Jason

I'm Jason. I am a film major. Film is my first love, but really I value any opportunity to tell a creative story, which is why I am a writing minor. I am interested in young adult novels because there tends to be more room for imagination, and because I prefer to tackle coming-of-age issues as they tend to be more meaningful to me.ch

Here is my second workshop. I'm workshopping chapter 2, but I have included my revised chapter 1. I AM NOT asking you guys to read all 20 pages of this; I only included chapter 1 because there are a few bits of chapter 2 that refer to changes in chapter 1, so if you wanted to skim it, it might explain some stuff you don't understand. Otherwise, don't worry about it, just read chapter 2.

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Here's the first chapter of what might be a YA novel. Hope everyone can open it; I was having a few problems with the file.



In case you can't download this file, here's the piece:

Chapter 1

I saw my first chopping when I was 14. I’m not going to lie – it made me a little sick. I think that had more to do with the guilt, though. I mean, the thought of your parents finding out you’ve been hanging out with choppers – that can be kind of sickening, you know? It’s not like I wanted them to do it, though, or like I even chose to be around them in the first place. Colby and I had been hanging out at the skate park for months, and in all that time, none of those guys, other than Jake Hanson, had ever hung out there. Then, one Friday afternoon, there they were: a few sophomore girls who’d come to watch Jake pump on the half-pipe, then some of Jake’s junior friends who’d come to pawn over the girls, and eventually TJ, a third-year senior with a bottle of whiskey and some red pills. By the time the sun was going down, the whole lot of them was drunk, spaced-out, and treating the place like it had been their hangout all along. “Who are those guys?” I whispered to Colby, barely audible under the techno/punk pounding in unison from their phones. We had been keeping to the other side of the park; Colby had been grinding on the rails until the safety control locked down the trucks on his board, flashing “NO GRINDING” on its OLED display. Now we were sitting on one of the rails, Colby thoroughly pissed as he thumbed through his phone, searching for a hack to download. “I don’t know,” he said without looking up. “Jake’s friends, I guess. Why?” “They’re loud,” I said. “What do you mean?” “I mean I don’t want the police to come out here.” “Who’s going to call the police?” “I don’t know. The people that live around here?” The only neighborhood in those parts was an old trailer park, and it was no stranger to noise. The rest of the park was surrounded by a tree preservation. Beyond that was the football field, lights blazing through the trees and holograms of crap from the concession stand projected onto the sky. The roar of the crowd and the blaring of the band were far louder than any noise us kids could make. Still I had this picture in my head of officers surrounding the park, hitting us with tranquilizers, and hauling us off to jail for being in the company of, well, whatever it was that was giving me that uncomfortable feeling. The police force would be sued for that kind of treatment, of course, but that wouldn’t keep my parents from grounding me. My parents had this thing about police; they said people used to accept punishments for small crimes, and they were pretty insistent that our family kept that tradition, even if no one else did. “Logan, chill,” Colby said. “Nobody’s doing anything illegal.” As he said this, he held the phone to the board and scanned the safety lock. The lock buzzed, then released. “Ha!” Colby let out, then he stood up, hopped on, and pushed off. I watched him roll around and attempt a few ollies, biting his lower lip with his buckteeth and whipping his sweat-drenched hair out of eyes with every fail. I didn’t join him because my legs ached and because I didn’t like trying to skate in front of other people, especially people who could skate like Jake Hanson. Colby tried another ollie and the trucks locked up again. He cussed, then picked up the board and snapped it in two over his leg. Typical Colby reaction. “Whoa!” called out a voice from the half pipe. The music dropped a few decibels. We turned to find the group staring at us, big grins plastered on their plastered faces. I think it was the first they’d even realized we were there. Something inside me didn’t want to interact with them. They felt dangerous, like they were plotting something. Why else would they address us? I looked to Colby, hoping his reaction would speak for mine as well, but then Jake said, “Nice break, little dude,” and Colby got this smile on his face. He held the two halves of the board in the air to show off his work. “To hell with President Louis and her safety regs!” he said. “I hear that,” Jake called back. “What are you guys’ names?” “Colby!” came a proud reply, then all eyes went to me. The answer caught in my throat, then dribbled out like a wad of spit: “Logan.” “What?” “Logan!” I tried shouting. “Lohan?” I was about to shout it again when Colby said, “His name is Logan!” They heard that one, snickering a bit for some reason. I just stood silent, waiting for them to get around to whatever it was they wanted. Then it came: “Well, Colby and Logan,” Jake continued. “Do you guys want to see something really sick?” They were all grinning even wider now. “Yeah,” Colby said, and the pack turned to TJ. TJ gave a nod, then walked out to the parking lot, to his old electric clunker, and pulled from it an old-school machete and a first aid kit.

