This session of “wasting my writing time writing about writing” ought to be backdated.

I finished Draft 2.3 let’s call it, by the deadline and wrote up my synopsis. I was feeling rushed and unhappy about it, but I’d just re-written 15 thousand words in three days, so I wasn’t not going to submit. Though given the unpolished state of the synopsis and the general lack of cooling time for the project I would expect a rejection.

But, praise the Smiling God, the deadline was extended to the 15th.

This brought much joy to El Longo. I plan on combing through it after another couple of days and performing my revisions ritual, more on that on the day. But this extension gives me time to reflect a little more on Sunshine and Snakes and to talk about what changes happened between the first draft and this 2.3 business.

But first! Eye Candy!

This guy is Riccardo Scamarcio, an Italian model and actor. I honestly have no idea who he is; I found his name while I was looking up how to spell Riccardo and spent the next couple of hours just looking at Those Eyes.

He very quickly became my image, not for Rico, but for Burgess because…

Oh My God, Italians are so delicious.

However, this is the image that’s been living on my desktop and getting me dirty looks from people in Starbucks.

I have no idea who this is. I googled ‘Sexy Latino with an Attitude Problem’ and I got this dream.

I wanted Rico to have a quiet intensity; he’s the kind of guy who literally sits in bus stops and thinks about different ways to murder the people around him and get away with it. It’s kinda of his job.

But I also loved how defiant this guy is. He’s probably not big enough to win a fight, especially if he’s pulling punches because he doesn’t want to get caught killing anyone, but he’s going to try. Really though he just wants you to back off. Yeah, you with the camera, fuck off.

Possibly because I set this picture as my desktop and not the reclining beauty above, Draft 2.3 took a turn I didn’t expect. As I was writing through 2, with Sexy Glare in the corner of the screen, I realized I didn’t have room in the word count for two POVs and I knew I could write faster in first person. So right in the middle of the draft, in the middle of a Burgess POV scene in fact, I restarted the project with this:

     The things I know for sure about Bruiser Accorsi couldn’t fill a Chihuahua’s nutsack.
I know his real name is Burgess. He says it’s his mother’s maiden name. He goes conversationally by Bur, sometimes Burg if you go way back.
I know the Accorsi’s are the biggest family in the ‘adult entertainment industry.’ He says they don’t do human trafficking, though he’s quick to say that’s a financial decision not a moral one. Most of the Accorsi prostitutes are for high-end clients.
I know he’s an amateur body-builder. I know his thick black hair is soft not greasy. I know his eyes are the color of sun-shot grapevines.
But I also I know he’s worth 60 thousand dollars dead.
And I can get close enough to kill him.

The next 15k words came fairly easily. There’s old scenes re-filtered through Rico’s POV. So for example this:

     Later on, after light’s out, Bur climbed into his cell-mate’s bed. Rick pressed himself tight against the wall, but that was the most resistance he ever gave. His muscles tightened when Bur reached under his shirt to stroke his chest and he practically vibrated when Bur nibbled his ear. Bur ran his hands through Rick’s neatly trimmed hair, pulling his head back and exposing his neck to little kisses. He smelled like wintergreen gum and he shivered. Bur hoped with arousal.
Rick tolerated the caresses, the kisses, and the slow grind of Bur’s cock, but he grabbed Bur’s arm when he reached into the front of his pants. “You’re not supposed to do that.”
“I do what I want,” Bur said softly and Rick’s hold weakened.
Bur stroked the slick curls at the base of his cell-mate’s cock. He wasn’t doing what he wanted. He wanted dinner dates in nice places and lounging on the couch watching stupid shows. He wanted easy conversation, thoughtless kisses, a lover who didn’t tense up under his touch.
He circled his fingers around Rick’s cock, found him hard. He’d settle for that.

