Direct-to-Web – Craig Spence

Lucinda

Lucinda MacDonald

Lucinda MacDonald is a fictional character in my work-in-progress Entrapment. As a prelude to writing the novel, I am writing ‘journals,’ which timeline the life stories, thoughts, and actions of its main characters from their points of view. I am looking for commentators* and enactors* to gain a deeper appreciation and representation of Lucinda.

CAUTIONARY NOTE: This story will include depictions of physical, sexual and emotional abuse, violence and murder …

Craig Spence

Parts: 1-Meet Lucinda | 2-Tsunami | 3-Meant to Be

My name is Lucinda MacDonald.

I was born December 31, 1955, the first child of Carl and Miriam MacDonald. Father, whose only act deserving of that title was to fertilize Mother’s egg with his sperm, did not honour my birth with his presence. He was on a bender with some workmates that night and remained too hungover New Year’s Day to greet his newborn daughter until the afternoon of that momentous dawn.

He would remind me of that dereliction frequently once I was old enough to understand his course pronouncements and their full implications. If you didn’t know better, you might think he was trying to be funny, bringing up that embarrassing snippet of family lore…like, ‘Ha, ha, ha, only got to know you as afterbirth!’ Really, though, his words stung like a sandstorm, blinding me with impotent rage. My father liked being thought of that way. As a bastard. Me and my sisters and brother—Loretta, Louise, and Larry—learned to fear him before we learned to speak.

Children respond differently to intense, unremitting physical and mental abuse. From an early age, I presented as quick to anger and tough. By school age, I had endured five years of Father’s neglect, spiked with vitriol and abuse. I would instinctively shoot down anyone who earned the praise of our teachers, a reaction that narrowed the scope of my friendships. From kindergarten on I was seen as a sullen, snarly loner who attracted others with a gang mentality into her narrow circle of misfits—in short, a real bitch. I still struggle with that persona. It’s like an endless wrestling match inside the transparent womb of consciousness where the Lucinda I was brought up to be and the Lucinda I want to become do battle. Some days I’m better than others; then there are those days I’d rather poke you in the eye with a fork than listen to your inane blathering over breakfast. I can’t blame that contentious, cantankerous nature on Father alone; it’s embedded in my DNA.

Our middle sister, Loretta, turned out to be a fretting, nervous child, always ready to cringe at the approach of a stranger. Lucky for her, she was adorably cute and matured into a modest-verging-on-shy beauty. Any surviving seeds of decency that had not been exterminated in the contaminated soil of my father’s brain were activated by Loretta. There were actually moments when he forgave her and displayed symptoms of caring and affection. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he loved her. The man was incapable of loving; his starting point was hatred of everyone and everything, including himself. All I can say is he would have preferred Loretta for a wife than my poor, downtrodden mother—a fact that scared the crap out of me. It also spelled ‘DANGER’ for any would-be boyfriends prowling around, ‘wanting to piss on our gatepost.’ I can’t say I wasn’t jealous of Loretta’s looks and ‘sweet nature.’ I am proud that I overcame that nasty note in our relationship and loved her unconditionally… with the occasional lapse into snippiness.

Louise was the ‘smartypants’ of the family—the one who got told to shut up by everyone because she had to natter on and follow every tendril of evidence to its logical origins and inevitable conclusions. Father moderated his abuse when it was Louise’s turn because she amused him and he wanted to best her on her own turf. To resort to the belt or the back of a hand would have been tantamount to an admission of frustrated defeat he figured in his perverse calculous of family relations. He was often defeated. And despite her pain, outrage, and fear on those occasions, Louise was smug about it. There was also a hue of self-interest in his kid-glove treatment of Louise. Hitting her would be like smashing a valuable watch because it always insisted on telling not only the exact time but also how that minute, that very second fitted into the context of your universe. She was his ‘brain in a box,’ the one who might someday make our family fortune.

Then came Larry: Father’s greatest hope, and his most infuriating disappointment. I think Larry was nervous and wary by nature, but this tendency became more and more pronounced because he was constantly under Father’s malevolent eye. Larry was an artistic spirit and I’m pretty sure he’s gay—both capital crimes as far as Father was concerned. He also stuttered, which angered Father. He suspected ‘something was wrong with that boy,’ but couldn’t quite figure out what. Or perhaps he just couldn’t admit that any sperm spit out of his loins would turn out to be what Larry so obviously was: a sensitive child. Father wanted to hammer and twist him into shape—into what I can best describe as an entrepreneurial thug, a fascist, an oligarch. But you can’t build a phallic tower out of wood, canvas, and acrylic paint. You need steel, and concrete, and rivets, and an unyielding passion to crush anyone who gets in your way—above all else you need that… an inbred, ghoulish pleasure derived from pulverizing your ‘enemies.’

Larry could never turn out to be what Father wanted; Father could never let him become anything else—especially not the type of boyish man infused in Larry’s DNA. The outcome was predictable: Larry was damaged beyond repair, and Father suffered an embittering defeat at the hands of an ‘incurable wimp.’ Theirs was a tortuous evolution, painful to watch. Larry wanted desperately to please Father, but the gifts he had to offer were angrily, often violently, spurned. Of all us kids, Larry was Father’s only loyalist.

That he wasn’t the type of loyalist Father appreciated was all Mother’s fault. She ‘mollycoddled the boy’ and Father heaped more and more abuse on her because of Larry’s obvious failings. Mother was to blame—her, and the fact that Larry was in a nest with three ‘crinoline girls.’ We sisters were ruining Father’s one-and-only son. He hated us for that, and we hated him right back. He became especially enraged if Mother dared defend Larry.

I’ve left Mother till last. In a sense, she was always ‘last,’ hovering in the background of all our lives like a ghost—a vagrant spirit trapped inside the walls of our dysfunctional home. Father derided and punished her mercilessly, blaming her for everything: for his shitty job down at the docks; for having three girls in a row, then birthing a ‘nervous nelly of a son’; for his ‘crappy dinners’ and ‘dirty floors’; for the cost of living and all the ‘feminist bullshit’ he had to put up with… Each insult and slap added to the unsupportable burden that transformed her spirit into a lead ball where her heart should have been. She sagged, and staggered, and cowered, and finally became what his enraged torrents accused her of… a ‘deadweight, deadbeat burden,’ responsive as a punching bag to his taunts and torments.

He utterly destroyed her, which meant Mother no longer whetted his anger in any satisfying way; I was old enough to take her place. At 16, it became my job to clean house, cook dinners, do dishes, make sure my siblings were presentable and well-behaved, and so on. At first, he approached me with a faux display of sincerity and respect, as if I had graduated from childhood with honours. These counterfeit blandishments didn’t fool me or lessen my hatred; they only intensified my distrust. I knew what he was up to, but feared if I didn’t accept the responsibilities he was ‘offering’ life would become even more hellish for us all. So, angrily, I forced myself into my mother’s apron.

