Writing Around the Holidays

It's that time of year again. For me, it's a bit different. It's the first holiday season that I have been a writer. The whirlwind that has been 2019 has impacted me in so many ways that I can't even describe it. I want to thank everybody for a great year.

One thing I see mentioned constantly on social media is the amount of anxiety about writing during the holiday season.

So, let's take a collective deep breath and think about how we can approach this.

Everyone's situation is vastly different, but odds are that your free elements of the day are still going to be free. Sure, you might be mentally distracted by the challenges of organizing family gatherings and buying gifts but I'm willing to bet you still have a good 15 minutes when you are getting ready for bed where you could jot down even 100 or 200 words. I know, that's not much at all is it? It actually is, though. Those few words, added up over the next couple of weeks, can actually be a sizable chunk of your manuscript. Beyond that, though, it keeps your brain in the game. You won't disconnect from your story and will find it easier to reconnect to your WIP once all the craziness has settled and we're left with the bleak January landscape looking back at us through the window.

If that is too much for you, then try to just edit a few pages here and there. It keeps you familiar with your WIP and, again, keeps your brain in the game.

If THAT is still too much with your hectic schedule then just try to find some moments here and there to simply READ your WIP. It will help keep it fresh in your head.

Some people may have an easier time of just picking their work up after a few weeks or a month or more off. I'm not one of them. If I have to I will keep my chromebook in the bathroom just so I can escape in there and write for a few minutes.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season.

If you have any thoughts on this PLEASE feel free to share them in the comments!

The Silence of Trying

After posting the prologue last week, here's the rough draft of Chapter 1 of Maestri:

Chapter 1: The Silence of Trying

It was all too much of a distraction - the too white walls, the maddening flicker of the wonky light overhead, the sleet pelting the large glass window that allowed the whole world to peer up into the practice room. The wide open view down onto the street was the most irritating. She could feel the eyes of strangers looking up toward her as they heard her club the keys on the antique Steinway. They must have thought it sounded like a baby elephant was stomping the poor piano to death.

In truth Arabella was much more talented than she gave herself any credit for. Despite only being able to use the left side of her body she had a way with music that most able bodied people never would, even if dedicated to the craft for a lifetime. The teenage girl had only been playing for four years but had surpassed her teacher two years past. Since then she had studied the great works of composers ranging from classical to contemporary, practiced styles from jazz to death metal to renaissance and beyond. There wasn’t an area of music theory that confounded the astute girl. Then again, she didn’t do much else with her free time. 

Sure, she could go sit out in the living room and watch her foster mother get drunk while watching cooking shows on t.v. Hell, sometimes that was entertaining...for a while. Lynn would get giddy at the sight of new dishes that she longed to try, at first, but as the show progressed and the wine glasses emptied one after another the late thirty something’s mood would deteriorate until she was dwelling on the fact that she couldn’t cook worth a damn and didn’t have anyone in her life to cook for. The next few hours would be spent draining any additional wine bottle unfortunate enough to be located within her pantry while she cursed Amelia for walking out on her five years ago. She had adopted Arabella to fill that void but it took less than four months before that fullness had drained from her now empty heart. It wasn’t the kind of love that the upper class banking executive desired. Unfortunately, Lynn’s reputation as something of a selfish tyrant within the entire Atlan Valley financial industry prevented anyone from taking any kind of romantic interest in her. The conservative community also made it more difficult for a lesbian to find suitable company without being judged and having her professional life jeopardized by a long term relationship. Though Lynn felt inclined toward taking that risk for true love, time after time her partners hadn’t been willing to potentially sacrifice successful careers for her.

Arabella had grown tired of witnessing her stepmother descend into her fugues on a weekly (sometimes more often) basis. She preferred to sit in the large practice room, in full view of the public, and bang away at some random tune. Her own compositions would come out to play at night, never during the day. There was far too much discomfort in knowing that strange ears outside might hear the notes that poured out of her broken heart.

The music stopped and a sigh escaped the young girl’s lips. She turned her head toward the large window and considered wheeling herself over to the edge of it to shut the blinds. It was always such a tangle that Ari usually gave up and accepted the audience of passersby on the street below. Today was different, though. She was in a mood. 

