Novel Excerpt #5

Down Time

Sam walked into his bedroom, straight away making a bee-line to turn on his laptop. Crossing the room to collect some CDs, he saw that his cat, Buffy, had indeed made herself comfortable on his bed, curled into a ball with her head resting on one of the spare pillows he kept mostly for her. She was jet black, sleek and had the slight puffiness of an animal that is spoilt without being fat. And Sam was extremely fond of her.
‘Hey, girl’, Sam cooed, sitting himself next to her and beginning to scratch her behind the ears. ‘Taking over the bed as usual, aren’t you?’
Buffy looked up at Sam with blinking eyes, turned her head into his palm slightly then resumed her dozing. Sam gave her one long stroke down her back then made his way over the CD rack to pick a selection for the night. Seeing as it was now the weekend, and he actually had a weekend off work which was a rarity, he tried to make his playlist somewhat upbeat. After much scanning and deliberation, which was the norm, he picked out albums by Jack’s Mannequin, Jimmy Eat World and The Flaming Lips, setting them on the desk and inserting the Jimmy Eat World disc into his laptop’s CD tray. Just as he was about to hit play, he remembered his plans to call Mitch to arrange something for the weekend. Mitchell Lewis had been Sam’s best friend since Year 7, and now, after the falling away of other high school friends who simply turned out to be acquaintances of circumstance, was Sam’s only real remaining friend. He and Mitch were on the same wavelength, and both felt more comfortable and definitely a little less lonely when with the other. Sam grabbed his mobile phone, dialled Mitch’s number from the recent calls list and flopped down on the bed again next to Buffy. Mitch answered after a couple of rings.
‘Sammy, what’s up?’
‘Nothing much man, what’s happening?’
‘Eh, nothing. I’m in the middle of reading that Scott Pilgrim comic you leant me.’
‘Yeah, what do you think so far?’
‘It’s some pretty good shit, the movie should be pretty sweet when it comes out.’
‘Yeah, I reckon.’
‘What are you up to?’
‘Ah, nothing much, was gonna chuck on some music, go online.’
‘Cool, cool.’
‘Hey, you wanna do something on the weekend? I don’t have work.’
‘Sure thing. What’s the plan?’
‘Umm…shit. Is there anything on at the movies?’
‘Don’t think so, nothing good started this week. You got any new DVDs?’
‘Nah dude, I’ve been pretty broke lately.’
‘Shit. Well, it’s my little sister’s birthday party tomorrow, so we can’t really just hang at my place.’
‘Or mine either, my mum will be vacuuming the whole house or something like that. Let’s just go into the city and look around, when we come back at night they’ll be gone to uncle Rob’s.’
‘Cool. Meet you at the station at what, 12?’
‘Yeah, sounds good. See you then.’
‘Later.’
Sam hung up and placed his phone back onto the desk, hitting play on the music player window on the computer screen and placing his headphones over his ears. He lay down on the bed, letting out a lengthy exhale and shutting his eyes. The music was loud, blocking out all other sounds. Sam was completely still, simply letting his body breathe and function without thought, trying to let any stress or worries float away. A drumbeat cracked and pulsed. Sam forgot Corey, his social life, his car. Bass thrummed like an irregular heartbeat. Sam forgot how much he missed his sister, her advice, her company. Guitars blared. Sam forgot Trevor, Carl, Tracey, the Bargain Barn. But there was something the music wasn’t drowning out, something in Sam’s head that would somehow occasionally rise above the cacophony. But it was so unconscious that Sam didn’t realise it was there, or even what it was. It would be days later, when he finally saw her again, until he realised what it was: the soft, jovial laugh of the new girl.

Screenplay, 1st 10 Pages

The first 10 pages of script are done, and can be downloaded in pdf format here.

And here is a synopsis of the complete story:

Kyle is a 26-year-old living in a small town in Texas. He works a dead end job at a convenience store and has recently broken up with his long time girlfriend. These circumstances cause him to drink heavily and smoke marijuana, which is supplied by his friend Jimmy, the son of his boss. Kyle and Jimmy’s relationship has deteriorated due to Kyle continually not paying for his supply. Things are made even worse when one night while hanging out at Jimmy’s, Kyle drunkenly has sex with the much older Nancy, Jimmy’s mother and his boss Bruce’s wife.

