Mything in Action

You can read the title of this post in lots of ways…

Missing in Action -- as anyone who had taken a look at my word count for the past few weeks -- no, make that months -- knows, that interpretation describes where I've been.

Or

Missing inaction -- which describes how I'm feeling about the amount of stuff that has been keeping my busy. Considering the alternative, it's not such a bad thing.

Or

Mything in Action -- and that's what I'm going to blog about today.

As a fantasy writer ( yes, okay, it's a phrase that has more than one meaning, and both can be applied to me) I get to invent histories and religions and myths as I please. It's loads of fun. It's also a wonderful excuse to wander off into the realm of research for an hour or two. Sometimes I do it deliberately and sometimes it's just happy happenstance as it was this time. My interest was piqued by something I saw on TV, it might have been the Discovery Channel, and then again in might not. It was a program about reading the Bible, the Book of Exodus to be precise, as if it described a military campaign. I was fascinated by the ideas put forward, and one in particular stood out for me as I have long thought it to be only partly true.

We tend to hold onto our beliefs even when we know that they are inaccurate. A case in point would be that microwave ovens heat food from the inside out. Anyone who ever used a microwave knows full well that it is nonsense and has empirical evidence to back up the fact every time they heat just about everything that gets put in the "zapper". If food heated from the inside out then it would be hotter in the middle, right? And it isn't. That's why it has to be stirred and/or left to stand. Even someone as intelligent as the spouse holds to this misbegotten idea. It drives me nuts!

My own piece of illogic concerns night vision. Until now, I have not really understood that if you look at a bright light when you are surrounded by darkness you are effectively blind for a good long time afterwards. I've experienced it. I just didn't register it. In this program the presenter expostulated that Moses led his people away from the pursuing Egyptians by following a column of smoke during the day which I could easily accept; a torch on a pole can be made to give off a good amount of smoke under the right conditions. By night they followed a column of fire. It was the bit about the column of fire that got my attention. After all, if the Children of Israel could see the column of fire, then so could the Egyptians. Or so I thought until now. This guy said that if Moses had torches placed behind their encampment at night, the Egyptians wouldn't be able to see if the Israelites were escaping, nor would they be able to see properly in the dark for up to thirty minutes afterwards. The result being that the Israelites got away. Excuse my mangled retelling of the tale, I'm trying to make a point, not get into a religious discussion.

So last night I was able to test the theory out in a more modern setting. I had to babysit a backup that kicks off at 1:00 a.m. and finishes at about 2:00 a.m. It's been hiccoughing lately and I wanted to find out exactly what it was choking on. So after I'd finished playing about with it, I returned to bed but I didn't try to go to sleep as I usually do. I kept trying to see the various things in the bedroom that I know are there. It took nearly forty minutes before I could really see everything! I'd have bet real money that I would be able to see everything just fine after five. What a great plot point! Or even TWO great plot points. The realization that a long held belief is untrue, and using the newly accepted fact to escape or create a trap or whatever. Lovely.

All this led to another (potentially) great scene today for Project Tevan. I was helping the spouse trench for some new drainage pipe we're laying in the yard this morning and I thought, as you do, Ooohhh! If this was filled with flammable liquid and set on fire at night it would be splendid cover for Varda to make her escape. Not quite sure what/who she's going to escape from, but I have an idea about that too. Now I just need to get her from her current predicament to the next one and then she can end up with a flaming trench and running for her life yet again. This may be written in the first person but I can tell you right now, I wouldn't trade places with her for ANYTHING!

Working on the plot

I've not written a whole lot this week and now I know why. Something wasn't right. I couldn't put my finger on it until a short while ago but now I understand what the problem has been. For some reason I'd ended up with a description in a scene that shouldn't have been there. I now fully admit to being a "pantster" -- one who writes by the seat of her pants. As much as I'd like to get an outline down I just can't do it, I have to let the story take me where it will. The result is that I end up in the wrong place on a frequent basis and have to re-write. Oh well. But now that I, or rather the characters, are back on track, a lovely new twist has turned up. I can't wait to put it down on paper, but I still have to let it smolder for a little bit. It will be good, I just know it; I have to get the details right first though.

