The Time Has Come

My water just broke...10 pm. Details to follow.

More Humor :)

Feedback! I found feedback!

Well, not yet, exactly, lol...

My wife and I have signed up for Critters.org, a site for authors to critique each others' work. So far my first submission is not due up in the available queue till thew end of the month. Once it's up, it's status is contingent on my having done a minimum number of quality critiques of other writers' works. You need to do about one a week, though you can get away with missing about one a month. So far I'm at about 800% of my quota, not counting the short one that only counts for half credit. =o)

I love this site. Nothing helps the average person learn the way trying to teach will, and a good critique should always be about how to improve a piece, rather than just flaming what's wrong with it. I get to read stories without having to spend money on books and magazine subscriptions I don't really want, and when they aren't so good...well, the price was right. All it cost me was the time and energy to evaluate and make suggestions, which improves *my* craft. Win/win!

I even built a template, and have already started applying it to my own works.

As an amusing observation, it appears to be a loose rule of thumb that you can pick the better stories by looking to see how many critiques have already been done. A good story with flaws gets lots. Stories with very few critiques are either so good no one has any suggestions (rare, but it does happen) or bad enough that no one wants to flame it.

This site rocks. :)

Bubbler

This is my current working name for my new Nano effort.

The story in my head is still fairly loose and fluid (*chuckle*), but the nominal character is Hydran, an air-breather on a world of people usually able to switch between air and water. His genetic counterpart, a "wheezer", is someone who can't sustain themselves breathing air alone.

Hydra is a very rich world, and an old one by Dominion standards. It was one of the early colonizations recorded, but has practically no land bodies. Colony cities were built both floating and domed on the bottom, and the population thrived on the ocean bounty. It became quickly fashionable to have one's children genetically guided into the ability to hold their breath for longer and longer, and a separate segment began to work toward actually breathing water.

Over the centuries, the latter group has dominated, and the modifications have become so common as to have practically stabilized into both the culture and the genetics of the population, such that members who can't switch back and forth between breathing air and water are considered handicapped. "Bubblers", those limited to air only, are becoming rarer and rarer, though they still account for about 15% of new births. Wheezers are becoming more and more common, up to 10%. Even so, the 3 out of 4 people who can switch back and forth still have to go through considerable discomfort to do so, and more and more are opting for an all aquatic lifestyle, though it limits them to mostly silent forms of communication (you can't speak with your vocal chords full of water). Even those who can breathe air are finding that they are limited to several hours before they begin to experience discomfort from drying of the organs.

Kas, the title character, is the estranged teenage son of a high-ranking bureaucrat who has just been appointed to the Dominion Member Council. Because of his handicap he has been coddled and spoiled, but somewhat isolated from his family, and he feels his father is ashamed of him. His mother died during a bitter divorce when he was very small, and he's spent most of his life avoiding the company of other "bubblers". His oldest friends are synthient mecha and biopuppets, and the few Hydran friends he interacts with are overprivileged miscreants.

He is now heading with his father to the Council Station at the L3 Lagrange point of Calloway Prime, the Dominion's cultural capital. He doesn't want to go, mostly because he'll be very isolated on the ship there. Hydran ships are filled with water, so he'll be confined to special quarters, isolated again and ashamed of his handicap.

The bright side is that once there he'll be on an air-breather station; his father will be the one with special quarters, using a wet suit to keep from drying out as he interacts for long hours with other delegates.

Drift

Michael has now discovered you can't bet much (in big money terms) at a roulette wheel, and has been directed to the MegaBucks slot machines at the fabricated Ausus casino opened in 2019. He's pulled a $23M jackpot and been escorted to the casino's "guest house", a private club on an estate just outside the city, which has a mini-casino in it. He's juggling damage control, but has become indignant at the apparent corruption that prompted the chief of security to blithely order a guard to shoot him. His hero complex is up, and he's going to break the bank.

This allows me to get back to the roulette scene in the illicit high limit room, which he'll eventually have to flee amid a summoned tempest in the teapot.

The dialogue is improving as well.

Gearing up!

		The wheel turns! I'm still happily editing my 2008 NaNo achievement, as is my wife, and a proper edit is still going to take months more to finish before it's ready to even begin submitting to agents, but NaNoWriMo 2009 approaches! The new participant badges are already pre-released (they don't officially start till October), and here's mine!
We're already planning the new books, and for this one, having a bit more time to think about it, I'm going back to my primary writing ground. Expect to see descriptions and explanations of the Federal Dominion here in the not too distant future. Onward, lol!

Herding Cats

Herding cats. That's what it's like sometimes, trying to get your characters to follow the trail of breadcrumbs you've laid out for them to wade through the plot to some predetermined ending. Hell, sometimes I'd be happy if I could just predict where they're going.

The initial write of the story had to make 50k words in 30 days, so it's forgivable that it was a little contrived. Now as I refine it and make the story line less contrived, more believable and more interesting to read, the protagonists forget that there are scenes yet to write that must be set up, and they get carelessly rambunctious, and start wandering of on their own.

It's a common enough complaint, but I must say, it's funny to watch, like seeing your children scream at the cold as they jump through the sprinkler and giggle in the summer sun. They don't care; they just do it.

People say that the idea is silly, that the characters do what I make them do, and that is true enough; but the characters behave second to second, each word and action flowing smoothly from the previous scene. Unlike me, they do not know what is supposed to happen, and to drag them toward the end goal by the nose makes the story again very contrived. For them to be natural and believable, I must let them respond naturally. That makes it a little trickier to guide them where I want them to go.

It also makes it much more fun to discover that I've added pages, and in doing so managed to create a situation where the contrived pages begin to fit in smoothly.

My babies are growing up. :)

Edit and fluff

The editing process is much harder than the original headlong rush of getting a story into being. It's astonishing how much.

It's also usual for books in this genre to be 100k or 150k words, with longer ones common. Shorter is less common. There's a content per dollar issue; they have a certain minimum amount of overhead, and too small a book won't sell for what "they" would have to charge.

NaNoWriMo got us to generate 50k words in a month. For me that was reasonably easy. I fabricated a fluff plot, and engaged my natural tendency to logorrhoea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logorrhoea). Voila, 50k.

Now I'm trying to tune that down to real content, paring away the extraneous smellies and firming up the style as well as the consistency of the plot and progress. In the process, I need to triple the size of the text, without contributing to the existing problem. Hm... eliminate the bad stuff and triple the size. See anything amiss?

Even so, it's working. The story is coming together, and growing. The parts that were just too contrived are being converted to better and more believable events, and so far I've managed to salvage a surprising amount of the previous writing.

Of course, other hobbies wither on the vine. I haven't had a chance to role-play much since moving off to live out in the boonies, and the few chances we've arranged have been... well, we don't do it anymore. For someone who used to spend 80 hours a week on such games, this is a significant loss. For a while I was substituting World of Warcraft, but now that languishes as well. I play Pirates and Farmville on Facebook, but real games take more time than my life has to spare right now. My hobby has become writing, and someday I hope to make it my career.

"Small" publishing credits?

Still workin' on that edit, and I decided to pop in here a moment. I read my first post and realized I made a mistake. I said I was published in a few small magazines, and that I didn't care much one way or the other. That was impolite, and not exactly true.

To me, every published piece is a small triumph. No magazine or person who appreciates my work ought to be shrugged off so flippantly. A person or entity offering a statement of faith and encouragement is valuable, and not easily forgotten.

I've received praise from individuals who had no publishing opportunity to offer, and I printed and kept all that I could. From time to time I look back on them and let them give me a lift. It doesn't matter that those early efforts left much to be desired. All appreciation is to be cherished , regardless of size, venue, or form of expression.

Prologue

I've been editing some of my work, and did it ever need it! Nano is great for getting you moving, but the reread can be painful. I can find those spots where I was tired or maybe had a bit too much wine. Other spots were just bad, and I had no excuse save for trying to get the words on paper so I could complete the challenge. It was a lot of fun.

Here is the edited version of a rather long prologue. It still needs some work, but I think it's getting there. I haven't decided if I'll leave it so long, or integrate it. I will probably leave it, because it needs to be there. It has a purpose, but I won't disclose it here. At least, not yet.


Hush

Prologue

After fifteen years, during which he’d endured a deadly house fire and the loss of his wife and child, Justin Doyle had come to terms with crushing loneliness and a hermit’s self imposed exile, but he was still not accustomed to goat’s milk. That powdery, slightly nutty taste would never sit well with him. The fact that it brought in beer and mead making supplies didn’t help his attitude on the matter. Just the same, it was what there was, and it was lucrative enough to keep him in the items he needed for his favorite endeavor. That made milking and goat keeping worthwhile parts of the daily grind. It even saved him from too many trips to the fort.

Justin finished with the doe and pulled the bucket from beneath her. She continued her meal while he shooed the cat, interrupting feline visions of a stolen drink. Placing the bucket high on a shelf, he released the doe, but allowed her to finish her feed before putting her back in the small pasture with the other goats. Returning to the milking stall, he again shooed the damned cat, who was now up on the shelf and filling her stomach with fresh cream, before bringing the milk into the kitchen for straining.

Daylight streamed through the dust streaked window, casting unfelt and unappreciated warmth over the scarred and numb skin of his face. His left eye squinted shut at the strengthening light, while his right eyelid drooped in its lopsided way, oblivious to sun, warmth, or, in fact, any sensation at all beyond the occasional phantom memory of fire. The sun catcher cast patterns on the floor, catching his remaining eye and reminding him once again of the changes in farm life. In his grandfather’s day, milking was accomplished before full light, often with sleep still in the eyes and the body arguing with the mind about the proper habits of diurnal creatures. An early start meant a timely finish, with luck. That kind of start was impossible now, at least if one wanted to continue upright and healthy. The same went for enjoying cow’s milk. Justin’s last cow had died long ago, and was a rarity even then. Too impractical a creature for the modern world.

