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.
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“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…