How I Use Evernote For My Writing (and Why You Should, Too)

I’m sure most writers in this day and age have their preferred digital method of keeping track of their writing. I’ve talked to my peers who use everything from a simple word processing “notebook” to a spreadsheet all the way through applications written for the exact purpose of allowing scribes to stay organized.

For years, I used OneNote from Microsoft, but at the time I switched to a Mac, I no longer had that option. As luck with have it, I stumbled on a new (at least then) free multi-platform tool that allowed me to maintain access to my notes from my desktop as well as on the road and found it to be perfect for me:  Evernote, by the Evernote Corporation.

Like OneNote, Evernote doesn’t force you into any structured methodology — it provides you the tools and widgets and lets you decided how to leverage them. So while my process won’t necessarily appeal to you, perhaps it will give you some ideas on how to better use the software or switch to it, if you’re not familiar with it and want to try something new.

Starting with Notebooks

Generally speaking, I respect hierarchies, especially those that make my life easier, and since I usually have several active works-in-progress, I find writing hierarchies imperative. In this case, a logical breakdown in separate notebooks helps me keep my thoughts orderly and compartmentalized. My most active ones are:

• Daily Pages — This is my core notebook and contains a single page for every day. The first thing I do when I wake up is create a new page simply titled with the day’s date. These pages contain anything I create that’s not for a WIP throughout the day. These can include, but aren’t limited to, the following:

• Titles:  Frequently, an interesting title just pops into my head and even though I may not have anything more to go with at the moment, I’ll jot it down anyway. Many of my stories have just started with a title and then weeks / months later, I see it when scanning my notes and the story idea  (or storyline) just appears.

• Opening lines:  Sometimes, I either have a good opening line come to me or I’ll just sit down and write opening lines that I think will lead to more down the road. It’s a good creative exercise I use to warm up if I have nothing in the WIP queue I want to begin continue working on.

• Story ideas / Loglines:  Frequently, I get an idea that’s not necessarily fully formed, but still can be expressed in a few sentences. I call these “story ideas” (or if they’re better suited for a screenplay, the industry term “loglines”). They can be framed in the form of a “what if” question, for example — or anything that gives enough to work with when I’m ready to develop it further.

• Storylines:  Storylines are extended versions of story ideas / loglines. They are fully formed, but short, story synopses with a definable throughline, usually comprised of at least three paragraphs representing the beginning, middle and end of the story in question. Each storyline's premise is clearly defined, the hero’s journey is delineated from start to finish and key conflicts are called out. Storylines are usually the most “dangerous” because they can derail me from my current WIPs in order to further develop the idea while the storyline is still fresh in my mind.

• Snippets:  Very often, I start with an opening line of a story and then write several paragraphs from that until I’ve drained the well from which the idea came or I’m falling asleep at my computer. Just like storylines, snippets can derail me from a fully planned schedule. I tend not to force myself to stop during these writing frenzies simply because I feel anything I can get out of my brain and down on digital paper is a good idea, even if I never use what I write ever again. More often then not, though, I do continue from where I left off weeks, even months, down the road.

• Scenes:  Similar to snippets, sometimes an opening scene for a screenplay comes out of nowhere and I just write to see where it goes. As usually happens, I’ll write several scenes before I stop and transfer it over to Final Draft to continue. Two of my current WIPs began just like this — one of which I’m “pantsing” (just writing without an outline or any other formal story structure) from beginning to end), the other began as a pantsing project, but I stopped after fifteen pages and began outlining the rest. 

• Blogs:  These are blog ideas, either short one sentence descriptions or a few paragraphs (or bullet points) to make sure I capture the key elements of the intended post.

• WIP progress:  In order to keep myself honest, I track progress on my current WIPs, but I don’t record word counts or hours worked on each. Instead, I just note the WIP and what scene(s) I’ve completed. As long as I can see steady headway, I’m satisfied … unless I’m on a deadline, of course, then I have a writing plan, a process that’s for a separate blog post.

• Journal entries:  Though I don’t keep a formal journal, on those days where I can't get a lot of writing done because of something else — traveling, for instance — I at least mark a note on that day’s Daily Page indicating what I was doing instead of writing.

• Blogs — While I use MacJournal for blogging on my Macbook Pro, sometimes I’m not able to continue with my current post because I’m in mobile mode. Since Evernote is multi-platform, it’s easy enough to copy my current WIP to a blog page  in Evernote and keep writing on any one of my mobile devices. When I get back to my Mac, I simply transfer the updated post to MacJournal, format it, then upload it.

• Fodder — In conjunction with the Evernote Web Clipper (see below), I capture interesting / unique news stories and other oddities that could one day be grist for the writing mill. I may never look at it again, but with Evernote’s search function, I can find virtually anything I’ve had an interest in writing about. This is one of the handiest tools Evernote has.

• Writing — Many times, I want to continue building on a story Idea and maintain it in an separate Evernote page. I dedicate the Writing notebook to these pages and with Evernote’s Table of Contents feature (see below), I can easily create an index to make it easier to pick up where I left off. At some point, though, the proverbial chick has to leave the nest and it must move on to my writing application ... usually Scrivener.

The Importance of Tags

The entire Daily Pages methodology would be severely limited if not for tags. My process is pretty simple: when I come up with a new Title, for example, I simply add “Title” in the tags. Other tags I commonly use include:

• Snippet
• Blog
• Journal
• Opening line
• Story idea
• Storyline
• Logline
• Scene

In addition, I use tags that are titles to my WIPs if I do anything creative for those projects in order for me to easily go back to see what days I worked on those WIPs.

