My first short story based on a fortune cookie fortune is ready, if you’d like to read it.

DOWNLOAD – Just Another 135 Years at the Office – PDF

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The Fortune Cookie Story Project – I write a 2- or 3-page short story based on fortune cookies. This is the first story of the project. The fortune for this story was “The best profit of future is the past”.

Just Another 135 Years at the Office
by Chris Maddera

John Bradley sat at the table in Briefing Room #7. He checked his watch. The project leader should have been there by now.

There was a buzz, and a green light on the door’s palm reader glowed. When a man in a gray Armani suit entered, John did not get up to shake his hand.

“You’re late,” John said.

“Yes, sorry about that,” said the man in the suit. “But, really, no such thing as “being late” in this business, is there? Better late than never, I suppose.” He sat in the chair across from John, then removed two bright blue folders from his briefcase before setting it on the floor.

The folders were identical. On the front of each folder were the words AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY – DESTROY AFTER USE. He slid one folder across the table to John, and placed the other one in front of himself.

“So, what do you have for me today?” John asked, more to himself than to the man in the suit.

“Something really easy,” the man said. “And really exciting.” He watched as John opened the folder, scanned the contents of the 3-page summary, and chuckled.

“Nice,” he said, scanning over the pages again. “Are you guys serious with this?”

“Absolutely. It might not seem as important as some of your other outings, but I assure you, it is. This is worth hundreds of millions — if not billions — of dollars to us.”

“So, this,” John said, holding the folder up. “is just as important as stopping John Wilkes Booth from assassinating Abraham Lincoln?”

“Yes.” The man in the suit thought for a moment, then began flipping through the pages of the folder. “Here, let’s go through some of this material.”

Seconds later, he held up a copy of what seemed to be a very old and tattered document. “This is the patent for powdered processed cheese. J. L. Kraft was awarded this in 1916. He couldn’t do much with it though. Still, he managed to sell a few million pounds of it to the government. At a huge discount, I might add. It was not a big hit.

“But then, just a couple of years before World War II, he packaged the powdered cheese with…macaroni.”

“Pure genius,” John said, dryly.

The man in the suit continued, unfazed by John’s apparent lack of interest.

“Yes. It was genius. When the war hit, and there was milk and dairy rationing, guess what suddenly started selling like crazy? Instant macaroni and cheese.” He paused, waiting for John to finally grasp how exciting this prospect was, now that he had given it the proper historical perspective.

“Okay,” John said. “There’s money to be made in mac-and-cheese.”

The man in the suit nodded slowly. Finally, he thought, he was getting through to John. He found another paper. This one showed projected earning for mac-and-cheese sales. “But look at the gap, 1916 to 1936. Twenty years this powdered shit just sat around, useless. So, you are going to go back a couple of years before Kraft gets that patent, and you’re going to get it for us instead.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. Anything else while I’m there?” John asked.

“Like what?”

“1914. I might have an opportunity to stop the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, maybe prevent War World I. Just a thought.”

“No. Absolutely not. Kraft missed out on selling his product to the government during that war. He wasted his opportunity, but we’re not going to waste ours. We like War World I — and II. They’re good for business.”

John Bradley didn’t say anything.

“Listen, John, this isn’t the Air Force. We don’t focus on a bunch of big picture stuff here. It’s not all about stopping assassinations, as much as I know you like that sort of thing. I’ll be the first to admit that the world is a better place because you saved Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, and John F. Kennedy. You’re the guy who let the world have John Lennon for another 30 years. All good things. All great things. But we need to focus on the bottom line and making our stockholders happy. It really is that simple.”

“How long am I suppose to be there?” John asked.

“That’s really up to you. Your timepiece battery will last three years. If you want to come back, three years is your deadline. If you want to stay, we’ll understand. As long as it all works out for us at this end, you know.” The man in the suit smiled, then began gathering up the sheets of papers on the table.

“Trust me, John, this is big stuff, important stuff.”

“How is this important?” John asked.

The man in the suit closed his blue folder, gathered up his briefcase, and stood up to leave. “I told you,” he said. “It’s worth hundreds of millions –“ He held up a finger for emphasis. “– if not billions — of dollars. Get some rest. You leave at noon tomorrow.”

The man in the suit placed his hand on the door’s palm reader. The door buzzed and clicked as it unlocked, and without saying another word, he left.