Milk in the cold box and goats turned out for grazing, Justin allowed himself a quick breakfast before completing morning chores. It would be a busy day, with four does to cut, a young buck to wether, and planting to finish. If he was lucky, the day would end before twilight and he could sit down to his books.

Books filled most of Justin’s quiet hours. He wasn’t one for novels or sex books or even farming manuals. He cared little for stories set in the old days, except for the funny reminiscences of his grandfather. He never knew a woman to carry on like they did in the skin mags, and that bit of phoniness took all the fun out of them. He had a good memory and nimble fingers for such large hands. These did more for him than skin mags ever could, and without twisting his expectations. As for farming manuals, they weren’t much good anymore, being so dated, and there weren’t many more being written now, things the way they were. No, he kept to his brewing books.

Brewing was a fine art in Justin’s estimation, one of the oldest of man’s communal endeavors. In fact, man might not have settled into making stable civilizations if not for finding fermented wheat on the ground, liking the buzz, and figuring out how to make it happen again. That was what his books said, anyway, and he could believe it. Eating wheat and barley was all well and good, and necessary for survival. But brewing it, making something that could nourish the body as well as soften the edges of reality, enhancing a man’s own image of himself or making him face the deepest, nastiest corners of the soul, even for a short time… Well, that was about as high an aspiration as one man alone could hope for. Practicing his art meant more work and field space taken for hops, but it was well worth it to keep the tradition alive, not to mention a source of income. “Bootlegging” was an old term long out of date, but it had a nice ring to it and the nefarious connotations made his infrequent dealings with Fort Hogan a touch more bearable.

Justin had collected ten books dedicated to the art and science of brewing. All were older than his granddad had been before he died, two as thick as a dictionary, four as wide in the spine as his forearm, two no more than magazines, and the other two small enough to tuck into the space between his bed and the wall, which made them convenient for bedtime study, even if they weren’t as in depth as the thickest of them. He knew the thinnest by heart, and could recite whole passages from the rest. After years of study, he kept finding new ways to combine the information and make new concoctions.

Looking forward to a night with his books was all well and good, but there was still a lot of daylight and still a lot of work, so he might as well be about it. He grabbed the shotgun and the milking bucket, and decided to take the machete for the kudzu creeping in by the north field.

The last of the chickens brought in for the night, goats rounded up with the help of the dogs and the a field planted broadcast, Justin felt justified in taking a few moments on the porch for a stretch and a leisurely scratch at his crotch. Heineken and Bass, the two farm dogs, lazed at his feet, waiting with patience that belied their hunger. He regarded them with an affection he was not wholly aware of, thinking that if they’d the wit and vanity attributed to higher creatures, they might have taken exception to such undignified names. But being dogs, they accepted it with good grace.

The early spring breeze rippled over their coats, bringing with it the clean scents of hay, freshly dug earth, and honeysuckle. All these things he associated with life and the promise of a new beginning. At times Nature seemed a jaded whore, dry and cold and only functional in the most basic sense. At other times, like tonight, she was as warm and sweet as a chaste young girl, inviting thoughts that the best was yet to come and could remain forever pure.

Of course, he knew better. Any child did, or should. The girl could become the whore, fulfilling dreams of the child, but choosing only the shambling wreck of the nightmare. He could remember a time when things were different than they were now, when the boogeyman was just imaginary. The whore had held sway ten years ago when she burned his house, and not much mattered after for a goodish while. Still, honeysuckle reminded him of his granddad’s stories, despite his dad’s contempt for those tales. The old ways were important to Justin, because they spoke of other possibilities. It seemed to him, if things had been a certain way once, they could be that way again. Even if they couldn’t, the act of remembering the old times left a body with a sense of hope that things could at least be better. Things could change. They had once, and so radically that a sense of hope was still a thing to be held to, but only with a caviat. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Most of his hope was gone, along with grandfather, father, wife, child, and cow’s milk, but there was still enough honeysuckle to remind him to hold to what was left.

With a mind to checking on the cut goats one last time before settling in for the night, he turned toward the barn, slapping a thigh in signal to the dogs. They were good company. Heading for the barn, he paused and turned back, only an instant slower than the dogs. That scent. There… now gone. He must have imagined it. No, the dogs were reacting too. They had their hackles up about something. He stared in the direction of their pointing, twitching noses, pulling the shotgun from its holster.

He waited, staring out at the night, watching for movement, and waiting for the scent. Especially the scent. Minutes passed. One hair at a time, it seemed, the dogs settled. Justin did not. That scent had been there, dammit, and he could not dismiss it, despite what the dogs were telling him.

He stood and watched, listened, smelled, for a good ten minutes before deciding it must be safe. They did not just change their minds after finding a food source. He must have imagined that scent. After all, he’d been thinking of how fast things could change, how they could go bad. Thinking could do things to the mind; make a man sense things that weren’t there at all, or even ignore things that were. Hadn’t he been told enough times as a boy?

He turned and headed for the barn, both dogs riding his wake.

The barn was cool, smelling of hay and warm goat. Leghorns roosted on makeshift perches, on stall doors, and one even on a goat’s back. Justin shoved that one off, ignoring its indignant flapping as he looked closely at the stitched vertical line in the animal’s shaved throat. He checked all four goats he’d seen to, seeing more leakage than he cared for on only one. He hated cutting them, but being out so far from the nearest fort, he didn’t care to chance noisy animals. Nicked vocal chords seemed a small enough price to pay for continued existence. Losing an animal to surgical complications and stress now and then was hard, but a necessary evil in light of the alternatives.

Justin scratched the head of the last goat in his makeshift recovery ward and headed for the house. The squeak of the barn door rollers was awful. He made a mental note to oil them. The wind picked up a bit, again bringing him the scents of farm and woodland-and something else. He stopped in his tracks, sure of what he smelled this time, surer of the reaction of the dogs, which were now hackling and growling. Bass let out a sharp bark, glaring in the direction of the north field, the one just adjacent to the woodlot.

Not sparing another moment, Justin unslung his shotgun and ran for the house. Heineken and Bass ran with him, close enough that he felt them brush his heels as he ran.

The scent grew stronger, much stronger, as he neared the porch. Skidding to a stop, he turned and studied the dogs. They were now a terrible sight to behold, hackles up, stiff legged, fangs bared and tongues whipping in and out between them. They were looking toward the house. Justin followed their now deadly gaze, and his bladder let go.

The front door was open. The meager light from the lantern he’d lit before heading to the barns silhouetted three figures-or was it four?-standing on his front porch where before there’d been nothing but an old rocker and the inviting warmth of the hearth. They were stoop shouldered, and moving jerkily. One seemed to be covering its face with its hands and Justin could hear moans. He couldn’t tell more than that as his head felt like it was losing mass and with it, intellect. He was growing cold. Dimly, he wondered if this was what panic felt like.

Bass barked again, following up with a low growl, Heineken following that with two stiff legged steps forward. Justin shook his head clear just as the figures in the doorway-it was four, not three-ran toward them.

He took a moment to hope the new shells worked and pulled the trigger. His first shot hit the front runners. One fell, flopping into the dirt like a marionette with its strings cut, flesh burning. The second, he guessed a woman, screeched as she fell to the ground. She staggered up again and moved toward him less one arm, her neck spouting blood in a great, black jet. Sharp, white protrusions smoked where her right side should be. She made five running steps before falling to the ground again and beginning a feeble crawl.

The third was running faster, more crazed than the others. Justin’s second shot took him, or her- it was hard to tell with caked mud and froth as thick as goat’s milk still warm in the pail covering the face and upper body. The blast removed the head and shoulders, leaving than stringy flesh and a rain of blood and gore. The air thickened with a smell so much like that of his coldhouse during butchering. The rest of the body kept coming, reflex and momentum carrying it straight into Justin, knocking him to the ground and the wind from his lungs.

Justin lay wheezing and numb from the impact, waited for the hopefully inevitable return of his breath. When his lungs finally allowed a deep, whooping breath, it seemed more curse than gift as he caught the combined smells of feces, blood, urine, and that other smell, sharply familiar and disgusting. The body over him leaked hot fluids, the carotid artery still spraying, sending a hot stream over his face and into his mouth. Somehow he’d failed to notice this while trying to catch his breath. He inhaled and choked on the foul substance, tried to scream, then vomited as he struggled to climb out from under the repulsive weight and scent of his kill.

Rocking hard, he managed to roll from beneath the corpse. He heard the dogs snarling as they attacked the fourth (human? Are they really human?). It screamed like nothing he’d ever heard, flailing and biting at the dogs, managing to grab hold of Heineken’s head. He bit into the dog’s ear, causing a yelp in that howling, screaming voice that told of great hurt.

“Out! Out!” Justin took aim, thanking whatever gods there were that he’d spent the extra money on a shotgun with a clip rather than on some whores. The dogs left off their attack, as directed, and backed off. Heineken left behind most of his ear.

The third shot took the last attacker in the chest, blowing most of it out behind him. Incredibly, the man remained standing, shivering violently. Justin fired again as it began to fall. It hit the ground with a thud, and Justin fired again, then again. He kept firing, walking forward, until he stood just over the corpse. Two more shots left it almost unrecognizable as anything human. He stopped, breathing hard through the harsh smells of his own urine and the blood he’d spilled. Heineken whimpered. The wind sighed, seeming to acknowledge the dog’s pain and the human’s fear. If there’d been any witnesses, Justin, his dogs, and the corpses around them would have made a macabre tableau against the deepening darkness.

Snapping branches brought Justin back to the moment. Heineken’s low whining turned to a sharp snarl in counterpoint with the wind’s sighing. Figures emerged from behind the house. A lot of them. Beyond counting, it seemed.