At first, Father continued his displays of gratitude and encouragement. I knew it was all for show—could almost hear the workings of his authoritarian brain clanking and grinding into place behind his leering mask. But I was shocked and surprised nonetheless when the fakery began to waver and fade, and the true nature of my surrogate motherhood role began to reveal itself. The demeaning perverseness of his malignant logic terrified me.

Not only was I expected to perform the household chores of a dutiful wife, I was also going to be forced to perform the filial nocturnal duties of a married woman. Honestly, it’s too sick to recount, but unless I describe this sordid passage, you won’t be able to fully appreciate the rest of my story.

“You are a woman now, Lucinda, and you shouldn’t be sleeping in a children’s room,” he pronounced one day. Until then we three girls had slept in one room, Larry had a room of his own. Now that I was ‘the mother of the house’ I took up lodgings in Larry’s room and he was shifted into the upper bunk that had been mine in the girls’ room. No one was happy with the arrangement. My sisters saw Larry as an intruder; Larry felt like one; I felt marked and vulnerable, and torn from my role as older, protective sister.

But it wasn’t until Father’s visitations began that I fully grasped the nature of my situation. Again, these unannounced intrusions were initiated as fraudulent pep talks and consolations. I can read faces as readily as a fortune teller can read your portended future in a hand of tarot cards and knew from the outset where his ministrations were heading. He would perch on the edge of my mattress, offering gruff but supposedly cheering assessments of the ‘little lady of the house.’ Inch by inch, he closed in. A squeeze of my shoulder, pat on my hip, peck of my cheek—I cringed and stiffened at the predatory insinuations of these gestures, not only because I knew what he was up to, but because I hated him irrevocably and fiercely and couldn’t stand the sight of him, let alone his touch. It was only a matter of time before these preliminaries would give way, and gentle coercion would morph into outright rape. I had no doubt my fate would be similar to my mother’s once that barrier had been crashed.

I should have slipped away while I had the chance, but couldn’t abandon my sisters and brother to the kind of vengeful retribution he would exact. Oh, I teetered on the edge. I knew what was coming. Should I cut and run? Endure his incremental degradations? Murder the lascivious bastard in his sleep? I had to come up with some kind of plan: I bought a switchblade and a can of bear spray, which I concealed under my pillow; and I stowed a backpack, stuffed with everything I’d need to survive on the streets for a while, under the back steps. My kit even included a bankroll, money I’d earned ‘borrowing twenties’ from ‘male members’ of the high school species for various sorts of ‘extracurricular’ activities…

Oh, I had a reputation at school. Was already known for what I would eventually become: Ms. Tough & Ready. I didn’t take shit from anyone—was force-fed enough of that at home—but I’d do favours. For cash. Up front. The boys love-hated me; I made sure they were afraid of me, too. I’d ‘borrow’ their money, then say, “You’ve already been paid,” if anyone dared ask for a refund. It was better than schlepping away at McDonald’s, I figured. Besides, I didn’t have time for an after-school job—unless I was giving a quickie hand job or blow job. There was Mom to be checked up on; chores to be done, and dinner to get on the stove before the old man clumped through the front door and flopped his weary carcass into his ‘favourite chair’ in front of the TV; then a sullen dinner to masticate before Father grabbed a beer and returned to his throne to watch more TV, or clomped out of the house to join his drinking buddies down at the neighbourhood tavern.

No matter what the hour, the denouement to every day was a bleary-eyed visitation. He’d slink into my room, and, as he shambled across the floor, I would do imaginary practice runs of my escape plan. I went over and over it, convincing myself it could work, and preparing for the worst if it didn’t. Either way, I wanted to confront him—have it out on my own terms, not his.

Top of Lucinda’s story

Miriam MacDonald
January 13, 1924 – November 10, 1976;
Beloved Mother & Wife

Father actually shed a tear at Mother’s funeral—the fucking crocodile. He moped and got drunker than usual for a few days after, but was back to his old self before the grass needed mowing over her grave. I was the one who found her, slumped sideways in his throne, mouth gaping, eyes clenched shut, as if she’d just witnessed something she couldn’t bear to look at, something particularly horrible in the waking nightmare that was her life. She died en route to hospital. ‘Beloved Mother & Wife.’ I could barely keep from yelling “Murderer!” at the snivelling prick, who had ordered that lie etched as a footnote onto the sparse declaration of her tombstone. My sisters, brother, and I mourned in sad silence; none of us could see her dying as anything but a release—her final breath collapsing her soul and her body like a squeezed accordion, the last moan wheezed out of her when no one was around to hear it. We wanted to love her, but there was nothing left of her to love by the time she passed; she had become a ghost, trapped inside a broken-down body

I didn’t suspect it at the time, but now believe Mother’s death set in motion the fateful train of events that were about to obliterate life as miserable and disgusting as we had known it. The tsunami didn’t reach our dilapidated front porch for some time. Father became terse and morose as if he no longer knew how to direct his chronic rage. I couldn’t figure what he was going through—what kind of metamorphosis was liquifying the guts inside his douchebag skin. Until he said to me, “How could she do this to me, the bitch? How could she?” He was tearing up, not with condolences for his dearly departed wife—that phase of his mourning was done with—but with rage. He glared at me, his reptilian eyes looking for something to focus on as if he was trying to catch sight of my very soul. And I knew in that moment my turn had come—that all his pent-up vengefulness was about to be unleashed, and that I would be the new live-in victim of his tortures.

When you’re confronted with a mad dog, the last thing you want to do is show your fear. I glared right back at him with unmasked hatred, and said out loud, “I’m not like her,” then stared him down, let him know I knew what he was thinking, and wouldn’t submit without a fight. I swear, his head expanded like a red balloon, his bulging eyes almost popped. I thought he was going to attack me then and there. But he looked away, banged the table with his fist, and growled, “Not like her? You’re all alike, you bitches!” Then he stumped out of the kitchen.

I had to get out of there. But when I passed by him on my way up the stairs to my room, he was scowling on his throne, boiling inside like a pot left on the stove with the element turned up high. His chair was strategically placed next to the front door and had a clear view down the hall that led to the dining room, kitchen, and back door. I thought of climbing out my bedroom window, but it was a sheer drop from the sill to a concrete sidewalk that ran down the side of the house. Shelter in place. It was my only option. I wedged a chair under the door handle. He’ll go ballistic, I thought. Good. I wanted to enrage him, for him to smash his way into my room and attack in a blind fury. I had my bear spray at the ready in one hand, my switchblade in the other, I’d either get out of there alive or go down screaming and slashing. I sat on the edge of my bed, at the ready

The dull thump of his footsteps coming up the stairs echoed my terrified heartbeat. My whole body clenched tight as a fist. I quelled the urge to rush across the room, remove the chair before he was checked by its resistance—an obstacle that would surely rile him. He’ll kill me, I thought. Bear spray and a switchblade? Really? I trembled. Had to force myself to sit up straight and look tough. Dangerous! You are dangerous. I pleaded, the silent despairing mantra of a prisoner doomed and damned. He paused at the door, I could sense his hand reaching for the knob, feel the heat of his anger. He was cocked like a hairtrigger gun. The knob twisted, the door rattled…

“Lucinda?” He sounded puzzled.