Jimmy is furious. Fearing that he will do something drastic, Kyle hatches a plan to rob the convenience store for the money he owes him, hoping this will fix things. Wearing a balaclava, he successfully manages to rob money from the store on a night that Bruce is working. But his exit is clumsy and through a series of comical errors he manages to both expose himself and shoot Bruce dead, all of this captured on the security cameras. Panicked, Kyle hastily plans to flee to Mexico. In order to drive there without suspicion, he decides to steal the car of his ex-girlfriend Harley’s father, who regularly travels there on business. While stealing the car he is caught by Harley, whose wild and rebellious streak combined with her lingering feelings for Kyle cause her to join him in fleeing.
Meanwhile, two bumbling local cops named Duggans & Holton set out to capture Kyle, seeking their big break. Also, Jimmy and Nancy, believing it was Kyle’s intention all along to kill Bruce, hire the services of hitman Liam Connelly. Liam lives in a town near the Mexican border and plans to ambush Kyle there. Not far into their journey, Kyle and Harley somehow decide to pick up hitchhiker Owen Connelly, Liam’s brother. Owen is unaware Liam is a hitman. In each town they drive through, the trio have wild experiences with the colourful locals, as well as having several near-escapes from the comically inept Duggans & Holton. Kyle and Owen become easy friends, while Kyle and Harley bicker constantly but are also battling their feelings for each other. During one particularly close escape, the trio are involved in a foot chase and shootout with Duggans & Holton, with Owen saving Harley’s life. This makes Kyle jealous and angry.

They finally arrive in the town where Liam lives. Owen tells the two that on past visits, Liam’s wife has made unwanted advances towards him and that she makes him uncomfortable. For this reason, Owen demands that Kyle remain in a motel while he visits the house with Harley, who will pretend to be his girlfriend. She obliges as she feels she owes him for saving her life. They make the visit and Kyle remains in the motel, until he starts to become paranoid that Harley and Owen are in fact sleeping together and he goes to the house. Kyle arrives at the house, as do Duggans & Holton. A gunfight breaks out, with Kyle and Harley being the only ones left standing. The couple continue towards Mexico, dreaming of a fresh start. They are unaware that before their deaths, Duggans and Holton finally abandoned their quest for individual glory and alerted the border authorities.

Novel Excerpt #4

Home Life

As the days last sunlight slowly faded and a distinctly autumn crispness took to the air, Sam huffed his way through the front door of his home. His breathing was heavy and his forehead damp. Whenever people asked him about his lack of a drivers licence he would try to squash the embarrassment that rose in him by staunchly insisting that he was doing his bit for the environment. His heaving lungs and aching legs, however, couldn’t care less who he was doing his bit for. After a few weeks they still hadn’t adjusted to the 25-minute bike ride that their owner had decided was a better option than the unreliable local bus service.
Heading straight for his room, he threw himself face first into the pillows, his first goal being to allow his slim enough, but junk food addled, rarely exercised body to recuperate from it’s planet-saving journey. He rolled onto his back, taking in the room that was his version of the Fortress of Solitude. The walls were green, a bold shade of it he had selected at age twelve during the mini-renovation of ’98. The desk was small, the laptop computer on it decent, the headphones plugged into this one week of a part-time job’s wages. The floor to ceiling CD tower was almost full. The large bookcase crammed but organised- magazines at the bottom, large piles collected over many years, mostly music related with a smattering of film and miscellaneous, two shelves of graphic novels bookended by a couple of guides on illustration, and two shelves of books, big on cult hits and series that became films, light on classics and sophistication.
Having recovered enough to remove the leaden feeling from his still very much unimpressed legs, Sam threw off his work pants and red Bargain Barn polo, grabbed his favourite pair of ancient jeans from the floor and pulled a Radiohead tee from a hanger in the wardrobe. Making his way to the kitchen, he was barely in sight before his mother started.
‘Sam! There you are. Where have you been? I was getting worried. You know I think that bicycle isn’t safe, the way some of these people drive. I didn’t hear you come in. Is everything all right?’
Julie was a highly energetic woman, and her three times a week treadmill and yoga sessions, glowing skin and short, spiky hairdo with purple highlights took a decade, maybe more, off her appearance. She was always happy to see her children, always overly concerned about their safety despite the fact that they were adults, and was prone to lamenting the lack of time that they spent ‘bonding’ with her.
‘Yes, everything’s fine. I went to get changed.’
‘Well’, Julie said as she gave her son an affectionate hug ‘don’t be going straight to your room now and turning on that music of yours, dinner’s nearly ready.’
‘Ok, I’ll be in the lounge.’
‘Please say hello to your brother!’
Sam made sure her back was turned before rolling his eyes. He entered the cluttered lounge room, dominated by the 50-inch plasma television that was his father’s pride and joy.
‘Corey.’
‘Hey.’
Corey didn’t raise his head off the arm of the sofa to acknowledge Sam in spite of the mumbled greeting, and did not tear his eyes away from the TV screen. On MTV, somebody with gold teeth and an oversized baseball cap was rapping about bitches or limos or guns or a combination of the three. Sam flopped into the adjacent sofa, making no attempt at any further small talk with his younger brother. Corey was nineteen and an apprentice bricklayer. He had a build befitting his physical job and the genes for handsomeness that Sam didn’t quite get. He had a large group of friends that regularly came over on Saturday nights. They were all the type of boys Sam disliked simply because they did the things most nineteen year old boys do. Sometimes when Sam was up late, having a DVD marathon or surfing the net, he would hear Corey creeping into his bedroom, trying unsuccessfully to hide the girl he had just picked up; the kind of girls who always gave themselves away by getting an attack of the alcopop induced giggles. Put simply, they were different people who were now finding it increasingly difficult to even have a conversation. Mercifully, Sam was saved from the hideous music on the television and his brother’s complete ignorance of him by their mother, who announced after a few minutes that she had dinner ready on the dining table.