“Have you ever seen a chopping before?” one of them asked as we headed into the preserve, out of sight. It was dark now and everybody had their phones out to light the way - except me; mine had went obsolete the day before and now simply flashed a hologram of the new model with a scrolling text telling me it was time to upgrade. I kept it in the pocket of my hoodie as I tripped along the gravel path. “I’ve seen them on //Sickos//,” Colby said. He was ahead of me, walking quickly to keep up with some junior and the junior’s girlfriend. “We’re not talking about no web show,” Jake turned to say. “Well I haven’t seen one in real life,” Colby said. “You’re about to. Hope you’re not squeamish.” Some of the guys snickered – the snickering never stopped with this bunch, it seemed. One of the girls put her hand on my shoulder and leaned in close to my ear, but she didn’t whisper. “You guys don’t have to watch this if you don’t want to,” she said. I think she was trying to sound motherly, but it came off more like mocking. “I don’t get squeamish,” Colby said. “Me neither,” I said. Looking back now, I don’t know why I went out there with them, why I didn’t just say no thanks and keep doing my own thing. I guess it was that look on Colby’s face – if I didn’t go and he did… And besides, there was a part of me that did want to see it. Yeah, the whole thing felt wrong, but I wasn’t afraid of the seeing the chopping itself. I kind of wanted to. I think. I mean, everybody kind of wants to see that kind of stuff sometimes, you know. We came to a clearing where several old gasoline cars were wasting away in piles of rust. A few hundred yards away, a canon blast signaled a touchdown, and the band started in with the fight song. The guys began passing the machete around. One of them took it and held it out to me. I looked up at him to see if he was serious. “Take it,” he said. “See that it’s real.” I took hold of the machete and examined the blade. It was real, all right, not that they really had to prove that to me. I was quick to hand it back, nodding my head to indicate I was a believer. He passed the machete to Colby next, and as Colby looked it over with glee, I glanced over to TJ as he pulled off his shirt and began rotating his shoulders and shaking his roided-up arms. I guess he was loosening up, getting in the zone. “You about ready, TJ?” Jake asked. TJ simply held out a finger, took a long drag on the joint he’d been smoking, then looked to one of the girls and nodded. The girl opened the first aid kit and fumbled around inside until she found a bottle of pain pills. She handed the bottle to TJ, who popped off the cap, removed the joint, and downed three or four pills, washing them down with the bottle of whiskey before returning the joint to his mouth. A moment of silence crept in as everyone waited, watching TJ. When the pills took effect, it was easy to see – his eyes went still, as though his face was reset to some kind of neutral setting. Then he gave a robotic nod. One of the guys passed him the machete as one of the girls began to tie a tourniquet around his right arm, just above his elbow. When she had tightened it, TJ held out his arm. He raised the machete over his head then lowered it slowly, finding the chop spot (just below the elbow). He did this a couple times; my own arm began to tingle at the idea. Then he came down for real. When I felt a speck of blood hit my left cheek, and when the group broke out into a unison “Whoa!” – that’s when I began to feel sick. The blade didn’t quite make it all the way through; the arm dangled a moment from a bit of flesh. A little sawing did the trick, and the arm fell to the ground. It took everything I had not to throw up. “Dude’s gonna be sick,” said one of Jake’s friends. Everyone turned and looked at me. One of the girls reached for me, saying, ”You okay, sweetie?” I nodded. “There’s no shame is puking,” Jake said, but I could tell from the tone of his voice that he was suppressing a laugh. This is exactly how he’d hoped one of us would react. So I took a deep breath, stood up straight, and looked to Colby. “I’m fine,” I said, refusing to acknowledge the smirk on Colby’s face. I looked to TJ, who was now pacing back and forth a few yards away, blood squirting from the stump as he continued to suck on that joint. “TJ, you’re losing too much blood!” one of the girls said, but TJ only waved her off with his remaining arm. The girl groaned and picked up the severed arm. “Okay, okay – time to reattach. Come here.” TJ paced a few more steps, then walked over to the girl, his face still as stone cold as before. The girl produced a bottle of cleanser from the first aid kit and poured it on the stump and the arm, then pulled out the reattachment wrap. It was one of those cheap leather wraps, with the Velcro. Pressing the severed arm back in place, she closed the wrap, made sure it was tight, the punched something into the OLED screen. The flimsy screen lit up, we heard the zap of the lasers, then the screen began to glow green. The process was over in a few seconds. When the girl took off the wrap, the arm was whole again. “Does it feel okay?” the girl asked. TJ nodded, rubbing his arm and wiggling his fingers. When one of the guys high-fived him, he winced, but that was all.

I spent the next hour or so watching Colby talk to the guys about what it feels like to chop off a limb, which they claimed didn’t feel like anything if you took enough pills. I was waiting for him to say he was ready to go home. When the roar of the game ended, he finally said he had to, and said goodbye to his new friends. “That was awesome,” he said as we coasted out of the parking lot and down the sidewalk back to town. “I guess,” I said. “Can’t be good, though.” “What do you mean?” “Cutting off your arm like that. It can’t be good for it.” “They laser it back on, though. You can’t even tell.” “Still…” But we weren’t on the same page. “Would you do it?” he asked after a moment. “No,” I said. “I would,” he said, then turned on his phone to some techno/punk and blasted it as we coasted home.