Justin broke and ran for the house, making of it a finish line in an unthinkable race for survival. He hit the door with his shoulder, sending it flying back with enough force to hit the far wall and bounce back. He kept moving, shotgun held out before him like a battering ram, his booted feet resounding off the wooden floor with a booming reminiscent of distant summer thunder.

In his head, he ran through the steps of survival. Through the kitchen, sharp right into the hall, toward the bedroom. Halfway down the short hall, just past the bathroom. Yank down the trap, pull down the steps, up as fast as his feet could find the rails. DON’T FORGET to drag the trap rope with him! From the attic floor, pull the rope, watch the steps accordion shut. Wrap the rope. Send up a flare.

He made it through the kitchen, managing to wham his elbow on the door jam on the way by. His feet skidded as he made the turn, almost tangling and throwing him to the floor. His outthrust arms clutched the gun like the lifeline it was as his elbows painted small lines and circles in the air. He regained balance and momentum, never having looked anywhere but at the rectangular break in the ceiling that was his salvation. Upon reaching the hanging rope of the trap, he lurched to a stop, leaning almost far enough forward to overbalance, the backward tilt of his head preventing his smashing forward. The trap obeyed his frantic yank just as he heard screams and the most terrible snarling he’d ever heard from his dogs. Then came the yelps of pain intermingled with the screams and snarls.

Justin made the top of the trap and began hauling the rope, watching the steps bend and break in the middle. Now he could hear the wet, gurgling snarl-yelp of a dog in extreme distress. He thought it was Bass.

As the door closed and he tied off the rope, he heard another long, drawn out yelp, and then it stopped. The screams continued, drawing closer. Unacknowledged tears traced a path along the gullies and ridges of his half withered cheek before finding smooth flesh again, only to continue down to his chin before falling to the thick dust of the attic floor.

He sat hunkered down, waiting. The noises came closer and the sounds of ransacking began. Kitchen cupboards squeaked open, some loud enough to cause a frenzied flurry of destruction, followed by brawling which ended in dull thuds and screeches. The smell intensified, again familiar as it was repulsive. Then he remembered.

Almost thirty years ago, he’d gone bow hunting with his dad. It was one of the few activities that excited the man, making him twice as communicative and even jovial in the way that bullies in a magnanimous state of mind might be. His grandfather had warned Justin about keeping silent, paying attention to the changes of mood in his father, but more importantly, to the changes in the environment. Absent bird song, snapping branches, and lessened animal activity were all indications the smart man should sit up and pay attention. Smells were also to be attended, smells were important. They could mean the difference between life and death.

They’d been easing along, looking for signs of game, his dad in the lead. Sunlight reached through the interlaced branches of oak and hickory trees, the interplay of light, shadow, and haze creating a feel as fantastic as it was primeval. Justin could imagine himself moving through the woods in nothing but a loincloth, his only weapon a sharpened stick, his shoes made of leather wrappings. A sharp rap to the bridge of the nose brought him out of the daydream even as it brought tears to his eyes. His dad’s back remained as still and solid as if he’d never moved, but Justin knew he’d jut been reprimanded for “that fuckin’ daydreamin’ that never did no good.” He got back on the clock, and never mind the feel of old, dead leaves, brambles and tree bark against bare flesh.

He was wiping his eyes with quick, economical motions before his dad could slam him for that weakness when the smell hit him. It was strong enough to water his eyes again before the breeze shifted and pulled it away.

“Dad…”

“Shut. Up.”

Justin shut.

They remained where they were long enough for pins and needles to begin making their way down Justin’s legs. Try as he might, he couldn’t help the way the bird song and occasional rustle of leaves from leaping squirrels and chipmunks took on a monotonous, senseless feel, the same way saying your name over and over makes it a nonsense word.

A few moments before, just before Justin thought his feet might become permanent parts of the leaf-covered floor, his dad motioned forward. They moved cautiously through the increasing thickness of the woods. Justin hadn’t been through this part of the woods and the unfamiliar territory set off new fits of daydreaming. This time, he let the movie play in the far back of his thoughts, where his father could never see, much less reach.

Dry soil and the beginnings of muscadine and blackberry vines gave way to dense bramble and wet leaves. They’d found a low spot in the woods where intense sunlight combined with spring runoff to form a basin of decomposed, soggy leaves, brackish water, and a smell of decay so strong there had to be a recognizable source. In just a few seconds, they found it.

Two deer carcasses lay at the edge of the basin. They were well rotted, with bones showing through stretched skin and maggots squirming in eye sockets that seemed too wide for deer. Browser’s teeth protruded too far from shriveled lips. What was somehow worse than the normal signs of decay were the bite marks. Someone, or something, had been gnawing.

“Come look at this, son.”

Rare words from a man who’d seemed always taciturn, always distant. Justin took advantage of the opportunity, hoping, as always, for a chance to know this man.

They moved in closer to the carcasses. The smell made Justin want to puke. The closest he could come to describing that smell was fresh dog shit heated and dipped in old, tacky blood, and that wasn’t really close.

“Look here at these marks. What do you think made them?”

Justin studied the marks his dad pointed to. They were ragged and mostly shapeless. Here and there he could make out a rough half circle. Near one deer’s flank he saw a strange lump that didn’t seem to go with the rest of the animal. It was grayish, small, and half buried in the place where the deer’s belly met the butt end. Ignoring his rising gorge, he leaned closer. It was a tooth. A human tooth.

“Those…things? Those…”

“People, Justin. Those things, as you call them, are just people. I believe that. This is one reason why. They need to eat just like we do, and a dead deer carcass will serve just as well as anything else.”

Justin stood staring. Here was evidence that they were at least organic. Organic things needed to eat. Demons didn’t. At least, that was how he figured. And it wasn’t likely a normal person had tried to bite the deer to death. Biting it to death. Now maybe that was something his dad hadn’t thought of.

“How’d they catch it, do you think? Can they run faster than normal humans?”

His dad turned and looked at him like he was a new species of bug, cold blue eyes crawling over him with a combination of curiosity and disgust.

“No” he said slowly, as to a small child. “It was dead when they started eating. Those bite marks are fresh. The deer isn’t.”

Justin looked again and realized he was right. The deer had been dead for days. The bite wounds were still raw, though bloodless. The deer hadn’t bled when it was bitten.
But that meant…

“Are they close?” He was whispering now, head dipping below the level of his shoulders as he looked around.

His dad gave him that look again, the one that told him just how stupid he was.

“If they were, you’ve already made enough noise that they’d be on us by now. They aren’t here. But they aren’t long gone either. Notice that smell? Isn’t it worse than it ought to be?”
He was right. The death smell was recognizable, but so intense. It almost had an overtone of dirty dog and wet chicken.

Watching him closely, his dad told him, “Yes. Remember it. Keep it at the front of your mind. It may save your life someday.”

He’d remembered, and that scent carried with it the memory of a few rare moments in his youth when his dad had tried to teach him. That scent was revolting, but it was also pleasantly nostalgic. Funny how that could be.

It hadn’t saved him though, not really. He’d known the smell on the wind and ignored it. If he hadn’t, would he be any better off than he was now? Maybe his dogs would have been. They knew how to climb the ladder, he’d taught them, just in case.

As his dad had often said, there was no point in worrying over what might have been when there was plenty to deal with now.

He listened to their activity, trying to figure out how close they were. If he was quiet, he could send up the signal.

He turned slowly, carefully, avoiding possible squeaks that might bring them. They couldn’t get into the attic with the rope pulled up and tied, but better not to take chances. He didn’t think he could take listening to them jumping and screaming at the entrance to his hideout.

He moved to the far end of the eaves, where he kept his water supply and the flares. The small window at that end let in a little moonlight-and a good thing, too. He’d left a lantern up here, but the idea of fire in this enclosed space with nowhere to run but into those things-those humans, he’d been forced to admit during that hunting trip with his dad-was more than he wanted to contemplate.

He reached the window, put down his gun, looked to his right and felt around a little. He touched one of the flares. His hand contacted something spongy, like cardboard soaked in dew. Wet.

Why were the flares wet?

Holding off the onset of panic, he looked and felt for his water supply. There should be a huge keg of water. He saw the shine from the metal side of the keg at the same time his hand hit the hard side. He hesitated, listened for what waited below. They weren’t close enough for him to worry much, so he took a chance and tapped lightly at the keg.

It was hollow. The water was gone.

He felt for his flares again. They were wet. All of them.

Somehow, his water supply had sprung a leak. There was none to be had. Worse, his flares were useless. There could be no call for help. Letting out a huge sigh, Justin found he could barely draw a restorative breath. All he could manage were short, whistling hiccups that brought little relief.

After a time, he pulled his knees to his chin, dropped his forehead, wrapped his arms around his legs and rocked.

And I'm Still Here...

It's been so long since I've posted here. It isn't even that I haven't worked on the book, it's that I've had so many other things going on. Now I look over the past posts and am embarrased by typos, grammatical errors, and just plain silliness. Oh well, I did warn that this wouldn't be finished draft material. Actually, I've seen worse on finished products, so I guess I shouldn't worry about it over much.

So here I am on my fifth month of pregnancy and I'm getting that little creative tickle again. There are lots of holes and lots of problems with my work and I really want to spend several hours a day getting them worked out. I've rewritten whole sections and am beginning to think all I'll ever do with the work is rewrite, scribble, and leave it to sit. But that's ok. I'm not doing this for money. In fact, I suggested to Paul that I ought to finish it and publish a chapter at a time right here, to be read for free by our millions of followers . He thought I might be losing my mind. He has more faith in the work than I do, you see. He thinks it's very good, worth publishing, and worth buying. It's good to have that kind of support at your back :-).

mid-year update

The Arby's next door does have wi-fi. Accordingly, I've played lots of WoW over lunches.