* * *

The man in the suit waited alone in the gate room. He checked his watch. 11:55 AM. John Bradley should have been here by now.

A moment later, the steel door opened. John was in a newly redesigned Eckels suit. To the typical person it looked like an astronaut’s space suit made of gold and silver. He was followed by two armed security guards, and three lab technicians. One was busy studying  John’s vital signs on a data pad, a second carried his helmet, and the third carried a briefcase wrapped in gold foil.

“Okay, this is it, John. Are you ready?” asked the man in the suit.

John looked over to the lab tech with the data pad, who glanced up long enough to give an affirmative nod.

“I guess so.” John said.

The main in the suit waved a tech over, and took a few steps back to allow him to help secure the Eckels suit’s helmet.

The third technician handed the gold-wrapped briefcase to the man in the suit, then left the gate room, followed by the guards and the other technicians.

“John, we are not here to change the world for the good of all mankind, okay? We just want to change it enough for ourselves. Remember, we have a responsibility to the shareholders. So, no thwarting assassination attempts on archdukes, got it?” The man in the suit smiled, and handed John the case. “Good luck,” he said.

And then he left, leaving John alone in the room.

A voice crackled over the helmet speakers. “Okay, John, we’re going to open the gate.” It was the man in the suit. He was in the observation room now, watching what was happening on monitors.

John could feel the low hum of the time machine powering up. Within seconds it sounded like jet engines. At the center of the machine, small sparks of blue light began to appear, increasing in number and intensity second by second. Then, they were gone.

Thunder shook the room, as long tentacles of blue lightning reached out into the room, heating the air.

John held the briefcase closer to his chest and tightened his grip on it.

He started up the ramp, his steps slow and deliberate against the wind created by the time displacement. The lightning seemed to be reaching out for him, attracted by the gold Eckels suit. It looked as if the gate was pulling him into itself.

Then he was gone.

The room was quiet.

* * *

In the observation room, the man in the Schutzstaffel uniform smiled.

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1. The Fortune Cookie Story Project Begins One of the first ideas I put in the daybook...

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One of the first ideas I put in the daybook was that I would spend a month or two writing 2- or 3-page stories based on…wait for it…fortune cookies. For some reason, I thought doing this would be good writing practice.

So, last weekend, when Cindy said she needed rice wraps from the Asian food market, I took it as a sign that now was the time to initiate my cunning plan, and picked up a bag of fortune cookies. $1.00, one bag of cookies. One fortune cookie, one story.

Today, I decided to break into the bag. So, here is the first assignment:

Remember, I’m shooting for a 2-3 page story based on that fortune. And, with everything else going on, I figure I’ll do one a week.

Okay, so this should be fun. Look for the story here sometime next week. (Consider yourself warned!)

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I’m trying a new experiment (partly inspired by Merlin Mann). I’ve decided to keep a daybook, which is simply a notebook that I write in…uh, daily. Some people use them strictly for a single purpose or project, but I’m using mine for everything: grocery lists, short story ideas, project ideas, screenplay ideas, short scenes that are apropos of nothing, but that I think sound good and could find a home later in a bigger project.

The daybook itself is no different that any other notebook I use, except that I think about it differently. It’s like this: I have a notebook that I carry around, and I use it to write down any story ideas that I might have. But I hardly ever write anything in it for any number of reasons: didn’t think the idea was good enough, or whatever. Doesn’t matter. The problem is that the notebook is there to support my main activity of “idea creation”. But what if I just flipped it around and said my ideas were there to support the notebook instead? In other words, the goal is not to first have ideas, and then write them in a notebook. The goal is simply to fill that fucking notebook with ideas.

Rather than use the much-loved (and more expensive) Moleskine-type notebook, I opted for something less “serious”. Last year, I read Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones [affiliate link], and I remember her saying she sometimes chooses a notebook with kittens, or a cartoon character, or something silly on it as a way to keep from taking herself too seriously. I loved that idea. It’s a great reminder that I should be having fun. Not everything that goes into the notebook needs to be “deep” or “meaningful” or “worthy”. If something comes to mind that I like, I just write it down. It’s the catch-all notebook.

