Back to the Grind

Yeah, the fun vacationing part of my holidays are over. Now it's back to the new job and trying to get back on track with my writing. I've been less than stellar with that for the past few weeks. I want to get back to writing everyday and I have GOT to get back into editing some of my work that's piling up. That's what's on tap for later today.

Yesterday I was having problems coming up with the right background for a chick in a paranormal romance novella-sized work I'd like to tackle. It's been simmering in my head for a month or two now and I've gotten to the point that it's really starting to gel. I decided to try to actually write out her background from her grandfather's viewpoint. If it turns out decently, I'll post it in its entirety (prob as a short story) here on the website or if I can come up with a worthy ending, I might even enter it in a contest. The initial intent is simply to lay the groundwork for her relationship with her Poppy and make sure I can portray it and his effect on her life correctly when I go to write the work concerning her later years. There might not be a stupendous ending to it. We'll see.

Anyways, here's the start of what I wrote yesterday. Tell me what you think. Would you want to read more?

No one had bothered tracking Rory Slade down when his son Madison died in the skiing accident. They hadn’t thought he’d care – that was how active he’d been in his son’s life. It wasn’t something he was proud of, being a deadbeat dad, but he didn’t know if he really could have done anything differently either. Amplifiers usually didn’t do well amongst families. If he’d stayed, he’d probably have done more harm than his absence had.

So when Madison and his wife, Clara, died while on vacation and his granddaughter, Gale, was left parentless, it was weeks before he heard. When he found out, he finished out his current contract, refused all the waiting ones, told his contacts to remove him from their call lists, and had all his belongings shipped home.

He missed the funeral by a good month and a half. It took him another two days to track down the aunt and uncle who’d taken Gale in. Sadly, it had taken no time at all to convince them that she should live with him. They just didn’t know what to do with a child like her. He knew it would only get worse as she got older. The poor little sprite was an amplifier just like her Poppy. He couldn’t leave her to the world’s tender mercies. He might be completely unsuited to raising her, but he was all she had. And before long, she was going to need him.

A more frail, sad-eyed four-year old he’d never seen. Not that he’d been around many young kids, but he knew this wasn’t normal. The last time he’d seen her, some four months previously, she’d been a typically happy, if quiet, child. Now she was more of a breeze than a gale. She hardly spoke, she was sickly, and she wore the trauma of her parents’ death almost visibly. Had she seen them die? Felt them pass from this life? Did she have that post-traumatic stress syndrome or whatever the shrinks called it? He’d have to find out. God only knew what that would do to a budding amplifier.

The aunt and uncle - Mort and Maggie or something like that – packed up a couple of woefully small bags for the chit. Surely that was wrong. Didn’t little girls have lots of frilly things and gew-gaws and stuff? Where was all the shi- er, stuff, from Madison’s home? The M’s sent her off with stilted hugs and more vigorous waves. She didn’t even look back.

“Are you keeping me now?” Her voice was barely a breath of sound in the loud beat-up car. At least it hadn’t taken her long to decide to talk to him.

“Yep. It’s gonna be you and me, kiddo.” Then he added under his breath. “God help us both.”

He had no idea what to do with kids in general, let alone a little girl. He’d look up parenting crap on the internet. McDonald's. Kids liked that place, right? They went there for lunch on the six hour drive to his place out in the weeds of Kentucky. She seemed to like it okay. She ate the nugget things anyways, and clutched the little pink toy whatsit when they got back in the car. Other than that first question, she didn’t speak, and that was fine with him. But if they were going to live together, they had to talk sometimes. He figured it was up to him to get things started.

“You wanna talk about your parents?” he asked after a gruff attempt at clearing his throat.

“No.”

Right. Big surprise. “How about the aunt and uncle you stayed with for a bit? Were they nice?”

“They were okay. One of their kids bit me.”

“Bit you?” Kids did that to each other? How dare one of those little twits do that to this poor child? He was of half a mind to go back and beat that kid’s ass. Butt. Bottom. Or, hell, whatever you called it that wasn’t a cuss word. Heck. Dam- darnit! This not cursing thing was going to be… heck.

Huh. That urge to go defend the kid had hit him out of nowhere. It was the first protective urge he’d felt in… ages. And his amplifier’s abilities had had nothing to do with it. They were still lying complacent in his mind like a fat cat on a sunny window-seat. “Did you tell his parents?”

“Her parents. No.”

“Why not? She shouldn’t be picking on you.”

“She’s only a year old. Her teeth are coming in.”

