog posts I have published in December, and a free look at episode one of CRY WOLF, the werewolf story I am serializing to Patreon.

Thanks for all your support this last year, and here is to 2022!

January Wrap-Up and Looking at a New Month

Been neglecting my blog a bit so I figured it was time for a new post. I’ve mostly been focusing on reviews. I decided to change up my review plans this year a bit. I will blog all my reviews, even the negative ones, but I am going to write shorter reviews. If I stick with 500 words or less, then perhaps they will feel less like work.

Writing

I wrote one longer short story in January and submitted it, got a rejection in four days. I may look at it again and rewrite it to submit elsewhere, or I might just move on to other ideas. My shorter fiction has languished because I am focusing on longer works this year.

The NaNoWriMo project I started in November, the steampunk WIP, I was still working on until last month, and that clocked in at about 30,700 words. I am not sure I have enough “steam” for it, however; the plot seems stuck. It is still the longest fiction manuscript I have written in years, even if it is incomplete. I have decided to put that aside for awhile to focus on novellas. I think a novella will be a good transition length between short stories and novels.

I started a dystopian novella for a submission call from Black Hare Press, but I’m not really feeling that either. I have about 5,000 words in it so far and I’m not sure that idea has legs. Sometimes you have to write it out to get a feel for it. I am working on another novella which I am more excited about. The theme is “weird gothic” and so far I seem the most committed to this one, so I am waking up early every day and adding my 5 a.m. 1,000 words to it. We will see where that one goes.

So for February I may not write any short stories at all. I may just focus solely on the novella. I just want to finish more projects this year. I’m not concerning myself with quotas. I want to finish projects and I want them to be good. It’s a lot of pressure thinking about what kind of novel or novella you want for your debut; it’s almost like focusing too much on first lines. But that’s okay. Sometimes you have to keep your expectations low. It’s going to be another year of existential dread, I think; just have to see writing as stress relief.

Photography

I am digging my moody nature series so I hope to keep shooting a set every one or two weeks. Getting on Instagram again has motivated me to keep shooting. If people post pictures of themselves socializing with others, I just unfollow or mute them. That’s why I quit the last time. I couldn’t take the visual proof of people’s reckless behavior in a pandemic. It’s like someone shoving ice cream in your face when you’re on a diet, even if they mean well and take safety precautions. Had to clean up house and start all over again.

But now, I have a different mindset about it. It’s just an excuse to keep shooting.

What I’m Reading

I am currently reading “A Memory Called Empire” by Arkady Martine, last year’s Hugo winner, and an ARC from Netgalley, “We Shall Sing a Song Into the Deep” by Andrew Kelly Stewart. I decided with the traditionally published books, other than the ARCs, I will do wrapups of my favorites with short blurbs for reviews. You can also follow my reading progress and reviews I don’t post here on my Goodreads.

Personal goals

I’m proud of myself for staying consistent with my exercise this year. Since December I have worked out at least three times a week. I go on walks on my lunch break, and after work I use my stationary bike and lift weights for about 40 minutes. I use an app on my phone called Strong to record my reps. I also do yoga about one or two times a week, in the early morning before writing or after dinner. I’ve been doing that for about a year and I can definitely see a difference in my flexibility and balance, even just doing it once a week. It’s good cross-training with weight lifting.

When the weather gets warmer I hope to put more energy into running again, but for now I’m sticking with the stationary bike and hiking for my cardio. I want to add in four times a week for weight lifting because I have a tendency to skip leg day.

Other than that I hope to keep up with practicing music and my crafts. Both have languished lately but I need to renew my focus for them on weekends. I decided instead of fixating on what I don’t have and how hard it is to quarantine and how angry I feel about the behavior of others, I would instead focus on non-social activities I can do at home. Knit more, write more, be more creative. It’s not to “be more productive,” it’s to have something positive to focus on, for stress relief and self care. 2020 was all about rage. 2021 is about creative relief and building better habits.

That’s about all. Can’t believe it is February already. January seemed to last a million years…

Moving past rejection as a writer

One of the most important challenges you will have to overcome as a writer is dealing with criticism and rejection. So I thought I’d share my own personal strategies for moving past rejection. 

When I made a living as a writer, I received the worst criticism of my professional career; it made me realize I was burnt out on writing and I quit for a few years. During my break from writing, I realized I don’t need external validation to be a writer, or for my art; and that has changed everything for me. I’m now writing more courageously than ever before, despite dealing with more rejection and criticism as a creative writer than I ever did as a journalist. 