I’ve also started using the daybook to develop a habit of acting on my ideas sooner rather than later. It’s easy to keep putting things off (especially after you have those things written on a to-do list somewhere), so if I have an idea, and the opportunity presents itself to work on that idea, I make more of an effort to take advantage of that. I haven’t decided if this is a good idea or not (because I come up with some pretty stupid shit, let me tell ya), but the important thing is that I allow myself to look past the fears, doubts, and self-judgments, and just do something without talking myself out of it.

I’m sure you’ll be seeing the results of some of the notebooks’ content soon enough. Good and bad. Bwahahahaha!

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As many of you know, I have a bazillion projects that I never quite get around to…but this is changing.

My new site, Deeper Motive will be the place where you can track my progress on whatever project — creative or otherwise — I’m working on. I see it as a place to explore my own creative process, share my thoughts about engaging in creative work, and talk about whatever goal-setting, self-improvement thing I’m struggling with. I know I could post this stuff here on my personal blog, but I also know I’m not the only one that struggles with trying to make time, and find the courage, to work on creative projects. Not everyone wants to know what I did over the weekend in Tulsa, or where Cindy and I ate last night. So, I thought it would be better to have a separate place that focused on being creative and productive.

In keeping with the Kaizen philosophy, I’ll be adding pages, pictures, posts, podcasts, and design elements to the site over the next couple of weeks.

I’ll post the first entry on July 1, 2009.

I hope you come over and check it out.

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Last month, Todd and I ran across this article (via Consumerist) about how Charlie Munger, the Vice-Chairman of Warren Buffett’s investment company Berkshire Hathaway, used to set aside one hour each day to work on personal side-projects for himself. I like this idea for a couple of reasons:

1. One hour is about all the time I can spend on a project right now.
2. It’s such a small amount of time that the pressure of producing something “epic” is kept at bay.

Over time, these little actions will yield big results. It’s not a new idea, I know. But it’s easy for me to get caught up in a mental gumption trap, believing that I shouldn’t or can’t start something right now because I don’t have the time to give it the attention I feel it deserves or needs. Of course, that is complete and utter bullshit.

Over the past week, I’ve been trying to keep this in mind, working on various side projects I’ve intended to get around to someday. Not surprisingly, at the end of each hour, it’s satisfying to have been able to work on something that’s been sitting around in my head for weeks, months, and years.

After doing this for just one week, a couple of things become obvious:

• I still watch too much television.
• I don’t get enough sleep.

And these two things greatly influence how well I do other things throughout the day. I need to fix that.

As the article asks

“…if you aren’t satisfied with your current situation, why not work for yourself an hour each day? Instead of just idle dreaming, set aside specific time for action. Perhaps the key is small chunks of time, but at regular intervals.”

How very Kaizen. How very Bird by Bird.

At the end of the month, I’ll have a better idea of which projects I’m actually enjoying spending time on, and which ones I’m better off ditching.

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First Note in the New Notebook: What you write must exist in two places or it doesn’t really exist (which must also be the reason we have doppelgangers).

A few weeks ago, I was talking to Amy about my recent layoff scare, and how it scared me enough to consider doing something drastic, like trying to make a living doing something I actually like doing for change. But now that I had survived the layoffs, I was scared I might let myself slip back into accepting predictable drudgery. I didn’t want that to happen. After all, my job isn’t going to last forever, and I would eventually have to face the same hopes and fears. All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again. I need to listen to this urge this time. I could start with a small writing project, maybe a fortune cookie fortune, or a short story. A few seconds after I tossed out an idea for a story, I said, “I should probably start writing these down. There’s no telling how many ideas get lost forever because I never write them down. I think I’ll remember them but I never do.”

“Do it. Write it down.”

“Nah, you write it down.” And she did. It was pure laziness on my part. I had a notebook with me. I had a pen. But I was in the middle of drinking coffee, and my notebook was all the way in my back pocket. (Note to self: Would use notebooks more if I could keep them in a girl’s back pocket.)

A couple of hours later, she left and we both forgot that I needed that note.

The next day at work, I thought about that forgotten note, and did something simple and out-of-character: I wrote that fuckin’ idea down. I didn’t care how stupid it was. And then, I told Todd that I’m going to do a little experiment: I’m going to write down every idea I have for a week to see what I’m losing. For some people, this is a habit, but not for me. I caught myself a few times thinking that I’ll just remember it.

After a week, I had 8 ideas. Okay, I thought, this is worth doing. I’m probably losing a few hundred ideas a year by not doing it.

