From The Author
After showing the preliminary editions to a few friend and fellow associates of mine, they suggested that I include this next section. I now agree with them. It not only allows me to reach out to my readers but also gives me the chance to explain and give context to the story you have just read. Trust me, it is not boring. I have included a few smaller stories within this section, along with some added philosophy and a nice life-lesson & motto.
A Background
I wrote “A Moon Light Walk” back in 2011. I enrolled in a Hard-Boiled Fiction class for my English minor. I happen to have one of the coolest most creative professors at Baruch. We not only would read these amazing gut-wrenching graphic novels, but we would also were able to get a chance to see the movies that corresponded with what we were reading that week. Every class was an exciting new thrill. I still miss his stories. One of my all-time favorite Hard-Boiled works is the Maltese Falcon. Our final assignment was to write our very own Hard-Boiled Noir fiction story. We could focus on: Detectives, Crime, Femme-Fatales, Psychology, and General Noir. We were given about six weeks to complete it.
The Transgression
After the first night of having the final assignment I got right to work at my writing. Within two hours I had my Introductory Paragraph complete. I was proud of it, I felt as though it was the best work I had ever written. Don’t we all.
I find that when we do feel this emotion, this effect, it means that have we put 110% of our ability into that work. It means that were operating to the best of our abilities at that moment. It is because of this “Satisfaction/Ego Complex” (I don’t know, I made that title up ha-ha) that many of us don’t re-read our own work; or at least I didn’t. Believe it or not, I have never re-read or edited anything up until this point. I had always made it by, by writing once through and receiving amazing grades and praise time and time again. However, if I wanted to be an author I would have to work on level with some of the most amazing minds. To not edit my work is to spit on Art of Writing.
For the first time, I re-read and edited my paragraph several days later. Not only did it improve ten-fold, but it also made the jaw drop of every single person whom I let read it. Remember, these are people who have never read any of my creative work, only analytical thesis’s and such. The look on their faces was of pure entertainment. I loved it! I loved the fact that something I made could elicit that type of response. It may be happy. I wanted to make every person I showed this to enjoy it in that way. A few of my friends actually got scared. Now I’m still not sure if that was because they were absorbed into the story or that they were scared of me. Either way, I still was able to elicit amazing responses.
An intro is great but I needed a whole story to go along with it. Weeks go by and I finally had gotten to work on writing the rest of the assignment. I handed it in to my professor and got a perfect score. Something was wrong though. The score was perfect, but the story, it just was so horrible. When people read it, their expression’s changed frequently. I wanted an explosion of thrill to come from their faces, fear, surprise, suspense! From start to finish with not a moment or break of serenity. I wasn’t getting it.
I dumped the entire story and went back to my one paragraph, my intro. The original story was twelve pages long; the intro was only ¾ of a page. The short that you just read was the intro turned nine-page thriller.
Value-Able/Less Facts About “A Moon Light Walk”
“Kitsu”
This story was responsible for one of the greatest adventures in my life, and one of the greatest loves. I had my eyes set on this gorgeous woman whom I had noticed from across the lecture hall on one night. Our eyes would lock time and time again. I had signaled her to leave class with me for a cigarette (I no longer smoke). She smiled back at me. My world stopped in that moment, she was perfect. I hadn’t felt this way in a long time; I wanted to do everything right, and perfect for that matter. We both walked outside of the building.
For once my psychology had paid off, being able to read people was a well-learned skill. Within a moments notice the simple desire to start a relationship with this girl triggered an adrenalin surge; everything I knew about reading people, about body language, Paul Eckman’s FACS (Facial Recognition), everything just exploded inside of my head! A bomb had gone off in my subconscious; it was “World War III.” I was in fight mode, I wanted a shot with her and I wasn’t going to fail.