“Lucinda?” he repeated.

“Lucinda, open this door!” he demanded angry and afraid.

The door rattled again, more emphatically. Then he paused, just a second before crashing into it with his shoulder once, twice, a third time, which dislodged the chair, finging the door open, the hall light silhouetting him with its palid glare as he stood there, peering into the darkness.

“What are you doing,” he asked, unnerved by the scene his eyes were adjusting to. Trying to make sense of it.

That moment of uncertainty changed everything—unplugged the stopper of my rage and set a match to the incendiary bile gushing into me. Any sense of duty, fear, social obligation, or self-preservation shrivelled like ancient parchment in the inferno of my hatred and loathing. I wanted to kill him, lunge while he teetered on the threshold confused, and stab, stab, stab him.

But I checked the impetuous surge. He had to be the one who charged blindly into the vortex; I, the one who would stop him in his tracks, or die hissing, yowling, and clawing like a frenzied cat…

“What the fuck are you doing?” he yelled, then attacked.

Three paces, less than half-a-half-a-second, that was the space between us. He made for me, his arms reaching out to grab me by the hair, hands curled like the talons of an infuriated bird of prey. I held my ground, fixing him with a calculating stare, then, at the last milisecond, whipped out the bear spray and and hit him with a blinding shot of stinging acid. I ducked at the same time, rolling onto the floor as he toppled onto the bed bellowing like a mortally wounded dog. Scrambling to my feet, I turned to face him, knife raised, ready to strike.

Roaring and wailing, he flailed about trying to get a hold of me. I hit him with another shot of bear spray, just be sure, then backed away. He sensed my direction from the angle of the chemical stream hitting his face and the sound it made coming out of the cannister. “Fucking bitch! I’ll kill you!” He staggered toward me, arms waving, in front of him searching me out like the tentacles of a carnivorous insect. I slashed his hands; he howled again, shrinking from the lethal blade. Then, savagely, I plunged the knife into his side, yanked it out with a twist, then turned and fled.

Top of Lucinda’s Story

Meant to Be

I’m going to fast forward a bit, because the day-to-day of becoming a successful sex trade entrepreneur isn’t the part of my story I want to dwell on here—maybe I’ll write a book about it someday, a deep throat, how-to edition about making money on a matress. But all you need to know for now is my bare bones backstory.

After a very precarious beginning on the streets, I developed a set of principles that have seen me through ever since. I’m pushing retirement age now, and I still have a date list of loyal clients who want to spend time with me. Shelve your puritanical notions about what it is to be a ‘sex trade worker’ (AKA, prostitute) before you draw your conclusions about me or anyone else in the biz. I don’t need your judgements or condolences! I run a practice that’s as useful and proper as any marriage counsellor’s. The fundamentals of success for me are simple. Number one: Avoid drugs, alcohol and the bar scene. I’ve seen too much to ever want to topple into that pit. Two: Run your practice as a business. Lucinda MacDonald Unlimited is my own business in every sense of the word. I’ll never be anyone’s ‘girl’ again, not even their call girl. Three: Work your way upscale. Setting out with a can of bear spray and my trusty switchblade in my purse, I moved off the streets, through agency and porn-poser jobs, into my own home business. I don’t need the implements or institutions of my trade anymore, but the blade I’ve kept as a momento—a horrific portent, as it turned out… But that’s a yet-to-come part of my tale in the telling.

My autobio would have had a very different middle and ending if it weren’t for the two most important people in my adult life: Josh Cruz, the recruiter and photographer who enticed me into The Muscle’s establishment; and our son—I use the adjective loosly—Manny.

I’d characterize Josh as a nice guy but, like a coat, he had to be either on someone’s back or a hanger to stand up straight. In other words, he had no spine. If he had of stood up to The Muscle when the time came, he’d still be alive. But he didn’t so he isn’t… end of story. He was a photographer and videographer, specializing in porn; a sometime recruiter for The Muscle, which was the calling card he used to draw me into the trade; and a common-law husband and father to me and Manny. Josh was a pretty apt choice of name by his deadbeat parents because joshing around was his stock in trade—his technique for sliding into and skating out of awkward situations and saving face when he had to surrender to other people’s will. He was funny, an attribute that made me and Manny happy most of the time, but pissed me off at crucial moments, when a live-in yuk, yuk comedian didn’t fit the bill. He was a good partner and father under the circumstances. I miss him, even though I’ll never forgive his fatal lapse.

Manny? Words can’t describe how beautiful he was—how prefect. Close your eyes and imagine an angel—as corny as that sounds. What do you see? Perfection, especially in human incarnations, is one of those words we can define but never comprehend. When I want to conjure up a perfect vision of him, I see Manny, smiling, laughing, teasing, dancing. I see his black, flowing hair; his intense blue eyes, reflecting me in him; his delicate hands, describing the shape of joy and philosophy in the space between us, or rhapsodizing on his keyboard or guitar in our cramped living space. But, like I said, perfection can only be defined—as soon as I try capturing his essence in words it eludes me, a ghostly image projected into mist. Our clumsy descriptions embarrass us. They expose our own inadequacy. Perfection, I’ve come to realize, is a state of mind. The only description of Manny’s perfection that works for me is ‘Love’—what it feels like to be utterly enthralled… Very few of us are capable of experiencing perfection.

Knowing that you will perhaps appreciate how my spirit writhed when Manny was taken away from me—how voraciously and insatiably I craved revenge! We bandy the word ‘hatred’ about: I hate spinnach, I hate this dress, I hate my ex and the bitch who stole him away from me, etc. But, like love, real hatred infuses every cell in your body. Except it’s a visceral rage. Disgust. And you can’t escape it. Even if you destroy the object of your hate, you will continue to hate its memory, and to wish it back into life so you can destroy it again, and again. It’s a poison that ignites your very soul and consumes you utterly. In its throes you are beyond the soothing and admonishing voices of reason. You come to hate anyone who counsels you to ‘calm down.’

Josh spotted me about six months after I took off. I couch surfed for a few days, until I found a job waitressing in a

To be continued

Top of Lucinda’s Story

*Notes

20250205-0517 Lucinda finds a job as a dishwasher, then waitress in a James Bay restaurant (modelled on the Beacon Hill Drive-in). Starting at 16, she will work her way up into the manager’s position by the time she’s in her mid twenties, then buy in as an owner in her early thirties. It’s a family restaurant, and part of her story is the envy she feels watching normal families having fun outings. Happy kids, Happy Parents. She contrasts that with what she’s left behind, and—early on in her career—the danger her siblings still face. Her boss, the restaurant’s owner, Nick—becomes a fatherly figure for Lucinda. She likes him and comes to trust him. The feelings are mutual.

When she takes on the waitressing job she is boarding in a house on Cook Street. After a year, she feels confident enough to take on a secondary job of live-in building manager in a bachelors ‘penthouse’ suite in James Bay. The deal is ‘free rent’ in exchange for collecting other tenent’s cheques, approving return of deposits on vacated suites, showing prospective renters available suites, and monitoring cleaning and maintenance services.