I've set it aside to simmer, but have still continued to edit now and then. The story has potential, but was generated on the spur of a moment as something new for NaNo, and I fluffed it a lot. Honestly, it's better as a novella, or a fairly long "short story" where less development is appropriate. I'm debating the work of fully fleshing it out, as I have so many other things I'd rather be writing. I want to get back to the Federal Dominion in which most of my flights of fancy take place.

(let it not be so, lol)

and Fortuitous Restriction

Went to the library today.
They do not have wi-fi.

That's probably a Good Thing, as otherwise I might be tempted to spend my lunches playing World of Warcraft rather than writing. =o)

Habit and Opportunity

Until I have the good fortune to actually sell something, I think it best to keep my day job, lol....

Accordingly, I'm trying to develop some useful habits. It occurred to me that I could write for about an hour every day at lunch if I could find somewhere to go and sit. I have a laptop, but I don't want to be so rude as to use the restaurant's table space without buying something, and I don't want to buy my lunch every day.

My wife suggested a library, but I didn't know where one might be. I asked a coworker, but he had no idea.

So I googled it (technically Yahoo, if it matters.)

I can see the library from my office door. It's *right* directly across the street.

But I didn't bring my lunch today, so I went to Arby's. :)

Life Intrudes, but life is good, so that's ok

Just noticed we haven't posted for a while. Daily living makes it rough sometines to keep up these little side issues.

We finished, successfully. YAY! Now comes the hard part.

I actually wrapped up the rough draft of the plot line around 55k words. It's full of passages that ramble and have little to do with the plot, have no significant tension, or drift off into heavily esoteric discussions of philosophy or quantum mechanics. While I might love them, the average person isn't going to want to read that. Now the editing begins.

A more realistic evaluation of the content after editing should put it as around 300 pages of 10pt text in a 4x6in trade paperback with normal margins. I'm working on the first comb-through edit, which should hopefully catch most of the typos, the clumsy sentences, and the incorrect homonyms that snuck in under the influence of sleep deprivation, alcohol and coffee; with luck I'll identify most of the obvious plot holes and the points at which credibility is stretched too far, and begin formulating ways to correct them. I can develop subplots, establish more character sympathy, weed out some clichés and insert better foreshadowing. Then I can set the whole thing aside for a while to let it cool off, and read it with a fresh eye later for the second pass.

In the mean time I'll be spending some family time and hopefully finishing the remodeling that got put on hold for NaNo. In January I'll be saying goodbye to some beloved hobbies and getting into the grind of writing daily, with the mindset that it's a second job that I enjoy. :)

I have a ton of other stories that need to be set to paper. I've been developing a universe for years, and I'm ready to share. That should be easier, since this story for NaNoWriMo was purely contrived on short notice just for this exercise.

Wish us luck. ;oD

Diligence and Realism

Well, as of Sunday the 23rd I finally had a day where I wrote nothing at all.

I finished Saturday night at over 49k, and Sunday was just a hard day, but even so it felt weird. This morning I forgot the laptop after just that one slip, so now I can't go write for an hour.

*sigh*

All the more reason to keep at it. ;)

Of course, the boom-surge of Saturday was fun, but I think I may actually be able to wrap up the first draft in November after all. The whole thing is going to require a rewrite, we knew that all along, but now that the character has arrived at the lair of the Bad Guy to rescue the damsel in distress, I think a nice big climactic scene that forces him to do some actual work will be cool. An interesting bad guy Boss with a twist, some drastic changes of tactics required, maybe a little injury and some actual risk?

Yeah, that's the ticket...and I can get that done before December, I'm pretty sure.

Commentary on "Limits", below....

Sometimes we need to make sure people know we've done the reality check, even if we choose to ignore it. ;op

Limits

Ok, so NaNoWriMo tries for 50k words in November. Next year I'll know to set my goals higher.

A recent email from the site suggests starting to wind it up by the end of the month. I'm having a little trouble with that. Not that I couldn't synopsize the rest of the book with placeholder scenes that could be expanded on rewrite, but the initial flow is coming along so well, and I know what I *want* more clearly than expected, so I'm thinking I'm just gonna have to say no.

If this is still flowing this well December 20th, I may just let it run. If I end up with a 3,000 page behemoth, I'll split it like Tad Williams' Otherland (which I personally loved, btw), and let the chips fall where they may.

Maybe the rewrite will shave it back down to hip-pocket size.

Maybe the rewrite will break it into a series, like Jim Butcher's Dresden Files (which I personally loved, btw), and I can get $8 for each installment, not that I expect much of that to land in my own pocket.

Or maybe it'll just end up as a multi-volume standalone behemoth. I don't really care. At this point it's a joy to write, and I'm just along for the thrill of the ride. I hope that later I get paid for it, but that's an issue for later. Right now, it's just write, now, and it's feeling just right for right now. That's enough.

Later I'll worry about salability. ;o]

Pep Talks and Interruptions

Didn't I tell you Paulie's posts were likely to be so much more colorful than mine? I can tell you how he does it. He sat up late writing on my computer one night while I was out (since he broke his own) and spilled saki all over the keyboard. Now some of my keys stick as if they'd been glued and my word count is sooo far below his now...

Just kidding. Not about the saki and the broken computer. Just about the sour grapes.

Actually, we've been doing a great deal of our writing on laptops in the kitchen, sitting across from each other. We read excerpts aloud, gather feedback, and generally help each other out. Its pulled me out of my slump and I feel as if I'm on a roll. I passed that page seventy mark with no trouble at all and, if anything, feel as if I have to slow things down so I don't arrive too rapidly to the conclusion.

Funny how timely the pep talk topics have been. This week's is about reaching the halfway point and keeping the fingers moving, even if you have to edit out half of everything written this month. At least there's something to work with when blank white becomes lines of text. But the best piece of advice concerns writing alone. I always thought that was the way to go-alone with just your thoughts and your keyboard, and no one to interrupt. Nonsense. I find I write best with Paul across from me, interrupting me to read excerpts, offering him my own interruptions, the eight year old running through or yelling in to chat about Sponge Bob or drama class, and the pig demanding lap time. Even better when I have to be wary of the cockatoo sitting on my screen, because she just might add some spice by pecking one of my keys out in retaliation for being ignored.

I've heard so many talk about being left alone to work, how can they work with so many interruptions...blahblahblahhhhh..... I'm one of those cranky people, or at least I used to be. Now I think there's no place better than a room full of potential interruptions for nudging the subconscious. It causes some gaffs, true. But it keeps the brain busy and it'll all wash out in the edit.

Won't it?

Well, Now you've done it....

Who walks into an illegal unregulated casino and doesn't realize he's dealing with Bad People?



Don't kick the anthill unless you're sure you can get away from the ants....

Pullman's Page 70 Blues

NaNo sends weekly pep talks, and the last one was Phillip Pullman, who mentions that the hardest part of a book to write is page 70. Page 1, you have lots of ideas and enthusiasm; by the end you're winding up and winding down. Page 70, though...that's the point where you've gotten all your initial ideas out there, or can't figure out how to get from the last section to the next idea. You've stirred the pot, and it's bubbling, but now there are no new ingredients to add. You have to let it simmer, but if you walk off it'll burn.

Well, Our Hero has just successfully escaped from the Casino of Death. He's survived being shot at without being harmed, and has managed to rob the cashier's booth of the money he won but they wouldn't pay. He's even flown around the big room of the casino in a hurricane he summoned, and managed in the process to keep the gun-happy goons from carelessly shooting bystanders. He's in the limo and speeding away with cash and freedom and all his toes, and a major adrenalin high.

Now it really gets bad. The mafia's after him, his family and friends, and they have the local police in their pocket, so there's an APB that's going to be a problem even if he leaves the state. He can't fly, but the bad guys can, so they can beat him back to his mom, his girlfriend... He can do amazing things, but how can he take on the mob and the police at the same time, and still protect those he cares about?

My page 70 hump wasn't so bad (thought technically I'm only on 68), but I can see where I DESPERATELY need editing and a rewrite. We knew that was coming; it's no surprise. I just finally believe it viscerally. Heart has understood what head kept saying, lol

So in the end, generating a story, for me at least, is easy.

The hard part's going to be ensuring enough quality that I don't mind putting my name on it.

We've arrived at week two and my story is languishing. If this keeps up, I'll fall way behind on word count and won't have time to catch up. If that happens, I'll let the story sit, with intentions of getting back to it "when I come up with something," and that will never happen.

I was just about ready to think the story was doomed and no great loss because its not any good anyway. Its a first draft, and I'm thinking its not any good. I am way too ambitious.

Anyway, I got my nano pep talk in the mail this morning, and guess what? I'm not the only one. Imagine that. I'm not so special as I thought, haha! Others get writer's block, rough spots in the work, characters that stop talking to them, and the feeling that they should just junk the Work In Progress.

Here's a clue, delivered through an email in timely fashion. Real writers get through that. Hacks and pretenders let it stop them. But most importantly, I told people I was going to do this, and I got my husband to do it with me. I better finish-shame beats guilt hands down, anytime ;-).

And for the idiot proprietor of the illegal gambling house:

My turn =o)

Note that this is an illegal and unregulated gambling house; otherwise he'd never be able to bet more than a few hundred dollars at a time, at most. It's an excerpt, so forgive the lack of context.
========================================

“Betting is now open,” the croupier obliged, and as everyone fumbled in their chips Mike smiled and decided to play the eccentric, with a little help from the dragon. He looked and tweaked the flight path as he tossed his only chip so that it bounced once and landed squarely in the middle of Black 13. Everyone stopped, stared, blinked.

