@Thucydides - that is a good plan but you need to make sure I see that OR at least that it develops throughout the story. My first understanding is that there is 'racial' contempt there which is not necessarily a bad thing to have in the beginning as long as you build it out from there and make me, the reader, understand that the contempt isn't an entire cultural thing but only from that one person. What you say is your plan is not what I get from the reading so I suggest you look back at it and either adjust or plan to work it out as it goes along.

@Thucy - upon reading, the feeling I get is similar tyo that of the early 19th century slave owners, well before the Civil War. Slaves weren't viewed with complete contempt, but they were property and their feelings ignored. They didn't have "names". I get the same feeling when the guy at the evac zone refers to your female lead as "Project" as if she and the area she lived in were one. with that in mind, slaves were sometimes just called "slave" to their face and other times called the N word or more politely, negros. But there were still multiple words used to refer to them collectively and individually. You need that here for realism.

@ZaZ - I honestly liked Thucy's original version of the first paragraph better than your rewrite. Sometimes redundancy serves a purpose: to enhance and reenforce the idea. And while we may not know everything she has done so far, we get the feeling this is her last best hope for saving her home as she is exhausted and on the edge.

Sorry, but I like Thucy's version better than yours, ZaZ. Of course, literature, like any art form, is subjective...

Since others have, I'll toss a bit of my novel-in-progress out here. I hope it will inspire me to actually go back to work on it, I've been lazy.

It took me years to realize this, years to perfect it, and once I figured it out a great burden was lifted from my shoulders. There are two key concepts to remember. I don’t say this lightly. These concepts are simple in their elegance and elegant in their simplicity. Once you understand the beauty of the concepts, it’s like a ray of sunlight strikes down from the heavens and illuminates you in that moment. Somehow, everything is a lot better. The world makes sense at last. But enough teasing, I guess it’s time to impart this glorious knowledge on the world at large since I don’t need to keep it quiet anymore. Are you ready? Here goes.

Concept One: Everything begins on Thursday.

Concept Two: Nothing ever ends.

It’s important to fully realize exactly what this means. I’ll repeat it once, then go into the rationale behind these two immutable laws. Everything begins on Thursday, and nothing ever ends.

Why does everything begin on Thursday? Well, that’s because everything’s due on Friday. At Mega Corp, we get our reports on Monday, analyze them, derive information from them, plug it into another report, and move on to next week’s numbers. The entire process takes maybe a couple hours, a day at most. Therefore, the only smart move is to start on Thursday. By the time they come on Monday, the day’s half over. Tuesday is a day best spent discussing Monday Night Football during the football season, and whatever sporting event replaces it the rest of the year. There are some dry times when the best sport on that marquee night is water polo, but I guarantee you that no matter how little any of us cares about water polo, it becomes mandatory water cooler discussion on Tuesday if it was on ESPN the preceding Monday night. Wednesday is hump day, and should be celebrated as the halfway point of the work week. This involves lots of weekend plan making and bragging about weekend plans. On both Tuesday and Wednesday it is mandatory to stare blankly at and sift through your Monday reports just in case the boss is out and about, but doing actual work on them is strictly verboten.

Thursday it is, then, when you realize the reports won’t do themselves, even if a better written program would do exactly that with the reports that come in automatically. This leaves Friday open for possible work if necessary and hard core slacking if not. Even the boss doesn’t mind if you slack on Friday, it’s expected. The boss may think you’re up to something if you’re slacking Tuesday or Wednesday, but he’ll know you’re up to something if he catches you procrastinating on Thursday. After all, even the boss knows, in his heart, that everything begins on Thursday.

Why does nothing ever end? Well, if I knew the answer to that, I’d be a very rich man. I’d write a book much like this one except high powered businessmen would buy it, ask someone else to read it, get the Cliff Notes summary, put it on the bookshelf in their office, and drop the name of it every so often in meetings to look knowledgeable while still having no idea what it meant. We don’t know why nothing ever ends, and I don’t think we were meant to know.

Nonetheless, the fact remains: nothing ever ends. The reports I get on Monday come from someone else’s work the previous Thursday. They filter through me on Thursday and end up with someone else in some other department the following Monday. Actually, they end up with several someone elses in several other departments by Monday. I don’t get ten copies printed up for my health. Anyway, those people then take the reports they get from me and others, plug in those numbers on Thursday, and send them on to more people the following Monday. And so on until infinity. Sometimes I wonder if there’s a moment when the old reports wrap around and become new reports. I’m not really sure, but I’ve seen some numbers that looked rather familiar lately.

