What’s in a name?

When I’m writing, I place a lot of importance in names. People, places, ships, technology ... I find myself at a standstill until I choose the right-sounding names for them. And once chosen, they stick.

I’m starting in on editing The Long Dark. Alongside the small localized edits - typos and clarity issues - there are a few strands of heavier revisions. A couple of stories to flesh out more fully, and a significant re-structuring of the opening scenes. And all weekend I’ve been grappling with one of the major character’s names.

I hadn’t noticed until critique partners pointed it out, but two of my major characters had very similar names and that was causing confusion. I hadn’t spotted it because the characters themselves were so distinct in my own mind, so whenever I wrote a scene with one of them I knew exactly who I was talking about. But once I was made aware of it from a reader’s perspective, I realized this was going to be an issue.

One of them had to change.

This is a first for me.

I knew immediately which one it had to be, and oddly enough I found I wasn’t truly wedded to the name I’d been using for an entire novel. That was another first. Normally I choose names with such care that I can’t see them as anything else. Clearly not in this case.

But what to change it to?

That was a tougher problem. I tried out a number of possibilities but wasn’t happy with them. I thought I’d chosen one, and went as far as substituting it in a few chapters. I read and re-read them, trying to settle into the new name, but it didn’t quite click.

It was starting to feel a bit like the scene in Mrs. Doubtfire where Robin Williams’s character is trying on a series of personas for his invented housekeeper.

Finally I hit on one which seems to work. It’s got some of the same sound as the original, but is very distinct from the other character that was causing confusion. I’ve now gone through the whole manuscript with a careful find & replace, and I think we’re there now.

Christmas wishes

What is your wish for Christmas?

On a humanitarian level, I wish the world were a better place, and that people would behave decently towards each other. At the same time, I recognize that there is precious little I can do about it other than be kind to the people around me.

On a practical level, my wish right now is for nothing major to go wrong. Our Christmas these days is low-key. There’s only the four of us and the kids are now young adults, so we all pitch in preparing a turkey dinner in a relaxed and stress-free manner. We don’t ask much, other than to enjoy a day together without worries or upsets.

So it was an emotional day yesterday when our oven packed up. I’d put it on to self-clean - something I’ve now learned is not a good idea - and half-way through the cycle it simply died. Why do these things always happen on a weekend? None of the service agents are open, and no hope (if it turns out to not be repairable) of getting a new oven before Christmas. Thankfully, a neighbor down the road repairs appliances and popped around to have a look. It turned out to be nothing more than the thermal fuse blown by the heat of the cleaning, and we are back in action. But it was a fraught few hours.

So, however you choose to mark Christmas, I hope you have a safe, peaceful and joyful time.

In other news, this week saw a milestone for The Long Dark. The final chapter went through the critique queue, and I have a heap of feedback to process. My next task is to work out an approach to tackle the handful of major themes plus a host of minor details, and then launch into revisions.

Reminder: For the month of December, you can download a free copy of Breaking the Block in any format from the Smashwords site, using coupon code JF47K

Pantomime

Last week my local writers group held an evening of readings on a holiday/winter theme. Hearing some of the stories that people chose to recount brought back a few of my own childhood memories.

When I was young, at this time of year we would always go to a pantomime.

As far as I know, this is a mostly British phenomenon. Something that maybe Aussies and New Zealanders might have some knowledge of, but which utterly baffles North Americans.

Pantomime is rife with traditions, usually based on a folk tale such as Puss in Boots or Jack and the Beanstalk. The leading man is played by a woman, and there’s always the comical pantomime dame played by a man, plus the mandatory pantomime horse or cow. Songs and slapstick comedy are the order of the day, along with a liberal sprinkling of topical jokes based on the week’s headlines that, at that age, went completely over my head.

Major theaters in Britain make a big production of the Christmas pantomime, starring leading celebrities of TV and stage. But the fond memories I have are of smaller affairs often put on by church groups or small groups of local amateurs. These were always held in wooden-floored church halls.
(I’ve since concluded that parish architects must have based those halls on the dimensions of a badminton court, because they all had the court markings laid out on the floor in fraying colored tape)

Winter in Guernsey is no wonderland. Leaden skies and heavy, cold drops driven by the wind whistling off the Atlantic. We would arrive, bundled up against the damp chill, and line up to step through the doors. A volunteer seated behind a card table would check tickets and admit us to the muggy warmth beyond.