The young man in the tuxedo broke the silence with a soft contralto. “Since you’re here I assume you understand the game, but for the benefit of the peanut gallery, please tell them that you do in fact understand that (one) you’ve placed your chip on a square that can only win if the ball lands exactly on that one single space, that (two) the odds are thirty-eight to one against you, and (three) that if you win you’ll collect three hundred fifty thousand dollars?” He said this in a tone that reminded Mike of someone telling him he had dandruff.

“Wow,” said Mike. “Actually, no, I hadn’t taken the time to look it up. Thanks!” He grinned, and straddled a chair. They all stared another moment, then the old Texan burst out laughing.

“Boy, I’m gonna miss you after this roll. You got balls.” He plunked down $10k of his own on each of Black and Odd, and added, “An’ I hope like hell you hit it.” He winked. Mike tipped his hat, and leaned his own elbows on the edge of the table. Blue jeans dropped a $10k bet street on the far column from thirteen, and the young man who’d spoken shrugged and bet $16k, carefully counted out, on red. Mike wanted to tell him to change it, but didn’t think it would matter. The man had the air of someone with a system, who didn’t really care if he lost a few hundred thousand dollars as an entertainment expense. He sighed and concentrated on the ball.

“Last call,” said the croupier, and waited a moment, but everyone was done. “Very well, betting is now closed.” He paused again, just a moment out of protocol, then vigorously spun the wheel. He picked up the ball and set it spinning in the opposite direction.

Mike looked for the odds – 38:1 he thought, this is gonna be a cake walk, but then he saw the swirls.

There’s an old saw in statistics: flip a coin ten times. If the first nine all come up heads, what are the odds of the tenth flip coming up heads? People will grab pen and paper and start scribbling. The smart ones will start doubling and try to figure whether they should include nine or ten iterations, and get all impressed with the enormity of the number.

The correct answer is 50/50. The coin has two sides, and the question wasn’t the odds of getting heads ten times in a row; it was the odds on the tenth flip. A lot of people can’t separate the two. That always amused Mike. Now, though, he began to doubt the purity of the question.

Looking at the roulette wheel he saw the probabilities spinning out of it, all the numbers equally likely…but he also saw the expectations of everyone present, nudging and polluting the pure probabilities. He concentrated, and selected Black 13. Other possibilities fell away.

The ball lost momentum and struck one of the barriers there to randomize its motion, and Mike had a moment of panic, but his selection held, and though the ball danced and hopped merrily about, it settled quite finally onto Black 13.

Everyone, even the croupier, stared. Cappy let out a stupendous yowp and began to dance an undignified jig, and after a few moments the old Texan burst out with a great, raucous bray of his own, took off his hat and slapped his thigh with it repeatedly. Jeans opened his mouth with unvoiced indignation, but Tuxedo just sighed and started counting out chips for his next bet.

The croupier regained his professionalism, and sounded off. “Black Thirteen,” he said loudly, “We have a winner. House pays, three hundred fifty thousand dollars to Black Thirteen.”

“WHAT?” Nick came pushing through the crowd, roughly shoving girls in green and blue gowns aside to bounce off tables and other gamblers. “What the...!?”

The croupier counted out three $100k chips and a $50k, raked Mike’s $10k to himself, and pushed all four to the area in between Mike’s elbows. Nick arrived and glared, but realized everyone at the table was staring at him. He wiped the sweat on his forehead through his hair and rubbed his face, took a deep breath, and watched Mike put the $50k chip in his pocket. The other three he leaned out and stacked again on Black 13. “Let these ride,” Mike said quietly, and settled back into his seat.

Nick goggled for a minute, then burst out laughing. “Sure,” he said, trying to relight his cigar and regain some composure. “I appreciate that. It’s a nice gesture. You’re an ok guy.” He puffed for a minute, then looked around. “Tina,” he said, “get these gentlemen some drinks, on the house. Hang around, be nice to them.” He chuckled as she skipped toward the bar. “Catch her before she gets too drunk and she can be very nice, if you know what I mean.” He stuck his tongue out to meet his incoming cigar, and even Cappy had to clamp his mouth shut. Nick wandered off again, but some of the crowd from the adjacent craps table began to drift over, what appeared to be a suburban married couple congratulating Mike on his win.

Tuxedo grinned. “For the record, since you ‘haven’t done the research’, the odds are still thirty-eight to one, but this time the payoff would be ten and a half million dollars.” He turned laconically to the croupier. “Do you even have that much here at the table?”

The croupier blanched. “I’m sorry, sir, I’m not allowed to discuss such matters.” Tuxedo just laced his fingers and waited.

“Bidding is now open,” said the croupier nervously. Jeans pushed another $10k onto the same column. Tuxedo slid his carefully counted $32k stack onto red again.

Excerpt From Hush. Again.

Paul seems to like it when I do this, and since no one is paying any attention anyway, I'll indulge him.
======================================================
The problem with newbies is that you never can tell where they’re likely to screw up. It’s not that most don’t mean well. It’s not that most don’t want to learn. It’s that they don’t know, and an old hand takes certain things for granted. It seemed obvious to Grimes, he of the dead baby key fob, that the gas grenade should be at hand before the outer gate is shut down. It seemed equally obvious that the new guy ought to be the go-to bitch. Go-to as in, “hey, go get the hose,” or “go get the gas grenades.” These things are as accepted by the old hands as shaking the equipment after a piss before putting it back in their pants. That the new guy should remember to get the gas grenades, and that he should not have to check him, seemed an inalienable right, at least in Grimes’ view.
“Ok. Hit it.”
“Hit what?”
Grimes turned and looked at Johnson as if he’d asked, please sir may I have some more, and sighed, employing the utmost melodrama.
“The. Gas. Grenade. The thing that goes ‘puff,’ then goes ‘sssss,’ then makes them all go to sleep. It’s the reason we look like crickets.”
Johnson thought they looked more like the video game images he’d seen in an old book back when he was a kid. They made up monsters back before his grandfather’s time to make up for the lack of tangible targets for their angst. Too much time on their hands, if you asked him, but nobody was asking, so he wasn’t saying.
“Oh. Yeah. I thought you had it.”
“Did you see me go get it? No? Then I don’t have it. So you go get it. Ok?”
Johnson turned and headed for the locker with more good grace than he thought Grimes deserved. He knew there was a certain amount of hazing to be tolerated on a new job, but he wasn’t up for playing the fool. He’d talk with Grimes later.
The locker was on the wall just opposite the entry, which lead down a very short hall before technicians turned and got the first look into the room. It was funny how they did that. Why put a big cinderblock wall up beside the door? Did they think people needed to be eased into the room? Hell, if that as the case, the recruit didn’t need to be on this particular job.
He fumbled through his keys for a moment before singling out the one he needed. It wasn’t hard-he’d color coded his keys. Red for deadheads, green for home. Stop and Go, the most basic of human drives. This is good, this is bad; this is life, this is death.
Unlocking the grey metal door, he pulled it open with one hand while stuffing his keys into a pocket with the other. He was halfway there, trying to pull his hand out of his pocket without dragging the keys back with it, and fumbled the gas grenade. He ripped his hand loose and grabbed for it…and missed.
The grenade hit the floor and went rolling.
“Shit!”
The expletive was more embarrassment than anything else. He’d just been thinking Grimes was an ass for treating him like an idiot, and here he was acting like one. He ran low to the ground, thinking he’d get the grenade before it rolled around to within Grimes’ field of vision. It made it most of the way, then fetched up against the corner of the wall. Johnson grabbed it up, scraping his fingers on the rough cinderblock in the process. He stood there, fingers in between his lips, cheeks puffing out as the coppery taste of blood filled his mouth.
“Are you still here, Johnson? Do you think we could have that gas before I reach retirement?”
Johnson pulled his fingers out of his mouth with a pop.
“Just a second!” He popped his fingers back into his mouth and looked at the grenade.
“Shit again,” he whispered around rapidly swelling fingers. The pin was bent. Not much, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to pull it cleanly.
He could use it, it wasn’t damaged that badly. But Grimes might notice, and would give him grief. He didn’t need grief. He’d go get another; let the next guy deal with this.
He scooted back to the locker, tossed the damaged grenade in and grabbed another. He had a brief moment to realize it wasn’t a gas grenade before the ring tipped over and hit his scraped fingers. He opened his hand reflexively, and hooked the pin as the grenade fell.
It was most definitely not a gas grenade.
The world turned from shades of grey to pristine white while all sound turned to blank, blinding pain. Johnson squeezed his eyes shut while clapping hands to pain racked, bleeding ears.

Excerpt From Hush

Sarah had been sitting quietly behind her dad, watching the adults and a few teens shoot. Her dad called her forward to show her how the trigger mechanism on a shotgun worked.
“See here? There are two triggers. This one fires just one barrel. This one fires both. If you fire one, then you have the other still loaded. Fire both, and you put more lead in the air, but have to reload before you can fire again. So you have to think about what you’re doing and why. Remember how we talked about thinking before acting?”
She nodded. It was a talk they had pretty often.
“Can I try it?”
Harrison hesitated. He didn’t know why he felt so squeamish about handing his daughter a gun. Most other seven year olds had their own, practicing regularly for the day when they’d carry it all the time, with and without supervision. It wasn’t just his reluctance to hand over a weapon to a child whose head was so often in the clouds. He guessed it was a desire to keep her innocent, impractical as that might be.
“Tell you what. I’m gonna let you fire one barrel. Its time you started learning anyway.”
Sarah gave a little jump. “Yay!”
“Hold on, now! This isn’t a game. Listen carefully, now.”
He’d set her up on the block, and showed her how to sock the butt of the gun into her shoulder, and explained the trigger mechanism again. He pointed her at the target and stepped to one side.
Sarah looked down the site, closed her eyes, and squeezed. Both triggers.
She was launched backward into the air, flying high before landing hard, seated just as neat as if she’d been called to supper and was ready at her mom's table. Her teeth clicked together hard and her butt felt numb.
The next thing she knew, Harrison was pulling the gun from her hands, laughing in that deep, strong voice. Sarah's cheeks puffed in and out as she looked around to find out who else might have witnessed her mistake, only to see a Caulfield, the one she knew as Miss Misha, laughing. Her puffing slowed, and the tears she'd been bout to cry retreated. Misha’s laughter was fascinating, and contagious. Despite her numb butt and hurt pride, it just didn’t seem worthwhile to cry about something that could make a Caulfield laugh.
Sarah had gone to the firing range many times since then, and even learned to fire the shotgun without falling on her butt. But that day was still the best day because she’d seen Miss Misha laugh.