“Oh. Was she the little one in the yellow jumper-thing with drool all over her chin?”

“Yeah. Babies drool and bite things a lot when they’re teething, Aunt Margie says.”

Margie! That was it. Not Maggie.

She was quiet for a moment, then added, “I don’t like drool.”

“Me neither.” Did this count as bonding?

Free e-books

Just thought I'd post real quick, to link you all to the Barnes & Noble website where they're offering some e-books for free. Yes, you can read these if you have a nook (mmm, nook), but you can also download their free e-reader app to your PC/Mac or even iPhone device (among others). Anyways, there's a decent selection of classics (can anyone say Dracula, Wuthering Heights, or The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes?) as well as some category romances (think Harlequin), a Star Wars novel, some teen fiction, and a bunch of others. It might be worth a look for some of you.

Btw, if you download these to your e-library (linked to your bn.com account) and then get a nook later, you'll already have them in your account. Just so you know...

Here's the link:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/Free-eBooks/379001668/?cds2Pid=29168&linkid=1517657

Quint Book 2 Snippet

Okay, finally, here is something from book 2, Quint's book. Some of you (Penny) have been nagging me to throw something involving Quint up here. I had a hard time finding something that didn't include spoilers from book 1. The following piece is something that not even my critique group has seen yet, so don't be surprised if it could be seriously re-vamped and improved. Thanks to my father-in-law and T at Barnes & Noble for proofing some of this for me since I know NOTHING about surviving out in the wilderness (except for the research I've been doing recently). Enjoy.

The snuffling of a nearby creature pushed through the pain and pulled Quint to consciousness. His breathing stayed slow and steady and his eyes didn’t so much as flicker. He had no idea what had happened or where he was, but he clearly wasn’t where he should be. It was safer to pretend unconsciousness to any surrounding enemies.

From the leaves, dirt and twigs poking his limbs and dusting his face, he knew he wasn’t safe with the Guard. Actually, that could be perfectly normal if the Third or Jason were pulling practical jokes again. It was the various aches and pains in conjunction with his surroundings that were the clincher. He hurt all over, in ways that he hadn’t been hurt in decades. His left arm and hand in particular were a mass of agony and the searing pain in his right thigh screamed bullet wound.

His jaw was sore, as were both cheekbones, but a quick inspection with his tongue assured that all his teeth were still solidly in place. That was good – it was tough enough keeping centuries old teeth healthy without having people knock them loose.

He laid there for what seemed like hours, but was probably about twenty minutes, just listening to the sounds around him - animals, bugs, but didn’t seem like any people. The wildlife was just doing its thing while he laid there and decided that he wasn’t dying, nor was he bleeding out - plus and plus. Now to figure out what in Hades had happened to him.

The last thing he remembered was setting down in a clearing near his mission target – a potential slave trafficking holding area.

No, no, there was another memory, but it was fuzzy, just a snapshot really of a rank room with about a dozen thin, grimy people crammed inside. Then nothing. Just this. He struggled into a sitting position and started cataloging his injuries.

Gunshot wound in and out through the outer thigh. Check. Two swollen, probably black, eyes and a banged up chin. Check. Knot on the head. Check times two. Cracked rib. Check. That hurt like a mother, and not the nice kind who makes cookies for the whole class either. Masses of bruising on the left arm and hand where it looked like someone went after him with a maul. Check. What the devil were they trying to do? It probably would have been simpler to steamroll the stupid thing. Two-inch long strip of flesh missing. Check. What the fuck was up with that? Finally, he had a broken pinky finger. Wonderful.

His watch with its GPS tracker had fallen victim to the arm battering. The face was crushed, the clasp mangled and the entire thing crusted in blood from where his scalp bled all over pretty much everything.

Even more concerning was that he didn’t have a single defensive wound. So what? He’d been unconscious and someone had simply shot and then beaten the hell out of him? Then what? How did he end up here, half buried under tree debris?

He splinted his pinky and strapped it to the finger next to it. A strip of his shirt got torn in two and folded into pads, one for either side of the bullet wound. Then he tore another strip and wrapped it around the pads and his thigh to hold the makeshift bandage in place and keep dirt out. His cracked rib complained the whole time.

Finally, he gained his feet, hand on a tree to steady himself. A few tentative steps made it clear that walking was doable but painful. He looked around, view narrowed from eyes almost swollen shut, but still had no idea of where he was. The sky was overcast, but he judged the time to be mid-morning, somewhere kind of forested. He guessed that he was not near his mission destination. The local flora was different, and the climate just a bit off. Of course, it could simply be a change in the weather from whenever he’d set out. He had no idea how much time had passed either.