Rows of folding wooden chairs awaited us, facing the tiny raised stage at one end of the hall. The open-beamed roof sported a hissing row of rectangular gas heaters down each side, the sullen glow from their ceramic mantles casting a pink-orange light into the rafters and comforting warmth below.

We’d settle in, oblivious to the hard and rickety seats, and the curtains would part to reveal hand-painted canvas backdrops.
(In later years, I helped out one year painting scenery, standing on stepladders and decorators trestles to paint canvases hung from the ceiling of a garage)
And a raucous presentation would ensue, replete with audience participation. Cries of “behind you” when the villain sneaks up from the back of the stage, and the inevitable back-and-forth argument at some point with the cast - “Oh yes it is!” “Oh no it isn’t!” shouted with glee.

Then there was the grand finale, where the villain would be thwarted and the poverty-stricken leading character would turn out to be some long lost prince, and everyone would live happily ever after.

Breaking the Block

It’s a bit later in the year than planned, but Breaking the Block is finally out there.

What writer hasn’t felt the desolate emptiness of the white page, mocking, and remaining stubbornly blank? Summoning words to fill that page can, at times, be an effortless flight of creativity. At other times, it feels like mental constipation.

Writer’s block fills writers with dread because it feels impassable, something we just have to accept and wait for inspiration to strike. But we needn’t be passive victims of writer’s block. We can strike back with a combination of self-awareness and a suitable kit of tools. Breaking the Block provides a collection of approaches to keep the words flowing.

It’s available for $0.99 in all the main e-book formats and will shortly be out on all the major platforms (Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iBooks)

For the month of December, readers of this blog can also download it for free in any format from the Smashwords site, using coupon code JF47K

Movember

In case you’ve never heard of Movember, it’s a charity that raises funds and awareness for men’s health. They hold a fundraising drive every November, which usually involves growing moustaches.

This year, my office decided to hold a “reverse Movember”. A group of us who already had facial hair signed up, and all month people in the office placed money on the individual(s) they most wanted to see shave it all off.

I’ve taken part in Movember a couple of times before, where I started the month clean-shaven. Ali hates it! She was happy for me to enter this time - as long as I didn’t “win”.

Throughout the month, there were three or four front runners miles ahead of the rest of the pack. I thought I was safe. There was a lot of buzz and excitement in the office as the organizers counted down the last half hour of bidding. I had to go into a conference call during that time, but the overall bidding was along the same lines. It seemed to be a question of which of the top people would finish up in front, with the other ten of us lagging miles behind.

I came out of my call to find that someone had been doing some sneaky secretive collecting, and literally in the last minute dropped nearly $400 on my name! To say I was in shock was an understatement. Especially when I realized I would have to break the news to Ali. But a deal is a deal, so it had to come off!

Before - yes, I was a bit of a scruff. I normally don’t have a full beard and I keep it trimmed short. But for the occasion I let everything grow out all month.

After - including a drastic haircut.

Overall, the office raised just over $1,300 for Movember, so it was worth it.

Canadian anniversary

This week we celebrated fifteen years since arriving in Canada. We treated ourselves to a nice meal out. The orders were fairly predictable: steak, steak, steak, pizza!

The weird thing is, it hardly seems any time since we were celebrating our tenth year here. Time is flying by these days. We’ve got older, the kids have grown up, pets have come and gone.

Although time seems to be flying in recent years, it feels odd now looking back on photos from fifteen years ago, how much everything has changed. Those days feel like a lifetime ago. Well, for the kids that’s not far from the mark. They were young when we moved. But even I have now spent over a quarter of my life in Canada, and I couldn’t imagine going back.

Federal elections

Every four years I spare a sympathetic thought for our southerly neighbors.

The US has been in campaign mode already for months, and there’s a whole year of it yet to come. Meanwhile, Canada goes to the polls tomorrow for its federal elections. The difference? Official campaigning here started just last month.