With Evernote’s filter capabilities, I can easily isolate pages by a specific tag. This definitely helps when trying to reorganize notebooks or consolidate pages related to a single WIP or entry type.

The Web Clipper

As noted above, Evernote has a browser extension they call the Web Clipper. What this clever little tool allows you to do is clip some or all of a web page and have it automatically be added to the notebook of your choice. While I use the Clipper to capture articles of general interest, I use it most to capture ideas for stories to write, placing them in the Fodder notebook mentioned earlier. The Clipper is somewhat intuitive in that it is able to figure out into which notebook the clipped page is likely to fit. More often than not, it’s correct, too, but it’s easy to change to another notebook if you prefer it elsewhere. The Clipper makes life so much easier.

Using Note Links & Tables of Contents

Another great feature of Evernote is the ability to create note links — links to other note pages anywhere within your Evernote library — and an offshoot of that, creating a table of contents of links to pages within a single notebook. This latter capability is particularly handy for my Writing notebook which consists of over one hundred partially written stories:  I can easily jump to any story I’d like to continue working on after I scan a page of links to choose from. Another great use of note links:  adding a link to a “fodder” page as a reference for a story I’m writing. This way I won’t have to copy the content of the entire clipped page into the story page itself. Pretty neat.

Other Bells & Whistles

While there are too many other features of Evernote to describe here, there are a couple of others worth mentioning that I use a lot of:  bulleted lists and horizontal lines. Because I tend to "think in outlines" even when I’m pantsing (this goes back to my days as a software developer where I would have to write hundreds of lines of code on the fly), I like to capture ideas in bulleted form. Evernote provides the ability to create numbered lists as well, a feature I rarely use. A button to create horizontal lines is also quite helpful:  I use those to separate activities / writings within a single Daily Page, for example. For me, it helps keep the page looking neat and organized.

Pulling It All Together

All of these features make Evernote a pretty powerful tool, but no collection of features is worth anything if you can’t use them effectively. Here is a overview how my “typical” writing day goes with Evernote. I put typical in quotes because there is no such thing in reality.

• Create a new Daily Page and title it with the day’s date (“June 27, 2014”).
• Any ideas that stayed with me from my dreams get written down with a descriptor for what type it is preceding it. For example, “Title:  Title of an Amazing New Story.”
• Add “Title” as a tag.
• Insert a horizontal line after the aforementioned title.
• If my brain is ready to pick up from a WIP, I would do the work on the WIP until I stop, then go back to the Daily Page and write “WIP Name — scene N.”
• Add the WIP name as a tag.
• Insert a horizontal line after that note.
• And so on.

At the end of my writing day, I have an idea of what occupied my creative efforts in chronological order. Not too shabby.

So will all this make you a better writer? Maybe yes, maybe no. However, it certainly will make you a more organized one and that usually leads to being a better something. If you a process or a tool that works for you, then you’re probably better off than 80% of other writers. Keeping organized requires constant attention — and tweaking — in order to be successful. If you have no process, who knows, maybe I’ve given you a framework from which to build. In any case, Evernote is a free software program worth exploring.

One final word:  I know that OneNote is now available on the Mac, and while I use it for access to my old notes on occasion, I am too entrenched in my Evernote world … and I like it that way. ☺ 

(Un)Follow Me, (Un)Follow You

One of the reasons I enjoy penning short stories across a diverse spectrum of topics is because I get to write about a wide array of characters in myriad story situations. No matter what you write — poetry or prose, novels, short stories, screenplays, song lyrics — in order to be successful, you need to be a lifelong student of human behavior. Even if you only write about cyborgs, your creations usually mimic core aspects of how people act or at least within the framework of your story world’s ethos.

Social media sites provide so many tangibles that are well-known — you get to interact with so many individuals across the entire world and get to hear opinions and ideas that aren’t those you normally subscribe to or even thought about. But the mere ebb and flow of contacts on sites such as Twitter are also petri dishes for understanding a lot about human nature.

I’ve been an active member of Twitter since April 2008 or this as provided by http://www.howlonghavei.com/:



In those years, I’ve been able to classify the 7 types of followers I’ve had.

Analysis of Twitter Followers

1. Spammers, from the “how to increase followers” type to the ubiquitous purveyors of porn as well as trolls with politics opposite of mine. These I automatically block and in the case of the porn people, report.
2. Social media “experts,” SEO / marketing geniuses, and the like. These I rarely, if ever, follow back. What makes these folks so top in their fields isn’t what they do, but what they try to get you to believe that they do.
3. Entrepreneurs of all types. Unless it’s a product or service that interests me (which is rare), I typically don’t follow back.
4. Artists/musicians/filmmakers/writers, aspiring or established. These folks I usually follow back, especially if I find their last dozen or more tweets interesting / compelling.
5. Like-minded individuals. I have myriad interests that I list in my Twitter profile — beyond writing — so anyone searching for those who are into the same things that I am will more often than not find me. I almost always follow them back.
6. Friends / colleagues / collaborators. It goes without saying that I always follow them back.
7. No idea why they’re following. Much like everyone else who has been Twitter a long time, I have my share of I-have-no-idea-why-they’re-following-me followers. Mayors of towns I never heard of, car dealers all the way on the other side of the country, and others. I often tweet them and ask if they’ve made a mistake, but usually don’t follow them back.