SciFi Snippet

1750 words written on my scifi novel yesterday PLUS I hammered out details on my futuristic weaponry - woohoo!! I'm almost ready to present it to you guys to ask your opinion on it. I was itching all weekend to get to work on this scifi novel after I had some breakthroughs with the plot, but was just wicked-tired the whole time. In honor of yesterday's writing binge though, here's another snippet from it.

By the time this scene starts, Loranya has found out what exactly she's pregnant with (but you don't know!!! nanner, nanner, nanner!), and she's also discovered that her brother, the Coravos (ruler) of Andiri, has been poisoned. She's gone to a hotel, the Anyaver, to get rigged out in her Coravi regalia so she can return to the Courts in a position of power. She's now visibly back to looking like one of the Andiri ruling family - brown, gold and peach colored hair, gold rims around her eyes, peach colored skin, and gold tips to her fingernails. If you read my short story, A Little Piece of Home, another character in this scene should be familiar to you... Here it is:

She certainly looked the part, as confirmed by the reflection viewer. Too bad she didn’t feel as regal as she looked. Her whole life here as future Coravi had been one misstep after another. Nothing she’d done had been right. Every time she tried to act the way she thought the heir should, she’d been berated for being an embarrassment. Finally, she’d left. Now she was back, but would her choices be any better this go round? She was essentially the same person.

The door tone pealed, breaking into her thoughts. A check through the view panel revealed a lean, taciturn man with solid brown hair and the dark skin tone of a commoner. He was dressed in loose pants and a tunic in unrelieved brown. A closer look revealed a subtle, yet intricate level of detail and embellishment, but of the same brown, so it wasn’t immediately noticeable. In addition, he stood as if completely commanding the space around him.

A man of contradictions. Somehow she doubted that he was a mere hotel employee or her driver. Curious.

She released the door lock. As soon as the panel slid back, he entered the room, his eyes locked on hers. Again, a deep solid brown that bespoke a common heritage. The look in them was anything but.

“Coravi Loranya Vershtul Quandirr.” Her full name from this man’s stern lips was a shock. “Your transportation is ready.”

She tilted her head to the side, eyes narrowed. Her arrival at the courts wouldn’t have the needed effect if it was already common knowledge.

He answered the unasked question. “I recognized you when you arrived.”

Brown and gold eyebrows raised. “When I arrived, I looked nothing like this. And I don’t know you.”

His head dipped in acknowledgement. “But you are known to me. And I always study new arrivals. This is my hotel.”

Well, that explained some things - like his forceful attitude. “You mentioned transportation.”

“Indeed. My personal glide and driver are at your disposal.”

“I requested a hired glide of the front desk.”

“Be that as it may, you have the use of my vehicle.”

Was he trying to garner some royal appreciation? “That’s very generous of you and quite unnecessary.”

“My Coravi will not be transported in a glide for hire. You have the use of my glide and driver for as long as you need them. The driver also has instructions to act as guard should you need it. He’s fully qualified for such.”

She decided to speak plainly. “Why are you insisting on this? I distrust such overtures.”

“As well you should. My motives are unhindered by greed or self-advancement however. I will explain.” He clasped his hands behind his back and widened his stance. “When you were younger, you did a kindness to my mother. She was servant to a Leo and was ill. While making a social visit, you witnessed a scene where she was reprimanded for laziness. She would have been beaten atop being ill had you not intervened. You removed her from the Leo’s control, ordered that he pay her back wages as well as greater compensation for requiring that she work while ill. Then you placed her with an agency that taught her better skills. You gifted our family with better lives and returned some measure of pride to my mother. You told her that she was worth more, that we were all worth more. It became a family motto of sorts.”

She remembered that incident well. As with every other time she’d tried to do something as Coravi to help someone, there had been complications. Her father had not appreciated her intervention, claiming that interfering in the way the nobility ran their households was not part of her purview. The Leo had been a friend of her father’s and she’d caused him embarrassment. It had been just one misguided incident of many, but she was glad to see some good had come of it.

“That in itself would have been enough,” he continued on. “But then, as a terra-analyst you were instrumental in placing a distant cousin of mine in charge of one of the new NatLife agri-businesses, despite accusations of corporate espionage leveled against him. So, you see, whether as heir to the throne or not, you have been a caretaker of my family, just as those in your role are supposed to be. There is nothing you could ask of me that I would not offer for your use. We would still be pulling produce from dispo-units for meals if it weren’t for you. If we were even still alive at all.”