She’s feeling good about herself. Ironically, she also feels trapped in a limiting job and substandard accommodation. As she recovers and gains confidence, she wants more out of life, but her salary and work schedule limit her, and her lack of formal education make it difficult for Lucinda to find higher paying jobs with more flexible hours. She decides to complete high school

Lucinda ‘retired’ as a prostitute after she intentionally became pregnant with Manny. She moved to a penthouse apartment suite in James Bay and took up a job as a waitress in a local cafe. She’d put aside enough money to supplement her income with investment earnings, and eventually started taking on select clients, usually older gentlemen who were lonely and craved companionship as much as sex. For this she charged flexible and modest rates, accompanying them to dinners, plays, movies and so on, then—on occasion—spending evenings with them at her apartment. Some of her clients were also frequenters of the restaurant where she worked—an arrangement condoned by her ‘boss. Manny spent nights with Josh when Lucinda had an evening or overnight client.

Commentator – A person with knowlege, especially direct experience, who can comment on the plausibity of characterizations and suggest possibilities I haven’t considered.

Enactor – Someone who would agree to pose or participate in photo enactments of scenes in the story, which could be used for design and pomotional purposes in the novel, publications, and social media.

Look for perfection in everything!

Perfection is sullied by mean spirits.

Perfecton is destroyed by greed and possessiveness.

Can I be a romantic, an idealist, and a realist at the same time?

We must constantly seek forgiveness for the necessities of living.

Cuts

So what’s the equation between ‘Nice Guy’ and ‘Perfect Son?’ Well, to start with, I have to refer to them both in the past tense. What do you do with a bookmark when you’ve read through to ‘The End?’ That’s become the torturing dilemma of my life.

Feet First in Love

Parts: One | Two | Three |Four…

Part 1 – The forensics of love

Nice sandals!

I didn’t say it out loud, of course—not right away—and can’t determine to this day if the thought was true. I mean sincere in all its dimensions, down to the place where sole smacks concrete reality. But it was the best I could come up with on the spot, and even though I didn’t voice the sentiment, she heard me. That’s the trick I believe: Think things before speaking. Sometimes keep them as thoughts forever because you’re bashful, perhaps. Or maybe because the person you’re interested in is perfect and you could only detract from that by wheedle-wording your way into her affections.

I had instinctively done an up and down of the sandals’ occupant—that checkout scan we males of the species do when attracted by something potentially sexual in our peripheral vision. But it was her footwear—and I must confess, her feet—my roving eye locked onto. Her toes were painted pink!

Not gaudily, in that slapdash way you sometimes see and feel embarrassed about—usually for bubblegum teens. The polish had been applied with artistry. Details like that say something, don’t they? She had a conception of self that was bold and subtle, I figured.

So maybe I was indulging just a little. But it’s okay to try and fathom why someone’s special, isn’t it? And at first, we have to draw assumptions from observations as seemingly insignificant as pedicure, don’t we? You’re a liar if you say no. The forensics of love are based upon minute chips of evidence, hinting at theories made up as we go.

To me, the convex surfaces of her nails were intriguing as conch shells turned inside out. Can you imagine such a thing? My eyes stuck on the tops of her toes for a breath or two, then—without my thinking, without conscious intent—zoomed in on her sandals, recording every facet of those elegant slippers.

Even as my eyes went about their rogue’s work, though, part of me realized there was nothing so very remarkable about Gloria’s sandals… aside from the fact that she was in them. I can think of a thousand movie stars and a thousand more princesses who would have turned up their noses if asked to wriggle their dainty nether digits into such a pair of Walmart flip-flops. But on Gloria’s feet! Oh my!

Part 2 – The ‘Oh My’ of it
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“Oh my!” as grandmother would cry when occasion warranted. Of course, her delight was usually over events as homey as cherry pie coming out of the oven or particularly brilliant works of crayon art, not over anything so exotic as the footgear of a complete stranger. For grandmother, agape wasn’t so much about miracles as discovering the miraculous in everyday things—about seeing through the veil of ordinary and triggering suspirations as emphatic as a last gasp.

By the way, mentioning Gloria’s name right now makes everything from here on in non-sequitur. I didn’t know her name at this point in our story. True, I was cultivating an intimate relationship with the bone structure and musculature of her feet, the same way Toto might have got to know Dorothy before they ventured into Oz. But that’s not the same as knowing a body’s name, is it? Love works backwards. We fall into it, then double back, tracking down the meanings and consequences of ’til death do us part.

I’ve broken sequence because I can’t bear talking about Gloria as ‘her’ or ‘she’ without giving name to those theoretical references. I have christened her even though a name at that point would have been as naively symbolic as graffiti sprayed anonymously on whitewashed stucco, or rote declarations carved into the trunks of trees or the planks of park benches. At that point in our relationship, her name would have been a catch-all of fantasies. A concatenation of dark eyes, long black hair… an aura you could best see through eyes half-closed.

In truth, if Gloria had dematerialized before I got a chance to talk to her—whisked out of her sandals by powers unknown into some sci-fi Nirvana beyond the frequencies of daytime TV—nothing would have seemed remarkable about her footwear left on the corner of Quadra and Hillside. Other than the fact that the sandals were there, placed carefully on the cracked concrete as if the intersection were a portico into some alternative dimension and she had been called away suddenly. Barefoot.

Part 3 – Shoes neatly placed
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The thing about Gloria is she even stands with her shoes neatly placed, and she never just kicks her footgear off. She’s neat that way. Fastidious. It makes me laugh. And because of her, I place my work boots carefully on the mat inside the vestibule door too—toes pointing toward the wall, heels knocked together. She’s aware of details like that so it pains me to bring disorder into our lives, especially when it’s so easy to do things right.

There’s meaning to the precise placement of feet on a sidewalk. Someone needs to see that. Imagine yourself in the presence of a goddess. You’ve been schlepping your way through life down at the pit, a latter-day Sisyphus crunching stones into various grades of gravel, then suddenly she’s there, and you know she is a goddess, that she already knows everything she needs to. What do you say to her? What’s your conversation starter?

In a way, Gloria was aware of every rhinestone glued to those bargain basement sandals of hers. Not individually, of course, but as elements of a sensory field, if you will. I wondered which tiny mirror I might have been reflected in, standing beside her, my bike held between us like a barrier. What did she think of this guy? Of his long hair and never-quite-matured beard, his knobby tired bike? She hadn’t even glanced my way—a sensible rebuke. But I did want her to appreciate the nobility of my feelings… that if the sun could be positioned just so behind me, I too would glow with my own halo effect.

I glimpsed her profile, then surveyed the intersection for clues. Perhaps there were points of convergence, shards of data that proved we dwelt in overlapping dimensions. Which of the drab architectural features could I point to and say, There, that’s us. The San Remo Market Deli & Café? The Salvation Army Community & Family Centre, across Hillside? The Money Mart (real people fast cash) diagonally opposite? The Sally Ann thrift store on the west side of Quadra? The garbage receptacles and bike racks at every corner to dispose of stuff we no longer valued and lock up the things we did?