Novel Excerpt #3

More training and a break.
Nic turned out to be a fast learner, and easy to get along with. She showed just the right amount of interest; not totally bored as to make Sam feel useless, and not falsely enthusiastic. When the time came for them both to take a break, Sam found that he was not, unlike in the case of many of his former and current co-workers, dreading the thought of 15 minutes in her company.
‘So how long have been here?’ she asked as she nursed a bottle of juice. They were sitting in the tea room alone, at opposite ends of the large square table.
‘Three years,’ Sam said quietly, avoiding eye contact. To him, three years was an eternity to spend at a job such as the Bargain Barn.
‘Oh yeah. So you’re practically an expert on all that stuff we just did.’
Sam let out an embarrassed chuckle. ‘Not quite.’
‘So do you work here full time?’
‘No, just part time. Usually 4 days a week, afternoons or nights on weekdays and the long Saturday or Sunday shift.’
Nic nodded, seeming genuinely interested. ‘Do you go to school too?’
‘No, not at the moment. You?’
‘Nope, never been to uni. Since I finished high school I’ve preferred to learn from the real world. Well, I haven’t really learned much though, except that most jobs suck.’
‘What did you do before coming here?’
‘Secretary at a legal firm. Sounds fancy, but it really wasn’t. Just picking up the phone mostly. It was boring and the place was full of assholes.’
‘So why’d you pick retail?’ Sam asked quizzically. The customer service profession was certainly not the place for those with an aversion to boredom or assholes.
Nic shrugged. ‘Well, it’s a rite of passage isn’t it?’
‘What?’
‘Oh come on, they say everyone needs to work in retail at least once in their life. Since I missed the boat as a teenager, I’m experiencing it now. It’s just…humanity, isn’t it? On any given day you’re likely to get a neat little cross section of society, deal with the good, the bad, and the ugly.’
‘Believe me, there are no positives to be taken from dealing with the bad and the ugly.’
Nic sighed. ‘We don’t live in a perfect world, Sam.’
Sam thought this was a rather odd, overly philosophical thing to say under the circumstances, but simply nodded in agreement. Nic let out a short, high laugh and shook her head slowly.
‘Well, maybe I am glamourising it a little. But hey, why not? It’s easy to get hired, the work seems easy, no responsibilities…honestly, it seems like you can check your brain at the door.’
Sam thought of his tendency to daydream and nervously diverted his eyes. Nic quickly became defensive, afraid that she had just said something gravely offensive.
‘Oh, I’m not saying you’re some kind of idiot for working here. You know what I mean, don’t you?’
‘Yeah. Yeah, I do’.
Nic smiled at him and again shook her head in that bemused way, taking another swig of her juice. Sam simply watched her curiously, taking in her mannerisms. One hand was sliding the bottle cap absently across the table’s slick surface, the other began adjusting stray, wispy pieces of hair. The silence in the room was calm and easy until Sam scraped his chair across the floor and rose.
‘Well, we should get back out there.’

Novel Excerpt #2

Protagonist Sam meets the newbie at work.