Where did that come from?

It's happened again. A few days ago I was scribbling away perfectly content with what I was going to put down. It all made sense; I knew where the story was going. And then up pops this tiny little detail as I wrote. Really, it's such a small thing I should be able to just move past it, but I can't. It has the potential to add a new dimension to the story. I just can't quite weave it in at the moment. I ought to let it lie there on the page and ignore it, but I kind of have a pact with myself. If I have gone to the trouble of bringing the reader's attention to something, I had better make sure that it's relevant. These are not the things that jump off the page and scream PLOT POINT!! I hope they are the kind of thing that when the thread is revealed the reader goes "Ahh! So that's why so-and-so did such-and-such. Darn. I should have seen that coming," and then want to read the book again to pick up on the other clues. Well. That's the hope.
Understand that I haven't stall out. I'm not getting much time to write but I am still moving along as and when I can and I'm interested to see where this rabbit leads me.

Project Tevan Snippet

I thought I'd post a snippet from my WIP which doesn't have a title yet. I'm calling it Project Tevan as a placeholder. The usual rules apply, please don't post it anywhere or reproduce it in any way. This is a first draft, so it's subject to spelling mistakes, gramatical errors, and will likely change before it makes it to the final version. A prize if you can spot the part that sparked my Better than silly Putty post. So whadda ya think?

I walked into the Officers' Mess expecting the place to be nearly empty, but several of the tables were already taken. The one that caught my eye was occupied by a lone man. He had his head in his hands, elbows resting on either side of his plate of untouched food. His fingers massaged his forehead and his eyes were tight shut.

Tevan.

I hesitated. Should I sit somewhere else, or go and sit with him? Damnall. Before the attack there wouldn't have been a problem. Tevan would have eaten in the main Mess Hall. But that had been given over to house the civilian population, what remained of them. Now all the troops used the Officers' Mess for eating and for recreation. I walked over to him. Garick had said that I must act normally around Tevan in case he realized that we knew what his game was. Easy for Garick to say, not so easy for me, though. "What's up with you?" I kicked the leg of the table as I said it.

He let his hands fall and opened his eyes. Sea green eyes. I've never seen eyes like them. The furrows on his brow did not smooth out. "Good morning, Flight Captain Varda." The slight mocking note in his voice that was always there when he did not want to be disturbed.

The mug beside his left hand steamed, giving off the odor of willowbark tea. So. Tevan had a headache, did he? I scraped the chair opposite him out from the table making sure it made as much noise as possible. "Were you drinking last night?" I made it an accusation. It didn't seem possible. Haldur had made a big point of forbidding any of us from taking wine or spirits. Plain water or beer was all that they served at dinner in the Officers' Mess now. The beer was not much stronger than the water. Still, Tevan had been know to break the rules before now, and there was no knowing what he may have stashed in his locker.

He ignored the question and began moving the food around his plate. His hands had a film of grime on them, I noticed. So. He'd been up early then, grooming Walmar for our part in the day's ceremony. Typical Tevan not to bother to wash before coming to eat.

"You need to get out of your roughs in short order." I waved at the orderly at the serving table and pointed to Tevan's plate. The man understood. He began shovelling slop onto a plate. "I don't intend to be late today." The ice in my voice must have got through. Tevan winced.

"I will join you, if I may." Garick's voice sounded behind me. It was not a question. He sat down at the head of our table. He was in full dress uniform, brushed to perfection. I doubted that any mote of dust would dare to settle on his black tunic. The silver rank bars in rows along the sleeve with the two gold stars of the Communication Corp arrayed above them, glittered with his every move. The tiny lightning strike embroidered on his high collar denoted his Watcher status, the shiny black thread in subtle contrasted with the matt black of the woollen serge.

Tevan's expression didn't change. He carried on playing with his food and made no attempt to stand to salute Garick as he should have. I kicked him under the table and jerked my eyebrows upward but he ignored me. I kicked him again. This time he shambled to his feet.