Analysis of Twitter UNFollowers

But the big reveal in human nature isn’t who follows you, but who, when and why they UNFOLLOW you. I recently joined Unfollowers.com, a site that really does give you insight into that aspect of Twitter dynamics missing in the past. For years, as I watched my follower count ebb and flow, I wondered what was going on behind the scenes. Unfollowers.com helps me do that. Here’s what I learned.

• More than half of followers unfollow within a week if not followed back. This usually is the case with those from Category 2 and tells me that for the most part, they are just trying to crank up their follower count and nothing more. It’s all a numbers game for them and as soon as they see you’re not jumping onboard, they unfollow and move on. Similar for those in Category 3 … if you’re not interested in what they have to offer, it’s adios.
• About 10-20% unfollow within a month of following them back. Usually these are from Category 4. This can be attributed to a few things, including just wanting to build their follower count quickly, but mostly want to maintain a favorable following/follower count — they unfollow in hopes I wouldn’t notice. Now I do.
• Approximately 5% or less of Category 5 followers unfollow. When they do, I always wonder:
  • Did I tweet something to offend them?
    • Certainly possible, I am pretty opinionated politically. Whether my comments on national and world affairs is a benefit or detriment for my social media reputation is a discussion for another post.
  • Did I not tweet enough regarding their preferred topic?
    • Certainly possible. I have a myriad of interests & may not focus on their preference during the window they’re following me.
  • Did I not interact with them enough (or at all)?
    • Certainly possible. I have a good number of followers & while I try to interact with many of them, it’s not possible to do so with all of them.
  • Did I not retweet them enough?
    • Certainly possible, for the same reason as noted above. I do like to pimp my followers’ announcements and never expect reciprocation, but there are only so many hours in a day to do that and I can’t do that for everyone.
• Less than 1% of Category 6 followers unfollow. When they do, I have to say, I’m always surprised, but I am only able to offer a weak guess as to why — though I never, ever ask. Everyone has their reasons and don’t deserve to be challenged and besides, it’s probably best NOT to know.
• Those in category 7, the odd ducks. They unfollow eventually … usually. I have to admit, they amuse me no matter what they do.

What Does It All MEAN?

In the end, there are a few conclusions I can offer:

• As a writer, you can’t ignore social media as a tool for building your audience, but more importantly, to connect with real life people, many of whom are walking the same path you are. We are often an introverted lot, so interaction with our fellow humans, even virtually, is better than shutting ourselves in a 10’x10’ room with a typewriter and a bag of Doritos. The folks I’ve met and have gotten to know quite well on Twitter, Facebook and the rest are just like you are and damned fine people to boot.
• Just as in the “real” world, there are so many on social media gaming the system, looking for a way to get ahead by any and all means. You can learn much from their behavior and if you’re smart, you’ll use that intelligence when you’re developing your characters. I know I have.
• If you’re lucky, you may learn much about yourself and how you respond when someone unfollows you. If you’re curious, I almost always reciprocate. :-)

Organizational Me

Those people who know me are quite familiar with my lifelong preoccupation with organization and its scion, time management. That’s not to say in this area I’m practically perfect in every way (to quote a description of Mary Poppins) -- God knows my wife can point to examples of my LACK of organization, to be sure. However, in certain areas of my life, most notably my writing, I’m forever actively pursuing my ideal world and devote much time to the effort.

For many years, I’ve used Microsoft OneNote to keep my writing organized. OneNote allows you to create a notebook-like structure that you can arrange to handle all of your writing needs. For example, since I write many different types of pieces, I break mine down from top down beginning with Movies, Television, Non-Fiction and Fiction. Both Movies and Television are broken down into Comedy, Drama and Action / Adventure. Under Fiction, there are Novels, Novellas and Short Stories. Under Non-Fiction, you’ll find General Essays, Technology and Blogs. Each of these is split further until I finally get to different sections for each work-in-progress, with a separate section for story ideas and snippets, the latter of which is just a container for fragments of prose I compose out of the blue with no other intended purpose other than to get an idea out of my head and maybe use some day.

Unfortunately, OneNote is not a cross-platform product, leaving me bereft when I migrated to the Macintosh. For a while, I continued to run OneNote on a Windows virtual machine, but that grew old pretty quickly. Then I discovered Evernote, a true cross-platform product that allows you to maintain your data in a cloud and makes it accessible to all your IOS, OSX and Windows devices. I found my nirvana! The only challenge was moving all my data from OneNote to Evernote. There was no easy migration path that I could figure out, so I did what anyone would do - I avoided it.

For the last few years, I adapted Evernote into my organizational system, only moving some of my active WIPs from OneNote into it, but leaving 90% of my older unfinished material to gather digital dust. Until recently, that is.

I finally broke down and began the long arduous process of moving all my old data into Evernote. It took several weeks to go through everything I had and then rearrange Evernote to accommodate it all. I tried to maintain the same organizational system in Evernote that I had in OneNote, but I had matured that process significantly in Evernote. Besides, since Evernote doesn’t have multiple layers of hierarchy (unlike OneNote), I had to learn to live within the two-layer system they have and then figure out how to go from conform my old structure to my new one. Trust me, this was a lot more work than it sounds like.