It was the end of Spring break and tomorrow she would have to go deal with people much more up close and actually interact with the assholes. There were few students or faculty at the academy Arabella cared for, and they weren’t worth the effort of dealing with stares and snide comments from the classrooms and halls full of ableds at the school. The mocking was monotonous and unoriginal, anymore. At the beginning of the year there had been some witty new insults, a few that even made Ari chuckle to herself, which then became more fodder for the cretins who made fun of her disabilities.

The chair moved quickly over to the wall next to the window. Navigating the unwieldy contraption close enough that she could reach the blind cord was a challenge and Ari accidentally scuffed the eggshell paint next to the window with a grey smudge from the rubber of the front wheel. Whoops. Lynn would notice it and be sure to lecture the poor girl yet again about how she had no business trying to do things for herself. Then the lecture would devolve into a guilt trip about how thoughtless Arabella was to deprive Lynn’s prized ficus of its much needed sunlight shining through the oversized window.

Half lifting herself with her good leg, Ari grabbed the cord to the blinds and tugged on it hard enough that the blinds obediently flopped closed. The room was bathed in refreshing darkness but now she had to roll herself over to the opposite wall to flip the lights on so she could see her sheet music. Another sigh.

Arabella turned her chair and pushed with her left arm, aiming herself toward the darkened doorway that lead to the main living room. The switch was low enough that it would be a quick trip. About halfway across the room a motion in the darkness caught the girl’s attention. She turned her head and allowed the chair to roll to a gradual stop. Ari swore that she had seen some motion on the stairs the made their way up to the third floor. Something beyond the white bannister and between the bars had most certainly moved. Hallucinations weren’t a part of her disability and Ari was quite keen about sensing things. It seemed to be a heightened sense that compensated for a blind eye, deaf ear, and half of a paralyzed body.

There it was again. Ari was unsure what she was seeing but it was definitely something. Her skin prickled at a slight cold breeze blowing over the hair on her arm. She could only describe it as a darkness within the darkness, like there was a shadow hiding within itself on the steps. 

For a moment the girl wheeled herself back, slightly, then actually pushed herself forward in the direction of the stairs -- curiosity getting the best of her, despite a growing concern that someone was in the room with her. Arabella pushed her chair a couple of times then allowed it to slow. From a distance of just a few feet she now looked carefully between the rails of the banister. She didn’t see anything yet there was a motion there. Something moved! What the hell was it?

Ari pushed her chair again closer to the railing. There was a movement on the fourth step up, nearly at level with her face. She could see through it but it was almost like a darkened silhouette that followed her movements. It wasn’t tangible, yet it was there in front of her.

The temperature was dropping in the room by a marginal amount. Arabella wasn’t sure if she should be scared. The one emotion that had been missing from most of her life was a sense of fear. It came with the territory for someone who has spent considerable amounts of time plotting ways to end her own life. A bit of warm breeze seemed to waft up from the shadow within a shadow on the step, brushing Ari’s hair in such a way that it felt a bit like the warm caress of a hand on the side of her face. The sensation was so utterly alien that she shook in her chair. It was at that moment the panic hit and she tried to wheel herself backward. The chair wouldn’t move. Ari reamed hard on the wheel but it wouldn’t budge. The brake had somehow locked on it and she couldn’t move! She struggled and gasped for help, trying to climb out of the chair to get away from whatever was in the room with her. The chair flipped over, and Arabella with it. The resulting thud on the floor resounded throughout the entire second floor of the home. 

The presence seemed to move off the stairs, through the rail and down toward Ari’s face. She tried to scream, but of course no sound escaped her paralyzed vocal chords. All she could do was flail and try to drag herself away from the malice. She felt the presence descend upon her. The heat of it approached her back as she pulled her body toward the door.

The living room door opened and light flooded into the room. Lynn gasped in shock as she flipped the light on, quickly making her way over to her distressed foster daughter lying on the floor. Reaching a hand down to help scoop the girl up while using the other to right the chair, “Oh, Ari! You’re going to scratch the hardwoods! Are you alright?” 

The concern for Arabella genuinely seemed secondary and the girl reacted as such. Instantly gone was the panic of whatever had spooked her, replaced by the massive inferiority complex that always manifested within her anytime her foster mother was near. Ari let her body go boneless, it was about the only way she had of being passive aggressive with the older woman.