Breaking the Bank in Vegas

Casino Reaction to Big Wins

A guy (our hero) walks into a casino and uses his credit card to buy a $10k betting chip. He puts it on the roulette table at 35:1 payout, and hits for $350k.

At that point, do you really think they're going to let him walk out without answering a few questions? But no, he doesn't stop there.

He pockets $50k, and lets the $300k ride. It hits again, for a $10.5 Million payout.

Would they even have enough chips at the table to pay? What do they do if not?

What are the odds he'll actually get paid?
What are the chances he'll get out of the casino without a better explanation than "I'm just lucky"?

What do they do if they can't prove fraud?

Addendum: Real casinos don't allow five digit roulette bets, or anything even close, much less six. He's gonna have to find a private, unregulated room.... i.e., mafia. Let's get him on into the action, shall we? =o)

Circular Illogic

What if you knew someone who took a big hit of acid as an initiation ritual, and then told you he could do magic? He's still tripping, or he's crazy. Pretty simple.

What if you were that person? A sensible person otherwise, but obsessed enough, or desperate enough, to try it. You trip hard, hallucinate, have an epiphany, and now you can do stuff.

Would you believe it yourself? Or would you just assume you were still tripping, or maybe that you'd completely lost touch with reality?

Imagine getting what you'd risked your life to achieve, and then not being able to trust that you weren't really just still lying on your floor in a hallucinogen-induced dream.

Do you try to hold onto what you've worked so hard for, possibly driving yourself further toward an irreparable psychotic break?
Or do you fight to wake up, to deny the proofs you keep giving yourself, and possibly lose what you worked so hard for in the first place?

Ain't it funny how life is never simple. =o)

LOL!!

See why I love my wife? =o)
She writes so well, about her doubts that she writes well.



(Oh, and by the way, baby....this is day seven. ;o)

Writer's Doubts and Whining

So here we are on day six. Much as I'd like to allow the world to go spinning off without me while I write, that isn't reality. Right now, I'm sitting in front of the computer, starting to get high off the pain medication I'm taking for a bad tooth. I'm sick from the tooth infection too, but that's being handled by the penicillin. Oh, and the garlic pills, and the multivitamin. The damn cat is tearing the house apart. Tomorrow, I intend to fulfill a promise I made to assist at a goat farm so I can glean as much knowledge in that area as possible. No, not for the book, for a different part of my life entirely.

The intrusion of real life is something I'll just have to deal with. What's really got me tumbling is the fact that my work is going places I never intended and know little about. The more I write, the less it looks like a horror and more like a western. Yup, a western. Not that there's anything wrong with that (Seinfeld, anyone?) Its just that I've read very little of the genre, and I'm wondering how this could be.

Second, I find my confidence faltering. I don't like the idea of people reading a first draft, but I'd like to know if my story is at all engaging. Never mind how "correct" the writing is-I'm pressing for word count and time, so I don't expect to have those things there anyway. The rewrite will handle most of that, including plot holes. But there are times when I wonder if I'm wasting my time.

Which leads to the point of this blog. Should it matter? I'm all for the philosophy that says time is not wasted if it contributes to self improvement, self realization, and the creation of purpose. I do believe we create our own beauty and meaning out of what raw materials we find. Yes, I'm one of those existentialists...deal with it. If I want to spend time writing a worthless novel and it makes me happy, then that's what I ought to be doing and it is NOT a waste of time.

Then again, there are those times when I wonder if I'm just engaging in literary masturbation. It might be fun, but I'm not one to waste time. I want to be productive. Masturbation is not an entirely useless endeavor, but its not one that ought to be shared with the world. Unless you're a porn star. And I am not a porn star and I don't intend to be a hack. I want to share myself...in a literary sense, of course ;-).

So here I am, blogging away, wishing I had a serious reader on hand to tell me to get on with it, and fast! or to forget about quitting my day job. Is my story engaging, memorable? Does any of it stick with the reader past the time it takes to read it? Lofty goals for a first draft, but I am ambitious.

With none of those questions answered, I'm back where I started. People who don't exist outside of my imagination conversing in my head, pictures of places that do exist in some form taking on history that never was and perhaps never could be. And, having purged my doubts to you or to the ether, I go back to giving my attention to ghosts and mist. After I kill the cat.

And for your viewing pleasure....

From Despair.com!

Excerpt: the Initiation

He’d been researching the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. The relevant points all boiled down to the fact that you can’t really know. As he read it, everything was just so much probability until you actually looked to see what happened, which made all the possibilities collapse into the happened. He understood it much better than most, but even he tended to ignore the parts he didn’t like, and dwell on the amusing aspects of any given misinterpretation.

The minutes stretched out. Nothing happened. Had he gotten fake mushrooms? Were they just a bag of shitake? Breathe… he just needed to wait. Don’t be impatient. Maintain focus. Meditate.
Schroedinger’s cat as his familiar, he’d dreamed. God particles performing his miracles. There was room here for something to happen, some strange aspect of the universe otherwise overlooked could reside in these weird little quantum corners, and account for all sorts of craziness. He was going to find the Troll hiding under an Einstein-Rosen bridge.

The thought struck him as unbelievably funny. Billy Goat Gruff with his quantum horns entangled. He giggled, and couldn’t stop.

He heard Cappy sigh, and saw him peeking around the corner. How could he not have noticed before that Cappy was an Ogre? Hm… No quantum theory connection? Well Cappy was never very discrete. The thought set of another round of laughter, this time howling. He could see the laughs echoing off the walls, waves of hilarity, and at the same time neat bundles of joy, pregnant with mirth and frank with incense.
He blinked; his logic was coming completely apart. He fought to hold on to it, to keep his analytical shape, but then he’d never taken analytical geometry formally. He imagined a triangular top hat, and lost himself in keening laughter again, watching the smell of the candles waft through the air, seeing the osmosis, the dispersion, the fluid dynamics like a dance of sugar plum fairies. Brownian movement! I always said that’s why hot water cleans better – it’s got brownies!

The fires of all the little individual candles worked diligently to push air to the rarified ceiling, but the fan kept pushing it back down. That was hardly fair. He was contemplating the injustice of the matter, and what might be done to make the rules follow the rules, when the cramps hit him. He spasmed, and almost immediately spit up bile along with a pile of squishy mushroom. He blinked. That really hurt.

All the little fires kept roaring, but suddenly he remembered he’d taken a large dose of mushrooms someone else had told him were what he wanted. It was a sobering thought, but too little too late. Another lance of incomprehensibly painful spasm pierced his belly, and all his muscled locked at the same time. He was one big Charlie horse, and felt like a horse’s ass, and the imagery swirled through his imagination with the impact of a titan’s gavel. No, he growled to himself. Schroedinger’s cat. The delayed choice quantum eraser experiment. Heisenberg’s uncertainty. The Einstien-Rosen bridge.

His focus didn’t quite bring him back to reality, but it did wake up the Dragon. He saw what he had previously thought to be the fireplace blink, a great nictitating membrane sliding back to reveal the eye of Schroedinger’s cat to be not actually feline at all, but reptilian, and the size of a bread truck. He looked down at the great thumbnail piercing his plexus, at the blood and bile and, and (pain) what is that?

The dragon lifted him up to its great elongated snout, beautiful golden scales displaying the waveforms of astronomically unlikely events. It’s breath puffed out over him in hot gusts, making him realize how cold he was, and how sweaty. He was shivering violently, and every twitch sawed the edges of the great chitinous nail through his belly. The dragon’s fist squeezed him round about, paralyzing him, immobilizing him, crushing him with aching, burning, throbbing in every muscle with every pulse. He stared at it, and decided this was probably as good an ordeal as any.

Good, the dragon thought. You might as well be happy with what you can’t be rid of.
Ok, Mike thought, and no, the dragon interrupted, you don’t get to ask questions. It continued to squeeze him.
Why not?
That’s a question.
So?
As is that.
Dammit!
Better, the dragon acquiesced, but still not very productive.
Productive, he thought, frustrated. What am I—
The breath rolled out over him again, and the thumbnail wagged back and forth in the wound, sticking out behind him. Mike screamed.
But how—I mean, wh—Ahh! He hadn’t planned on this.
But you’re learning, the dragon pointed out. You’ve stopped asking questions.
No, I’ve merely stopped expressing them.
Semantics, the dragon shrugged. Mike glared at it.
So put me down, he ordered.
Very good, but I can’t.
Why n—he howled as the nail ground in his viscera.
Fine, damn you! You tell me why you can’t put me down.
Ah, said the beast, isn’t that a question?
No, it’s an order, you oversized Bic!
And right you are, and so I will comply. I cannot put you down, because I must squeeze you, and grind this hole in your belly.
He ground his teeth against the pain, and fought to stay conscious. Explain.
Better, it said. You learn fast. You see, one of the mushrooms you’ve taken was poison. If I put you down, then there will be nothing but the poison to explain the pain, and then you will be poisoned. You’ve already told Cappy not to involve doctors, so you won’t get the absolutely required medical help in time and you’ll die horribly.
Mike swallowed. Oh, he managed.
Exactly. So now you must choose.
Choose? He realized his mistake a moment too late.
You really must stop that. You won’t survive much more.
His mind raced.
Again, exactly, the dragon commented. You’ve limited time here.
I won’t quit, he decided. I won’t give up.
Even if it kills you?
Even if it kills me, you son of a bitch.
Then I guess you’d better do something about the poison yourself.
With an effort, he stopped himself from asking what he could do.
There is no poison. This pain is because of your thumb in my gut.
Oh?
Yes, so get your goddamned thumb out of my gut! The pain was so sharp, he didn’t think he could stay conscious much longer.
No, the dragon said, you have to do it. Got any ideas?
Holy lethal hallucinations, batman! He grabbed the dragon’s thumb and began pushing for all he was worth.
Is that what I am? Hallucination?
Mike stopped. He looked again at the dragon’s golden nose scales, in their pattern of infinite intricacy.
No, he said, mostly to himself. Embrace tiger, return to mountain… you’re not the dragon, I am.
Ah, said the dragon. Then why are you doing this to yourself?