Then, a couple of days ago. Cindy was putting clothes away, and started laughing. She called me into the bedroom, and held out a white-and-orange wad of wet paper. Of course, the one time I actually use my notebook for something more than grocery lists and errands, I’d leave the damn thing to be washed. Luckily, I had told Todd the ideas, so I do have a back-up…of sorts…this time.

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I had a little bit of a layoff scare a few weeks ago, but I survived…for now. About a month ago, my part-time job disappeared, so the idea of losing my “real” job (the one with the bigger paycheck and the great health insurance) had me a little freaked out. Not only would we not be able to pay bills, but finding another job quickly would be more than a little difficult given the current job market. It hasn’t been the greatest lately. You might have heard something about it.

During the week of the layoffs, I had an insanely crazy thought: Maybe I should start seriously considering trying to earn a living writing.

It’s insanely crazy because who the hell thinks like that? It’s not like I’ve ever made money writing anything before. I have never had anything published! I have nothing to show anybody. And, even if I did somehow manage to sell something, it would probably be a while before I saw any money from the sale. There’s just so many things wrong about thinking of “writing” as your Oh Shit!-I-Need-Money-NOW! plan.

So, here’s why having that thought bothers me. I’ve wanted to be a writer since high school, but have always lacked the will and discipline to act on that desire. Like any other creative-types, I have battled demons of self-doubt and lost again and again. The simple answer to why I keep repressing my creative side is fear: I won’t be good. People will think I’m stupid. I don’t have anything worth saying, etc. You know all the fears. It’s been much easier to just get a mindless job, nothing I would dare make a soul-crushing career out of, but something that allows me to keep my mind wandering, entertaining myself.

If mindless work has been my way of avoiding the fear of creating something and letting the world see it, then why, when faced with what seemed like the inevitable loss of that mindless work, would I not immediately think I should find another mindless job? Why would my strongest reaction be to start writing…something, anything?

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For my three readers that stop by on a quasi-semi-regular basis, you’re probably stunned to see a new post here. It’s nice to be surprised every once in a while, isn’t it?

The thing is that writing has been on my mind lately, and I’ve been pondering and cobbling together bits of a story that will eventually become a full-fledged novel. I haven’t written fiction in a long time, and I’m mentally stiff and creatively out of shape. What I wrote this weekend took way more effort than I expected. It was the creative equivalent of trying to eat a candy apple.

They say the more you write, the better you get, but I wouldn’t know because I’m always restarting from square one. One of the reasons I started a blog was so I would stay in the practice of writing something — anything — no matter how little, on a regular basis. Even if I wasn’t working on anything else, I could mentally shadow box here. Obviously, I made the mistake of neglecting this space. Then again, maybe I needed to be away from it for while, so I could miss it, and get to that point where I wanted to be back here, you know.

Well, for better or worse, I’m back.

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I’m writing this on a piece of lofi technology called Neo made by Alphasmart. It’s just a simple word processor…and nothing else. It doesn’t have any games, or Internet capability, or even a great screen. That is, it’s missing everything that could distract me from getting down to the business of writing. I’ve only been using this thing now for about 5 minutes, but I can tell you that I’m really happy with the simplicity of it. It seems kind of silly to be impressed with such a primitive writing tool, given the choices of laptops you can buy for a few hundred dollars at any big box store, but I’m really enjoying using this because it’s for one thing, and one thing only: writing.

Here’s some of the specs that sold me on it:

• Built-in keyboarding and typing tutor
• Compatible with Macintosh and Windows computers
• Uses 3 AA alkaline batteries for up to 700 hours of typical use

Check out the complete PDF spec sheet on the website.

My plan is to take this to work and see how much lost time I can recover. There are several minutes throughout the day that I could use to jot down just one or two sentences, which may not seem like a lot, but over time would amount to a sizable word count. I see this approach to writing as filling a jar with pennies, and I’m hoping that the result will be equally surprising and rewarding.

We’ll see. More to come.

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National Novel Writing Month is next month, but registration is now open, so sign up if you feel inclined. If you’re not familiar with NaNoWriMo, the idea is that you write a 50,000-word (or longer) novel between November 1 and November 30.

I failed terribly at it last year. Actually, I guess I did a pretty good job of failing at it, so maybe I failed terrifically? Either way.

Any takers this year?

Bueller?… Bueller?… Bueller? I mean, Tiffany?… Tiffany?… Tiffany?

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