That’s right. The entire Canadian federal election process lasts only a few weeks, almost fitting in between two of the US primary debates and barely a blip in the exhausting - and expensive - calendar down south.

The question is, does our fleeting process sell voters short, or does all that effort in the US produce any better outcomes for democracy?

Captcha calamity

I never really had a problem with the old Captchas, the ones that gave you a distorted word and/or numerals to type in. They were mildly annoying, but I found them easily solvable and the goal at least was laudable.

However the move to sets of pictures with instructions to click on those that met certain criteria drove me insane. I was taken aback to realize it was four years ago that I last vented on this blog about this new torture device. I also noticed that I haven’t encountered many of these, and I realize I haven’t actually seen a Captcha of any description for quite a long time. Clearly site owners have decided this is driving their customers away.

That changed this week, when a team at work decided to use a third-party collaboration product that protects itself with a Captcha.

It was one of those picture versions. I was asked to click on everything with a fire hydrant showing. Some were obvious, but some weren’t. As always, the trouble with these things is that the pictures are so small and grainy it’s often impossible to tell what you’re actually looking at. Yes, it’s a road. I can make out houses and trees. Is that fuzzy blob a fire hydrant or a cat? Impossible to tell.

I spent five minutes of sheer frustration, failing again and again before I finally made it in. If this was a site I was visiting for personal reasons I would have given up right away, but I needed to sign on for work purposes.

Whether or not I’ll have to go through this process again next week is yet to be seen, but the experience prompted me to do some research.

It turns out that it’s not my imagination, they really have been making these things more difficult to solve. It’s the usual arms race between defenders and attackers.

What is more unsettling, though, is that we have permanently lost this particular race.

Machine learning and visual recognition systems are now so good that they can outperform people on these kinds of tasks.

In other words, the test that is supposed to prove you are a human, not a bot, can now be passed by bots better than people. In response, the designers are resorting to making them so difficult that the people they are supposed to admit can’t solve them.

Sounds like it’s time for a serious re-think!

Sensory overload

I’ve posted a few times before on introversion. Once again, last week we had a two-day leadership conference, which is always an intense experience. This time, the organizers kindly provided a quiet room for people to retreat to, to recharge during breaks, for which I’m thankful.

And, to be clear, these are fabulous events, a great opportunity to hear what’s going on outside our usual working horizons and to meet up with colleagues we don’t often get to see in person. But, unavoidably, they are very taxing on people who find crowds to be draining.

This time, I thought I’d talk a bit more specifically about what “draining” means in terms of sensory overload, and try to convey a sense of how it feels.

When I’ve been immersed for too long in a roomful of people, it gets tiring.

OK, that doesn’t sound too bad. You can fight off fatigue, can’t you? Well, yes, up to a point. But things quickly start to go downhill from there. Here are some of the less obvious sensations that I’m all too familiar with:

Regardless of general fatigue, when the noise level rises beyond a certain point I can’t make out speech any longer. I can hear people speaking across or along the table, but their words are nothing more than a mush of sound. More bizarrely, if someone is speaking nearby the syllables might be perfectly audible but they become incomprehensible. The closest analogy I can suggest is that it’s as if they’ve suddenly slipped into speaking a different language. As you can imagine, this makes dinner conversation in a noisy room impossible.

Moving around a crowded room becomes difficult. It’s as if my vision has narrowed down, I can’t pick out obstacles, and I feel off-balance. I have to plan out even the simplest movements like standing up or weaving between people and tables because I feel impossibly clumsy, as if my body and limbs have invisible extensions making them twice their normal size. I have to focus on the floor at my feet because otherwise I’m in serious danger of bumping into things.

Taking this further, the tunnel vision can get so bad that I don’t notice people moving nearby. So people seem to materialize in my path without warning. It feels a bit like I’m living in a time-lapse video where everything is disjointed and jerky. In extreme situations, I get frozen in place, trapped and unable to move.

Crowds are inherently stressful for an extreme introvert, but in everyday life I’ve learned to manage. But when my energy has been drained by too much exposure, the fight or flight response kicks in big time because everything now feels like a threat. Simply entering a room full of people, it feels like I’m fighting my way through a physical but invisible barrier, the urge to flee is so strong.