Lora almost took a step back at his vehemence. His voice never wavered over the course of the retelling. He certainly didn’t look humble or appreciative. But she sensed his tension. And his sincerity. This was a proud man who’d pulled himself up from nothing. Now he was confronted with a living, breathing reminder of how low he’d once been, and that he’d needed another’s help to achieve his current status.

“If your cousin was Hermio, he was a rare, good find. He was falsely accused by his previous employer.”

The man nodded his head. “Most wouldn’t have cared enough to discover the deception.”

“It was in my best interests.”

He raised one dark brown eyebrow at her claim to selfishness. “Was it also in your best interests to have his previous manager investigated and arrested so that Hermio’s name was cleared?”

“What makes you think I had anything to do with that?”

“Tell me you didn’t, give me your word as Coravi, and I’ll believe you.”

They stared at each other in silence until he gave a small, satisfied smile. Lora thought she saw a dimple almost peek out. Wouldn’t that be incongruous on such a severe man? “So what is your name?”

“Jorand Achlavor.”

“Thank you for the use of your personal glide and driver, Jorand. I accept.”

Some of the tension left his shoulders. He nodded.

Then something that had been niggling at the back of her mind since he started his stories caught her attention. Loranya Vershtul. The Anyaver. “My name – you used my name for your hotel.”

Again he nodded his head, this time in more of a bow. “I suspected you’d figure it out quickly.”

“I’m honored.” She searched his face and felt completely unsuited for the trust that he placed in her. “And unworthy.”

“You do not see yourself clearly.” He moved back towards the door and opened it, dismissing her concerns. “If you should need anything during your efforts to right the situation at the Courts, do not hesitate to call on me.”

Her glittering eyes blinked twice. “How do you know that’s why I’m here?”

He shrugged and his mouth hinted at the faintest of smiles. “It is who you are.”

She had to prove to this man that she wasn’t the all-knowing Coravi he seemed to think. “I didn’t know about my brother’s situation until I got on-planet. That’s not why I’m here.”

He tilted his head to the side. “You won’t leave without fixing it, regardless. The All-Being simply arranged a different reason to bring you here when we needed you.”

Part of her was warmed by his faith. The rest was just terrified. But if he was willing to help… She made a split-second decision. “I need a piece of equipment delivered to the Courts. I don’t know who I can trust there any longer. It’s highly specialized, so I have no idea how quickly you’ll be able to find it. I need it there yesterday.”

Something warm kindled in his eyes for just a moment. Then he was all business again. She described the terra-analyst’s rig to him.

He nodded. “It shall be done as you command.” He picked up her bags and led her to the waiting glide. He spoke briefly with the driver and sent the transport on its way.

What an odd encounter, she thought as they zipped through the midday traffic to the center of the city. Somehow, he’d managed to completely distract her from her worries about her brother, the pending confrontation in the Courts, and even the baby nestled under her heart. She felt stronger than she had, more sure of herself.

She would get control of Andiri for her brother.

SciFi Novel Info & a Wee Bit of Free Fiction

I finally decided that yes, I am going to combine the SciFi short stories I'd been working on into one novel-length work. It concerns the woman I introduced in the Little Piece of Home short story I posted a couple of weeks ago. You can read that story by clicking the link on the sidebar. Yesterday I combined the two short stories I'd written and the huge chunk that I'd started after those and found that I have about twice as much done on this SciFi novel (working title of The Sunlands) as I do on Quint's book, Gladiator. Sorry Quint. It's just under 40,000 words in length right now, so about 2/5ths of the way through.

Edited to add: The first portion of this novel was originally a short story titled Simki and won an Honorable Mention from L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future contest. I have since found out that only between 3 and 10% of the entrants get to the Honorable Mention point, so I'm pretty excited about this!

To celebrate my decision, I thought I'd post the first 1,000 or so words for you all to read. Hope you enjoy it! Let's hope none of you are having a problem like Loranya wakes up to. I really don't think you could, but...

Loranya Vershtul Quandirr became aware of the soft beeps and hisses from the surrounding machines. Like a lumbering creature wading through mud, her mind emerged from the lethargy that stasis invoked. It wasn’t quick and it wasn’t smooth.

As always, her thoughts settled on how much she hated stasis. The term stasis sounded so tame. So innocuous. As if the body were just locked in place like a piece of luggage for transfer. It wasn’t like that at all.