In the end, I’m pleased with the results. All of my legitimate projects (current and future) now reside in their own Evernote folder, with story ideas, snippets, fodder (web articles with potential story material), articles and the like all occupying their own folders. I have documents in a general Writing folder dedicated to Titles (book, story, whatever), Names (people and places, of either real or made-up names), Opening Lines (starting sentences that just come to me) and Loglines (single sentences describing a film idea, like “An amateur scientist discovers the secret to immortality, only to discover that the government will do anything to prevent the invention from getting into the wrong hands.”).

The best part of this exercise is not only did I pick out the next twelve stories in the last of the Foothills collections (tentatively entitled Life Beyond the Foothills), I have another dozen as back-up (for another collection down the road), PLUS I have thirty-six more for a three-book sci-fi series of twelve stories each. Not all of these stories are complete yet -- some are merely titles and general plots, others are halfway through the first draft, etc. However, I’m now ready to start the next book for real!

Stay tuned for more …

Michael

Labor of Love

Slightly longer than four years to the day, I published my second short story collection, Secrets of the Foothills. This book is the second of three books in the Foothills series, the first of which was entitled In The Foothills. [Ed. the capital “T” in “the” was completely intentional. Don’t ask.]. If everything goes according to plan, the final collection will be published in less than two years from now.
What keeps authors driving toward completion, especially when faced with the daunting task of creating from scratch a plausible narrative, rewriting, editing and polishing the draft so that it sparkles, handing it off to beta readers and editors who red-line the hell out of it, rewrite, re-edit and re-polish and so on, only to send it timidly into bookshelves (virtual and real) throughout the world?

Simply put, insanity.

Sure, you were expecting something more poetic with the title “Labor of Love,” but in truth, we authors have to be a little bit out there to do what we do. The same goes for artists in any medium, I guess. Voluntarily baring one’s soul for a public flogging certainly isn’t a sign of someone playing with a full deck, right? And yet we do it, willingly, gladly, even joyfully if we’re doing it right.
What does it take to be a writer? Talent, sure. Guts, absolutely. But if you’re not a little bit eccentric, you may just be like Sisyphus pushing that big ol’ rock up that hill, year after year, typed line after typed line. It’s not going to work for you no matter what you do. If you’re not non compos mantis, you need not apply. Really.

We writers are the odd ones, always looking off in the distance, trying to resolve some conflict our main characters have found themselves in, because God knows we didn’t put them there, right? Or when we finally show a little mercy to our protagonists, we’re busy dreaming of new ways to torture them. We’re sadists AND we’re masochists, it seems. Yeah, we’re normal alright, aren’t we?

Of course, I’m just kidding. Who among us who take the craft of writing seriously could ever see ourselves doing anything else? We’re not crazy -- we just have something to say and want to do it in the only way we know how and damned the consequences. We want to create people or worlds or whole universes simply because we feel this is the best way our message can go out to get through to the right people, if only they would listen.

Writing is truly a labor of love. It’s the best way I’ve found to say something profound and in an entertaining way. There’s power in knowing you can do that. You know what I mean, those of you who love to create.

So, keep your pen sharp and your quill well-inked … and remember, publishing a book isn’t an end, it’s only permission to start a new one.

~ Michael ~

Playing Catch-Up (Ever So Briefly)

I'm not sure if I should be shocked or amused that the last post I made to this blog was back in early June.  To say the year's flown by is not only a cliché, but a regular comment I keep hearing from both my off-line and online friends.  What the hell is going on?  Did someone speed up the timeline?  I feel like it was just last week we were celebrating Christmas and here we are again, with only thirteen shopping days left.

New Book

What have I been doing, writing-wise, since June?  To begin with, I decided to publish another collection of short stories again, this time without poetry.  The working title is Secrets of the Foothills, which is a spin-off from the first book, In the Foothills (and yes, I have the title for the next one to follow this one).  I have several stories completed, but unedited, for the new book, plus I have several stories plotted, but in various stages of completion.  Needless to say, this has kept me very busy the second half of 2011.  The book should be released by August 31st, 2012.

Screenplays & Television

At the same time, I've also been busy working on my screenplays (I have several in various phases of development).  Writing those takes a totally different mental state and is a welcome respite from the short story writing.  I've been getting a lot of interest in my scripts lately, too, so perhaps the industry is opening up a bit.  Can I get a witness?  No?  

One of the most promising new projects I have in the entertainment genre is a TV series (a sitcom) that I think would be a hit, but as always, only with the right producer, director, cast and crew.  I've already outlined a treatment with an entire season of plot lines written up.  "All" I need to do is write up a synopsis for each episode and package the whole thing as a single treatment.  Perhaps more to come on that later.

The Idea Jar

Finally, I made the "mistake" of opening up the idea jar.  I do this sometimes and just collect random titles or phrases I read everywhere (including from Twitter), then writing them down to noodle on.  From there, I just free-write a plot line based on the title alone.  Amazing out of all of those, how many are viable future projects.  To say I have more to write than I will have years to live is no exaggeration!  Believe me, it takes a lot of discipline not to get sidetracked on any of these new ideas.

Seasons Greetings

That's all from our hill, where the wind doth blow and Christmas is nigh.  Wishing you and yours all the best this holiday season (especially you Druids, from whom we get the quaint custom of dragging dead pine trees into our homes).

Peace,

Michael

Solving the Puzzle (a serialized short story): Part 7 of 7

Author's note: I've written quite a bit lately, though I haven't shared any of it publicly. This story was written based on a single word prompt ("Solve") and it's quite different than most of the other stories I've written. I hope you enjoy it!