In a similar way, there seems to be an impenetrable barrier around other individuals. This makes it impossible to approach and talk to anyone, unless I happen to have a specific reason to do so ... I need to talk to you/ask you about X. This means that small talk is out of the question.

So, when I seem withdrawn and distant in the middle of a crowd I’m not trying to be rude, I’m just overloaded.

Progress - but s l o w

September. Back to school. And we’ve often noticed that after Labor Day it feels like someone flipped a switch from “summer” to “autumn”.

Not that we’ve seen much of “summer” this year. Sure, we’ve had pleasant enough spells, but in many years we’ve practically lived out on the deck from May onwards, and gone months at a stretch without having to cover the furniture against rain. Not so much this year.

And now the evenings are getting darker and cooler, and we are getting used to new routines. Ali is back to a new school year with a new intake of students. Matthew started at college, which is another big adjustment. My own work is unusually intense this year, which often leaves me tired in the evenings.

So, although writing progress is happening, it’s going slowly.

The Long Dark is working its way through the critique queue, getting a ton of feedback. Critiquing is a long process, submitting chapters week by week for comment. Towards the end, my previous novels have generally garnered maybe four or five critiques per week. This time around it’s holding steady at about double that. Which is wonderful, though it carries a cost. Critiquing is a reciprocal process, and I like to make sure I’m giving as much as I’m receiving. But at that furious pace I’m falling further and further behind. I’ll be working to make up lost ground critiquing other people’s work long after my novel is done.

I had hoped to finish and publish Breaking the Block this month, but with all the critiquing effort on TLD that is falling behind. I did manage to go through a thorough round of edits, with just final tidying up left to do, but I have only just made a start on cover art.

All this means I’ve got my work cut out for me if I’m to meet my objective of publishing The Long Dark next summer.

Curry night

Every once in a while, we invite a few friends around for a meal. Sometimes it’s after they’ve dropped subtle hints along the lines of “when are you going to cook us another curry?”

For some reason, people seem to like my curries. I make no pretense at any kind of authenticity, but it is something I’ve always enjoyed cooking since I first started cooking for myself roughly hmpprhpp mumble mumble years ago.

So yesterday out came the spices and half the pans in the kitchen cupboard. I should have taken a “before” photo, too, to show the mountain of sliced and chopped onions and tomatoes, all heaped on chopping boards arranged by dish, ready to cook. But here is the end result snapped before we ferried the dishes outside to the deck. Luckily we had a fine day evening after a gloomy spell earlier.

From left to right, and front to back, we have:
Creamy chicken curry
Chicken Jalfrezi
Curried shrimp and spinach
Chana Masala
Rice
Naan
Puppodums with minted yoghurt and chutney

There's something interesting going on out there

Something definitely had their attention. They didn't even notice me sneaking up for a quick photo. When I went to the window to see what was so interesting, there was a rabbit sitting quite oblivious on our front lawn.

I didn't manage to get a shot of it because it dashed off, but I'm surprised neither of the cats were bothered enough to jump down to the front steps and chase it. I guess it's been so warm they were content to perch and spectate.

Camping 2019

I’ve been away from the blog for the past month - it was a hectic end to June, and then we were camping for the first part of July.

We took off for a much-looked-forward-to break to our usual haunt at Pacific Playgrounds. Going so early in the summer is always a bit chancy, and it wasn’t a good omen to find ourselves at home hitching up in a torrential downpour. By the time we’d got hitched and ready to go, we were all soaked through despite waterproof jackets! Fortunately, by the time we’d driven up-island we’d left the clouds behind. For now!

Yes, we had a few days of mixed sun and cloud, and then more rain. Luckily it mostly happened overnight, with sun and cloud during the day, but it did mean we had to be careful to bring everything under cover of the awning each night, just in case. So different from most camping trips, where we’ve been used to just leaving everything out.

On the plus side, this year we managed to have proper camp fires every evening. The first in many years, because by the time we travel there’s usually a fire ban in effect.

