Wednesday 1 February 2012

Enter the Procrastinator

Back in August I highlighted how procrastination had affected my book writing endeavours for the last 10 years and made a promise to double the limp 6,000 word content by the end of 2011. All I can say is, damn Rocksteady, Bethesda and Naughty Dog. Damn them and their genius game-making skills to hell. November and December completely wiped out by the triple whammy of Batman: Arkham City, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Uncharted 3. Bastards.

So, I have once again followed the path of abject failure, placing ‘obtain more PS3 trophies’ at the forefront on my to-do list and the book writing on the back-burner. Okay, so I did manage an additional 4,000 words before I lost concentration and admired the pretty graphics instead. This is only 2,000 shy of said doubling, so could be viewed as not too bad an effort. Yet the current draft still remains 5,000 words shorter than my MA dissertation. Which was written in four months. Whilst spending huge amounts of time on Diablo 2. Tit.

Anyway, considering it’s going to take me another 20 years to produce a final draft, there’s no harm in sharing an excerpt. Let’s consider it a teaser trailer, albeit one for a story that will never fully see the light of day. If you like it let me know. Some encouragement that it’s not total bollocks might convince me to put the PS3 controller down more often and pull my finger out:    
   Bear turned to Jack and winked. ‘Get your arse out of here’.
   Jack continued to look on bemused as he went over to the mirror. First the man-eating wardrobe, now a talking teddy bear. By all accounts it had been a strange evening, one where he was glad to still have his wits about him let alone be alive. Yet alive he was and about to follow Sam and the others through a portal to another dimension of no concrete form or description with their escape route defended by little more than a child’s teddy. If it was not for the axe starting to pierce and splinter the study door or the shouting from the Wixard’s minions beyond Jack would have questioned his sanity further. As it was, with death on the line, his survival instinct kicked in and once again reassured him this was reality. Running away was the best course of action.
   He stopped just before he was about to throw himself through the mirror and looked back at Bear. A sword had appeared in Bear’s right hand and a shield in his left. Jack had no idea where Bear had found such weapons.
   ‘Don’t worry’ chirruped Bear as he strode towards the door, ‘I’ll have skull-fucked these fuckers by the time you return.’
   The study door capitulated at that point. The axe assault had done enough to create a sizeable hole in the door; the remainder was being kicked down by the boots of many to make enough room for the first marauding henchman to clamber through. The first that did so had little time to blink before Bear’s blade had ripped him diagonally in half from shoulder to hip. The man screamed as his innards quickly became his outards. Two more men rushed into the room wearing the same white robes with red trim as Bear’s first victim, only to be hosed down with blood gushing from the dying man’s traumatic wound. Both looked on somewhat confused at the little bear in front of them, sword and shield at the ready, not quite believing their eyes.
   ‘Welcome to the Megaverse’ declared Bear with a chortle.
   The last thing Jack saw as he stepped through the mirror and into the void was more of the Wixard’s disciples entering the room and Bear leaping onto the face of the closest henchman burying his blade deep into his eye socket. Bear was not wrong, Jack thought. He really was going to skull fuck them all.
And yes, this portion of the story has been influenced rather heavily by the wonderful drawing of that damn cuddly teddy bear protecting his bestie whilst he sleeps.


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