You are a writer whether you are published or unpublished. You are a writer whether you are self- or traditionally- published. You are a writer no matter how many book sales, fans, and readers you have. Please note, I did not say you were a good writer. I did not say you have talent. The point of this blog post is not for me to step in the shoes of your mother to give you a gold star for effort. But you don’t need skill or talent to keep writing. The only way to get good at a skill is not through some innate genetic gift bestowed upon you by the touch of God, but through hard work. You are a writer if you write, and you will become better at the craft the more you write.

So if you write, and write, but no one buys your books, and you can’t sell your work, does that mean it’s not worth doing? If you don’t have readers, and if you can’t quit your hated day job to live your glorious fantasy life as a working writer, is it a waste of time? I don’t think it is. If that’s why you write, you may want to question your motives, because Stephen King is a unicorn, even for traditionally published authors. You’re not less pure if you write for commercial reasons, but as a business model, writing fiction is a lousy one. There are a lot easier ways to hustle. Write technical manuals or advertising copy or website code instead; it’ll be way more satisfying from a business standpoint. 

Write because it brings you joy. Write because you have a story to tell that is screaming to crawl out of you. Write because you want to make an impact on the world. Write because you want to entertain yourself and others. Write because it’s stress relief. Write because by the hard work of unburdening yourself of your pain, you can write more authentically and touch other people.

If it pays your bills, write because rent is due and you need to meet your deadline to survive. Most of us don’t make our living exclusively from fiction, though; if you say you do, you’re probably not telling the truth about your teaching, editing and freelance gigs that supplement your fiction sales. If writing is such an obligation, why are you spending all these hours on it? Is it all for the approval of some stranger? If you can answer the question of “why,” then you can view feedback on your writing with a more objective lens.

For me, I write to leave a legacy. My words are the way I make a difference. I want to entertain people. I want to get published because I want to have a wider readership, but if my stories stay in my hard drive forever, I would still write, because I’m the most important reader. If I’m bored, then my readers will be bored. 

I find my validation from within. I can be happy no matter what city I live in, what job I have, or who buys my stories. I can be unhappy because of all these things, but these external influences do not define me. I realize that what anyone thinks of my writing says nothing about my worth as a person; I can’t be everyone’s cup of tea, in life as in writing, but I can learn from their criticism and use it to improve my craft. I can ignore it and move on if it appears to be nothing but a personal attack. On the other side of that coin, even though writing is a solitary act, feedback is important to grow. You know that you will have reached a more mature stage of your writing life when you reach out for critique groups and beta readers. 

If you change the narrative you tell yourself about criticism, then reader feedback can be useful, instead of damaging. And no matter how you want to get your work out in the world, you’ll have to tell yourself a story about why you want to write, and why your writing matters. That will carry you through all the ebbs and flows of the writing life. It has for me. 

//

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Starship Earth

He doesn’t like this. The way the stars feel in his hands. All cold and rotten, slimy, like the fish he ate for dinner. He wants to clean himself. He desires to see his skin again. Empty of the callouses of the constellations.

Will it ever be home? Will he ever come apart at the seams and become stardust, like the time when he was 17 and a girl asked him on a date for the first time and he said no because he was afraid? Will it be like that?

Or will he become salmon skin, fragile, falling through the universe, atom by atom? Ripped apart? Torn at his sinews? Will he ever feel like that again?

Or maybe it is just a basketball and a court on a sunny day and it is his turn to shoot.

Flash Fiction: Yearning for Water

I present to you another piece in my series of unrelated flash fiction pieces. All photography is shot by me.

“Yearning for Water” 

Story and Photographs by Denise Ruttan

Kyra Bartleby emerged from the water, her skin icy at the sudden shock of air. She sat at the edge of the swimming pool and dangled her feet in the water to acclimate herself to the outside world.

Around her, the noise of the city pool boomed into a cacophony. There were the little kids taking their swimming lessons, their youthful laughter soaring. There was the hot tub where old people soaked. There was the outdoor pool that was still busy, despite the impending autumn chill. There were the teenage lifeguards, monitoring everyone. Kyra almost applied for that job. But lifeguarding was for people who wanted to be heroes. 

Most importantly of any of these, the high school swim team was starting practice.

Catching her breath, 16-year-old Kyra watched them, envy competing with resentment at their lean bodies and quiet confidence. Making the swim team was her goal. It was why she spent hours every day improving her stroke, speed and endurance. She was a junior this year. She was running out of chances. 

She didn’t have the money for a fancy swim coach. She wasn’t the fittest or the trimmest. After swim practice she would also run three miles home from the swimming pool. The evening air would choke her lungs and knife through her chlorine hair. 