**********

Five more months went by before I heard anything more about Sherri. I had just arrived home from a new client’s office just when the phone rang.

“Jack,” the voice said. It was her. I turned up the volume, straining to hear more than her voice. Any background noise would help figure out where she was calling from, but instead I only heard a slight crackle of static.

“Sherri, I -- “

“I just wanted you to know I’m alright,” she interrupted. “I’m pretty sure that everyone’s gone crazy looking for me, but I couldn’t do it.”

“What couldn’t you do?” I asked her.

“Oh, all of it. Staying with you, moving in with Sam, the whole thing. I was just sick of living a life that I thought I should have and I assumed you would be the one to make that for me. But you’re too damaged to be any good for anyone.”

I almost objected, but I could see her point. “What about Sam?”

“Oh, Sam is sweet and I know he would treat me well. But he was only going to be my rebound from you and I didn’t think that was fair to him. So I just took off.”

“You know the cops are looking for you. Good old Sam told them I must’ve done something bad to you because you never showed up. Does he know you’re okay?”

She hesitated for a moment. “Yes, I talked to him this morning.”

“Where are you?”

“That doesn’t matter, Jack, it’s over. I’m not coming back to California again, ever.”

I considered her words. Sherri turned her back on a state she said was the garden paradise of the world at one time. She must’ve been really unhappy with her life to leave it all behind like this and I was the only one to blame.

“I’m painting again,” I told her, hoping that would sway her.

“Good, I’m glad. You’re a talented artist, Jack, you need to paint.”

“I’ve gotten my life back on track, too. No more drinking, at least like I used to. No more feeling sorry for myself, either.”

“That’s wonderful. Sounds like my leaving helped you break through your blockage and now you can move on, too.”

I wanted to jump through the phone and shake her. “No, no!” I insisted. “Sure, I needed a wake-up call, but I didn’t need you out of my life and I still don’t. Damnit, Sherri, I miss you! I miss us. I have no interest in meeting another woman and starting over. You’re ‘it’ for me. Can’t we try again?”

I give her credit. She stayed silent long enough to convince me she was really thinking about it, but instead she uttered a quiet, but firm, “No, Jack” and without another word, she hung up.

Right then, I saw the entire picture. Just like that crossword I childishly ruined all those months ago, Sherri only wanted to come up with a solution to our future, but I blocked her at every turn. Instead of continuing to struggle, she chose a puzzle she knew she could solve and left me to figure out my own, whether I wanted to or not. Maybe someday I’ll do just that.

Solving the Puzzle (a serialized short story): Part 6 of 7

Author's note: I've written quite a bit lately, though I haven't shared any of it publicly. This story was written based on a single word prompt ("Solve") and it's quite different than most of the other stories I've written. I hope you enjoy it!

**********

For the next few weeks, I followed every lead I could find to locate Sherri. I had a copy of her electronic address book on my computer from when we combined Christmas card lists, so I spent hours calling her old friends to see if they had any ideas. Like her family, all of them had little to share with me. For a while, I thought I could tell that they were avoiding giving me information in order to protect Sherri, but after the third or fourth call, they realized the situation was serious and I wasn’t just stalking an ex-girlfriend.

I traveled by bus or train through the Bay area and even north to Oregon and Washington, then south all the way to San Diego, but turned up empty. One of her cousins suggested I check Chicago since he recalled back when they were kids that Sherri had been drawn to the Windy City at one time. My dwindling finances prevented air travel, so I held off on that trip for a while as well as any to Florida and New York, two more leads from her friends that came in.

Officer McHenry contacted me often during this time, but I had no news to offer him nor did he have any for me. One day I received an unexpected visit from a San Francisco city detective, a tall, thin-as-a-rail kind of guy with the unlikely name of Jefferson Tremaine. He walked in like he owned the place and started poking around cabinets and drawers without so much as an explanation and certainly no search warrant. For a moment, I wasn’t even sure he was really with the city, but he whipped out his identification when I challenged him, so I let him carry on with his unconventional investigation.

After he left, I called McHenry to complain and asked if I shouldn’t report this to police superiors. Much to my surprise, he almost pleaded with me to not do that. Instead, he swore that I’d never see Tremaine again unless he had a search warrant in hand. True to his word, there were no more visits from the detective until the one-month anniversary of Sherri’s disappearance. This time, Tremaine, search warrant in hand and accompanied by technicians, searched every inch of the place, dusted it for fingerprints and even used luminol to find try to find traces of blood. They spent more than two hours performing all their cop duties, then left as silently as a mime troupe. The detective thanked me at the door, perhaps a more little gruffly than necessary, but I didn’t challenge him about his attitude. I was just glad to be rid of him and his crew.

The next day, Officer McHenry called to find out if Tremaine followed protocol this time and I assured him that he did.

“Look, Mr. Gantry, I’m sorry for all this. You’re still a person of interest in this case, but unless there is any further evidence from yesterday’s visit, I’m pretty certain your status will change. In truth, more missing person cases go unsolved than solved and it’s usually because the person who’s disappeared simply does not wish to be found. Unfortunately, that means the police department and even the FBI waste a lot of manpower tracking these individual down for no reason.”

