More to read.

Here's another chunk of the book. It's the one I'm sure everyone wants to read to see if they made it in. Well, I think I covered everyone. Remember, unedited version of a first draft. There is a bit of time frame difference from the last posted section. This second is tentatively scheduled for Chapter 11.

"Confusion.

There it is.

There’s the emotion I needed. It might not be the right one, but it’ll do.

Here’s the most stable person in the world, the epitome of collected, and he kills himself.

The inspirer of my transformation put a gun in his mouth.

My savior offered himself in the laundry room.

It made no sense, not based on the little information I had. A basis for more questions was all I had. No one had anything.

All I could do was call everyone I knew Ethan considered a friend and let them know. It would be the same questions over and over followed with the same response.

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

The more I knew I had to say it the less I wanted to make the phone calls.

Meredith, Ben, Josh, Dan, Derrick, Joann, Don, Jean, Tom. Mikey, Mickey, Scotty. Bart, Tyler, Megan, Emily, Adam, Terry, Mark, Travis. Whitey, Razor, Swan, Bubba, Ox, Cooter. About three Bens, three Kristis and two Katies.

Then there was also Ben and Kristin, Joe and Tanya, Kellen and Kristi, Jay and Mandy, John and Katie, Lisa and Jason, Dave and Kimm.

Further into college more friends’ names come in pairs.

Damn that guy knew a lot of people.

Those are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head. Then there were professors, people at work, the bars, classes, and clubs. That’s not including the dozens of people that are going to question me when I run into them on campus.

The phone calls began with answers that seemed rehearsed.

No, he didn’t leave a note that we know of.

Yes, I thought he was fine too.

I became the official spokesman of Ethan’s suicide. It was my first chance to put my public relations major to use. Finally.
I’m sorry I can’t answer to any reason why he would do this.

Talking my way around most things, I answered what I knew and dodged what I didn’t.

It’s common that if you couldn’t decide on a major, you went with psychology or somewhere in the communications field. I chose the one where I thought the most money was involved.

His mom found him.

The basement.

I switched from a confused, surprised and grieving friend to a PR agent of death. As I liked to call it, the voice of Ethan’s self-induced expired mortality. It was a softer, yet long-winded way of saying “suicide.” It seemed a gentler term than telling the truth, a nice way of staying away from a recognized simple word with a bad stigma to it. It was something people could understand.

Self-induced expired mortality.

Yes, I’m going to the funeral.

No, I don’t know when it is.

I doubt it will be open casket.

Yes, a shotgun will do that.

With the little bits of info I had, I was able to talk around most questions. I was better than I thought. I could have sold a school board to install cigarette machines in schools.

Ethan would have been proud.

Sure I’ll call so-and-so.

No, I don’t know what they’re going to do with his stuff.

I don’t know if we should have a memorial here.

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t fake the slickness needed to talk to these people without wanting to suck on a Remington myself.

Calling people knowing in a few seconds they’ll burst into tears repeatedly was the worst thing I’ve ever had to do. It felt like what a police clergyman must go through every day. You wake up, get dressed and go to work knowing you’re telling people about dead loved ones all day.

Wearing that little white collar, at least God has those guy’s backs.

I wondered where He stood in my situation. I was trying to smooth over the death of my best friend. No, my best friend’s suicide. Again, I could spin circles around my drinking buddies, but put I still couldn’t convince myself.

My little face I put up to make myself feel better wasn’t working.

This time, however, it was for survival, not self-gratification.

Calling Heather was another thing I had to do.

Heather, I didn’t even have her number anymore.

Heather, with her hazelnut brown hair, chocolate cake eyes and her sugary disposition.

Heather was the last on my list.

She should have been my first."

It's Saturday and finding free wireless internet was the second time I've left my apartment. The first was to check my mail.

I am so friggin' cool.

A week of writing?

Still nothing down on the computer this week. More ideas of where to go next are filling the notebook I keep in my pocket at all times, but nothing more to add to the page count.