We were none of that, and perhaps—without knowing it—denial was the point of convergence I had in mind, the notion that we were something other… or could be.

Part 4 – Nice Sandals
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“Nice sandals!” I said.

No kidding! I said it out loud. Breathlessly. Disguised as a brash joke, because any second now the light on Quadra would wink green and the little silhouette that says walk would let her get away, and I couldn’t let that happen without at least a memory of me—strange and deformed as it might seem—hankering after her. Things had spiralled into a place where an inkling of madness is the only reasonable state of mind, not stark raving lunacy, but a sort of emotional Pi, never quite defined, always panicked by another increment of yearning.

If only we had it in us to feel that way about every living thing, we would truly be incarnations of our imagined gods.

The light changed. Gloria stepped off the sidewalk into the intersection. I walked beside her, thinking: This is it. It’s finished. She still hadn’t glanced at me. I studied her profile for signs. She wasn’t ready to offer any, and how could I blame her? But I took comfort in the fact that we were walking in the same direction, that the inaudible pat of her sandals on the pavement didn’t seem hurried or doubtful. She was willing to abide my company at least.

Gloria strode on like the dancer she is, back straight, black pantaloons fluttering in the breeze, pleated jacket conforming precisely to her slight, angular build. Did I imagine it, the faintest hint of a smile turning up her lips? I’m not sure, but the words rushed out of me anyway, when I saw what I took to be a cue, as if I’d been waiting to blurt my intentions for just-about-ever. “Maybe you won’t take it wrong if I walk with you a-ways?”

Creep! Is that what she was thinking? She stopped, looked straight at me, her head swivelling round like a security camera on a pole, eyes locking on. This is it, I thought for the umpteenth time. It’s finished.

Then she smiled and laughed out loud, and… Oh my God! Oh my!

Bird of Paradise

The bird of paradise does not live
in lush green tropic forests,
doesn't stroke with flashing wings
a Caribbean sky.

But she might.

This species does not trill
her heartfelt, joyous anthems
from a leafy, palm-treed hillside
under a dazzling, foreign sun.

But she could.

This mystic creature you will find
in the shimmering, shushing fabric
in the irridescent patterns,
in the brilliant woven mists
of an imaginative mind...

Just waiting to be...
Freed.

                           For Diana

Every picture tells a story

*Be Still and They Will Come by Diana Durrand inspired Craig Spence to write Waking Dream (see below). Photographs, paintings, sculptures—any art form—can resonate in the minds of writers.*

If you are interested in a workshop that engages participants in responsive writing to shared images (photos & paintings), please contact me. More info below…

Every picture tells a story, which makes art a source of inspiration for writers. The same goes for music, dance, and every other art form out there, but the visual arts, especially, are a trove of ideas.

Open up a family photo album and memories are triggered by the images you see. That’s a source for writers whose chosen genre is memoire. But images from other collections can also inspire.

What if your mode is historical fiction? Take a walk around Chemainus and every wall comes to life in your imagination. You can feel yourself being drawn into the large-as-life scenes and back in time—hear sails luffing, wagons clattering, trains chuffing, the rhytmic stroke of paddlers in dugout canoes.

Is there an image that inspires you? Perhaps it’s not even a specific picture, but a sequence made up of many related images, times, and places.

Craig Spence was inspired to write Waking Dream when he saw Diana Durrand’s mixed media piece Be Still and They Will Come, which has been displayed at the Cowichan Valley Performance Centre. Art galleries are great places to go in search of inspiration!

Stories or poems inspired by images aren’t descriptive exercises; they are works of art in their own right, which add a literary dimension to what you are experiencing.

Art, in the deepest sense of the word, is not meant to be ‘looked at’—or read, for that matter; it’s meant to be ‘invoved in’. Looking at a painting, or reading a story, becomes an imaginative act-—it’s participatory. So stories and poems based on imagery are works of art in their own right.

Would you like to participate in a free workshop built around responsive writing to shared images?

Waking Dream

They came to her
in a dream
on paws as soft
as evening light

They huddled in
the contoursof her restless soul
creatures of the land
between day and night

And she lay perfectly
still…
For an eternity…or so it seemed
Aware only of their being
and her delight

She dared not move
or even think…
of stirring…
for if she did
her moment…
she knew…
would take flight.

Craig Spence

Experiences of a D2W Author

*Going direct-to-web is more than an experiment. It’s a mission.*

Nine years ago I began work on what would become my first direct-to-web novel, The Boy From Under, a crime thriller set in Langley, British Columbia. I have since taken the story offline, and will be republishing it after I complete work on my second D2W book, The Mural Gazer, which I plan to publish in a print edition this summer.

I launched myself into D2W because, like many writers, I was frustrated with the length of time it took to get my work published; with the trickledown process that left everyone up the chain earning money, while I had to pay off ‘reverse royalties’ before a penny would come my way; and by the challenges of getting my stories off bookstore shelves, into the hands of readers.

D2W as an adjunct to print editions seemed a promising concept, which might address those issues. I am still convinced of its potential, even though I have become increasingly aware of the daunting magnitude of the undertaking – not the technical difficulties, which are surmountable, but the steadfast loyalty of readers to books on printed pages, between covers.

That isn’t going to change any time soon, certainly not within my own lifetime. The iconic image of curling up with a book in a favourite armchair is not going to be supplanted by the notion of reading or listening to a novel on your mobile while jolting along on public transit between home and office. For the foreseeable future print will be the overwhelmingly popular choice of readers.

So why bother with direct-to-web at all? Why not let young up and comers crack open that niche market for a new generation of readers?

First and foremost, because literature is too important to a healthy, vital society not to secure its place in the online, digital world as soon as possible. I’ll have more to say about that in a future post, but getting books online has become an urgent priority for me because literature remains the most powerful mode I can think of for sharing ideas and feelings. It’s foundational to a society that explores its motives and challenges its actions.

Then there’s the creative possibilities D2W opens up. When I started down the direct-to-web path, I considered it purely from a publication and distribution point of view. Inevitably, however, it morphed into a mode of writing that excites me. The Mural Gazer was created dynamically. I know many authors will shudder at the thought, but I posted episodes as they were written – the online equivalent of an author writing his book in a department store window.

Over the years I have also come to appreciate the tremendous distribution and marketing opportunities of D2W. I can share The Mural Gazer with readers anywhere in the world as a text or audio book at almost no cost. Readers can access the book immediately when they see it promoted on social media. With a click they can open up the story on their mobile phones, laptops or desktop computers. After reading a few chapters, they can pay for the book online, too.

Finally (for now) there’s the matter of control, a decidedly two edged sword. I don’t really want to be a writer/publisher/promoter/bookseller because I value the knowhow of partners in the literary realm and would love to narrow my focus more on writing. For the time being, however, I have no choice. Until there are collaborative pathways from writing to publishing and selling, I will have to multitask as a D2W author.