“No problem, officer, I understand. Believe me, I’m just as anxious to find Sherri as you guys are. I need closure at this point, if not for any other reason than peace of mind. But I’ve run out of ideas and also out of money. I need to get back to work.”

McHenry paused for a moment. “I don’t see why you shouldn’t do that, Mr. Gantry. If we need you, we can arrange something convenient with your schedule.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

After I hung up with him, I sat down in front of my computer. Too many months had passed since I last did anything creative or even looked for new clients and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to do so in time to make a difference to my almost empty bank account. However, Desperation is a strong taskmaster, especially accompanied by his twin sister, Hunger. I had no choice but to beat my way back.

Solving the Puzzle (a serialized short story): Part 5 of 7

Author's note: I've written quite a bit lately, though I haven't shared any of it publicly. This story was written based on a single word prompt ("Solve") and it's quite different than most of the other stories I've written. I hope you enjoy it!

**********

I lay on the couch and slept most of the afternoon. By the time I woke up, it was close to eight o’clock and I found myself hungry for dinner. I looked outside and saw the afternoon clouds gave way to torrential rain, so instead of going out, I called in for pizza delivery, then turned on the TV to pass the time.

An hour later, I heard a knock on the door and got up to answer it, my wallet already in hand.

“Mr. Gantry?” a uniformed policeman said when I opened the door. His partner stood next to him, a grim look on her face.

“Yeah, I’m Jack Gantry. Is there something wrong?”

“Sir, we have a report of a missing person, a Ms. Sherri, um … “ he paused, looking down at his notes. “Sherri Gibbons. Did you know her?”

“Yes, she is, I mean, was my girlfriend.”

The cop peered inside my apartment, but couldn’t see past me. Instead of blocking his view, I swung the door open and welcomed the two of them in with a sweeping motion of my hand. They hesitated.

“Look, sir, by inviting us in, you’re giving us the right to investigate. You don’t have to do that, at least until we provide you a search warrant. Also, you may want to consult a lawyer.”

I smiled and waved them in again. “Please, officers, I have nothing to hide. Come on in and investigate as much as you want.”

The male cop looked over at his partner, then led the way in. I waited until both were inside before closing the door.

“I hope you don’t mind, the place isn’t tidied up at all,” I told them. “Sherri did the housekeeping around here. Please have a seat.”

I led them to the sofa and sat down in my easy chair.

“Fire away, Officer, um … ” I said.

The cops sat down, facing me. “I’m sorry, I’m Officer McHenry and this is my partner, Officer Lauder,” the male cop said.

“Go ahead, Officer McHenry. I’m all ears. By the way, I have a pizza coming, so I may have to get up to answer the door.”

McHenry nodded and took out a pen. “I promise this won’t be long, Mr. Gantry.”

“Call me Jack, if you would. Mr. Gantry is my father’s name.”

“I prefer ‘Mr. Gantry,’ sir,” McHenry said. “Now when was the last time you saw Ms. Gibbons.”

“Last night. She packed her bags and moved out.”

McHenry scribbled notes on his pad. “Did she say where she was going?”

“No, but I overheard her on the phone with some guy named Sam.”

The female office cleared her throat. “Excuse me, why did she leave, sir?”

I looked over at her and blinked a couple of times. She wanted me to show some emotion, but I had most of that drained out of me at the bookstore.

“She was tired of living with me, I guess. I’m a disappointment in her eyes and she had enough.”

Officer Lauder nodded and withdrew to let her partner continue.

“Do you know who ‘Sam’ is, Mr. Gantry?” he continued.

“No, I only met him today. A couple of hours ago, he was camped out in front of my apartment door, waiting for me to come home.”

“Where were you before that?”

I smiled. “Looking for Sherri. Sam called me early this morning looking for her, though he never said who he was. She apparently never arrived at his house as scheduled.”

“I see,” McHenry said, then looked back at his partner and mumbled something I couldn’t hear.

“Mr. Gantry, may I take a look around while my partner continues to question you?” Lauder asked, standing up.

“Sure thing, help yourself,” I told her.

Just then, there was a knock on the door and I got up to answer it.

“It’s the pizza. May I?” I asked McHenry.

“Sure, go ahead.”

I paid off the delivery boy and put the pizza box on the counter, then returned to the living room. Lauder hadn’t returned from her inspection of the apartment, so I took my seat and waited for more questions.

“The pizza smells good,” McHenry said, looking up from his pad again.

I laughed. “I’d offer you a slice, but I’m guessing that’s against regulations.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said, looking somewhat depressed about that. I felt bad for him for a moment, then I remembered that he suspected I did something to Sherri.

“Any more questions?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, looking back at his pad. “How long have you been living with Ms. Gibbons?”

“At least five years,” I said. “We’ve known each other since college, even dated then. But it wasn’t until she moved to San Francisco and looked me up that we really got serious. Shortly thereafter, she moved in.”

“When did things start going sour in your relationship, Mr. Gantry?”

I sighed. Everyone’s a couples counselor these days.

“About a year now, I guess. I’m a freelance artist and I hadn’t been getting many commissions, so I started getting depressed, then started drinking a bit too heavily. The more I drank, the less motivated I was to look for new clients or even paint anything on my own.”

McHenry looked around and took note of the bare walls. “Where’s all your work?”

“Sold or given away,” I said. “Or thrown out.”

“You throw out your work? Why is that, Mr. Gantry?”

I shrugged. “I was disgusted by some of the pieces I painted. It was either throw them out or gouge my eyes out.”