Once Ari was back in her seat, Lynn quickly inspected the maple hardwoods in the room while her foster daughter plaintively flailed for her attention. Lynn barely even noticed.

Exasperated, Arabella wheeled herself back over to the piano and slammed her hand down on a chord so dissonant that it made Lynn jump to her feet. “What the hell is that for?”

Grabbing a pad of paper and her pen from atop the Steinway, Ari scribbled out as best as she could with her left hand. She didn’t know whether it was her naturally dominant hand but her penmanship raised serious doubts about it. After completing her scribbles she tossed the notepad over to Lynn, who spent several seconds deciphering the scratches.

There was something on the stairs. It scared me.

“What? No, there’s nothing on the stairs. Crazy girl, there’s nothing there at all.” Stamping her heels across the maple wood, Lynn likely scuffed the floor far more than Ari may have during her fall. She walked up the first few steps and looked around the room. 

Arabella wheeled herself over to the edge of the banister and pointed to where she had seen the shifting darkness. Her emphatic gestures were nothing more than wasted energy in Lynn’s presence, and Ari quickly quieted her motions. Another sigh. It was so damn hopeless. Despite the years together she could never get through to her foster mother. It didn’t matter what the topic was, Lynn’s personality existed solely to dismiss any matter that she didn’t want to put the energy into dealing with. This time was no different.

“Well, Ari, there’s nothing here at all.” Lynn studied the girl in the wheelchair from her vantage above the banister, gazing hard at the child. “Is this because you have to go back to school tomorrow?” 

Ari’s disdain for school was common knowledge to most of Atlan Valley at this point. She proudly owned the record for most suspensions by a disabled student in the school’s illustrious thirty year history. The previous record was zero, but Arabella was setting the bar high with a running total of four. She looked down, now realizing that it was pointless to waste the effort on trying to express herself to the older woman.

Lynn eventually wandered back out of the room, closing the door behind her but leaving the light on. The aroma of merlot lingered well after she was gone.

Left alone, yet again, in her silence Arabella went back to the piano and began to play one of her own compositions. It wasn’t her best. The notes were slow, sad, meandering, and rhythmless. The song was a perfect reflection of its creator.

_____________

Interested in knowing where this story is heading? Look for Maestri, available on Amazon around August 2020.

Want to know the beginning? Check out The Morbid Fascinations of David Bennett on Amazon now available in kindle (unlimited) and paperback. https://www.amazon.com/Morbid-Fascinations-David-Bennett-ebook/dp/B07ZG4N2XB

A Single Drop In a Sea of Moments

The opening prologue to Maestri (rough draft)

The patter reminded him of another place, in another moment forever trapped behind the wall of entropy. He could watch it again and again but never again would he be able to actually feel the cold Spring rain upon his skin. That momentary stinging shock of condensation used to irritate him when he would run about his business among the living world but now oh how he longed for the embrace of it. 

Leaning against a bus stop shelter somewhere on seventy eighth avenue, a figure hidden beneath a brown jacket gazed longingly at the sidewalk before him. Just thirteen years ago he had first arrived at this very spot, his first time in New York City after wandering the Earth for thousands of years. Gone was the sense of awe, or even hope - replaced by visions of what was to come and the knowledge that he was absolutely impotent to stop it.

His head lifted and what once were his eyes focused on the pale city light reflecting off the belly of clouds. He used to peer out his window for hours at the storms when he was alive. They brought a sense of power and chaos that oddly calmed him. If he had only known what pure chaos was, back then, he wouldn’t have admired it nearly as much. One such memory flitted through his mind, holding her and gazing into the midnight frenzy of an electrical storm. The thought only drove him further into the depths of despair. It was all gone. This world around him was merely an echo of what had already been. Unblinking eyes stared into the maelstrom writhing above as he stood still beneath it, hoping in vain that some force would wield an electrical current in his direction that was somehow strong enough to blow his atoms apart and grant him the peace that he had spent millenia searching for.