Overall, despite the fact that we didn’t have a single cloudless day, we had a good time. There was enough sunshine to let us spend time swimming in the river most days. The only other difference that really bugged us, literally, were the hordes of mosquitoes out on the field where we walked the dogs. By the end of the trip, my legs were covered in bites.

It’s probably a measure of a good camp that we hardly felt the need to leave the campground, other than for groceries and walks along the river and beach - which Ellie and Mishka loved!

We did make a point of visiting the chainsaw wood carvings up at Campbell River, which we do every year. To give a sense of scale, these carvings are each about 8 or 9 feet tall.

Apart from that, I spent a lot of time on writing - mostly critiques, as I’m putting The Long Dark through the queue on Critique Circle, plus editing Breaking the Block. And Ali has discovered her niche as an artist, doing rock paintings.

The Long Dark - ridiculously large vehicles

Last week I talked about Elysium’s towns and cities. One teensy detail I mentioned in passing - the ridiculously large vehicle garages - might have raised an eyebrow or two if anyone stopped to thing about it.

Why would they need garages anywhere up to three hundred meters long?

The answer is, they need to shelter ridiculously large vehicles.

The people on Elysium travel the surface in modular vehicles, that can easily stretch half a kilometer in length. These giant crawlers are made up of alternating cars slung between wheel and power units (called yoops - short for Universal Power Unit). The wheels are lightweight, sprung mesh seven meters in diameter. Think moon buggy scaled up an order of magnitude. The cars they support are giant boxes about twelve meters square and four floors tall.

Of course, these aren’t the kind of vehicles you take out on a jaunt, or drive down to the corner store. These are working vehicles.

The colonists make a living harvesting materials from the depths of the planet-girdling plant mass. During the summer months they can spend weeks out in the field, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest town. Crawlers carry everything they need to support a harvesting crew of fifty, along with climbing, cutting, and hauling machinery, and storage to carry their finds back for processing.

At the turn of the seasons, these same crawlers carry the entire town’s population, belongings, and equipment across the equator to towns in the other hemisphere where they resume work for the next few Earth years.

The Long Dark - habitats

Last time I talked about worldbuilding The Long Dark, I mentioned cities and towns made up of enclosed domes. All the centers of population are built from dozens or hundreds of units that follow similar basic designs. From the air, a large city would probably resemble a rumpled sheet of bubble wrap.

All the units share some features in common. They are either circular or oval in plan, with a basin-like rigid base topped by a slightly flexible weather shield supported by ribs. Together they form an airtight bubble to keep Elysium’s poisonous atmosphere out.

The base is sunk into the surface of Sponge. The upper surface doesn’t have to hold in air against vacuum - Elysium’s surface pressure is not too different from Earth’s - but it has to cope with extreme weather including wind speeds in the hundreds of kilometers per hour. Hence the ability to flex (within reason) instead of trying to stand rigid against the storms.

Any internal structures are built onto the base, and stand well back from the weather shield to allow room for it to move. Each dome has its own power supply, air filters, waste treatment etc. so towns don’t need much in the way of centralized infrastructure.

To complete the picture, domes have a series of standardized airlocks evenly spaced around the perimeter. Domes are linked together by a network of semi-flexible tunnels, to allow for the slight movements that come from making your home on the skin of a living organism.

A standard habitat dome is about ninety meters in diameter. It has six airlocks around the edge, and hallways running into the center as well as a walkway between the weather skin and the buildings inside. The buildings form a circular stepped pyramid about ten floors high, containing living quarters, kitchens, and communal dining halls. At full capacity, a single dome can house up to a thousand people.

There are smaller circular domes for workshops, administration, and community spaces - schools, hospitals, entertainment.

Finally, there are much larger oval structures - up to a hundred meters across and three hundred meters long - for warehouses, vehicle garages, and hydroponic farms.

Treat every day like your first

My organization puts on a fabulous learning event each year, where they invite speakers and facilitators to talk and lead sessions. The event took place last week over three days with a variety of sessions to choose from. It’s an opportunity for staff to get out of the office for a day or two and hear some great speakers.

One of the keynote speakers last week was the inspirational Drew Dudley. He talks all over the world about everyday leadership, and his theme was the need to come into work every day as if it’s your first day on the job.