McHenry made sure he wrote that in his notes. Obviously, I was a dangerous character if I’m talking about maiming myself. Could harming another person be the next logical step?

Just then, Officer Lauder returned from her tour of my newly created bachelor pad. I waited for her to make some sort of cop-like pronouncement, but she just shook her head. Her partner nodded and stood up.

“Well, Mr. Gantry, that’s all we need right now. We don’t see any signs of violence right now, but until we find Ms. Gibbons, we won’t be able to rule out bringing in detective to do a thorough investigation of this place,” McHenry said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. “Please contact us if you hear from Ms. Gibbons or learn of her whereabouts?”

I took the card from him. “Sure thing, officer, I’ll contact you right away.”

The two cops walked to the door and I let them out.

“Thank you,” I told them and watched them walk down the hall to the stairwell, then closed the door.

Later that night, I tossed and turned in bed again, occupied with concern for Sherri’s welfare. At one point, it struck me as bittersweet that here I was, caring about her when I couldn’t give a damn about her when we lived under the same roof. If God provided wake-up calls, this was mine. I had to get my life back on track, but I didn’t know if I could until I knew where Sherri was. I just had no idea where to continue looking.

Solving the Puzzle (a serialized short story): Part 4 of 7

Author's note: I've written quite a bit lately, though I haven't shared any of it publicly. This story was written based on a single word prompt ("Solve") and it's quite different than most of the other stories I've written. I hope you enjoy it!

**********

I wandered around the neighborhood for a few more hours, my mood as sullen as the overcast sky above me. Fresh out of ideas, I made my way back to the apartment, still scanning the streets for Sherri’s car.

I climbed the stairs to my landing and saw a man pacing in front of our apartment door, stopping once to try to see through the peephole, the resuming his march down the hallway. No doubt this was Sam, but I wasn’t convinced I was ready for the encounter and for a moment I debated going the other way.

“Are you Jack?” I heard him call out to me. Damn my indecision!

“Yeah,” I said, striding down the hall to my apartment, keys in hand. “Do I even bother asking the obvious at this point?”

He looked confused for a second, then stood straighter, almost defiant, and looked me right in the eye. “I’m Sam.”

“Sure you are,” I said, amused. I opened the door and looked behind me. “Come on in.”

He followed me and stood in the foyer, waiting for further instructions. Good, an obedient one. No wonder Sherri was attracted to him.

“I’ve been waiting for a couple hours for you to get back,” he finally said, fidgeting in place.

“Come in and sit down,” I told him, pointing to the sofa. “Want a beer? I’m getting one for myself.”

“Sure,” he said, planting himself as I suggested. Good boy.

I brought out the two open bottles from the kitchen and handed one to him. Raising it in salute, I tipped it back and took two huge gulps. He only sipped his, an obvious neophyte to imbibing. Another plus in his column, I guessed.

“You’re Sam, right?” I finally asked, sitting opposite him in my easy chair.

“Yeah. I haven’t hear from Sherri since last night.”

“Same here. She left with her bags to go to your place and I passed out in front of the TV.”

Sam considered what I told him and didn’t respond right away, instead seemed intent in trying to peel off the label from the green bottle.

“Don’t worry, I heard her whole conversation with you last night. Anyway, I just got back from looking for her. No one has seen her recently.”

“Where did you go?”

“All around the immediate neighborhood here. I stopped at her usual haunts, but most of them are closed today.”

Sam got up, walked over to the other side of the room and stood in front of me.

“I don’t believe you,” he said, looking down at me. If he was trying to appear threatening, he wasn’t doing the best job. I had to stop myself from laughing, though I couldn’t suppress the smirk on my face.

“I said I don’t believe you!” he shouted this time, a glimmer of emotion finally flashing in his eyes.

“What part don’t you believe, Sam, that I spent the morning trying to find her, because I did.”

He shook his head, his unkempt long hair flopping in his face, sticking to his unshaven chin. “No, asshole, I don’t believe that at all. I don’t believe you don’t know where she is, either. What I do believe is you hurt her or worse.”

I stood up and brought my face close to his. “Prove it, asshole,” I said, walking away from him. “Look around, see if you see any evidence of foul play. Have at it, I won’t stop you.”

For a moment, I thought he was going to comply, as compliance seemed to be something he was good at. Then he tilted his head and looked at me, again defiant and proud.

“Sure, so I can spoil a possible crime scene?” he intoned, standing even straighter than before. Intimidating, he was not. More like comical.

“So you’re calling the cops then?”

He handed me his barely touched beer. “I already have.”

I shrugged and watched him head to the front door.

“Hey, Sam?”

He stopped and looked at me, his hand on the doorknob.

“Look, I didn’t hurt her, okay? I would never lay a hand on Sherri.”

“That’s not what she told me,” he said.

I shrugged again. “Then she lied to you, man. I’ve never hurt another human being in my life, especially a woman, at least physically. And most especially Sherri. Despite everything she told you, I really do love her. I just could never be who she wanted me to be, but she apparently found that in you. And now she’s gone.”

He seemed as surprised to see tears rolling down my cheeks as I was feeling them. I really did love her, but not enough to want to change for her.

“I hope you find her,” I said to him and turned back to the living room. I heard the front door close behind me.

Solving the Puzzle (a serialized short story): Part 3 of 7

Author's note: I've written quite a bit lately, though I haven't shared any of it publicly. This story was written based on a single word prompt ("Solve") and it's quite different than most of the other stories I've written. I hope you enjoy it!