Instead, he stood calmly beneath the flickers and echoing roars of a storm in the city while the few people who had been in the streets fled indoors. In a few moments a bolt of lightning would strike through an open window in an apartment two blocks from here, killing a mother and her three month old daughter that she was trying to calm after waking from the thunder. The man had already seen it happen. He had bore witness to a thousand moments such as that in the time that he had walked the world. In the beginning he believed he could change things like that. Several frustrating attempts taught him that it was impossible. Time was not fluid about him. He had lapsed beyond that dimension of existence. No matter what he tried it would simply unwind and correct itself as if he had never been there in the first place. He had even attempted to correct a tragedy from his own life, only to watch the very dimensions of existence splinter into a near infinite number of pieces in an explosion of such magnitude never before experienced in the linear universe. It had taken him and his gifts thousands of years to reassemble existence back into its former form. Never again did he attempt to correct another moment. His fate was simply to wander it and learn.

Learn, he did. He stayed in the shadows and watched the great Priors teach their acolytes far from the eyes of skeptics. For hundreds of years he followed the secret and those who knew how to unlock it until he began to understand the subtle nuances of what he carried around inside of him. He was different from everyone else who had ever lived. Some carried talents that he also possessed but many of his gifts had never manifested in any of the great Maestri in the living world or beyond. His ability to look beyond the dimensions of creation and into the very tendons that held entropy together, for example, was an ability beyond the comprehension of any who had ever wielded the Art. Yet, frustratingly, he had never learned what to do with it or how to undo what was coming. There was a storm approaching and he played no small part in its creation. It made the swirling chaos in the black sky above seem like a drop in the ocean compared to the unraveling of reality that was approaching. Despite his deep knowledge of the living All, he still couldn’t comprehend the desire to perform such an act as great and terrible as the One who also wandered the Earth was planning.

His life had ended in a sacrifice to save the universe, but what he never realized until it was far too late is that it had all been a distraction. The true evil had lurked within him all his life, and had been set free in a sunny meadow on the other side.

There were no more places left to wander to. There was no absolution coming, no way to change what had already unfolded. Once he had left this plain of existence that power had been stripped from him. There was no hope.

Yet, there was a hiccup in the universe that he couldn’t ignore. Something powerful, dangerous, lurked out there somewhere. He knew not where, only able to vaguely feel it. It was a part of time that he couldn’t navigate toward. It had been hidden from him by one of the others. He turned his head toward the west and tried to peer through those fractal barriers between realities and dimensions of existence but his mind couldn’t navigate toward that ripple in the very fabric of existence. It wasn’t his story. His part in the tale was over, and it was time to go back.

He looked down at the sidewalk, again, and watched the drops of water flow and slip into the cracks of the concrete. He focused on the drops so closely that he could see the atoms of oxygen and hydrogen bouncing off one another. Further yet, he could see inside the very fabric of this world and, eventually, the cracks in it that lead to the other places beyond the world of the living. His mind drifted into them and he disappeared from existence.

______

Read the 1st book before the sequel comes out in 2020!

The Morbid Fascinations of David Bennett. Free with Kindle Unlimited of $2.99 on eBook, $12.99 paperback https://www.amazon.com/Morbid-Fascinations-David-Bennett-ebook/dp/B07ZG4N2XB

Brain Freeze When Asked About My Book

"So, you wrote a book! That's great! What's it about?"

"Uhh...well, there's this guy and it's a haunted house story... You'd have to read it to understand."

That is me nearly every single time someone asks me about my book. I hear this from other authors, too. Friends or family ask me about my writing and I totally seize up. It's like I completely forget about the 92,000 word work of fiction that I spent seven months writing.

Why is it so hard to explain to someone what my project is about? The plot is there. The characters are there, defined, in text. IT'S ALL THERE!  So why can't I answer?

I think it's because there is just too much packed into there. I can't just call it a haunted house story, because it is and it isn't. I mean, it's part of it but there's so much more. Nothing is really what it seems. There's love, loss, hope, anguish all compacted within those flattened sheets of cream color paper. My book is about moments to make you chuckle and instances that will freeze your soul.

How do I describe that to someone?

In the end, I realize that it's because I am simply too attached to my project to summarize it in a few sentences. There is so much emotion, not only in the work, but in the time spent writing it that I can't just give a simple answer.

It's about sacrifice. It's about a man sacrificing half a year with his family to achieve his goal. That's not the character in my story, though. That's about the dude who wrote it. My character's story is also one of sacrifice, though of a much more personal kind.

...personal... maybe that's why I can't answer the question so easily.