Became this:

     The fantasy came back, unasked for that night when Bur climbed into my bed. Like always, I pressed tight against the wall partly to give him room, but also to make it like I didn’t want him to touch me.
He always touched me.
Every muscle in my body tightened when he reached under my shirt and stroked my chest. I practically vibrated with lust for him when he kissed my exposed neck and ran his hands through my buzzed hair. He smelled like my wintergreen gum tonight and my desire for him quickly moved past the point of toleration.
And still he caressed, kissed, slowly ground his cock against my ass through our clothes. My dick pressed against the cell wall and when he pumped slowly forward it rubbed against the flat surface and offered me a little relief.
Bur reached down into my the front of my pants, sliding his fingers below my abdomen towards the base of my erect cock.
I grabbed his arm and pushed back. “You’re not supposed to do that.”
“I do what I want,” Bur growled and since he was stronger than me, his hand crept forward. He stroked the curls at the base of my cock, maybe afraid of touching it at first. It’s not like he’d tried to jerk another guy off before. Then he circled his fingers around my cock.”
“Jesus Christ, you always get this turned on?”
I did. But I’d go to Hell before I admitted that.

That’s how I always take the advice to ‘kill your darlings.’ I really like Bruiser’s sensitivity in that first one. How concerned he is about Rick’s reactions (he learns at the end of the scene it’s Rico, not Rick) and how he dreams of having a normal boyfriend situation with Rico.

There’s no way to have Rico know about Bruiser’s internal monologue, so I have to rely more on physical gestures to convey Bur’s insecurities and desire for consent and I had to let go of that lovely moment where a convict assaulting his cellmate is dreaming about dating him instead.

Anyways, I got a couple more days with this thanks to that extension and I’m going to go make the most of them!

My session of “wasting my writing time writing about writing” is going to be short so I can go write.

When I sat down to get to the business of writing this thing, I had a mess of notes.  The 11th was the day I turned those into an outline and I discovered something else interesting about the work – the setting. I have a couple predominant locations, the prison cell, the hotel room, and Bur’s house. And the outside world. I noticed I had two deaths occur in the streets (not indoors) and I had several nearly violent encounters that became romantic because of isolation. So I’m going to play with this idea than in the open people get hurt and there’s a comfort of being closed indoors.

I don’t know that this is going to be an overt thing, but I think me thinking about it is going to affect how I write the scenes in Bur’s house where Rico is about to go through with the hit. One thing that’s already changed with this idea is that some off-page violence is now happening outside in the prison (Rico is attacked previously in the showers, now in the yard. Bur starts a fight and it’s not located in the same yard). This also changes the setting of the final confrontation from Bur’s house to a desolate highway in New Jersey that I’ve always wanted to write about.

One addition is in the excerpt below, where Rico encounters Bur again for the first time out of prison (again be gentle. I just wrote it and nothing is polished yet). Anyways. I’m about 4 k in and I’ve got to get to 15 k by the 22nd. Wish me luck!

     Rico had been out of prison for about half an hour, and he’d spent most of it thinking about how to kill the other people at the bus stop. That woman would walk into oncoming traffic if he threatened her screaming baby. That man would smile politely as Rico snapped his neck because he was so friendly and afraid of being racist. The bodybuilder was probably the biggest challenge. She looked tough as needles. She might have been coming from the prison herself. Off duty police. But for the first time in two years and six months, he had shoe laces. He could probably strangle her if he wanted.

He didn’t want to strangle a stranger. His morbid fantasies distracted him from trying to figure out what he wanted to do next. He needed a bike, a laptop, and new clothes. He ought to call his mother in Guerrero, but he’d need to write her first to make sure her number hadn’t changed. First, get to… Wherever the bus was taking him. He was overwhelmed by the flatness of New Jersey and the brightness of the sun. He just wanted to sit on a bus in the back row with his knees on the seat in front of him, and the iPod Bur had left behind blaring in his ears. So Rico put his hands over his eyes and leaned over his knees.

There was no warning when someone touched his shoulder, and Rico reacted before he remembered where he was. He was on his feet, and his hand stung from punching a block of muscle.

But the muscle caved, and a big man folded over. At first, Rico was sure he’d just gut-punched a member of the secret service. The suit was tailored and prim, his shoes shone on the cracked gravel of the sidewalk, and his hair was a coiffed sheen of black.

Then a Brooklyn accent that was as familiar as it was dirty said, “Jesus Fuckin’ Christ, Rico! You trying to kill some body?”

Shame and an unsettled pleasure reddened Rico’s face. “Bur?”