Consider yourself lucky that I don’t know why nothing ever ends, by the way. After all, you’ve bought this book and presumably want to read it. I appreciate that. Thank you. The benefit to you, the consumer, from my ignorance is the following: your boss will not add anything you read here to his lexicon of jargon. Never will you be approached with the Six Reasons Nothing Ever Ends. Nor will you have to suffer the Seven Ways to End Things. Well, unless you suffer the ending I suffered. More on that later.

Everything begins on Thursday, and so everything began on one fateful Thursday. I probably deserved it, in hindsight. That particular Thursday was Halloween, but that’s no excuse. I violated the natural law and began my reports on Wednesday that week because I was taking Friday off to recover from a Halloween party that I suspected would require a day of recuperation. It required much more than a day of recuperation, but we’ll get to that in due time. Anyway, there I was. Thursday, and done with work. It felt dirty. I wasn’t sure what to do. I couldn’t discuss Monday Night Football, and weekend plans had already had their day in the sun. I had been sequestered from some of that and did have truly great plans, but no one else could be bothered to hear them now. It was Thursday, after all. Everyone was working their damnedest. Everyone, that is, except yours truly.

Advances in technology have steadily made slacking more discreet, and it was a discreet form of slacking I was participating in. Instant messaging and e-mail have become such a part of the office culture as to be relatively innocuous in moderation, moderation being the key term. It seems much less regulated than the internet as far as the corporate tech police go, largely because extraneous web surfing can be pretty easily identified whereas extraneous instant messaging and e-mailing takes a larger degree of analysis. Both forms of communication have legitimate business purposes, and separating the wheat from the chaff is slightly more difficult than just blocking the obviously titled websites of questionable repute.

I was trading instant messages with my friend Neal, whose party I would be attending that evening, when the boss showed up. This happens from time to time, Mr. Pembroke will stop by and pretend to have his finger on the pulse of his “functional unit”, but he really has no clue what we think, not to mention what we think of him. I should take a minute to describe Pembroke because the full extent of the situation may be lost on those who have never physically seen him. He’s in his late forties, short, stocky, and crowned with the universe’s least convincing hairpiece. I do not say this lightly. I have seen Captain Kirk’s infamous faux hair, and it was a Mercedes compared to the Pinto that was Pembroke’s false top. I frequently wondered whether it was just a bad rug or if it didn’t quite fit correctly with what was left of his hair. I had on occasion caught myself staring at it like you do those 3-D posters at the mall to try to figure out this deep mystery, but it started to make him uncomfortable and self conscious, so I tried to stop myself from doing so.

He was your stereotypical middle manager, with a firm belief that he was important enough that we would respect him (we didn’t) and a similarly misguided belief that upper management liked him, too (they didn’t, as far as we could tell). He was essentially a toady for the uppers, and to those of us below he just seemed like the kid at the school dance who really didn’t know any of the music or any of the people, but that didn’t stop him from trying to dance and socialize in his own awkward way.

I quickly and smoothly closed down my IM window so the big P didn’t catch the conversation about whether any hot chicks would dig my Batman outfit. We had long passed the explicit part, so even if he caught a glimpse of it, there would be little harm. As soon as I got my game face on and prepared to talk, I noticed there was something different in Pembroke’s demeanor. Almost as if someone had actually had the balls to tell him how bad the wig was. There wasn’t the typical awkward bluster, today it was a thinly veiled attempt to be serious while simultaneously worried about something. The worry showed beneath the surface, like a worm gnawing on his soul. It gives me comfort, looking back at it, to envision worms gnawing on his soul. If anyone deserved that, it was Pembroke.

Very gravely, he intoned, “Bill. We have to talk in my office.”

Now that’s all sorts of bad. For years he had called me William, even Will on occasion, but he had never managed my actual preferred nomenclature, Bill. It has long been my belief that William is a name you give a child in order to allow them maximum flexibility with what they wish to be called. Me, I’m a Bill. I know there’s plenty of Wills, Billies, Williams, and probably one sad sack somewhere who prefers “Willy”, but personally I am Bill. The only name nearly as flexible is Robert.

The reason I bring this up is because I love the flexibility I was given and I despise when people get my name wrong, even if they somewhat get it right on a technicality. I had corrected Pembroke on the first occasion of our meeting, been too nervous to point it out for a few months after that, and for the past four years I had been correcting him constantly and increasingly stridently. It had never taken, not until this precise moment. That’s exactly how bad the situation was. I had forsaken the cardinal rule, and some unpleasant comeuppance was bound to occur.