A retired journalist and communications manager, I am in the tempting position of being able to take on that do-it-yourself book writing and publishing role. But I know it’s not a viable, sustainable model. What I envision are collectives, bringing the necessary skills together to see the dream of storytelling from conception through publication and sales in D2W and print formats made real.

That’s my goal for Books Unbound. I’m happy to share ownership.

Feet First in Love

Reading

Craig Spence © April 2022

Nice sandals!

I didn’t say it out loud, of course – not right away – and can’t determine to this day if the thought was true – I mean sincere in all its dimensions, down to the place where sole meets concrete reality. But it was the best I could come up with on the spot, and even though I didn’t voice the sentiment right off, she heard me. That’s the trick I believe: Think things before speaking. Sometimes keep them as thoughts forever because you’re bashful, perhaps. Or maybe because the person you’re interested in is perfect and you could only detract from that by wheedle-wording your way into their affections.

I had instinctively done an up and down of the sandals’ occupant – that checkout-scan we males of the species do when attracted by something potentially sexual in our peripheral vision. But it was her footwear – and I must confess, her feet –my roving eyes locked onto.

Her toenails were painted pink!

Not gaudily, in that slapdash way you sometimes see and feel embarrassed about – usually for bubblegum teens. The polish had been applied with artistry. Details like that say something, don’t they? She had a conception of self that was bold and subtle, I figured.

So maybe I was indulging just a little. But it’s okay to try and fathom why someone’s special isn’t it? And at first, we have to draw assumptions from observations as seemingly insignificant as pedicure, don’t we? You’re a liar if you say no. The forensics of love are based upon minute chips of evidence, hinting at theories made up as we go.

To me the convex surfaces of her nails were intriguing as conch shells turned inside-out. Can you imagine such a thing? My eyes stuck on the tops of her toes for a breath or two then – without my thinking, without conscious intent – zoomed in on her sandals, recording every facet of those elegant slippers.

Even as my eyes went about their rogue’s work, though, part of me realized there was nothing so very remarkable about Gloria’s sandals… aside from the fact that she was in them. I can think of a thousand movie stars and a thousand more princesses who would have turned up their noses, if asked to wriggle their dainty nether digits into such a pair of Walmart flip-flops. But on Gloria’s feet! Oh my!

“Oh my!” as grandmother would cry when occasion warranted. Of course, her delight was usually over events as homey as cherry pie coming out of the oven, or particularly brilliant works of crayon art, not over anything so exotic as the footgear of a complete stranger. For grandmother agape wasn’t so much about miracles as discovering the miraculous in everyday things – about seeing through the veil of ordinary and triggering suspirations as emphatic as a last-gasp.

By the way, mentioning Gloria’s name right now makes everything from here-on-in non-sequitur. I didn’t know her name at this point in the story. True, I was cultivating an intimate relationship with the bone structure and musculature of her feet, the same way Toto might have got to know Dorothy before they ventured into Oz. But that’s not the same as knowing a body’s name, is it? Love works backwards. We fall into it then double back, tracking down the meanings and consequences of ’til death do us part.

I’ve broken sequence because I can’t bear talking about Gloria as ‘her’ or ‘she’. I have to give a name to those theoretical references. So I have christened her even though a name at that point would have been as naively symbolic as graffiti sprayed anonymously on whitewashed stucco, or rote declarations carved into the trunks of trees or the planks of park benches. At that point in our relationship her name would have been a catch-all of fantasies. A concatenation of dark eyes, long black hair… an aura you could best see through eyes half-closed.

In truth, if Gloria had dematerialized before I got a chance to talk to her – whisked out of her sandals by powers unknown into some sci-fi Nirvana beyond the frequencies of daytime TV – nothing would have seemed remarkable about her footwear left on the corner of Quadra and Hillside. Other than the fact the sandals were there – placed carefully on the cracked concrete as if the intersection were a portico into some alternative dimension, and she had been called away suddenly. Barefoot.

The thing about Gloria is she even stands with her shoes neatly placed, and she never just kicks her footgear off. She’s neat that way. Fastidious. It makes me laugh. And because of her, I place my work boots carefully on the mat inside the vestibule door, too – toes pointing toward the wall, heels knocked together. She’s aware of details like that, so it pains me to bring disorder into our lives, especially when it’s so easy to do things right.

There’s meaning to the precise placement feet on a sidewalk; someone needs to see that. Imagine yourself in the presence of a goddess. You’ve been schlepping your way through life down at the pit, a latter-day Sisyphus crunching stones into various grades of gravel, then suddenly she’s there, and you know she is a goddess, that she already knows everything she needs to. What do you say to her? What’s your conversation starter?

In a way, Gloria was aware of every rhinestone glued to those bargain basement sandals of hers. Not individually, of course, but as elements of a sensory field, if you will. I wondered which tiny mirror I might have been reflected in, standing beside her, my bike held between us like a barrier. What did she think of this guy? Of his long hair and never-quite-matured beard, his knobby tired bike? She hadn’t even glanced my way – a sensible rebuke. But I did want her to appreciate the nobility of my feelings… that if the sun could be positioned just-so behind me, I would glow, too, with my own halo effect.

I glimpsed her profile, then surveyed the intersection for clues. Perhaps there were points of convergence, shards of data that proved we dwelt in overlapping dimensions. Which of the drab architectural features could I point to and say, There, that’s us. The San Remo Market Deli & Café? The Salvation Army Community & Family Centre, across Hillside? The Money Mart (real people fast cash) diagonally opposite? The Sally Ann thrift store on the west side of Quadra? The garbage receptacles, and bike racks at every corner to dispose of stuff we no longer valued and lock up the things we did?

We were none of that, and perhaps – without knowing it – denial was the point of convergence I had in mind.

“Nice sandals!” I said.

No kidding! I said it out loud. Breathlessly. Disguised as a brash joke, because any second now the light on Quadra would wink green and the little silhouette that says walk would let her get away, and I couldn’t let that happen without at least a memory of me – strange and deformed as it might seem – hankering after her. Things had spiralled into a place where an inkling of madness is the only reasonable state of mind – not stark raving lunacy, but a sort of emotional Pi, never quite defined, always panicked by another incremental digit of yearning.

If only we had it in us to feel that way about every living thing, we would truly be incarnations of our imagined gods.

The light changed. Gloria stepped off the sidewalk into the intersection. I walked beside her, thinking: This is it. It’s finished. She still hadn’t glanced at me. I studied her profile for signs. She wasn’t ready to offer any – and how could I blame her? But I took comfort in the fact that we were walking in the same direction – that the imagined pat of her sandals on the pavement didn’t seem hurried or doubtful. She was willing to abide my company to that extent at least.

Gloria strode on, back straight, black pantaloons fluttering in the breeze, pleated jacket conforming precisely to her slight, angular build. Did I imagine it, the faintest hint of a smile turning up her lips? I’m not sure, but the words rushed out of me anyway when I saw what I took to be a cue, as if I’d waiting to blurt my intentions for just-about-ever. “Maybe you won’t take it wrong if I walk with you a-ways?”