**********

I had no real game plan and my meager meanderings around my neighborhood proved that handily. Most businesses kept their doors closed even during the workweek , so I drifted in and out of dimly lit entryways, hoping to find one of the local merchants available for a short heart-to-heart about my erstwhile roommate. We did all of our shopping in the immediate area, so the storeowners knew us by name, if not by the merchandise we bought from them.

After two hours of random visits to our favorite haunts, I was fast coming to the conclusion that this exercise bordered on the pointless. The more I walked, the more I resented Sherri’s wrong-headed departure, made even worse by the fact that she had apparently not arrived at her prearranged destination.

I stopped on the sidewalk in a fit of pique, determined to dismiss her from my brain much like she disappeared from my life. At that moment, I looked up and found myself standing in front of the All-Seeing Eye Bookstore, a hang-out for mystics and misfits and coincidentally, one of Sherri’s favorite spots when she was feeling a bit put out by something I did or didn’t do, depending on the circumstances. Much to my surprised, I saw the friendly “Open” sign lighted up, so I walked up the short flight of steps to the entrance.

“Hello,” the cashier said, looking up from her magazine. “Looking for anything in particular?”

“Um, no,” I told her, heading to the bookcase farthest from her. I could see her watching me out of the corner of my eye until I stepped out of her line of sight. Two women stood behind me, talking about some book they just found.

“Yes, I saw her on Oprah,” the shorter of the two said, a redhead with a bowl-shaped haircut, her skin the color of strawberry ice cream and just as pock-marked.

“How did she sound?” her friend asked her, clearly anxious to hear how her favorite author came off on national television.

I didn’t stick around to hear the details of their heroine’s tawdry promotion to Oprah’s adoring fans and instead slunk to the back of the shop and around the other side. Another youngish woman stood browsing the titles on the shelf and didn’t notice me in her vicinity until I brushed passed her.

“Oh!” she said, a bit startled. “Sorry, I thought I was alone.”

I was about to apologize when she held up her hand and stared into my eyes. I got the sense she wasn’t all there and hoped this wasn’t going to be one of those weird San Francisco encounters I try to avoid like a root canal.

“What?” I found myself asking in spite of myself.

“You’re here for a reason,” she told me, closing her eyes, her hand still aloft in front of my face.

“Yeah, to buy a book,” I said, sliding past her and heading back to the front of the store.

“Wait!” she insisted, now holding up both hands as though she was trying to will me to stay in one place. “You’re not here to buy a book.”

I laughed, uncomfortable at being caught in a lie. “Then why would I be in a bookstore on a Sunday then?”

For a moment, she didn’t reply and I smiled, secretly pleased with my having so easily stumped.

“You are looking for somebody,” she said, her eyes shut tight enough to highlight the wrinkles on her forehead and alongside her eyes. For a moment, I tried to figure out how old she really was, but then came back to the moment, annoyed that she felt like she had to be in my business.

“Who am I looking for?”

“It’s a woman, I’m sure of it.”

I shook my head. “Look, lady, I’m just here to buy a book, okay? It’s my niece’s birthday and she asked me to get her something different.”

If she knew I was lying, this time bald-faced, she didn’t indicate that. She kept her eyes closed, continuing to concentrate on what I now guessed were my thoughts. Great, another Bay Area psychic, I thought to myself, almost sneering. That was one of many things Sherri and I didn’t agree on at all. Anything remotely connected to the occult drew her in, while it repelled me just as equally.

“You’re looking for a woman,” she repeated. “She’s gone and you’re trying to find her.”

I shook my head again, enough so she could probably hear my brains rattling this time. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, so if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be leaving you now. Have a nice day, you freak.”

Before she could say another word, I stormed up the aisle, determined to get out of that store and away from the weirdos that patronize these kinds of places.

“She left you,” the woman called out to me. “Last night, in fact, right?”

I turned around and saw her gesturing toward me, her eyes now wide opened, a smirk on her face. What the hell was going on? Did she know Sherri and this was her way of screwing with me? Am I going to go back to the apartment and find Sherri back home, her luggage sitting in the foyer, waiting to be unpacked?

“What do you know about me?” I asked her, inching my way back to where the woman stood. “Why are you bothering me?”

The woman shrugged, lowering her hands. I could see from a distance she had tears in her eyes and on her cheeks. I fought the urge to run out of there, but I had to know what she knew, no matter how painful it was.

“So tell me,” I demanded, standing right in front of her.

“She suffered a lot,” the woman continued, grabbing one of my hands and holding it between her own. “She loved you, but you treated her badly. She had no recourse but to leave you.”

I looked down at her hands grasping mine, fighting back my own tears.

“You could’ve saved her.”

“Save her from what?” I said, looking at her with desperation. “Is she okay?”

The woman shrugged and dropped my hand. “She’s in a better place.”

“You mean she’s … ?”

“That’s all I know. Good luck with your life,” she said, and with a wave of her hand, she dismissed me, sharing nothing more.

I realized I could argue, cajole, attempt to bribe and generally browbeat this woman, but she wouldn’t submit to my demand to know what she meant. Whether she had psychic powers or not wasn’t clear, but that’s all I was going to learn today. I mumbled my thanks and hurried out of the shop. No one was more surprised that I was to find myself standing outside the bookstore, crying.