"Excuse me, Staff Officer. I have to prepare for my duty."
"Sit down, Pilot, and eat your meal." Garick growled, then shot a glance at me. 'You too, Flight Captain."

Better than silly putty

Pulse is working beautifully again for me. I'm able to write a few lines as they occur to me while I'm doing other things. It's lovely to be so productive.

The text conversion tool does a very good job of translating my handwriting. Not perfect by any means, but pretty darn good for all that. It really seems to try hard to come up with something that is English even if it's not always right. And therein lies a source of great mirth for me. Occasionally it will come up with something that is totally inappropriate. For instance, today I uploaded half a page of stuff, ran it through the conversion program ( just takes a single click of the mouse) and dropped it into LSB. Then I stared to check it. There on a line all by itself, three tabs out from the left-hand edge, was the following.

I ovulated.

Totally NOT what I'd written. How it came up with that I have no idea. I'd written 'I hesitated.', but now I keep giggling at the sheer lunacy of the sentence in the context of the scene.

Hmmm. They do say that small things amuse small minds, don't they?

Not so fast...

I had a little glitch with the Pulse today. When I docked the pen in its USB cradle it didn't upload the words. It hung there, looking as if it was working but it wasn't. I ended up having to call their support line. I spoke with a real human being, and that's a note-worthy thing. Sue was very helpful but didn't know what was wrong. She suggested that I undock the pen wait a few moments and try it again. That worked. I had the idea that I could lose a load of work but eventually sense prevailed. Even if I couldn't upload the text I wouldn't have lost a thing. Everything is written down so at worst I'd have to type it in. It did give me a bit of a turn though.

I only wrote 265 new words today, but they came out even better than I planned last night. Ohhh, this is such fun. I can't understand why I was dragging my feet for so long. Anyway, I wrote the end of Chpter 2 and I love it. It's a cliffhanger, of course, and a really cool, one at that.

Thudump...Thudump... Thudump

The Pulse is certainly beating for me. I'm writing loads of stuff and I love it all. It's so much easier when I can just write a few sentences in between doing other things. I'm getting so much done it's incredible. The story is taking off. I wasn't too sure about writing in first person to begin with. It certainly is a challenge, but it feels right for this one. I could have written a couple of thousand words today, but I'm holding back for now. It gives me something to look forward to tomorrow. This is terrific. Definitely the best present ever.

Twisted

Hmmm. All evening I've been running this crazy idea through my head. I've kind of planned a twist for Varda all along. But now I've come up with a new twisted twist. If my storytelling skills are up to it, it's going to be a really fun tale. Varda may not agree, but heck, who's writing this thing anyway? But I need to get it worked out properly before I get going down this rabbit hole, so I'm going to work on outlining and planning for the rest of the week. That's not my style, so it will be a bit of a challenge. F it works out though, the payoff will be terrific.

A Few Words

Well, it wasn't as good a day as it could have been writing-wise, but I did at least get a few words written. Better a few than none at all, right? And why, you may ask, am I throwing in the towel so early? I have to 'fess up. Monday is the night that Top Gear runs on BBC America and it's quite the best thing on TV so I have a date with the TV set. That and the spouse has bought a particularly nice bottle of wine which we fully intend to demolish in the next hour or so.
Catch you later.

Labor Day

Did you have a good holiday weekend? I did. A bit shorter than I intended, as work unexpectedly stole all of Saturday but even though my own projects are behind because of it, I'm happy with the progress I've made. Not, I hasten to add, my writing projects. I've been remodeling our second bathroom. The tear out is done. All the shopping is complete. Well... I expect there'll be some things I've forgotten, but the big-ticket items are all in the garage. I'm not replacing the cabinets, they're a hideous color but in good shape so I'm painting them and all the prep work is done. If things go the way I plan (please don't laugh) I'll get them primed this week and ready for two top coats next Saturday. The spouse is going to install the new light fixtures, the bath, vanity top and faucets. We're having a plumber come in to do the pipe work for the bath though. And I'll tile the back-splash. It should look lovely when it's done.

