Now its Time to Get Back to Work

Dear Readers,

OK, so now that I have nothing else to complain about its time for me to start actually posting work. Here is an introduction chapter I wrote last night:


You are floating, almost as if invisible hands have grabbed you and are carrying you to some unknown location. You can see nothing but the darkness around you but you can still hear. What you hear is your mother slowly assembling your brothers and sisters and you wonder if they too can hear what you hear.

Slowly you begin to hear something else, soft at first and then louder. It is impossible to make out what they are saying but from the tone of their voices you can tell one is angry and one is desperate. It sounds almost as if the angry voice sees this discussion as a waste of time while there is an urgency in the other voice; as if this is the most important topic in the world.

Then the angry voice says the first word that you can make out. Computer. You wonder as to whether or not you are this computer and regardless what a computer is. You begin to wonder many things like how a computer could cause such anger in a person and such urgency in another. Finally the angry voice barks something and the urgent one stops speaking.

You feel yourself flying and then you feel a sudden stop. You hear the urgent voice speaking in a sad tone I'm sorry. You aren't sure what those words mean but from the way they are said you assume that it is something bad. You hear a slow creaking and you feel something slipping on your underside.

For a brief moment you feel nothing. You are in a free fall for all of three seconds until a you feel a strong grip on your side suddenly stopping your fall. You feel a roughness rolling around your top side and then suddenly there is a rushed flight. Your flight ends and you feel a rough substance on your underside.

You hear what sounds like a door closing and a roll of tape unrolling and tearing. The last thing you hear is Go live from an optimistic voice that sounds similar to the desperate and sad one before. The only thing you can think now is the word live. It is all you want. To live.

Any thoughts?

Mike Hand

The Self Deprecating Pattern I See in Myself

Dear readers,

Today I noticed a recurring thing in all the art I do while doing my homework for a basic drawing class. That is that I am incredibly self deprecating on myself. Of course the problem with this is that it seems like people misjudge me based on that alone. I almost want to grab them and scream at them "I am not depressed!" but enough people have that in their heads that it doesn't help.

So I play every thing I write as a character but people seem to miss some of the points of that and think that I myself am still speaking. Or even worse, they honestly believe that the situation a character was in is meant as a screw you to them. I'll be honest, sometimes it is but most times its a logical continuation of a plot.

What brought this up was that I was doing my self portraits and the two points of myself that I emphasized were my uni brow and scar aka the two most unattractive features on my face. If I see myself as being that ugly then what does that say about me as a person?

Perhaps volumes,

Mike Hand

Open Mic

Dear readers,

Today was the first open mic event of the year at college. I had the honor of being the first reader at the first open mic event of my time at college. I think I did well; there was enough applause when I was done, people told me I did well and a person for the schools newspaper took a quote from me.

However, now that I know what the crowd is receptive to I can start making things really good for them. Also if any one was wondering I read all 20 tanka from the zine to them.

Thank you for reading,

Mike Hand

Purchase

Dear readers,

I would like to report that I am now safely at college. Specifically Purchase College and my classes start tomorrow. Of course all I have tomorrow is a philosophy class which has to do with happiness and film so hopefully that will be good.

Of course, I have started to fall into a place here. More importantly I've met a few writers and I've been stealing ideas off them. OK, so I only stole one so far which I just wrote. Its a murder mystery that was birthed from the question "what if the shark from Jaws was a goldfish?". Its gotten a bit changed for me because I've been watching too much Marble Hornets and playing too much Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

Other wise I'm at a near loss for words, I saw an hawk land on a car this morning and it was beautiful. I ran into some one who I swear I know and she swears she knows me although neither of us have any idea how. My semi acoustic bass and harmonica combo seems to be serving me well enough, switching between the two when needed.

In short, I think I'm going to like this place.

Thank you for reading,

Mike Hand