So I'm almost 200 pages into my re-write and I've re-written the entire book from scratch, using the first draft only as a guide getting rid of the useless description and expostion. It's looking that first draft of 296 will finish up now between 240-250. Not going to post entire chapters but just a few paragraphs if you guys feel like offering some imput, it would be much appreciated.
1:
Junkies live as if crossing a tightrope where every step is a struggle towards survival and throttling winds make every step that much harder; a junkie must maintain balance between need and responsibility if they mean to reach the other end. It's easy to assume a junkie lives a dawdling and erratic life but the truth is rather the opposite, for junkies lead distilled and austere lives free from the trappings of society and they are passionately dedicated to their common goal: to fix. Junkies do not abide by tradition time and can live a dozen days within a single calender day because each score unleases a new dawn of chance. The success of a junkie is wholly determined by how deftly they prepare, an inept junkie is prone to fall victim to the easiness of crime, while an apt junkie can function in society donning their addiction as a mask worn only in privacy. But no matter the junkie and no matter their circumstance, each of them share the exultation each conquest brings. Today, Andy took his first step on this tightrope. Initially his progress was fine, great even, but in the middle of the rope, where the slack is greatest, he panicked and is still panicking. Andy never truly had to make a conquest and before today a fix was no harder to obtain than a bag of milk. But everything changed today. He changed today. There can be no more deliberate steps. No more plotting or biding time or placations or distractions or anything of the sort. It is just Andy and his tightrope and his need to cross it as fast as possible.
2:
He turned the key but the engine didn't start because the battery was dead, the cruisers were idling for hours with the lights going. "Figures," he sighed and lit a cigarette. Though one of the other cruisers could start he doubted it. Lloyd needed a moment to process everything. Was this really reality? - he thought. Lloyd had no love loss for the police in Ashton but a lawless city is a terrifying reality. Would any consequences fall amongst the murders and rapists of today? If this is really the world then only God has the power to reprimand anyone who commits attrocities and to Lloyd that just isn't enough. A teenage boy ran along the front of the cruiser and a bloodied woman pursued him. Today is a day where sins will be commited - he thought - but if sin is necessary for survival, are they really sins? Despite his faith Lloyd hasn't seen eye to eye with God for years, feeling like a lowlier Job in the eyes of the almight; but now, in his time of need, he put his hands together on the steering wheel and prayed. "I ask of you God to hold me accountable for every sin until this day. I deserved to be punished for those sins. But if I have to kill to not be killed or to kill to protect those I care about, I ask that you won't hold it against me. Look, I'm sure you know I don't give a shit if I you send my ass to hell, I really don't, but if the paper work says 'prick' instead of 'murdering prick', Satan might go a little easier on me. I have to believe there is a reason I am still here and you need something from me, but I'm afraid I'll only disappoint you. Will you punish me if I fail? Will you punish me if I give my life trying? And if I do fail leave my kids out of it. I don't want none of that sins of the father bullshit, okay? Amen."
3:
It seemed no matter the direction people were everywhere. Ahead one of them stopped, stood and siffened, his limbs convulsed and his features twitched as a thick stream of saliva poured from swollen and shorn lips. Not far away a young man jounced against the pavement with enough forced to smudge his characteristics. A woman gouged at her own face with purple prosthetic nails but she's not screaming, she's groaning in prurient pleasure. An old man fell before Andy, his muscles were pulled so tight that his elastic skin had nothing to cling to and Andy heard the rapid pops as the old man's joints began dislocating. I'm not going to end up like them, I'm not, I'm going to, I won't - he repeated to himself.
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