Yes, there’s a funny story behind this about a tour guide who took him out into the desert in a dune buggy, but the guide brought such joy and energy to his work because, as he put it, “I’ve been doing the same job for seventeen years, and every day is my first day.”

And it occurred to me this morning that the same applies in life outside of work.

When we emigrated from Britain to Canada, we expected to have some tough adjustments to make. One of the golden pieces of advice on immigration is to make a list of all the reasons why you chose to move. When things get tough, take out that list to remind yourself why you did this.

That advice is along the same lines of resetting your mental state to recapture the hope and excitement of those early days. Drew Dudley just takes it a lot further.

And it’s true. As I drove to the grocery store this morning, I was struck afresh by my beautiful surroundings. Glorious sunshine, open fields, mountains in the distance, wide and empty roads ... And I could appreciate afresh the unhurried ease of shopping, uncrowded aisles, the friendly staff ... as if for the first time.

So, despite all the people-driven crap going on in the world, take time to look with fresh eyes at the wonder that is the world we live in. The wonder that we all too easily take for granted.

The Long Dark - human habitation

Continuing occasional posts about worldbuilding for my current WIP.

Aside from extreme weather patterns, the colonists in The Long Dark have another major problem to contend with. The planet is superficially Earth-like - similar gravity, similar temperature on average, abundant water and an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere. All sounds moderately livable. Except for one thing. Both the air and the water are laced with a cocktail of poisons. Without treatment they are deadly.

OK. I decided the toxins would be large organic molecules and relatively easy to filter out, so there is no shortage of air and water per se, but they do need treatment.

That means you can’t go out onto the surface without a mask, and all living areas need to be enclosed and secured to keep the native atmosphere out.

This isn’t as extreme as living on, say, the Moon, where you have to pressurize living spaces against vacuum, but you do need a reasonably airtight barrier and airlocks everywhere. So, the colonists live in large domes, clustered together into towns and cities.

The dome arrangements of the town of Serendipity, where most of the action takes place. The large ovals are vehicle garages and warehouses. The smaller domes are habitats and workshops. The town is roughly a kilometer across.

The relatively habitable equator is ringed by eighteen large cities. These are occupied year-round, and contain all the major industrial processing and hydroponic growing areas.

Away from the equator, in the twenty to thirty-five degree latitudes, there is a scattering of nearly fifty smaller towns in each hemisphere. These are only occupied during Elysium’s summer months. Half the planet’s population live here, harvesting medicinal products and other useful materials from the depths of the plant mass. At the turn of the seasons they have to migrate across the equator to escape the winter deep freeze - the “Long Dark” of the book’s title.

Map of Elysium showing up to forty degrees north and south. The equatorial cities and the northern towns are marked here.

Husky Houdini

When we moved to Canada we got a husky. We installed a new fence all around the back yard to make it husky-proof. In all the years we had Gypsy, and later Ellie, our Australian Shepherd, we never had a dog escape unless someone left one of the side gates open.

Sadly we lost Gypsy in 2016, but now we’ve added Mishka to the family, a five-month old husky who gets along fabulously with Ellie.

Tuesday afternoon: Panicked call at work from Megan, who’d dropped by home to pick up some groceries. Mishka is missing. Ellie is still there, and the gates are secured, but no Mishka.

Immediate conclusion - someone’s taken her.

Luckily, a neighbor whose property backs on to one of our next-door neighbor’s, called Ali to say she had Mishka. She has two huskies herself, in a fenced yard, and noticed she had mysteriously acquired a third. So, we were glad to have Mishka back but instead of one mystery, we now had two. How did she get out of our yard, and how did she get into our neighbor’s - both supposedly husky-proof?

Tuesday evening: Check the fence all around the back yard. No signs of digging. No loose fencing anywhere. No obvious way for her to get out.

Wednesday morning: Feed dogs as usual and let them loose in the back yard. A little while later, spot Mishka roaming the front lawn.

Conclusion: Somehow, she can escape. So likelihood is that she got out on her own yesterday. No need to assume some stranger had let her out for some reason. From there, our favorite theory is that she found her way through the neighbor’s property to the road behind, and someone found her wandering. It’s possible someone mistakenly though they knew where she lived and let her in with the other huskies.

