This is the first in a series of posts to introduce the characters of my original novel DWELLING which I'll be exclusively premiering on the platform in the coming weeks. My aim is to help transform the landscape of publishing fiction on Steemit, and help raise the bar by exclusively premiering a full length novel I've worked on for ten years, thereby attracting new interest and readership to the community. In short Dwelling is a crime novel based on true events that impacted my life while living in New York's Lower East Side... You'll find out a whole lot more in the weeks to come...
It All Started With Mioko
Well that's not exactly true, it started with Rube, but we'll get to that.
When I moved to New York a dozen years ago, my first solo apartment was on the top floor of a Lower east side tenement at the corner of Ludlow and Stanton. I loved the place despite the fact that it was a 1.5 room hole. I didn't yet know that one of the previous tenants had disappeared from the apartment under mysterious circumstances and that the the building had been taken over by an umbrella organization after the landlord had been put in prison, on murder charges.
No, I was too busy living the freewheeling life of a bachelor in my 20s to worry about the place's nefarious past. I'd just read 
And then one night (4/10/08 to be precise) I got hungry enough to take the stairs and what I found taped to the glass of the tenement's front door changed everything.
My synapsis started firing ten trillion a minute* and the kernel of a character was born... well two, but as I said, one thing at a time.
(*there are about 100 billion neurons in the brain, and around 100 trillion synapses. At any one time, only about 10% of the neurons are actually "firing"--much more and you're having an epileptic seizure).
And without further ado, here she is...
MIOKO
A fixture in the tenement, a photographer and recovered heroin addict. With two rent stabilized apartments in the building, Mioko is the principal target of her landlord, Axelrod's aggressive actions.
Alone on a subway car, Mioko ached from the endless pile of returns and emotional abuse. Was it only Tuesday? A deep hankering for an old pharmacological pal hit her, but she did her best to breathe through. Reaching into her bag, she retrieved a miniature bacon chocolate bar saved from the client-only craft table. She popped the paper top, but was distracted by a rush of air and sound. An MTA conductor pushed through the door connecting her car to the next.
She did her best not to look up at the conductor as he approached. She didn't want to put a face to it.
As he moved down the length of the car, she could feel it coming. He was veering in close to her, and as the pant leg of his uniform accidentally brushed the bare skin of her knee, Mioko's back straightened with a little jerk. Her face filled with a flush of exhilaration.
Stay tuned for our next character, Mioko's stalker Rube... and for the first chapter of Dwelling, soon to follow.
Thanks so much for reading & Steem on!
Doug
SPECIAL THANKS to my wife 
DWELLING BLOCKCHAIN COPYRIGHT © DOUG KARR, 2018
I am a Brooklyn based writer, film & commercial director, and crypto-enthusiast, my projects include @HardFork-series an upcoming narrative crypto-noir and my novel Dwelling will soon be premiering exclusively on Steemit, and you can check out more of my work at dougkarr.com, piefacepictures.com, and www.imdb.com/name/nm1512347
Please comment, up-vote and resteem and I'll gladly upvote your comments!
10% of all profits from Dwelling will be donated to Amnesty International.