No. Organic bodies were too delicate to make it through the warp jumps intact. So they had to do… things… to them. Things that changed their density, their ability to withstand pressure. The procedure was conducted all the time, in every corner of the universe, from the All-Being’s united worlds to the Scarl’s martial colonies. Even the worthless Antagors used it. It was perfectly safe - administered by experts and highly specialized machines.

But it was her body. The only one she had. What if they jacked it up? What if they couldn’t return her body to its pre-stasis condition?

Despite the temporary paralysis, her mind was awake and floating from one thought to another as identity, personality and memory slowly reformed.

Her thoughts skipped to something about a man - her brother - and a woman with pale, pale sea green skin. A… what were they? Ah, yes – a Corline. But that made no sense. Her brother would never take up with such a tenuous ally as a Corline. She forced her mind back to the issue. What had the issue been again?

She caught a snippet of memory. This jump had been the only time she’d actually looked forward to the stasis procedure. The trip across sectors to Isiris-Five, home system of Andiri took six day-cycles. Six days of numbness. Of not thinking. Of not mourning. The respite had sounded like an undeserved blessing. But what had she been mourning? Who had died? Did she really want to remember? Could she get them to halt the stasis right here, before life descended on her again?

But it was too late. Memory stretched before her and snapped into place. She’d wanted to forget her lover and the terrified, revolted look on his face when she’d told him he’d somehow gotten her pregnant despite their anti-conception patches. And the fact that he’d found a jump ship and was two sectors away by the next morning.

As tradition dictated for her race, she’d connected mentally with the baby. She, who’d run from most everything else in her life under the belief that she was unsuited and unworthy, had decided to stand firm and be there for her child. She might still be a completely unsuitable mother, but by the All-Being’s mercy, she was going to try. She’d made plans, done her best to ensure that they’d both have a future to be proud of.

And then her little one had died. She’d woken one morning and known the baby hadn’t survived. Technically, she had still been pregnant. Her body hadn’t flushed the baby from her system yet. But the baby was gone. She had been alone again.

Her superiors had granted her an indefinite leave from NatLife. She’d planned to go home for a time, back to the Sunlands. Back to the brother she’d left behind and the responsibilities she had felt so unsuited for.

So here she was, wanting to run again – from the pain, the frustration, the self-hatred, the confusion.

Simki? The voice whispered into her mind.

Her thoughts stuttered to a halt.

What? The thought escaped before she could control it.

I help. Help Simki. No sadness.

Her rational mind pursued the mental connection, like blind fingers following a rope. It was close. It was… her whole body jerked towards her womb, but didn’t get far, thanks to the stasis.

That voice. It was coming from within her, where her baby had been.

But that wasn’t her baby.

The sound, the feel, everything was different. Her baby was dead. This baby, if baby it was, was older than her child. Hers had not yet mastered mind-speech, and wouldn’t have for another term and a half. Chills swept her.

What was this in her belly?

Scorch this bedamned stasis! She couldn’t even scream for help, couldn’t shout for someone to come explain to her how she’d gotten through three terms of pregnancy in only six day-cycles. What in the Sunlands had happened while she’d been unconscious? Her heartbeat accelerated as much as it could under the effects of stasis and she felt chilled. Maybe it really wasn’t six day-cycles later. Had her ship been hijacked for some bizarre breeding program? Was that even possible?

Then another thought struck her and she paled. Where was her own baby? She needed it, needed his remains to burn to ashes for his brick in their stirizna, their family wall. How could she put him to rest with his ancestors if she didn’t have his organic matter? His soul would never rest, never have peace or know his own kind. He’d wander for all eternity!

No sadness, Simki.

If she could have shied away from the voice in her head, she would have. Bittersweet nostalgia flooded her. Was it a betrayal of her own child to relish the return of this connection? But what was she talking to? How had it gotten inside her? Could talking to the fetus help clarify things? And why was it calling her Simki? Only one way to find out.

What’s a Simki? She asked.

You. Second mother.

Wha- What?

Second mother. Simki.

Second mother! She was expected to actually raise this thing as her own young? Her fingers twitched, and then flexed. There was something in her hand. She glanced down and then struggled to raise her hand and lift her eyelids. There. Just enough to see it. A data chip. Not hers. The effort exhausted her and she collapsed back to the pad.

Did this chip explain what was going on? Once she’d greeted her brother, this chip would be her first order of business.

Free Fiction - Little Piece of Home

Okay, my first piece of free fiction is being posted! Yippee!

This is a SciFi short story, and I hope you all enjoy it. Read it here. And in the future, links to all my free fiction will reside on the sidebar... somewhere.