Mike smiled. The tiger was instinct; the dragon was the mind and will which overcame the base self.

He looked at the dragon, at the terrible improbability of it, at the fluid dynamic patterns of the air dancing around him, at the waveforms and echo patterns and interacting energy and probability of every microparticle in the room, and decided the dragon was in fact him. All he had to do was see the room and the problem and the possibilities, and then take the dragon’s step and choose an option, squeeze the tiger, collapse the probabilities into the happened that he wanted.

So what did he want? Was there an unknown mushroom? He considered carefully.

Yes. There was. It was, however, not really all that harmful. It would be one that would make him really sick for a few hours, but then he’d be fine.

It was the price he had to pay. He stopped squeezing the poor fool he had been, removed the likelihood of painful death from his own abdomen, laid aside his old life, and breathed out his new reality back into the waves of the room. It was enough.

Yep, that was fun.

Now the poor sot's finally getting down to the wire. He's going through the several preparatory days of fasting and cleaning, and is finally going to try his big experiment.

This guy hasn't shown up for work all week, hasn't eaten for three days, and has already been something of a fringe philosophy for years. Now he's going to do (on an empty stomach) WAY too much psilocybin.

I foresee a psychotic break here...and so does his buddy. Technically, so does Michael, but he's counting on it. I mean, come on, no sane person really believes in magic, right? And if you don't really believe, then it won't work, right?

Isn't that what "they" always say? =o)

Timing and Lies

So Michael is getting his supposedly more worldly buddy to help him score some happy 'shrooms to help him with a magic initiation ritual. I have to tell you, I find nothing so funny as watching this geeky guy who's TOO much like me following his big buddy around strip clubs and trying to be serious, insisting this isn't recreational while everyone laughs at him. Yes, I'm the one writing the story, but the characters sometimes don't quite follow the script. I don't know if they forget, or just get willful, or maybe have better ideas they want to show me, but I tend to like the results.

I am still in charge of the pen, though, and I'm really looking forward to the phone call he doesn't know is coming. Br-r-riinngg!!! That's right, his religious conservative girlfriend is going to call to try and patch things up after their nasty argument, just as he's at some nude bar with NIN playing in the background. Where are you? What are you doing? Simple questions he doesn't really want to answer. He's in a den of iniquity, from her point of view, and he's actually there trying to buy drugs for what she considers at best a childish fantasy and a complete waste of productive time, and at worst a demonic trap for his immortal soul.

His main reticence for telling her is that he doesn't want to upset her, but he's an honest guy, which means he's a bad liar. This relationship may be doomed.

But wait! She's destined to become the damsel in distress for him to rescue.
How does that balance things out? =o)

Prologue from Drift

A Lincoln luxury model is a big car. This one was new, a sleek black Detroit land yacht, and it was barrelling down on him, he’d guess at probably about seventy. He was at the end of the alley, with nowhere to go, walls on the sides, a wall behind him, nothing above but someone’s laundry waving between third floor windows.

The passenger of the Lincoln had a Galil Micro out the window, enthusiastically unloading a clip at maximum fire capacity. The sounds of ricocheting bullets and flying brick chips was a ringing cacophony at this end of the alley, overriding the chattering thunder of the weapon fire itself, or the rumble of the speeding vehicle.

He held his left hand up to the approaching danger, concentrating nearly all his will to defend himself from the singing swarm of lead bees that sought his life. They continued to miss. He needed to deal with the Lincoln, but had to concentrate on the bullets. He’d like some elegant solution, such as a blowout that tumbled the car and rendered everyone inside unconscious without killing any of them, but he just couldn’t spare the time or divide his attention that much. He’d have to settle for a dirtier solution.

He reached up with his right hand and collected a Hex from the air behind his left, above the medallion on the back of that glove for that purpose. Bundling up a fistful of statistical anomalies and squeezing them one-handed, he thought Lies, damned lies, and statistics with a subconscious giggle. He didn’t have time for a stronger hex, nor could he spare both hands, but this would be more than enough. It was a Lincoln, not a battleship, and it was already driving way too fast.

He projected it out toward them with a tossing gesture, hoping they’d had the sense to buckle up. He exhaled with it, and crossed his metaphorical mental fingers, all his real ones being currently busy. The curse streaked a smoking trail from his outstretched hand, straight into the rapidly advancing grille.

Immediately the tires began to blow. The engine gave a sudden squeal and he heard the popping of belts and gaskets and caps before the fuel tank went, blowing the rear of the big sedan into the air. The grille scraped and screeched along the pavement for several yards before biting, and then the car tumbled end over end toward him.

Damn, he thought. I should have done something about the momentum…

An Excerpt from Hush

Warm water, soap, and pleasant sensation of hands over skin. The smooth, unmarked softness interwoven with slick, ropey scars. These would be more plentiful later, and their contrast with simple, unadorned skin made them not unpleasant to the touch. Hands at the throat, traveling downward over the regular curves of small breasts, past the muscled belly, lingering a moment over the tiny impression of navel. Further down, and a subtle rasp and feeling of pins warned of the need for a shave.
Lauren opened her eyes and reached for the razor. Why she bothered was beyond the comprehension of most of her comrades, but a well-groomed body was one of the things that kept her feeling alert and able. Besides, now that she’d started the habit, it was hard to stop.
Completing her chore so that the smoothness of her taught belly continued downward several inches, Lauren put the razor back, and began waiting for the smell. But there shouldn’t be any warning smell, at least not yet. The target wasn’t due to reach her until she’d finish shaving and had soaped her face and hair. But that was the way of dreams.
This had to be a dream, because she knew there would be a Target, but felt helpless to prepare. She should get out of the shower, go for help, or at least arm herself better, something. But no, she continued her shower, beginning to soap her hair even as her mind screamed for her to stop, to not put soap in her face, closing her eyes to danger…
But continue on she did, even humming to herself. It was so rare a thing to have the shower to herself. Usually she had to endure the jokes, shouts, and general noise of the rest of her squad as they hustled to stay on schedule. But this time of morning, everyone was mostly asleep, and she could enjoy the warmth and patter of the water.
She rubbed her hands over her face, making suds even while her mind seemed to fragment in its frenzied attempt to make her cease her folly, to act on what she knew to be true, and never mind shaving her bits and washing her hair.
Just as she’d known it would, the shower door opened, and the world slowed down. The smell hit her before the chill in the air told her the steam was escaping, and she began turning, so slow, so slow, turning to see the shambling wreck she’d known would be there. She opened her mouth in shock as the Target grabbed her throat and dragged her forward…

Writing Advice

This has got to be some of the best advice I've read. Never mind "write what you know" and "believe in yourself" and all the other snippets anyone contemplating writing hears from well meaning friends and relatives. This here is the stuff . http://www.nanoedmo.net/xoops2/modules/article/view.article.php?24

And in its own way, this too is good advice. If you read between the lines, it says "be yourself - some welcome a look at your slick and moldy innards".
http://indarkness.darkicon.com/2008/06/24/ten-tips-for-writing-horror

Word Count Trackers

Please be patient -- the word count trackers on the right are talking live to the NaNoWriMo website every time this page loads, and being dynamically re-generated. This is very slow, and their site is going to be very heavily loaded during November. If the images don't load, please be patient. =o)

ZERO HOUR!

And as always, at the last moment I realize I'm committed, and that I ought to be! Zero Hour is tonight at midnight and I have performance anxiety. My plot line is in place, I know what feel I want, and I'm getting panicky.

And why? This is not required work. This is for fun and mental exercise. Its not supposed to make me nuts.

Or is it? To me, this seems the first step toward finding out if I have what it takes. Can I be dedicated enough? Can I stay the course? Can I keep from pulling my hair out when I hear that "Mo-om! Can I (have, see, go, get, etc)?" in the middle of a sentence? Can I refrain from kicking Paul when he giggles and reads me a line from his work right in the middle of a crucial train of thought? (You know I love you Paul, but you do manage to break into my easily scattered thoughts pretty regularly).

Bring on the wine and chocolate. Its time to separate the doers from the dreamers.

The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men Gang aft agley

So, last night in preparation for a month of novelling I cleaned out my old dead files (a task for which the scanning took an absurdly long time), freeing up over 111kb, and then told my computer to defragment the hard drive. It wasn't badly fragmented, but I like to keep it clean. I set it working and went to bed.

This morning it was stuck, apparently having unsuccessfully rebooted. It can't read the hard drive. My desktop is dead. Looks like I'll be using my laptop from work and flying largely by the seat of my pants after all.

This isn't really a major setback; that's how I usually write anyway, and I've done lots of preparatory thinking, so I'm ok. There's a whole chapter laid out pretty thoroughly in my head, several days' worth of writing without even having to fall back on the bigger picture, which is of course still evolving anyway. I am undaunted, lol....