Creep! Is that what she was thinking? She stopped, looked straight at me, her head swivelling round like a security camera on a pole, eyes locking on. This is it, I thought. It’s finished.

Then she smiled and laughed out loud, and… Oh my God!

We plan on having kids someday, but there’s still lots of time to think about how I might answer, if one of the little rascals ever asks, when they’ve attained the age of reason, or at least a mature state of curiosity: “Hey, Dad, how did you and Mom first meet and fall in love?”

Perhaps if I framed it as a joke, I could admit to my temporary state of foot-fetishism at the corner of Hillside and Quadra while I was on my way to the pit and Gloria off to her studio. Or maybe I could fast-forward to our first date, on the evening of that first day, at Caffé Fantastico just a couple of blocks away from our point of departure… I paid; Gloria objected; we laughed at the clumsiness of it all… our perfectly memorable ineptitudes.

To be honest, I was amazed she showed up at all, or that I’d asked her to, when we parted ways that morning, me pedalling down Bay Street, heading for the pit; her, carrying on up Quadra. Gloria walks without making a sound, it’s like she rolls the soles of her feet through each step, feeling the ground beneath her, sensing its contours, its tilt, its flaws and fractures. Silence is what she leaves behind when she walks away from you or out of a room. Don’t get me wrong, she’s not an angel or anything, and I’m not a worshiper. But that silence she leaves in her wake? Your instinct is to fill it with thoughts of her.

The circular patio table we chose on the sidewalk outside Caffé Fantastico had a rippled glass top, so I could still make out Gloria’s feet after we sat down. They became a point of reference – their muscular arch, perfectly articulated toes and meticulously painted nails a sort of permissible zone of psychic gravity, which assured me the rest of her was still there, that she was real in an incomprehensible way… there’s a difference between comprehending someone and figuring them out, I think. Comprehending is like hugging your partner, knowing you’ll always be wondering how amazing she is; figuring her out is like taking her apart so you can adjust the mechanics of her soul – like tuning a bicycle.

A lot of my friends have got round to asking me – in one way or another – why I majored in philosophy at UVic. They don’t come right out and say: “Hey, you could be doing a hell of a lot better than crunching gravel down at the pit, if only you’d go into law or something, or maybe take a few more PSYCH courses, get a master’s? Get into counselling? Or teaching? Heck, why not try for a PhD in something or other; you’ve got the smarts.” And maybe they’re right; maybe I will someday. But all that misses the point – the vanishing point of our existence, you might say. I can’t map things out in a straight line, like I was crow flying from here to there, and happened to land on a lamppost in the epicentre of Nirvana. Life doesn’t move in straight lines or elegant curves that can be described by some sort of derived calculus.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I took philosophy so I could understand the meaning of Gloria’s feet, seen through the rippled glass of a patio table. Intimacy is the sudden awareness that your partner is too beautiful to take in at a glance, that you have to look away, take time to grow-yourself into it, expand your ability to appreciate every facet of her being… now there’s a word that takes me back to the Big Bang of prenatal existence.

There’s a theory I call bracketed infinity. Choose any points as your arbitrary beginning and end, and the information you would need to decode the significant events between will be infinite. We divvy up experiences as if life had a shutter speed and we can string moments together like the frames in a movie. But that’s not how things really work…

Get it?

Can’t say as I’ve figured it out yet myself, so you’re smarter than me if you have. All I know is, when I wake up beside Gloria, and we smile, my future, past and present are right now.

~ The End ~

Hope you enjoyed Feet First in Love
There’s more in The Feel of Gravity collection.

What is a D2W Book?

**Screen views of *The Mural Gazer*, a Direct-to-Web novel**

What is D2W? The easiest way to answer that question is via a link to my Direct-to-Web novel The Mural Gazer. But before you click let me point out a couple of advantages D2W has already made available to you as reader and me as author:

First, I can share my novel with you in an instant, just about anywhere on the planet you can pull in an internet signal;
Second, you don’t need any dedicated technology to get into the story. Your laptop, mobile or desktop computer are your eReaders.

So back to definitions: A Direct-to-Web book is published as a website.

More specifically, it’s a website formatted as a book that reads like a print edition. If you’ve visited The Mural Gazer, you have seen its landing page, which introduces the story as would the front and back covers of a conventional book.

From there you can follow links to either Pullout, the opening scene, or the Episodes menu item, which takes you to the Mural Gazer’s table of contents. It’s the same type of decision you might make browsing a volume pulled from a bookstore shelf.

If you dive right into the story via the Pullout page, you will see an audio link at the top, which lets you listen to a reading. That’s handy if you happen to be riding on a subway or driving to work.

You can always jump to another page, or get back to where you were when reopening the novel on another device via the Episodes table of contents link.

Beneath the audio bar and at the foot of each page are links to the next episode. Every page links to its following episode, so you can read or listen to the entire novel as if you were turning the pages of a print edition.

That pretty well sums up the Direct-to-Web concept in terms of what you might expect from the design and layout of any book: accessible, convenient, portable and navigable.

There are a few extras, though.

You don’t need a light source to read a D2W thriller! You can be right out there in the dark and stormy night, scrolling through its pages in situ, while glancing over your shoulder for any ghouls that might be in pursuit!

The Mural Gazer can be readily shared via email and social media, so you can invite friends into your reading adventure. At the top of each page are social media and email icons that allow you to instantly send a link from the page you are reading to anyone on your contacts list. Books are meant to stimulate conversations.

Up in the menu bar there’s also a Contact tab, so D2W readers can connect with or follow authors if they want to share some ideas, ask a question or keep up with new releases. This feature is especially important if, like me, you are an author who sometimes chooses to write ‘dynamically’, inviting critique as the story unfolds in real time.

Not showing on this excerpt form the Mural Gazer are internal links. But say in the seventh paragraph of Pullout I wanted to give readers a snapshot view from the Malahat Summit on Vancouver Island, up Finlayson Arm? I could put a link into the text and take them there. Or I could link to a side story from the narrative, or provide supporting description for a word or phrase some readers might not be familiar with.

Of course, because the reader happens to have their internet device in front of them, they can do a quick Google snoop any time they choose to check out a scene or expand on a bit of information.

Finally, if you look at the widget area on both the Pullout and the Episodes table of contents pages, you will see a description of the book and a button that allows readers to ‘Buy-In’ to the story. Readers can get a sense of the story before – at any point – they choose to buy, and authors can choose just how far they want to allow readers to go before buying.

Eventually that space will also allow readers to purchase print and ePub editions of The Mural Gazer. D2W books complement their print editions, giving readers who like to read on screen the option – they don’t replace hard copy editions, which will long remain the preference of most book lovers.

The capabilities we’ve shared will be the subject of future posts in the Books Unbound series. The objective of Direct-to-Web publishing is to make it easier for readers to buy books and authors to share and sell them.

Sustainable Literature is the goal.