Especially bad was the “in his office” clause. Only twice had I been in Pembroke’s office. The first time was the initial job interview. The second time was the follow-up interview. For some reason, every time that we needed to talk in private ever since from merit review on down to vacation time appraisals had been in a generic meeting room of some sort. The prevailing theory for this was that this was a “neutral zone”, in other words we weren’t being called onto his home territory and would therefore feel less threatened. Apparently this tactic had been in some management technique book the likes of which I have already discussed. It wasn’t a good idea. It seemed sort of like gratuitous use of meeting rooms to me, but I’m sure someone could dress it up to look like some sort of perceived psychological advantage. Anything can be dressed up to that.

I hadn’t been prepared for this at all. I just kind of sat there in my ergonomic chair, staring at him with my mouth slightly open in shock. This lasted for what felt like an eternity but was probably closer to thirty seconds. I then responded with the following words of wisdom: “Yeah. Sure.”

@Draugnar/ZaZ/Thucy - I think ZaZ comment of not knowing what has happened is true yet Draugnar makes a point that we get the feeling that other things have been done. Perhaps a more powerful intro would be a razzled Oumou that just failed in her first attempt as she watches the build burn. It would be more of an attention grabber and set you up well for the 'last resort' run to the People. It wouldn't need to be the actual full attempt, just begin at the end of said attempt.

Here’s a rewrite possibility that includes what I’m talking about. Note that I didn’t describe the actual act of throwing the water on the flames but you definitely get the idea that she did so. You feel her desperation, her horror and finally her hope. Obviously you don’t have to use this; it’s just an idea to show the example.

"The soaked wall hissed and crackled, steam rising to mix with the blackened sky around the burning tenement. The blazing advance was only momentarily held off though as it quickly regained its footing, enveloping the insignificant piece of wall that Oumou had desperately tried to save with her two buckets of water.

The entire building was in flames; embers flew and the structure buckled with a nauseating lurch. It was beyond salvation, thus was the feeling of utter horror which overcame Oumou as she watched the building – her tenement – burn itself to the ground. That was not to mention the rest of the block which would more than likely be included in the destruction. All those people; her friends and their homes destroyed.

She couldn’t give up though, she wouldn’t. There had to be something more, something she hadn’t thought of. Sitting by idly watching her home burned to the ground simply was not an option. Mind racing, searching her soul for any possible last-minute solution, any act of desperation she might come up with to save her home and her friends. The idea hit like a bolt of lightening – the People’s Aid Staging Center! They could help. That’s why they were here after all. With a glimmer of hope, she dashed off down the road in search of her rescuers.”

@SacredDigits - That's a fun read and it definitely leaves me quite curious as to what's going to happen. There's a few points here and there where it goes overboard a little (ie reference to Robert in the name flexibility. I already understood your point without the extra) but all in all, it is a fun read. Just try to clean it up a bit to avoid the feeling of rambling in the middle, particularly in your discussions of 'nothing ever ends'. I definitely look forward to reading more of your story though.

I'm sorry, but having to read Shakespeare over the summer has made me very critical of stupid grammatical errors. It has also made me become hateful of many writing styles including those I see here. I would probably like it if I didn't hate it so much...

Most things in life would be quite pleasant if I didn't hate them either. Then again, I would probably hate many things if I could just get over enjoying them so much as well. Life is full of love and hate but we all live peacefully in the middle.

Ego et amo...

Anyone?

@SD - I enjoyed your excerpt (including the Robert part, but maybe because I'm a Robert :-) ).

@FA - Awesome rewrite. Damn dude (or is it dudette considering you have written and submitted a romance novel), you have to find a regular publisher and get your work out there. It is *way* too good to sit languoring in obscurity.

@Draugnar - I'm definitely a dude! LOL It takes a real man to be able to write romance along with SciFi et al. Thanks for the awesome comments. I'm glad you liked it.

Besides, haven't you ever written one of those steamy scenes that are characteristic of romance novels? Those are FUN to write! LOL

@FA - I think Ursula Le Guin might dispute that. She does great SciFi that includes some romance elements in it.

And no, I've never written one of those scenes. My writing consists of estimates and project plans and technical specifications and training modules and... Oh, and the occasional line of code when I get time. I'm a software engineer.

@Draugnar - I wasn't saying anything against women writers but given the stigma about men writing romance, that's why I say 'it takes a real man to write romance'.

In regards to code, we share that in common. That's actually my specialty as well - computer programmer (game development) which is what I'm working on my masters in and will be switching careers to when I finish my studies. (Currently I do commercial real estate appraisal)

Unfortunately, the steamy scene that occurs later in this story gets blocked...so...yeah, I...won't say I've never written one, but I'm uncomfortable with them in general. The rambling tone I see as part of the character, since I intended to stream of consciousness it, but you're right, it could be cleaned up.