Sam and Andy continued to eat in awkward silence until Trevor, an assistant manager, entered the room. Everybody who worked with Trevor knew when he was approaching. Whenever he was on duty he inexplicably wore the store’s main set of keys, a large set of around twenty that opened everything with a lock, on a clip attached to his belt. Most of the employees thought he did this to make himself look important, but all it did was draw attention to his ample waistline and cause him to literally jingle with very step.
‘Sam, have you almost finished your break?’ Trevor said, sounding mildly irritated and checking his watch.
‘I have five more minutes, I’m back out at two.’
‘Make sure you’re out on time, we have a new team member starting their first shift and I’m buddying them up with you today.’
Sam resisted the urge to scream and simply gave Trevor a nod, who retreated with the slowly fading jingling of metal.
‘Lucky you.’
‘Shut up, Andy.’
Sam quickly wiped his mouth of any unsightly gravy stains, disposed of the last few scraps of soggy chips and stalked out the door, trying his best to ignore Andy’s combined smirking and chewing.
As he made his way along the series of short, sterile corridors that led back out into the store, he tried to guess where this newbie would get ranked on his personal list of most irritating Bargain Barn employees. He couldn’t see them cracking the top three, an elite cluster of people that while dreadful at their jobs happened to be rather excellent at getting under Sam’s skin.
There was Jenna, who had lasted eight months and departed nearly a year ago. Sam hated her mean-natured gossiping, patronising smile, and constant hair-flicking, and hated even more that after every shift he worked with her he would retreat to his bedroom and fantasise about her. Carl was at number two for peculiarity alone. He hardly spoke to anyone ever, even customers, and always managed to avoid any kind of strenuous work, shuffling from one end of the store to the other gingerly adjusting merchandise into perfect lines or piles. But number one with a bullet was definitely Tracy, a forty-something woman who Sam saw less as a woman and more as a constantly flapping mouth with a mane of flaming red hair attached. When she had been transferred to registers Sam had secretly been delighted.
Only secretly of course. He would never open up and tell anyone he worked with exactly what he thought about them, or this job, or this place, or anything. No wonder management constantly stuck him with the task of showing fresh victims the ropes. To them, he was a model employee with not a bad word to say about anyone. Whatever this new person was like, they would be safe in Sam’s hands.
Now out the door, thankful that he was not bombarded with demanding shoppers as it was a quiet Wednesday afternoon, Sam suddenly realised he had no idea where to find his new co-worker. His confusion ended quickly as he saw Trevor’s short, rotund frame near the stock room door, his girth almost fully obscuring a slender figure in uniform standing behind him. Loping closer, the imminent awkward meeting made Sam feel even more self-conscious then usual. His lankiness, poor posture and unflattering red uniform shirt that had been ordered a size too big gave the appearance of an older person, though his pale, boyish face balanced things out.
It was a girl, Sam now saw as he approached them. She looked around his age, maybe a little younger, slightly shorter than him, with wavy light-brown hair. Her face was oval, with sharp cheekbones, snowy skin and hazel eyes. If she was wearing make-up, it was extremely subtle. Physically, she was plain, which Sam hoped would equate to being quiet and harmless. She was lightly tugging at the collar of the new polo shirt, which was still rough and slightly stiff from having never seen the inside of a washing machine. Trevor looked up and saw him approaching.
‘Ah, Sam. This,’ he made a brief waving motion in the direction of the girl ‘is Nicole. She’s had some group training, but nothing practical. Maybe just continue with whatever it is you’re going to be doing, let her help and give her some tips along the way. And remember to cover the essentials that she’ll need to know when on her own.’ Trevor shuffled off after these typically vague instructions.
Sam forced a small smile that he hoped would appear welcoming.
‘Hi,’ he said with a raise of his hand. ‘Sam.’
‘Hey.’ Nicole also smiled, with a little more enthusiasm. ‘Uh, actually just Nic will be fine.’
‘Ok then.’
‘One syllable names are just easier for everyone, yeah?’
‘Yeah, I guess so.’ Sam remained mute for several moments, the half smile still fixed on his face like he thought this was a joke he was supposed to acknowledge. He flushed slightly when he realised that wasn’t the case, and that Nic was, obviously, waiting for him to show some kind of initiative.
‘Ok, well, I have to put out some toys that just came in so I guess that you can just tag along since that’s what Trevor said? Don’t worry, it’s easy. And you’ll learn how to bring stock out correctly and price things using the PDT scanners. Then maybe I’ll show you the computer system?’
Why Sam was speaking in questions he did not know. It’s not like Nic had much of a choice. What was she going to say, ‘No, maybe not, maybe I don’t want to do any of this pointless shit because it will make me as sad and pathetic as you’? Nic clearly didn’t understand his tone either, raising her eyebrow in a look that seemed to say ‘You’re the boss.’ The look quickly changed into an encouraging smile.
‘Sure, sounds good.’