And what has this to do with writing? Not much, I confess, except that Varda took pity on me on Saturday and started whispering in my ear, telling me all about this lovely scene. I know we're supposed to keep the "candy bar" scenes as a reward for slogging through the scenes that don't want to flow. But I decided to reward myself for the slog of writing that darned query letter for A Shadowed Flame. I love the scene. It's about a quarter done and is great fun to write. I need to get the rest of the story plotted out, but this one's a turning point.

My word count numbers have been abysmal this month. I can't count rewriting the two hundred or so words in the query letter that have been re-cast at least fifty times. Ben, wise man that he is, says it just a business letter. Hmmm. That may be so, Ben, but if it sucks no one's going to even bother to ask for a partial. And yes, I know that the likelihood of even getting that far is remote, but I have to give it my best shot. And so far I'm nowhere near the target. Onward, woman, and stop all this navel gazing. It's getting you nowhere.

Okay, I'm rambling. Enough. If you made it this far, thank you for listening.

When is free really free?

I just heard that the *free* airline tickets I received for attending a travel promo are actually going to cost me somewhere region of $450. I suppose it all depends on your definition of free, doesn't it? But we're going to use them to go to San Fran for ten days in September anyway. Home! Wonderful. I can't wait. (The more observant of you will have noticed that my birthplace wasn't anywhere close to California. But home is where the heart is.)

A quick update on Project Tevan. I am working on it. Really. It slowed to a crawl for a while back there, but the words are beginning to flow again. I love the way it's working out. I have a vague idea of where it's going, but I'm not going to push it.

And I've signed up for Holly's Think Sideways course. I hummed and ha'd about it. Thought about the time it was going to take. And decided. "To hell with it. I want to do it,so why not?"

I think I'm going to have to finally admit that I simply can't fit all that I'd like to into the span of a single day. I keep meaning to post stuff on here, but it doesn't happen.

Project Tevan is moving along. I still haven't come up with a "real" name for it. That doesn't surprise me. It took me the better part of eighteen months to come up with A Shadowed Flame, talking of which... I STILL haven't started to query agents. I'm not sure why either. I'm procrastinating, and I'm world class at that. Time to get my rear-end in gear and commit.

The first of the new crop of fawns started to show up this week. I wasn't here to see them, of course, but the spouse called me to let me know he'd seen two. So far they haven't made their appearance on Deercam, and in fact we haven't seen any deer all day. I suspect that they don't much care for the 4th of July celebrations. No doubt they'll be back a the trough again soon. The way to a deer's heart is definitely through it's stomach!

Longhand vs Typing

I've noticed a strange phenomenon with Project Tevan. Varda, the MC, talks to me when I write longhand but stays absolutely silent when I use the laptop. What, I wonder, does that say about me and my muse? I don't mind working this way, if that's what it takes. The type-in doesn't take a whole lot of time once I have the words down (other than deciphering the scrawl), and I'm able to resist the urge to edit as I do it which is a huge bonus for me. I can see areas that need to be strengthened and where the description is lacking or where I have "talking heads" dialog but I can blow right past them. I know I'll be able to fix the problems during revision so I'm not worrying about them. Weird. Well, no matter. As long as I'm getting the story right, that's all that counts.

Time, gentlemen... PLEASE!

Okay. I cannot believe how long it's been since I posted anything here. I knew I'd been letting it slip, but then there are only 24 hours in a day which is totally inadequate as anyone can tell you. And whose idea was it to only have twelve months in a year? The absolute minimum should be thirteen, and I can make an excellent case for fourteen if asked. Time is playing some very strange tricks on me of late. It's slipping away like water through a sieve.

I've been fighting with my inner editor of weeks. I've struggled to get on track with Project Tevan even though the story is howling at me to get going. Finally I made it past the sticking point, and I'm getting in the zone. For the time being I'm not typing it, I'm scribbling in my little spiral-bound notebook, in my teeny, tiny writing in pencil. And the words are flowing like warm honey. It's really wonderful. I'm going to have to put them into Liquid Story Binder soon and I'm NOT going to edit them. That's what revision is for.

