It's November, and that meant I wrote another amateur novel.

Last year's winning effort, which I liked better, is here.

This time, it's about a speed freak who lives in a crummy motel, and the things that happen to him as he attempts to move into another room in the apartment. The “other room” is no great shakes, but it's the only one on the second floor, so Earl wants it. Along the way he runs into a Scientologist, a fraternity brother and his girlfriend. Some stuff happens, but not nearly enough to justify the obscene length of this monstrosity.

Since this novel deals with some mature subject matter, if you know about the theory of entropy, self-fulfilling prophecies, and social Darwinism, you should be okay. No, you don't need to know them to enjoy the work, but I guess that's a good test and I think is much better than using age. If all you want is sex, jump to the embarrassing Chapter Twenty, drug use and foul language start in Chapter One.

You can download the individual chapters, or the whole thing as one big file. I've saved it in Rich Text Format, so you shouldn't have any trouble loading it into any word processing program, but I'd recommend Rough Draft for the Windows users (www.rsalsbury.co.uk) or Open Office for everyone else (www.openoffice.org). I'm purposely not looking at it yet, so there will be misspellings aplenty. Also, it was written as a text document, so there will be *s around words that will be bold or something, or they may be written all in caps. If I feel like editing it, I'll replace those ascii conventions with fancier font stuff.

The entire novel can be downloaded here, as one big file (464kb). (ftp.half-dozen.net, anonymous logon)

Chapter One introduces Earl and the Single Spire Motel.

Chapter Two introduces Scott, who lives in the Tower and ends up not being a main character.

Chapter Three supposedly sets the stage for some later action.

Chapter Four contains lots of swearing.

In Chapter Five we get some police investigative work.

Chapter Six tells us a bit about Perris, whose name I really like.

Now, in Chapter Seven we get to the fight.

I think Chapter Eight is very touching.

Now Vicky gets a shot in Chapter Nine.

Earl goes to work in Chapter Ten.

In Chapter 11 Perris gets troubles and Earl does his laundry.

Earl learns a little Scientology in Chapter Twelve, and more about Vicky.

A surprise visitor enlivens Chapter Thirteen.

Earl hosts a party in Chapter Fourteen.

In Chapter Fifteen the party continues.

A little road trip justifies Chapter Sixteen.

Party's over in Chapter Seventeen.

In Chapter Eighteen, Earl returns to work and Vicky moves.

Chapter Nineteen sets the stage for Chapter Twenty, as well it should.

Chapter Twenty contains graphic sexual content, sort of.

Chapter Twenty- One doesn't, but does have people hiding.

Vicky engages Plan B in Chapter Twenty-Two.

Earl has a conversation in the parking lot in Chapter Twenty-Three.

More bad news in Chapter Twenty-Four.

Chapter Twenty-Five wraps up all the loose ends, except the ones I forgot about.

If I was good at this stuff, this page would look better. If you want to write me, e-mail to russk@half-dozen.net