We’ll delve more deeply into the features of a D2W publication and how the reach and scope of literature can be broadened through the use of digital and online technologies in future posts. In the meantime, thank you for visiting what is, in fact, a Direct-to-Web book in the making: Books Unbound.

Up Next: Getting books off the online shelf

Are pictures dictating how we tell our stories?

“You’re a writer! Trust the imaginative magic of your words!…” And respect the genius of your readers and listeners to envision your storytelling.

After two years of brain wracking and image bank trolling for eye-catching graphics to go with my website and social media posts, I suddenly stopped, and asked: Why?

Why invest all that time and energy trying to match the fantastical and soulful imagery of storytelling with stock pictures and more or less random internet pulls?

The obvious answer – an excuse actually – is that media like Facebook et al require pictures (preferably moving pictures) to earn views, clicks, shares, etc. And without the ‘reach’, ‘engagements’ and ‘likes’ a high-traffic site reels in, you won’t even get a glimpse of the golden goose called ‘monetization’.

That’s all true, I suppose. But only in the sense that a matador’s cape is the true goal of his distracted victims. Time for a rethink.

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“You’re a writer! Trust the imaginative magic of your words!” I clattered in a recent Facebook share. And – I should add – respect the genius of your readers and listeners to envision your storytelling.

I’m not alone on this slippery slope, I’m sure. Many writers see the internet in general and social media in particular as essential modes for sharing literature, and so they should. What I am warning against is being lured off course by the marketing lingo most of us have learned to talk these days.

Own the medium. Use it in a way that doesn’t compromise the true strength of literature as an arts discipline.

Words, sentences, alliteration, simile, metaphor… these are the brushes authors use to conjure images for an audience. The true gift of a story delivered in a book, or from a podium, or round a campfire is the miracle of words that readers or listeners transform into scenes, characters, feelings, conflicts, each in their own imagination.

Like no other art, literature engages audiences in the creative process.

That’s not to say I won’t complement my online stories with images from now on – the same way every book has its cover. But when I make the quest for visuals to cloth my stories paramount, I’m revealing my own lack of confidence in the evocative power of creative writing.

Into the Hermit’s Trail

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From Flibber T. Gibbet
The most mischievous elf in all Chemainus
A soon-to-be-released adventure story
set in MuralTown
* Asterisk indicates a note below

Story Craig Spence / Illustrations Diana Durrand

Lincoln didn’t really want to go farther. He knew Nana West and Grandpa Grumps would be upset and angry when he made his way back to their house on Maple Street*. But he just couldn’t stop, and certainly didn’t have time to think. The yellow footprints hustled along at a gallop, barely visible on the crunching gravel of the E&N trail.*

“Slow down!” he complained.

But the pace quickened, as if the footprints were trying to lose him, either that or draw Lincoln on and tucker him out at the same time. He fell behind at one point, making his way up a steep grade, but rallied and caught up, hurtling down the other side.

Then, suddenly, the footprints veered off the trail, plunging into the bordering forest. Lincoln lost his footing, changing course so quickly on the loose gravel. He fell and skinned his knee. “Ow!” he cried out. But there wasn’t a moment to lose, rubbing the wound. Scrambling to his feet he peered between two boulders at the head of a trail, which disappeared beyond a stand of gigantic cedars.

For an instant Flibber T. Gibbet made a ghostly appearance, spinning wildly atop one of the boulders, taunting, cheering, daring Lincoln into the dense forest beyond the cedar pillars, then dashing ahead once again, become an infuriating set of tracks plunging into the bush.

Bushwhacked! If he could have spared the breath, Lincoln would have smiled at a remark Grampa Grumps might have made. But, gasping for air, warding off the clinging stinging blackberry canes, and trying to keep up with the manic elf, he was in no mood for joking.

Common sense warned him to stop. Give up the chase. “No way!” he rebelled, urging himself farther and farther up the Hermit’s Trail.

Suddenly, Flibber T. vanished into what seemed an impenetrable thicket. Lincoln dove in after him, warding off the clutching branches, leaves and thorns with his arms, crouching low to the ground, where glints of light penetrated through chinks in the dense vegetation. He’d only advanced a few steps when, without warning, he broke into a clearing. Dazzled for a moment, it was too late for him to react before he realized the ground had sloped away from under him. For a puzzled moment Lincoln pedalled desperately in midair, then pitched forward, tumbling down what he realized through his battering descent was a flight of stone steps.

“Yaagh!” he bellowed and thrashed all the way, amazed to find himself coming to rest on a stone terrace, looking up into the clear blue sky through an overarching canopy of trees. The teasing babble of a brook mocked from nearby.

The first thing that frightened Lincoln about the place he’d landed was… no pain? Bruised and sore as you’d expect to be, having landed with such a thump, he felt nothing. Sedated, he floated in a sort of dream, cushioned by the swaddling air, which seemed to sooth any sensations that might have made him wince or groan.

What is this place? he wondered.

He tried turning his head to get a better sense of his predicament… Tried again, but couldn’t move. No matter how hard he strained, his muscles wouldn’t respond. What’s happening! he pleaded, desperate to twitch a finger or even an eyelid… Imagine yourself a stone with a brain, able to see and hear and smell everything around you, but totally paralyzed, and you’ll get an idea of the state Lincoln found himself in.

What would you do? What could he do, but panic!

Notes

Lincoln has been lured from Mural #36 The Hermit, onto the E&N Railway Trail in Chemainus.
Flibber T. Gibbet leaves yellow footprints wherever he goes, but they can only be seen by people who believe in elves, and the vanish quickly ‘like invisible ink’.

Is Direct-to-Web a way to go?

The Mural Gazer is being published Direct-to-Web at **MuralGazer.ca**

Since December, 2019, I have been writing and publishing The Mural Gazer, a Direct-To-Web novel set in Chemainus B.C. I’ve posted 63 episodes to-date, and have 17 more to go. My best guess is I’ll be finished the ‘first draft’ of my online edition by the spring of 2022.

It’s been an amazing experience, and I’m emerging from it more convinced than ever that Direct-to-Web books have a place in our writing and publishing mix. But I know I’ll go about it differently when I launch my next title, and that a conversation about D2W with follow writers and publishers would prove invaluable.

So in the coming months I am going to review what’s been done, why and how, inviting people to join me in a critique of The Mural Gazer, not only as a literary work, but as a mode of writing, publishing and distributing ‘books’. Questions I’d like to address include:

Why is literature more important that ever in the 21st Century?
Why should it be necessary to expand the definition of a ‘book’ in the digital era to include D2W?
What are the features and benefits of Direct-to-Web writing and publishing?
What are the obstacles to books as websites?
What steps can be taken to overcome those obstacles?
How will writers and publishers incorporate D2W into their creative and business processes?
How do writers and publishers derive income through Direct-to-Web releases?

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I’m not used to thinking in these terms; I’m more of a hands-on type. But if Direct-to-Web is to be viewed as something more than a gimmick (and I think it has to be), questions like these must be answered. I hope you’ll join in the conversation. Please subscribe to my email list if you want to receive updates and notifications.

Thanks,
Craig Spence