This writing is my heart and soul poured out into words. It is so extremely personal that I just can't talk about it. Sure, I can rip my heart out of my chest and toss it on the table for everyone to inspect - but please don't ask me to analyze it.

I guess it's just a weird quirk that I possess. Maybe the next time someone asks me what my book is about I will simply say "Well, you just have to read it to find out."

_______

The Morbid Fascinations of David Bennett
free with Kindle Unlimited
$2.99 ebook
$12.99 paperback
https://www.amazon.com/Morbid-Fascinations-David-Bennett-ebook/dp/B07ZG4N2XB

The Discomfort of Uncertainty

In my research of the paranormal I am always amazed to find out what scares people. I'm sure that sounds plenty morbid and a bit...touched...but it is fascinating to learn exactly what it is about a hypothetical haunting that makes an individual feel off balance and skittish.

Surprisingly enough, it isn't the banging or even seeing a spirit that tends to set many people off. It's the uncertainty of the invisible lurking around them that really makes them squirm. Most people that I interview would rather have a ghost manifest in front of them rather than sit in the middle of a room and just feel like they are being watched by some invisible entity.

Why are we so terrified of uncertainty in our lives? It goes far beyond the paranormal. We humans are so driven to find answers to any question that we stumble upon that it can quite often lead to obsession.

When I was young one of my cats came up missing. He had been rather sick the last time I saw him and then suddenly he was gone. His name was Bandit. He was a rather plump, tiger striped fellow with an absolutely adorable personality. I was eight years old. I spent nearly a year looking for my missing kitty, trying to find out what happened to him. I would routinely check with neighbors, ask my parents if they heard anything. It drove me insane to lose my best buddy.

It wasn't until years later that my parents admitted that my dad took the sick cat and dumped him in the field behind our house to die.

Christ, that made me furious - for so many reasons. Aside from them tossing out my pet like trash, they let me just wonder for a decade what had happened. They had absolutely no idea that the uncertainty of not knowing Bandit's fate just ate at me day after day.

This is why some of us are so drawn to the paranormal. It is the skepticism and uncertainty of exactly what it is that may be haunting our lives. Is the spirit of a restless person really roaming my halls or is it the winter cold making the old building's frame creak?

Would we be able to rest much easier if the science of the afterlife is ever established and we can just hear a bang and say, with certainty, that it is the ghost of Bob, who hung himself in the attic back in 1983? I'm willing to bet that concrete knowledge would actually make many people more comfortable than the simple wondering whether some echo of the past lurks their halls of if they are just losing their mind over nothing.

What about you? Would you really like to know what those little bumps are that you hear in the middle of the night?

FREE with Kindle Unlimited:
https://www.amazon.com/Morbid-Fascinations-David-Bennett-ebook/dp/B07ZG4N2XB

Also available in Paperback for $12.99 prime on Amazon or contact me directly at sofaslug@yahoo.com for a signed copy at the same price, while supplies last.

Desperation in the darkest hour

David wants to leave the house on Shenker Road. He tries, but it calls him back. If he ignores it then the house just tries harder to reclaim him. Something inside of him won't let David just walk away, either. What is it that drives him back through that door time after time?

Knowing his history with the house, why would Melissa ever steer him back into that abyss in the first place?

Why do characters in horror stories always make such poor decisions?!?

We have to look no further than any given newscast to see a myriad of people being arrested and locked away as a result of their poor decision making skills. I think that it's extremely easy for people on the outside to criticize or 'Monday Morning Quarterback' the decisions that people make in stories because they don't fully understand what someone who is desperate, broken, hopeless is capable of rationalizing. Someone who is in that dire of a situation tends to become singularly focused on a goal and, not only ignores more rational means of attaining the goal, is completely unaware of such a possibility. The human psyche is hardwired with several survival mechanisms. A fine example is the fight or flight response. If cornered, an animal (yes, at the end of the day humans are animals driven by instinct) will either lash out at an aggressor or run like heck away from such threat. It doesn't consider the other possibilities such as trickery or submissiveness in the face of danger. There is simply a need to attack or escape.

Teens in a horror movie will run to a basement and hide rather than run screaming out into the night because there is an instinctive safety in finding the darkest, least explored area to hide in. The brain recognizes that it is not a well traveled area and the mind, in panic, finds comfort in having two walls behind it to brace for an impending attack. Running out into the open makes you an open target, like a gazelle on the open Serengeti. It's easy to sit back and say "JUST RUN OUT OF THERE!" without realizing that, if faced with a similar situation, your body would probably flip to autopilot and do the exact same thing that exasperates you when a fictional character does it.