Kyra knew all their names. Hannah, Mia, Beth, Sam, Liv, Brittany, Jessica, Rachel, Danielle. Melissa, Kelsey, Tiff. Shelby. Heather. Abby. Ashley. Courtney. She rattled down the list of the varsity girls. She even knew their eye color, and whether they brought their own lunch or bought food from the cafeteria. She knew what stickers they put on their backpacks and on their lockers. She knew their favorite bands and their preferred colors. She wanted to be one of them so badly that the need to belong was like a fire searing through her lungs. 

At first, they didn’t notice her. They were distracted. But then the whispers and stony glances started. They didn’t appreciate having a stalker, she knew. That’s what they called her. Their creepy stalker. But she just wanted to belong to something that was bigger than herself. Something that was bigger than her lonely home with her single mother and their shared pain. A mother who disappeared into a flood of vodka and reruns of Cheers. Something that was bigger than the microwave pasta and old textbooks and tears. She wanted to experience the discipline and thrill of competition. She wanted to be part of a team.

Kyra sighed heavily. It was time to go. She headed into the locker room.

Usually, the locker room was a hectic place, full of laughter and conversation. But today, strangely, it was empty. Kyra showered in silence. She could hear a pin drop. She spent an extra long time luxuriating in the heat of the shower running slick down her naked body.

Suddenly, her heart stilled. She was not alone. A woman, probably 18, but seeming infinitely more exotic than any teenager she knew at Garfield High School, took the shower next to her. She slicked back her bronze hair and stared at her through glassy emerald eyes. 

(Model: Katie/@the.freckled.peach on Instagram)

“Hi,” she said, her voice silk. “I heard you back there.” 

“You what?” Kyra felt that sensation you get when you walk through a strange neighborhood and were paranoid some guy would nab your backpack and assault you. 

“I heard you,” she said, more firmly. “I heard your longing. It was so very loud.” 

“My… what?” Kyra stammered. She wanted out of this shower. The water was suddenly scalding and uncomfortable. 

“You wanted to be part of something bigger than you,” the strange, beautiful woman said. “I can make that happen. You just have to want it, again, with me.” 

“I don’t understand,” Kyra said. “You’re weirding me out. Please leave me alone.” 

“Fine,” the young woman said. “Be like that. But you can have any wish. Just wish it in the next two minutes. And you’d better yearn for it. It’s in the yearning that you make it real.” 

The woman walked away, soap still in her hair. Water ran in rivulets down her perfect, tan back. Her shoulder blades looked like a cheetah’s when it was chasing after prey. Kyra stared, her mouth agape. 

Then, despite herself, she began to want. 

At first, she didn’t notice anything. The locker room was still empty. Not even a child throwing a tantrum. Heaviness bloomed in her chest. Then she stared down at herself. She was … changing. That was the only way to describe it. Her body was changing. 

Her fingers were growing … webs? She could not flex her knuckles. Her skin morphed into scales. Her hair disappeared into her scalp. She felt the rush of water in her ears like a symphony. She screamed as the water from the shower burned her skin. What was left of her skin. 

She found herself staring up into the drain in the floor. She fought a roar of panic. She was covered in blood and pus. She flailed. 

Then she heard voices. The little kid tantrums. The running feet. The mothers and their love. 

And the voices of the swim team. 

“Did you see that girl?” said Courtney, her voice contemptuous. 

“Oh, creepy Kyra?” Liz said, scoffing. “She was watching us again. She watches us all the time. What a loser.” 

Kyra’s rage replaced the panic. Rage at the way things were. Rage at her loneliness. Rage at the rejection. Rage at her mother. Water poured from her fingers. Water broke through the cracked cement of the pool that she loved. Her second home. Her home away from the home that didn’t want her. Now no one wanted her.

The rage turned into a flood. A flood of water. The water turned into a cacophony of pain. The water engulfed all. 

But the swim team girls stopped talking shit about her. 

They stopped talking. 

Kyra didn’t want to belong, any more. 

She was the water. 

///

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Flash Fiction: “Faery Dust”

I am going to be writing a series of flash fiction pieces to improve my chops to get ready to submit some for publication. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that the shorter the work of fiction, the easier it becomes; because short fiction is hard and flash fiction is some of the hardest of all! Flash fiction is 1,000 words. Here is the first of these stories. It is a work of magic realism.

“Faery Dust”

By Denise Ruttan

Howard curls up inside himself, the cold cement hard on his ass. He has sat here all night. He clutches his backpack. This life is new to him. This staying out in the cold in his threadbare socks. He has not showered in weeks. He has not slept, because the backpack is all he owns and he doesn’t want anyone to steal it. 

