A sort of rhythm quickly took hold of Duke's life, in his previous life he had worked as a tv online producer, not a good one of ocurse but well that was in the past.
He planned on doing everything he could to make it this time.
A metronome beat between day and night.
His days belonged to the typewriter. The morning sun would slant through his single window, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air like tiny stars as the *clack-clack-clack* of the Royal filled the small room. He wrote in bursts, fueled by strong coffee and the frantic energy of a man trying to outrun failure.
In his past life he used to play a lot of League of Legends, everytime he needed some motivation he remembered one of Pantheon(a League Champion) lines. "After every defeat, I ran around the mountain until even shame could not keep up"
Speaking of that, Duke quickly realized entertaiment in this era was... scarce to say the least.
Videogames were not a thing, phones also kind of dont exist at least by modern standars. Even color TV was still not widespread.
Of course, nights belonged to the warehouse. The job was as mindless as he'd hoped: a vast, cavernous space on the industrial edge of Echo Park, filled with silent, shrouded machinery and towers of cardboard boxes whose contents he never learned.
Every hour, on the clock, he'd make his rounds, a heavy flashlight in one hand, a key to punch the clock at various stations. The silence was profound, broken only by the scuttling of unseen things and the distant, lonely wail of train whistles.
It was in this oppressive quiet that a memory of a film, 'The Last Shift', surfaced from his mind. He remembered the plot somewhat: a newbie policewoman working the final shift at a closing police station, gets drawn onto a cult thing.
Each time his footsteps echoed through the empty warehouse, he half-expected to see a pale, robed figure standing at the end of an aisle, motionless in the gloom. The flickering of a faulty fluorescent light became a warning, not a nuisance. The job gave him solitude to think, but the thoughts it bred were not always pleasant.
He just hoped his sandwich never had hair on it. (I recomend The Last Shift)
During the day, he fought back with words. He finished the short story a brutal, stripped-down version of Cujo. He mailed it to *Weird Tales* and two other pulps.
The first two rejections came back with impersonal, mimeographed slips. "Not for us. Thanks." The third, however, was a scrawled note on the bottom of a rejection letter from the editor of Startling Mystery Stories: "Too grim for our readers, but the writing has power. Try us with something else." It wasn't an acceptance, but it was at least some connection. Someone out there had felt the punch of his words.
He needed a win soon.
He sat at his typewriter, the memory of his other life or well I dont know, his life?
Drawing from his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam. He recalled a scene from Starship Troopers, not the grand battles, but the gritty, chaotic terror of a fight againgst hordes of bugs.
He poured that feeling, the claustrophobia, the alien screeches, the smell of fear and cordite, into a story he called "Tunnel of Planet Vega" It was pure, pulpy sci-fi, but it bled with authenticity.
He got inspired from Planet P battle in Starship Troppers
Then he wrote another, "Christine." he wrote a vicious, short tale about a jealous 1958 Plymouth Fury that systematically eliminated the rivals of its new owner. It was a car slasher story.
He mailed them both off, the war story to Analog, the killer car tale to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
The wait was a dull ache, another form of static in his life. He continued his rounds at the warehouse, the ghost of The Last Shift his only companion. Then, one Tuesday in mid-May, he found a thin envelope in his mailbox. It was from Analog. His heart, a traitor to his practiced negativism, hammered against his ribs. He tore it open.
Inside was a letter, not a mimeographed slip. And tucked behind it was a check for forty-five dollars.
The letter was from the editor. It praised the "visceral realism" of "Tunnel of Planet Vega" and stated they would be pleased to publish it in an upcoming issue.
Duke read the letter three times, standing right there in the dim hallway. The check, a flimsy piece of paper, felt heavier than his entire Army pay. It was a pittance, but it was the first money he had ever earned as a writer. It wasn't a memory; it was a fact.
The validation was a physical warmth in his chest, burning away the chill of the warehouse and the sting of the rejections.
He walked to the corner store, bought a six-pack of cold Schlitz, and drank one sitting on the steps of his apartment building, watching the sun set over Echo Park. For the first time, his shoulders didnt feel as heavy.
He drank the beer while enjoying the so needed win.
That night, buzzing with a quiet, steady confidence, he made the decision. He knew Jaws was his golden ticket.
It was the one that could break him out of the pulps and well into the mainstream. But it was a novel, a huge, structural undertaking.
He pulled out a fresh ream of paper, the crisp stack a blank canvas waiting to be painted over. He wouldn't try to write the perfect novel on the first try.
He would do what any good producer would: get a plan, any plan, then adapt the plan. He would write a "zero draft"—a raw, messy, complete version of the story, getting the spine of the plot and the heart of the characters down on paper.
Then, once the whole beast is laid out before him, he would rewrite it with more polish and care.
He loaded the first sheet into the Royal. The apartment was silent, the city outside a distant hum. He cracked his knuckles, the sound loud in the morning stillness. The epic was beginning. He typed the title, the word that would change everything, stark and black against the white page:
JAWS
He took a breath, and began.
"The island town of Amity stirred from its long winter slumber, stretching itself awake in the soft May sunshine. Shopkeepers along the main street were hosing down salt-bleached boardwalks, their windows filled with bright displays of beach towels and inflatable rafts. The scent of fresh paint on a newly whitewashed hotel mingled with the salty air, and the familiar, comforting sound of hammers echoed as docks and boat rentals were repaired for the coming of tourist.
It was a time of preparation and unspoken hope, the whole community holding its breath for the Memorial Day weekend, when the quiet island would once again swell with the laughter and money of the unsuspecting summer people."
........
AUTHOR:
Will probably post a second chapter later on today
Is the story going too slow or is the pace ok