9 story hotel

what's in the box

The idea angling hardest for sunlight in my head is a 401 family anthology similar to the warm and bound collection but more collaborative. I first tried the nine story hotel project my last semester teaching at Memphis College of Art and the results were pretty cool considering they were mostly college sophomores maybe a few seniors. God remember when a college senior seemed like the wise old trapper come down from the mountains. Anyway the nine story hotel project goes like this. Remember back in the zeroes the internet was a total free for all with the file sharing and the napster mentality folks were posting art photos music everywhere no watermarks no copyright strikes it was the wild west yeah. Anyway I came across this photo of a hotel in Japan that I surely have still on one of the dozen flash drives tucked in some altoids tin painted black but never mind in my head it’s vivid as my own face in the mirror. A gray concrete brutalist style building nine stories tall with a nondescript very plain black and white sign with the name Nine Story Hotel.

I also had dozens probably hundreds of photos downloaded of shall we say unusual faces. Models who were not classically beautiful but had worlds of hurt spinning behind their eyes. I gave them names and backstories and passed them around to the class. The assignment was to either pick one of the stock characters as your primary or create your own primary and use the side characters as movable chess pieces within your narrative. The hotel itself was a hideout or hunting ground for assassins criminals freaks vigilantes astral hitchhikers and such similar I suppose to the Artemis or the hotel on the edge of nowhere in umbrella academy. But this was 2011 so if anything those guys poached the core idea from me. Not to mention everyone from Agatha Christie to Quentin Tarantino and John Irving have used hotels as a narrative setting that becomes more than just a building.

The 9 story hotel was located upon a quantum crossroads on a nether plane in the heart of a monster city a hybrid of say Los Angeles Mombassa Prague and Hong Kong. Definitely some dense honeycomb stacked box dwellings on the horizon where something in the distance is ever on fire. The hotel featured some unspecified optional supernatural qualities portals and soft spots in reality such that the laws of physics and magic were flexible. I tried to keep that element vague so the students could either make their own rules of the road if they wanted say a steampunk sci-fi feel or cyber samurai or they could opt to not go quantum at all if they veered more to the hard boiled candy style real. All of the primary characters were assigned to a specific floor and each floor had its own rules mood and lore.

The 8th floor was closed. Nobody lived up there and it was supposedly off limits. But what with all the main characters being freelance criminals or at best antiheroes on the chaotic neutral spectrum some freaky shit tended to go down on the 8th floor. Next we cooked up some hotel staff characters that were thrown into the mix. Some of the students worked solo others collaborated with a partner. The only rule of consequence was don't kill off somebody else's primary character without talking to them first secondary characters got whacked and respawned as needed.

The end results were pretty wild much cooler stranger and outlandish than expected considering we only worked on it for a month toward the end of the semester. A few students did comic book style art for the collection that I wish like hell I still had copies of. Maybe I do. That particular laptop is thorny. If any of my MCA flock are reading this shout out. The possibilities were endless and fascinating so I tucked the idea away to either revisit myself on a solo run through the hotel or to gather with another group of writers one day in the hazy future. Looking around now I see a fine pale yellow haze forming. endless possibilities. If you want to be part of the project come join the 401 family at involuntary dot locals. Stay with me more to come. The sky is the color of dead television.

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ps. the following is the intro post at involuntary.locals describing what’s in the box. I mean other than gwynneth paltrow's lovely severed head what exactly do the velvet pilgrims get for their membership.

-what does it say on the tin you ask.
-daily posts that appear only at the locals site touching on stuff specific to the 401 family and the 9 story hotel project and or stuff too sensitive too personal too weird or potentially controversial to post on instagram.
-anyone who posts something will have an ongoing conversation with me and the family at large.
-exclusive content. raw unfinished unpublished director's cut type material aka too raw for the substack such as deleted scenes from the phineas and Jude books, including the 4th as yet untitled and from the Rachel stories, jack fell and godspeed and the MFA dissertation on reservoir dogs.
-video lectures reconstructed from the teaching days.
-open invitation to join and write for the 9 story hotel project. all contributors will be co-owners of the intellectual property. maybe we sell it to netflix or launch a kickstarter campaign to fund a graphic novel adaptation. maybe it becomes an ongoing series. rather endless possibles there.
-eligible to sign up for the 401 workshop.
-earlier was asked how and where will the 401 shop operate. well here in the yellow cloud pilgrim. at the 401 treehouse.
-thinking either four or six week shop capped at 10 or 15 students. the last time I did an online shop I had thirty students in eleven different time zones around the globe and kinda lost my mind staying on top of the content and the 24 hour nature of questions comments and input coming in hot and heavy.
-I’d likely run three of them back to back this semester then take a break.
-every student or pilgrim gets minimum of two stories workshopped by the group with in depth critique and editor style guidance from me. or what to expect from future editors as compared to that professor who totally didn't get it back there at fill in the blank school. three stories or chapters if it’s a six week shop.
-one three hour group zoom session per week. or three one hours depending on the mood and needs of group.
-each pilgrim gets minimum one individual zoom session with me to discuss their work and or whatever else they want to talk about. less or more individual attention as needed or requested.
-workshop folk will all have option to contribute to the anthology. and or work on those stories within the shop.
-I will likely recruit a team of at least three editors from the former velvet crew to help sort and choose which submissions make the final cut. may implement blind submissions to keep things as egalitarian as possible.
-off the top of my head I'm thinking the average six week summer class at the average community college here in the states is at least a grand. if not five grand. with that in mind I would propose charging 400 american dollars for the four week shop or six for the six.
-anyone thinks those numbers are too high or too low please speak up. nothing stupid or crazy in the yellow.
-also willing to work some sort of sliding scale depending on personal circumstances and based on work submitted for consideration.
-please note. you don't have to be in the workshops to contribute to the anthology. some of you guys already know what you're doing and don't need the shop experience anymore. just join the 401 family and get involved with the 9 story hotel world building from the jump.
-I will keep dropping new cheat codes here and on instagram for free access to anyone who wants to visit to kick some tires smell what's cooking and peek in the medicine cabinet before committing to premium membership.
-the current codes are jackfell401 for one month free. yellowseven for the 2 dollar better off dead plan good for six months. dizzybloom for thirty days free renewable three times.
-what else. free swag and merch to all premium members. aka stickers and t-shirts and signed whatever. seems high time for a religiously cold t-shirt out there in the wild. by the way premium is currently set at five bucks a month.

ps. I am wide open to suggestions. making this up as I go along. all I know for sure is this. when I was a grommet full of fire and vinegar and too stupid to know exactly when I was being a jackass my first few workshops saved me from abject despair and self loathing because I found my voice ear and vision and learned all the deeper more nuanced subconscious and narrative mechanical shit I mean to pass along to the 401 family. other than godspeed and the fourth phineas book these workshops are the most valuable things I have to offer to the hardcore most loyal fans out there. and as mentioned in another post on the locals page I reckon I’d protect you guys with my life when the zombies come because I owe you all more love and faith than you know. like I keep saying at the bottom of these posts Involuntary wouldn’t exist without you and I mean it every word.

questions or ideas please contact me via dm on instagram @will7christopher.

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