First Scene Snippet

Yesterday I hit on the first scene for Project Tevan. It's rough, but here it is. The same rules apply as always: please don't reproduce this snippet in any way. Copyright is mine sayeth the author. Remember, this is the very FIRST DRAFT. All comments are gratefully received.


"Flight Captain Varda," Wing Commander Haldur's eye's bored into me, "Do you have an explanation for why your wing was derelict in its duty?"

"No sir." I did, but not one that he would appreciate. Beside me Tevan stirred. I wanted to tell him to keep his trap shut -- or better, to cleave his tongue to the roof of his mouth. Wing Commander Haldur probably wouldn't notice the flashback from the spell. But I dared not take that chance.

Tevan piped up, "It was my fault. My seatur--"

Haldur silenced him with a look that threatened emasculation if he continued to be insubordinate. "Flight Captain," He flipped open the file that lay in front of him, "This is the second ... no, it's the third time your wing has failed since the year's turn." He looked from me to Tevan and back to me again. I caught his meaning. Since Tevan joined my wing as my pilot. Haldur arched an eyebrow at me. "Is there anything you wish to say about that?"

How was I supposed to answer? If I denied there was anything going on between Tevan and me, Haldur wouldn't believe it. "It won't happen again, sir. You have my word."

"I'll have your pips if it does. This time it'll cost you thirty days pay. Dismissed."

When the door closed behind us I rounded on Tevan. "Jaidick, Tevan! Is there any danger you might just be able to control that wretched beast then next time we fly? Or am I expecting too much?" Before he could reply I snarled at him, "Get out of my way," and stamped off.

It took five long cycles to get my Flight Captain's pips, and knowing Wing Commander Haldur, he'd make good on his threat if we failed again. Our job is to provide cover for the rest of the wing. The fact that, for reasons beyond my understanding, Tevan chooses to fly an unaltered seatur was no excuse for us failing to be in place before the attack began... again.

I was still seething when I reached The Weary Wench. The official name of the inn is The Queen's Rest, but the Flights stationed at Craigfelin renamed it long before my father served here. As I shoved open the door, the spicy aroma of liral stew engulfed me. They make the best liral stew I've ever eaten. It's even better than Ma's, and that's saying something. Garick was sure to be here if they were serving that.

I shouldered my way through the ocean of gray-blue uniformed Fight crews to the bar. A skinny lad wearing an apron big enough to wrap around him twice dived past me. I grabbed his arm. "Where's Garick?

He squirmed out of my grip. "Haven't seen him," he said as he disappeared into the kitchen.

Several members of my crew leaned against the bar. I slapped a five-talon piece down on the counter. "Drinks for the Flight, boys. Well done." To save them the embarrassment of having to thank me after what had happened earlier in the day, I added, "Seen Garick?" They know about Garick and me. Everyone within a half-day's march knows about Garick and me. Everyone except the Wing Commander, apparently.

They hadn't seen him either. I ordered a double measure of varich and tossed it down in one gulp. It brought tears to my eyes as it burned its way down. But it didn't make me feel any better.

A New Beginning

I've officially started my next project, tentative working title Tevan. I've been writing ideas and snippets on it for the past few weeks, while I finished working on ASF, but I hadn't set up a new book in Liquid Story Binder until today. I've set up my listing with 17 chapters (based on the final number of chapters in ASF), I've started creating electronic index cards using the Storyboard feature, and I've set up three dossiers for my three main characters: Varda, Tevan and Garick. I pasted all the snippets and ideas into a Note and I set up my project goals.

I'm planning to finish the entire thing by July 1, 2009 and, according to LSB, to keep on track I need to write 249 words a day. I can do that. On the plane today I made some notes on the culture of this world. Almost none of that work will make it directly into the final book of course, but I'm still counting on WCB.

This project was supposed to be my entry to Writers of the Future. Yeah, well, the story is already too big for that. But I'm going to start a short story project for that too. It can run in parallel to Tevan, then if/when I get blocked I'll have something different to work on. This should be fun.