It is that time of the morning when all is quiet. In the old days, he would go on walks in this hour before dawn. Most people think it is too quiet. But most people are used to their 9 to 5 and their comfortable office and their Saturday afternoons playing with the kids in the yard with the sun on their face. Howard’s hand is shaking. It does that when he remembers the past. The past is like an alive thing, like a separate thing from his mind, a place in time that he views with a mixture of scrutiny and wonder. 

Howard’s head is still swimming from last night’s booze. He is, in fact, still drunk. His neighbors stir briefly. Howard makes a decision. He stands. 

But Randy grabs his ankle. He feels like calloused sweat. 

“Don’t.” Randy is a schizophrenic. But his eyes meet Howard’s with a piercing clarity. “Don’t go at this hour. Wait. Wait. Wait.” 

“Why should I wait?” Howard humors the raving man. It is all he has left. The attention of others. 

“Not at this hour. The faeries. They like to steal people like us away. They love this hour. They dance on the empty city streets and make their mischief and cast their magic spells.”

“Oh, Randy,” Howard says. “Faeries are not real.” 

Randy’s clear blue eyes now fill with horror. Howard can’t help but be affected by the dread oozing from his body. Randy’s cold hand grips his ankle tighter, desperately. “Faeries. Faeries are real. Faeries are so real you will shit yourself. Don’t do it, man. Stay. Stay. Stay.”

“You must have taken some bad acid this morning, man.” Howard finally kicks Randy away. Randy starts shaking more violently and begins to sob. The sound violently punctures the stillness. 

Howard wraps his blanket around his shoulders in the cold. He leaves this sidewalk with its illusion of safety and its stench of piss and booze and helplessness. 

He heads into the light. It glints off the buildings. The sun is beginning to rise. But there is still too little of it just yet. Howard loves this hour. He thinks of it as the magic hour. He breathes in deeply. This is a downtown shopping mall. He sees Macy’s and other department stores towering above him. His eyes glitter. He misses the days when he could go into these stores and buy whatever he wanted. All he had to worry about was paying down his credit card. He misses material comforts. He doesn’t want to buy anything in those stores now, but he misses them, just the same. 

There is no one out today. That is unusual. This isn’t a large city, but it should not be an empty one, even at this hour. 

Howard can feel the beating of his heart, pounding away in his ears. He tugs the thin blanket closer around his shoulders as a biting wind sweeps crumpled newspaper up from the sidewalk and swirls it around with vigor. 

Howard walks aimlessly. He wanders through the bus station parking area. There are not even any people waiting for early buses. That part compounds the eerie feeling that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. There are some buses parked along the street. Everything is empty. Everything is dead, like his life now.  

He takes a seat. In the old days, he would have taken out his smart phone. Connecting to people who aren’t real. People in the machine. Instead, he simply takes out his only cigarette, and smells the tobacco. 

The wind continues to rise. He thinks of Marlene, and her cool hands on his son Ned’s face when he was sick. He thinks of Ned’s laughter, his four-year-old laughter, and he wonders what the boy will grow to become. That world is a world that exists outside his head and beyond this one. A world he can never visit again. He must stop thinking about it. He must stop thinking about things that bring him pain. Tears prick his eyes. 

Suddenly, he notices a nearby presence. He thinks it must be a squirrel. But as he looks over, a small person, about two hands high, perches on the edge of the bench. She looks like Tinkerbell. He blinks his tears away. A drunken hallucination. Obviously. 

“Do you want the memories to go away?” He expects her voice to be small and quiet, but it floods his mind with a soothing cascade, like the sounding of Tibetan bowls. 

Without thinking, he says, “Yes.” 

“Done.” She nods.“Pain is gone.” 

Howard blinks. He looks over his shoulder again. For a moment he imagines he sees a cloud of little faery creatures, cavorting in the winds. They shriek with maniacal laughter. His stomach lurches in protest. 

He remembers… something. There was someone… But… no. The cobweb of memory fades, like a dream he forgot upon waking. He puts his hand out into the air and his skin feels clammy. What is he?  

He remembers his name is Howard. The rest? 

He blinks his eyes into the pounding wind, and sobs. 

Later, Randy will approach him as the being called Howard wanders the city, alone. But Howard doesn’t know him. Randy will hug him, the movement so unexpected that it takes Howard’s breath away. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Randy will say, his voice hot with emotion. “I told you to wait. I told you to wait. I told you to wait.” 

Howard hugs him back, without knowing why. 

Perhaps he should have punched him in the face. 

//

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