Wednesday evening: Take Ellie out the front and pretend to go for a walk, leaving Mishka on the deck under covert observation, hoping she’ll repeat her feat and let us see how she escaped. No such luck. A lot of plaintive whining and wandering around on the carport roof, but no jailbreak.

Wait ... what? She’s not supposed to be able to get onto the carport. We have a deck over the garage, with the carport alongside. The roof comes up level with the railing that runs around the deck. Very early on, to stop Gypsy climbing up there, I installed fence panels along the edge of the roof nearest the deck. It stopped Gypsy, but not, apparently, Mishka. She happily squeezed around the end of the fence in the few inches between that and the edge of the roof.

That’s the far end of the fence in this picture. The carport is behind the fence to the left.

More worrying, she then decided to jump into the hedge jutting out and shielding the carport entrance. She floundered in the greenery ten feet above a very hard driveway.

Luckily I was able to reach down from the deck and haul her out. She must have decided that was fun, because she repeated the performance later that evening and had to be rescued again. Not very comforting. What if she did that when we weren’t around?

Regardless, whenever we tried to tempt her to escape again, she went straight for the carport. Current theory is that she escaped previously by jumping down the far side, only a five or six foot drop into the neighbor’s yard because we’re on a hill. But clearly the carport has to be out of bounds.

Thursday morning: New lattice panel added to the deck to act as a deterrent.

Friday: No more escapes. Fingers crossed!

Breaking the Block

While I’m taking a breather from The Long Dark, waiting for the first part to get critiqued, I’ve turned my attention back to another small project that I aim to complete this summer.

A short e-book, Breaking the Block, looks systematically at a range of causes of writer’s block, and suggests possible remedies.

I’ve tried to pack the booklet with examples and practical tips, but the theme running through it is that writer’s block is not in itself an ailment, but simply the visible symptom of some deeper underlying cause.

It often seems to me that writers feel helpless when the words stop flowing, and they believe they have to wait for inspiration or for the right mood to strike. My belief is that the problem can be tackled more proactively, you just need some ideas on where to look for the source of the blockage before you can bring the right countermeasures to bear.

Even if you don’t find a specific tip in the booklet that helps you in your own situation, I think it helps to adopt the mindset that writer’s block is not some amorphous ailment of the writerly mind. Instead of feeling helpless, understand that somewhere there is a specific cause that can be overcome once you’ve shone a spotlight on it.

Victoria Public Library

Yesterday saw the launch of the Greater Victoria Public Library’s 2019 Emerging Local Authors collection.

This is the fifth year they’ve run this innovative program, now being emulated in a number of other libraries, which showcases local authors and illustrators.

I joined about eighty authors making up this year’s collection for a launch party in the covered courtyard at the library. Our books, including The Ashes of Home, will be shelved prominently near the main library entrance, and they’ve put together a rolling slideshow for their display screens.

You can find out more about the collection at:
https://www.gvpl.ca/virtual-branch/emerging-local-authors/

Easter weekend

Hope everyone is enjoying their Easter break.

I’m making use of the extra time to do some writing, obviously.

Aiming to complete what I call “revision 1” of The Long Dark. In practice, a revision is actually multiple passes through the text looking at various aspects. After finishing the first draft I let it sit for a while, then begin with a complete read through as a reader, making notes of general impressions and areas that need tightening up or expanding on. This is at a high level, to get a feel for the story as a whole. More reads on the computer, making edits as I go, then print the lot off on paper and go through it again with a red pen. Now I’ve just got a few notes left to work through.

At the same time, I’m pushing the nonfiction Breaking the Block through the critiquing queue at Critique Circle.

Back in the real world, this is the time of year we are usually thinking of getting our deck cleaned up and in use. But, despite a brief spell last month, it’s not yet warmed up enough to be inviting. Maybe next month.