I was really conscious of reactionary behavior like that in my book. David isn't prone to panic, but he definitely has a fight reaction, versus flight. He views the only way out as being through his target rather than around it. There are other forces in David's head, and he is even aware of them, but can't bring himself to quite break completely free of it. Does he make poor decisions? Oh, yes - many. Are they decisions that any of us might also make under similar duress? You may surprise yourself.

Give it a free read on Kindle Unlimited and ask yourself, what would you do in David Bennett's shoes?

The Morbid Fascinations of David Bennett.
https://www.amazon.com/Morbid-Fascinations-David-Bennett-ebook/dp/B07ZG4N2XB

Can Going Bleak Actually Be a Good Thing?

It's no secret that the world can be a pretty bleak place. Every day we turn on the news and see how it is being torn apart. I used to watch the local news in the mornings but now I just sit in silence or read until my 3 year old gets up. Even the local news has become so saturated with the negativity in the world that it is extremely hard to find the positives in it.

I suppose that was a big factor in my return to writing after a nearly thirty year absence. I wanted to fill the time that I used to spend concerning myself with the outside world with something that I find enjoyable, and can also serve as an outlet for my pent up rage toward the people running our country into the ground.

When I decided to focus on bleak horror I really wasn't sure if it was a great way to contribute to a society already on the brink but, honestly, I have always felt that reading or watching horror is a great way to build appreciation for the positive aspects around you.

When you scare yourself after reading a terrifying book or watching a horror film do you sit around and dwell on the things that may be lurking in your closet or under your bed -- or do you turn on something funny and laugh along. Knowing the darkness tends to make people drift toward the light. It's a basic human instinct to look for security in the face of impending harm.

Maybe, just maybe, people need to have the living crap scared out of them on occasion in order to appreciate the things they do have in their lives.

Of course, it's not the same for everyone. Some people don't like to terrify themselves or read really hopeless literature. That is completely fine. Everyone is different. Frankly, the world would be a much better place if we learned to embrace our differences rather than use them as a wedge of divisionism.

If you're one of the folks who loves bleak, then by all means check out:

https://www.amazon.com/Morbid-Fascinations-David-Bennett-ebook/dp/B07ZG4N2XB
$2.99 or free with Kindle Unlimited!

The Solitary Man

David Bennett came from a traumatic background. His parents died at a young age and he never quite found his place in the world. His unspoken childhood and early adulthood obviously left him scared and severely introverted.

In The Morbid Fascinations of David Bennett we see a main character with severe personality 'flaws.' He can't seem to commit to a singular course of action and never feels quite in control of his own mind. Is David insane? Are his experiences embellished by the traumas of his youth? What exactly is going on with him? He is a recluse who, at times, severely resents his way of life - and on other occasions revels in his lonely life.

Some readers may look at this character with pity while many will be able to identify, to an extent, with someone who has been through so much in life that they are just tired and want to be left alone - no matter how solitary and lonely that life may become.

David has only been able to trust a few people in his adult life, and has found a way to alienate the ones who haven't passed away.

What drives David the most is a fear of losing those in his life. His family, and his only close friend, died years ago. He is scared to get close to anyone in fear of being hurt again.

His relationship with Melissa is complicated, but he does love her. David has always felt happy keeping her at a distance, only rekindling their relationship when common tragedy brings them back together.

I felt it was important to have a character at the front and center of this story who is far from perfect, mentally disturbed by his trauma, and unsure how to function in the world anymore. There are a lot of us out there who can relate to that way of thinking. We hit a point in our life where we just sigh and wonder where it all went wrong and why we're so introverted and can't open ourselves up to people.

It is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. Our experiences shape us and all that we can do is function within those boundaries that are built within our brains. David is barely likable, curmudgeonly, and antisocial because he has always felt that he was different - with an ability that others have repelled others on top of everything else.

I think more than a few readers might just find a way to feel sympathetic for this poor guy as his life descends into complete torment.

Available now on Kindle Unlimited, or just $2.99 for purchase on eBook/$12.99 in beautiful matte covered paperback.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1701845431