Sadly, the next part of the story is the part that's still in need of the most work, but I could post a later excerpt. And yes, I know the point of criticism is to assist in that work, but I'm not ready for it with that part yet. I actually have written in "Fix this later" about a page after this ends. And then I continue.

Quite honestly, I've never read anything good by a woman writer.

@SD I look forward to reading it. If you don't want any suggestions, then just post *Not ready for input yet* above it and I won't comment in that manner.

@KA I take it you're not a fan of Harry Potter than?

It seems like a good idea for a book, but is poorly written, poorly organized, and does not merit the success it has recieved.

The "dot dot dot" fills the place of a scene that I'm not ready to expose the world to, but I think the stuff before and after it gives you enough context.

Pembroke led. I’m glad he led, because I wasn’t even sure where exactly his office was anymore. Now that would have been embarrassing, not that the situation wasn’t already embarrassing enough. I placidly followed him through the maze of cubicles and intertwining hallways until, at last, we were at the office in question. It wasn’t very big, and it didn’t have a window, but it was still a lot better than my workspace. There was a relatively unimpressive desk, a needlessly ornate and comfortable looking chair sitting behind it. Two vastly inferior chairs faced it, one of which was occupied. Now the “neutral ground” theory made more sense: the chair arrangement was specifically designed to intimidate, and despite being laughable, still fulfilled that goal to a degree.

On one wall was a calendar that hadn’t been changed since August, on another was what I’m sure was intended to be a very inspirational picture about determination because it had the word “determination” written on it, but all it really conveyed to me was a guy in extremely excruciating pain. The desk contained a clock, a phone, and the obligatory family pictures. I made it a point to never actually see family pictures as I couldn’t quite understand their rationale for making it into the workplace except as conversation starters, and any conversation about family merely underscored to me exactly how pathetic and alone I was. Thus, I tried to avoid getting into this situation as much as I could.

Of course, I guess the office décor isn’t really that important in the grand scheme of things. But it was what was most important to me at the time. In fact, I more or less glossed over the individual already in the room, and now that I realized that I couldn’t believe I had done so. Sitting in one of the two chairs when I came in, and getting up to greet me was one of the most attractive women I had seen. She was a medium height blonde, probably about five foot seven, dressed in a sharp skirt, blouse, and jacket combination. She wore unobtrusive earrings, but no other noticeable jewelry, including a decided lack of rings. Her hair was cut short, but it was wavy and thus, in my eyes, incredibly sexy. The only thing that stopped me from going gaga immediately was the personnel badge with loudly proclaimed “Human Resources”. That and the very serious expression she wore. This was definitely going to be a train wreck.

The exact details of this meeting are relatively unimportant. Immediately upon seeing the concerned faces and the family pictures and the intimidating seating arrangement, I knew what was going to happen. I had violated the first cardinal law. Nothing had begun on Thursday this week, in fact I wasn’t even working on Thursday. This is somewhat acceptable when a legitimate holiday falls late in the week…Thanksgiving, for instance. On Thanksgiving week, it’s perfectly acceptable for things to begin on Tuesday, as Wednesday is the Friday of that week, as it were. So what was to come for spurning this ritual was expected, I had earned Thursday’s wrath. As I said, the exact details are therefore unimportant, but most of what I write is unimportant, so I will preserve them under the theory that they are no less or more important than anything else I write here.

…

So it was, armed with a cardboard box, that I set off back to the cube that was once my home away from home. As I passed by, I noticed that several other cubes had been vacated. I noticed this because the plethora of family pictures, microwave popcorns, odd themed collectibles, positive reinforcement sayings, desk calendars, wall calendars, and so on and so forth that I routinely ignored…all of that was gone. I tried to envision some of these people carrying their cardboard boxes, full to bursting with general bric a brac, and chuckled slightly inwardly at the awkwardness. For instance, the one lady who had a space heater (CLEARLY against company policy, but she’d had it as long as I could remember) as well as a fan and an assortment of lighthouse themed figurines and magnets. There was probably one hundred pounds of atmosphere in that cubicle, and yet, theoretically, she had been forced to lug it all herself. It’s possible that the security detachment would have assisted her, I thought as I gazed at my retinue composed of Heather from HR and a random security guy, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Now, my desk stood in sharp contrast to the usual. The absolute only thing on it that counted as a personal effect was my coffee mug, and even that had originated in this building as a showing up prize for a team building exercise. I considered this for a moment. What did one’s desk have to say about them, and was that any indication of whether someone should be downsized or not? I like to think that my sole Mega Corp “You are valued” coffee mug showed that I didn’t let the world outside of my office intrude into my sacred workspace. Yes, the only thing I brought here from outside were ideas and excellent dialogue about Monday Night Football. This is in stark opposition to the people who all but moved in.

