Upturn is a story that I started to write in 2007. It was originally intended to be a group of 500-word points of view, but ended up being too big. Most of the entries are introductions to a new character’s story as part of a larger, incomplete epic.
I started writing Upturn in 2007. This is around the time that I realized there are two things that I’m really good at: planning, and starting stories. I had hundreds of pages of planning for this story, and virtually everything I wrote is an introduction. What I realized I needed a lot of practice on, on the other hand, was moving forward. I’m still not as good at writing Act Two as I am Act One, but considering that I’m a hell of a lot better at writing Act One than a lot of amateurs are, I won’t consider that too harsh of a measurement of my progress.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was a pebble that broke through the puppy’s cracked rib, spraying blood on the ground and opening the way for more fatal injuries. Unfortunately, straws rarely fall one at a time, and it was impossible to tell which was the straw. Read Part 4.
Insomniatic 