Even so, wish me luck.

( And for those of you who don't recognize the title reference, its from "To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough" by Robert Burns -- http://www.robertburns.org/works/75.shtml )

Three days till the starting gun

http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php

Yes, my wife and I have opted to try out Randy Ingermanson's rather systematic methodology. No, we're not following it religiously, but we're working pretty hard on the gist of it. It almost feels like cheating, since we're not supposed to actually start writing for our NaNoWriMo stories until November, but we're being good. It *is* actually getting a lot of groundwork done, and getting us inspired, and working out a lot of kinks that would otherwise have ended up drifting off into dead ends.

It also strips away some of the fuzzy stuff that gives depth to a novel. Read a Stephen King -- he doesn't plan, just writes by the seat of his pants. His plots generally suck, but his characters truly blossom, and that's what any decent story is really about, the characters. His books get a little fuzzy, but they're rich. On the other hand, I like Michael Crichton: his research is consistently good for all I can tell, and he writes solid stories about really interesting topics, to me anyway...but his characters are sticks. They have no soul, no depth, and incite no real empathy. When they suffer (if you even notice) it's like lines from a newspaper article. I think Crichton maybe uses some method like this. His books are like assembly-line products, sturdy and clean and dependable, but not the hand-crafted pieces (with the commensurate flaws that prove it) turned out by those more commonly referred to as the masters.

I'm pretty sure Tolkien didn't use a "method". I've seen few books that make me cry every time I read them like "Lord of the Rings". It's a nightmare of a design, but I wouldn't change a word.

So... I'm using a Method to prepare, and will likely apply it when editing in December (assuming I'm done by then), but please feel free to slap me if it seems I've completely "sold out" and am bowing purely to word count and marketing. This story isn't one I really *feel* the way I usually do with things I write, but it's a challenge, and a fabricated plotline for that specific task...so I'm going to think of it as a litmus test. If I can make these "Mary Sue" me-on-paper characters come alive and get personalities of their own without overly complicating the work, I'll believe I can actually have a chance of switching careers and becoming a professional writter, something I've always wanted to do.

Wish me luck...and inspiration.
We'll probably start writing after all the trick-or-treating is done. =o]

Hush one line synopsis

As per Paul's request, here is my one line synopsis for Hush.

In a devolved and subdued society, a soldier’s role becomes the protection of children from terrors born within and without.

thesis sentence for Drift

A brillaint but haunted programmer reinvents Magic and struggles to master its infinite perils.

(Comments and refinements welcome.)

On Content

NaNoWriMo is basically about word-count. Yes, you always
want to write well, but the point here is to generate
quantity that can later be edited into quality.
If you don't have content, no amount of editing can ever
help anyway, right?

But word count still isn't the only issue here.
I want readability even on the first rough draft.
I want people to want to read it, even unedited.
I want an editor to forget that they are supposed to be
looking for corrections until they find something
glaringly wrong that reminds them. I want interest.

The story of Drift happens mostly inside Michael's head,
though. The huge preponderance of the story flow, the
word count, if you will, is going to come from the
ruminations and recollections and observations of the
central character. There will be long passages of
stream-of-consciousness flow, which will turn some folk
off right off the bat. How do I fix that? I dunno.

It's also a contrived situation, created specifically
for NaNoWriMo. It's not likely to resolve into a really
elegant ending. I have a plan, but I hope to do better.

In the meantime, I'm considering it pretty much what it is:
a writing exercise. It's an effort to practice my craft,
to create interesting reading without worrying about having
a moral or a twist or a truly cathartic involvement from
the reader....

The problem is that even now, before I've officially
written the first word, it has a twist, and it's developing
a cathartic vein, and it's kicking and squirming it's
wriggly way toward espousing a heavy-handed moral against
all my pre-developmental efforts.

So...when I do get around to posting segments, please
feel free to offer suggestions from the peanut gallery.
I make you the same promise I make everyone who gets to
read my unpublished works: I'll pay earnest attention to
what you're trying to say, and honestly attempt to learn
and to improve my writing from your opinion, but to quite
thoroughly ignore it when I feel like it. ;0]

Let There Be Fiction

We love to hear from you (whoever you are -- do I know you?) Please feel free to make comments. They're moderated, so be nice, but input puts us in...well usually a good mood, lol....

Feedback is fun, for me anyway, so I'll try to at least post little pieces now and then. I look forward to hearing from you all...as if anyone was out there, lol...

I'm the shoulder-reader =o)

Personally, I'm drooling over the chance to read what my lovely wife is writing, and I damned-sure don't want to wait till it's done! I try not to literally read over her shoulder (that really annoys her), but I bet I'll be able to convince her to let me read sections and chapters as she goes, since that's the only way I'll really be able to offer suggestions once we get into it. You know, everyone hits dry spots (NaNoWriMo is all about dealing with writer's block) and it often helps to have someone offer random ideas.... *smirk*

Personally, I'm looking forward to the idea of posting bits and having folk comment, but we *do* want to publish this stuff one day, so it's not like we should really be putting it all out for the world to see for free, lol!

Drift

Michael Damien Glass is a talented programmer, widely read with diverse interests. He used to teach Latin, does weekend stage magic shows for charity, and is active on internet philosophy groups. He's got a nice house with some land, a gorgeous and intelligent girlfriend, and a respectable nest egg for retirement. He would be happy, but he's also got a hobby people find a bit wierd, and he's starting to get obsessed.
Mike's studies the paranormal because of hauntings since childhood. He's developing a theory of actual magic, and his thinking is starting to shift. Maybe only the mad can accomplish the supernatural....
Now if he can just separate sanity from method, he might just be able to change the world.

Over the shoulder readers

I was discussing the upcoming nano madness with Paul, and he mentioned he's likely to post his work as he writes it. I thought I'd list the reasons I'm opposed to posting more than the occasional excerpt.

First, Nano month is not all about quality, its about quantity. A deadline without hope of publishing lets a writer let go and write whatever comes to mind without hindrances to the muse like spellcheck and content editing. The story may come out in disjointed chunks with thin characters and a thinner plotline. I can almost guarantee there will be plot holes big enough to drive a truck through. The end result is a story in place, if lacking elegance and cohesion. There's a finished project in place of the all too common "someday."

That's great, but its not the way I want people to remember my writing. Most of the people reading the chunks will never see the finished product, which will bear little resemblance to what I turn out during Nano week.

Reason number two. Though I love feedback, this month I'm basically blocking. The ideas are not fully formed. If I receive too much feedback while writing, it will effect my story, no matter how hard I try to avoid this. Its like a hairdresser showing off half a haircut. It looks pretty nasty and may lose the hairdresser business. An artist starts fixing the pieces before the total idea is blocked and becomes bogged down.

Last, I'm a little vain. If my husband sees the stray hairs I missed shaving and even helps clean them up, its all to the good, promoting togetherness and keeping us both humble. Let a stranger or someone used to seeing only my fully clothed and unrumpled self have a look at my unkempt curly locks, and that look on their face is more likely to be disgust or amusement than loving tolerance and understanding.

All this says is you're likely to have a lot more fun reading Paul's posts than my own. I'll discuss what I'm doing and post the occasional excerpt...I may even request feedback. But show off my inept and incomplete grooming??? I think not ;-).

Plot Synopsis for Hush

It started more like a daydream than a full-blown story. It’s the briefest of images, breaking into the middle of thoughts of laundry, shopping lists, vengeance, or innocent rambling down memory lane. A young woman sits on a horse at the edge of a clearing, a watchful eye on a group of playing children.

It seems idyllic, until you note the set of her shoulders and the lumpiness of her outline. She’s armed to the teeth and the soft, dreamy look of a relaxed mother feeling a moment of contentment, or perhaps pride, is absent from her face. Instead, there is an intent listening, scenting, watchful look of predator and prey all rolled into one. Her imposing image mingles with the scent of honeysuckle, the buzz of bees, birdsong, and the nearly silent play of children.

Over time, I came up with this:

The world has been torn apart by an illness that literally devolves humans, making the affected into an almost mindless, violent majority. Those who are left develop an agrarian based society, shunning the trappings of the old ways, including motorization and modern communication. Soldiers in special units defend children as mankind’s most lasting legacy and hope of continuity. Lauren is one such soldier, facing disillusionment as she must turn against one man who epitomizes the worst enemy of mankind-a predator of children.

Futhark Farm's NANoWriMo Adventure: So It Begins

Futhark Farm's NANoWriMo Adventure: So It Begins

So It Begins

So I've gone and done it.

A few people, a very few, know I like to write. They may also know I am mostly unpublished. Ok, a few articles and a short satire were published in unknown magazines. I don't count them because they are not anything special, at least not to me.

I've never completed more than an occasional short, satires, fan fiction, and little things one might called vignettes. But my ideas are getting bigger, my muse is getting more insistent, my cojones are getting smaller.

I think I may have found a solution for that last.

I ran across National Novel Writers Month and was intrigued. Then I was hooked. Now I'm involved. Beginning next month, I'll begin writing each and every day, without editing, and hope to churn out an unedited novella by the end of November. No, it won't be worthy of more than a passing glance. In fact, it'll be crap. But it will be there, and I can put it away for later editing, or later scrapping, whatever the case may be. But I will have completed a project, and that is the first step, in my humble opinion.

I'm also taking the NaNoWriMo facilitators advice and telling people because, as they put it, the potential humiliation of failure may well keep me on track. No one wants to say they couldn't quite make it.

Just as he joins me in most of my ventures, Paul is joining me in this. He is also a writer, and a good one, if I am any judge. He writes in a very different style and his choice of genre is not mine, but the two of us ought to be able to encourage each other. We already edit each other, give feedback, and even contribute to each other's stories. A fresh perspective can be a beautiful thing. So why not go crazy together?