I knew a guy in sales who kept an extra shirt and pair of pants in his office just in case he spilled something at lunch. And I can understand that, but a desk full of lighthouses or unicorns or bears or whatever seems to be a waste of valuable space and concentration. Sure, it also shows a certain investment into the company in a way, a willingness to share yourself with your coworkers, but it’s also massive distraction waiting to happen, and a waste of valuable cubicle space.

Heather clearing her throat broke me from my deep thought processes on the ultimate meaning of cubicle clutter. Yes, why postpone the inevitable. I picked up the coffee mug, placed it in the cardboard box, and turned to leave. There’s an odd indignity to being escorted out, and it occurred to me to question, all the way to the front door, what exactly the purpose of it was. There was a guard at the front door, so if I tried to grab a box of printer paper or some other treasure trove of highly valuable office supplies, I’d be stopped anyway. And it’s not like the office equipment…sorry, technological assets were easily damaged enough that I could walk over and casually destroy them. I mean, sure, sometimes even a one page print job damaged them nigh irreparably, but there was no way to intentionally call down the thunder.

I suppose I could warn everyone I knew, but that seemed rather ridiculous. First of all, getting escorted to the door by security and HR should be a pretty big fucking tip off. Secondly, it’s not like I didn’t have some form of contact information for everyone I cared about in the office (namely no one, but that’s academic) anyway. Hell, I had plenty of contact information for people I DIDN’T care about, I could raise them all on the cell phone within seconds of leaving. I had that information primarily to assist me in passing the buck on incoming phone calls. “Oh, who you REALLY want to talk to is (insert name of person currently irritating me). His/her number is x.”

So, I really didn’t see the point of this demonstration other than to demoralize me, and let’s face it. Here I was, losing the only real job I ever had, and all I had to show for it was a cardboard box with a coffee cup in it. There’s not really anything more demoralizing than that by itself, really. And when they asked for my badge, I wasn’t sure whether to be thankful or further demoralized. It had what was quite possibly the worst picture of me in existence on it, and that’s saying something. This even beats out most of my driver’s license and yearbook photos. So while thankful to have it gone, I also inwardly thought that it may be the source of some amusement to HR or whoever collected those somewhere down the line. Of course, that’s probably paranoia, but maybe if I had been a little more paranoid to start with, I’d be in a better position now. Oh, the healing power of mental illness.

Oh yeah, my writing has an assload of twists. If any of you want to know the plot, I'd be glad to share some of it with you. And not bad, SD....not really good either.

Thanks for that valuable and verbose insight, King Atom.

@SD You have set up a good conflict within the protagonist, the chance to go on to bigger and better things while also fighting with innate feelings of self worthlessness. However, the rambling and repetition of the earlier comments continues here throughout. It wouldn't take much to clean it up but it is evident nonetheless. From here I suppose he's going to have a period of down time in which he mulls about aimlessly until something occurs that changes his life and destiny forever, yes?

He better get to screw the hot HR chick now that she can't claim sexual harrasment. Hell, I'd have him grab her ass on the way out the door. What's she gonna do? Fire him? hehehe

@KA Many times the things that receive the greatest success are not necessarily the best written but instead the best received by the public. HP was intended for a younger audience originally and written as such thus as compared to an adult's novel, it is in a way, poorly written but yet perfect for the pre-teen age for which it was intended.

@Draugnar - I was thinking the same thing! Even contemplating how I would write out the scene in my head.

@FirstApple - You'll learn soon enough to just ignore KA or mute him altogether.

@Draugnar - I have already learned his issues but unfortunately I can't bring myself to stay quiet. 1 out of every 100 posts, he does say something that isn't absolutely horrid so I still believe there is a rationale human being somewhere deep within.

...he does get to screw her...

I have successfully telegraphed, my life is complete!

Anyway, I'm now very interested. I see the rambling and repetition as part of the character voice, he's an overthinker and gets focused on minutiae. At the same time, I understand how much wasted words can be a turn-off, for instance, Robert Jordan style page long descriptions of a shirt. I'd be very interested in Draugnar (or anyone else) commenting on the overall rambling tone, because it is at this point definitely fixable.