Immediately I pegged her as a smart girl, books were her thing. My subconscious took on the omniscient voice of Sherlock Holms. I listened to her speak and how she spoke, the tone of her voice as it lifted and lowered in response to my answers and questions. I watched as her eyebrows moved gently as if they were signaling me to open up, to come closer and let her in. Admittedly, I was nervous. I usually laugh in the face of fear (Another story, another time) but this time, I wanted something badly, and I wanted this moment to be perfect. As the conversation progressed I found out that she loved to read. We both stumbled a title for a book, “The Giver” it was called. We both had given the thought so much effort, but neither of us had realized. I wish the knowledge I have now could have been there back then. That stumbling over that book’s title was the most sincere thing ever; it was both us trying so hard to impress the other person, to help the other out in finding a common ground between us both; it meant that we both wanted this. However, I didn’t know this at the time. I got more nervous and broke a small sweat, I had nothing else, I was all out of ammo. I knew that if I had let the conversation die or worse, get awkward, that I would be out of luck. I did the only thing that I could do. I operated and acted to the best of my abilities and in that moment was born a life philosophy with which I still live by today. “Hey, would you like to read my short story intro?” This was the boldest thing I could do at the time, any writer can tell you that in the early stages of any work reveals the innermost secrets of any person, pure unfiltered thought and emotions. It is only though countless revisions that our filter appears and structure is found. Yes, I gave her an unread and unedited copy of my story’s intro. In that moment she could have ran away or thought I was crazy. She could have even hated me for some odd reason. Maybe, just maybe, this would work, opening myself up 100% to other person and laying it all out on table with nothing to hide and nothing to lose. That is what I did, and what I still do today. I live by my own life philosophy and motto, “I’m All In With Nothing To Lose.” This circumnavigates the problem with dating girls who just want to have fun; they will feel less bad if you get attached them, and you get the opportunity to make them fall in love with you. A most dangerous game. She folded up the intro to my story and handed it back to me while asking, “Can I keep it?” I had to let her. It turned out that she loved it and loved me even more for sharing it. After that moment, we owned the world. To put it another way, “The World Was Our Oyster.” We even traveled together and dreamed of traveling everywhere together. It was amazing, it was fun, and it was short. One promise ring and a year to the most amazing time of my life with one of the greatest girls I have ever met. I now have this story to thank for her. If I hadn’t have put that much time, effort, and energy into it I would have had no pride and confidence in it. In the moment when the conversation went awkward, there would be just that, silence, and the death of a future that could have been. But, I got my future! My “Ex” or girlfriend at the time even kept me motivated enough to finish what you just have read.
A lot came out of this story. I hope that it at least had brought you a few minuets of pure unbridled thrilling enjoyment. If you really did enjoy it, then by all means share it so that others can too. Who knows, maybe you too can bond over A Moon Light Walk with a special someone.
Questions
To me this short means a lot. I have a huge chunk of my life written within those nine pages. People would always ask me, “How did you come up with this?” The only answer I have for them is the truth; I lived through it. It is god-awful living hell but it has yielded
some of the most amazing ideas and concepts for novels and stories.
“Which perspective/person was I?” Both. I have to compare it to the movie, “Burn After Reading” more specifically, George Clooney’s character. That is all that I am willing to share in a published edition.
“Only Nine Pages?!?” Yes, some people actually did like it, or they are just being good friends. I would love to write more. I even have a web drawn up for the next part to this story. I will only begin working on it if I see that people really like this one, and my style of writing.
A Digression and A Most Thankful Farewell
I do tend to write on a lot of philosophical and psychological concepts and theories. It is what I study. I love psychology and I love philosophy. I love the feeling you get when you read a new concept that blows your mind and give you a “Mental Orgasm” of knowledge, understanding, and a new found awakening all in one moment of brilliance. I had this effect for about forty-five minuets while reading Hegel’s Phenomenology Of Spirit. I tend to gravitate toward more Positive and Thought Concept/Provoking theories. I have discovered so much in tying some of the most famous works of philosophy together with modern psychology. This new study is known as, “Positive Psychology” and is being headed by one of my favorite doctors, “Dr. Martin P. Seligman.” Other people know this study as, “The Law of Attraction” or “The Secret.” We tend to study and research this area via a Scientific Approach so as to cut out all of the controversial topics. As I do enjoy the religious or spiritual perspective, I love more to prove those concepts through psychology. However, I digress. I write with a philosophical and psychological twist so as to bring my readers to brief moments of a “Mental Climax”. It is a challenge I so willingly undertake. Most of the population won’t read Phenomenology of Spirit; I read this material for fun and it took me several reads to fully grasp every concept. I not only want my readers to get a thrill out of my work, but I want them to feel something unique that most other works of literature won’t give them. I want to stimulate their mind in a different way, challenge them to think differently and deeply. It is a challenge and extremely hard to do; but when done correctly it will spark for that brief moment, an explosion of mental cognitive power and processing.
Again, I hope that you did enjoy A Moon Light Walk: “Venture The Rabbit Hole” and I hope that it is good enough in your book to be shared with your friends. I also want to extend my thanks to all who read it and my, “Notes From The Author” section.
If you have any questions, comments, complains, or requests, please feel free to email me at: [email protected]
If you get the chance, I also have a web-blog, https://www.MichaelWolf.Co.Uk .
“I’m All In With Nothing To Lose…”
- Michael Wolf
A Moon Light Walk Page 2