If I would have known a job would have been so much work, I would have completely skipped college all together.

But, I've found my silver lining to this cloud over me.

In my usual fashion, I've managed to keep 94 hours of vacation time that expires at the end of the year. Use it or lose it, the company says. But, I've actually managed to schedule some of it in.

The last week of the month, I have off from the paper. It will be one solid week of writing and nothing but. No working out. No skating. No bar, well maybe a little. Just a week of me locked in my apartment by myself writing. I'll stockpile the fridge and turn my phone off.

By the end of the week, I'll have drank enough coffee to destroy the lining in my stomach.

Sadly, I look forward to it way too much.

And yes, I'll be posting more exerpts soon.

Also, been messing around with cover ideas. Here's a start.

The title somewhere above. The name below.


A Constant Suicide



A novel by Brian Krans

Half done... at least the month is.

That's right kids, November is half over, but the novel isn't.

Sure, 50,000 words for a novel is nothing, but in one month is a pain in the arse when you try to have a life besides. Life's always getting in my way, or something like that workaholics tell themselves.

I'm currently hovering around Chapter 13. No, I won't be posting every one. Besides, if I did that, why would you read the book?

Right now, I've introduced the characters, the suicide, the situation. But, I've still got a mile to go on the plot.

There's one question I want lingering in everyone's mind -- why would this kid off himself?

I hope that's what some of you are already thinking.

As of now, I envision the novel being longer than 50,000 words. Because, sadly, in the 46,000-and some change words I have down now, I still haven't said much. Maybe I'm long-winded. Maybe I've got a lot to say about friends, college, girls, parties and suicide.

Maybe there's a lot to say.

It just depends on if I can say it the right way.

Right now I'll just continue waiting on the verdict in a murder trial. Guy younger than me allegedly goes over to his neighbors house to rob him. Beats him to death and stabs him in neck. Oh yeah, the victim's 74 years old. Oh yeah, he's never got more than $20 in his house.

Oh what a happy life I live.

Murder for work. Suicide for fun.

Never, ever ask me why I drink.

As much as it kills me to say this... Kellen brought up something important.

He asked for "a dumbed down version for myself and the other schleps you know from Winona."

The great thing about the book is that I've finally found a writing style -- minimalism. For the layperson, that means you can read it.

The key is not using long, drawn-out sentences to describe something that isn't important. It isn't using 10-dollar words when they aren't needed. The important thing of the book isn't how well I can write.

Let's just face it, after years of being a newspaper writer, I can't write like I used to. Then again, it also taught me something important -- If you have something to say, just say it. Don't beat around the bush romanticizing everything. Make a point and move on.

That's what this book is about. It's about rebellion, personal transformation, unexplainable situations, and, a topic that's near and dear to my heart -- suicide. It's about bad decisions, moving away from your former self, what makes a friend important and how none of us ever really know what to do with our lives.

I can't say everything that's in the book because I don't know. Everytime I write I find I have something else to say.

The question is if anyone wants to listen.

Still going...

Despite the lack of posts after putting up the first chapter, I'm still writing. Everything is moving along plot wise, but I'm a little stuck at the middle. Getting from a person shooting himself in the head to the end has to have a plausible transition.

But, right now I'm writing from Meredith's computer in West Virginia. It's my first time here since I moved her here in August. She's visited me, but I needed to come back and see her.

With writing about murder all of the time for the paper, constantly talking to the mothers of murdered sons, and now writing about a suicide in my spare time, I needed to clear my head for a while.

So, this is the only writing I'm doing on my trip.

I'm close to the half-way point, but I don't want to rush and put down crappy ideas just to meet the 50K word deadline by the end of the month. Then it will be onto long rewrites, sending a few copies out to publishers and then probably publishing it myself.

But right now, I'm just going to relax and take in the sights in lovely West Virginia.

Riiiiight.