Novel Beginning Excerpt #1

For half a year now I have been working on the beginning of a novel for school and thought I would post it in pieces here. You might recognise some autobiographical elements to it!


‘You know what your problem is, Sammy? You’ve got no confidence. How’re you supposed to impress a girl if you can’t even say hello without having a freakout? That, and you hardly ever smile. Real turn-off, that.’
Sam rolled his eyes. Andy was hardly a master in the art of wooing the opposite sex. Especially when he said things like this in between taking large mouthfuls of a sandwich half the size of his head.
‘Ok, why are we talking about this? And why here? Just let me enjoy my lunch break.’
For Sam, lunch breaks were a sacred time of day. Given an all to brief respite from performing robotic duties at the Bargain Barn, he could let his mind wander. Sam was a chronic daydreamer. And like most chronic conditions, his daydreaming was rather debilitating. Sometimes, he would zoom into a fictional universe. A strange, yet oddly inviting world populated by imaginary beings he wishes he knew or wishes he could be. Although Sam was aware that this is slightly unhealthy and may possibly be a sign of mild schizophrenia, most of the time he simply rationalised these holidays from reality as a by-product of too much TV and comic books. These micro-trips were Sam’s favourite type of daydream, the ones that were more often than not cruelly interrupted by a customer requesting directions to muffin tins, or car wax, or anything else they couldn’t be bothered to find themselves. And it is then that Sam slipped into his more common form of daydream, the ones that were much more debilitating because they were real. These daydreams were more like constant jabs of miserable truth that incessantly wore him down. They were the ghost in his head whispering things like ‘Your life is slipping away. You’ve done nothing of value in your twenty three years. You’ll never get a girlfriend. You’ve spent nearly two and a half years working in this soulless department store. All your aspirations are dying.’ All these thoughts swirled in his head, clouding the recesses of his mind like a poisonous gas. The bright lights, gleaming white linoleum and identical rows of shelving only made these ominous realisations more confronting. Like they had suddenly morphed into a giant pair of granny panties storming out of the ladies underwear department. Or a 10-litre bottle of disinfectant growing legs and waltzing out of aisle 5. Or every last plastic soldier in the bucket of 200 for $3.99 coming to life and gunning down his self-worth in cold blood. Oh the horror.
This is why Sam needed his lunch breaks. Needed them like one needs to come up for air when underwater. Left to swim in the pool of such thoughts, he just might drown. While on these breaks Sam would like nothing better than to retreat back into his idyllic universe, where everything is, if not exactly fine, then at least bearable. He will do this by taking comfort in one of his many favourite things- a good album on his iPod, a book or comic. To be alone and undisturbed, Sam thought, was not too much to ask from his work colleagues. Obviously, Andy thought otherwise.
‘You’ve just gotta get out there. You’re a perfectly nice, normal guy. Plenty of girls would go for you,’ he said as mayonnaise started to dribble down his chin and a tiny piece of ham became embedded in his beard. “Come with me to the bar sometime. It’ll be fun. We’ll have a good time.’
Sam resisted the urge to retch over his chips and gravy, the nausea brought on both by Andy’s wearing of his lunch and the thought of spending any time with him socially, let alone in a drinking establishment.
‘No thanks.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’ve got stuff to do.’
‘Ha! I didn’t even tell you a day, how can you know you’re going to have stuff to do? Come on Sam, why the hell won’t you come out?’
‘Jeez Andy, I’m just not bar person, alright?’
Andy went back to taking greedy mouthfuls of his sandwich, a slightly wounded expression on his face. Sam couldn’t help feeling a small pang of guilt. He knew Andy meant well and that his frequent invitations to various social gatherings were just a good-natured attempt to involve him in human interaction that was actually pleasant. Sam suspected that despite being a year younger than him, Andy had some sort of warped older brother feeling for him. One that was not at all appreciated since it was based entirely on sympathy rather than genuine affection.