Instead, we’ve revitalized a part of the garden that’s been neglected for years. This corner sites behind the garage and deck, and used to be a rather useless patch of grass. Several years ago, we got rid of the grass, built steps, path, and retaining wall, and filled it with soil but never got around to planting it properly. Well, now it’s planted :)

Self-congratulation

Goodreads is an online forum first and foremost for readers. Readers discuss, swap notes on, and review books they’ve read. The purpose is to inform other readers and to share reading experiences.

Of course, authors hang out there, too. Wherever there’s an audience of readers, there are opportunities for authors to engage and maybe attract new readers.

One of the discussion forums I follow posed a question about authors rating and reviewing their own books. I’ve seen authors do this ... give themselves a five-star rating and a glowing review. At one point, very early on in my time there, I had seen this so often I figured it was seen as an acceptable practice and (briefly) wondered about doing this for my own book (just the one out there at that time).

Then I started thinking how this would come across to a prospective reader.

How does it come across to me?

That stopped me in my tracks, because my gut reaction was that it was sad, tacky, and smacked of desperation. If you have a load of other people’s reviews then you really don’t need to add your own. It serves no purpose in terms of visibility. On the other hand, there’s nothing much sadder than a book with just one review ... from the author. IMO you’re better off with none.

Actually, I take that back. A sadder sight is a five-star review from the author standing out among a clutch of one- and two-star reviews from genuine readers. That says they’re not only desperate, but completely out of touch with reality.

What do you think? What crosses your mind when you see someone rating their own book on a forum meant for readers?

Brexit ... or not

This side of the pond, we have ringside seats to the surreal reality show that is American politics. While I’ve grown heartily sick of hearing about the Orange Toddler’s latest tantrums, the rest of my family back in Britain is equally sick of the even-longer-running drama of Brexit.

Some groups are pushing for a second referendum. “Let the people have their say,” they say. Opponents point to the fact that the people already had their say. Here’s where I think we get into slightly shady territory.

I remember reading about the shock when the result of the referendum was announced. There was disbelief across the whole political spectrum, and more than an unearthly hint of “What have we done?” I suspect a lot of people who voted to leave didn’t really want to leave at all. But they did want to send a message to the politicians that business as usual was not an option. It was a protest vote, something that many people felt was safe because there was no way it would actually pass ... until it did.

That’s the danger of protest votes, or of poorly-explained polls.

The time for a second referendum would have been right away, as in - this was so unexpected and has clearly taken everyone by surprise, let’s do the prudent thing and ask, “Are you sure?” That’s the common-sense response when you get an entirely unexpected answer to a question. Verify, to make sure the question was understood and the answer is genuine. Then move on.

But nearly three years have passed, we’ve passed the date when Britain should have by now been out, and we’re still no closer to having any clue how this will all shake out.

WeWriWa - last one for now

Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.

Concluding a chapter from Ghosts of Innocence, Shayla has stolen the identity of a new high-ranking Imperial appointee, Brynwyn bin Covin. She’s been met by a soldier (Kurt) from the Imperial Palace Guard, who’s escorting her to the Palace. Outside in the square Kurt spotted a row of coin-operated punishment stalls. Shayla stopped in front of a young woman prisoner with two young children, and had no choice but to live up to the expectations of her position by inflicting some pain on the woman. But she put a halt to any further torture, declaring that the woman has been punished, and provided money to feed and clothe the children.

The quote mentioned at the start is from a snippet a while ago, though only a couple of pages back in the story. It began, "Tribute to the Emperor, vengeance to the Almighty."

=====

"And mercy to the children, for they are your future judges," murmured Kurt, as they walked back across the plaza, completing the quote Shayla had used a few minutes before.

"Amen to that," said Shayla, taken aback. "I'm impressed. That was from the original Mikhael Avantis edition."

Kurt nodded. "Most people misquote it as 'for they are your future.' It rather loses its meaning like that."

"Go and see if the car's ready," Shayla said. She didn't want to get into a religious discussion right now. "And make sure that heathen wretch of a porter has loaded all my baggage safely."

=====

Seems Shayla made the right impression on Kurt. And that’s it for now. I’ll be back, maybe later this year, with some scenes from The Long Dark. I’m plugging away at initial rounds of editing, and will be putting it through beta reading and detailed critique for the rest of the year.

Meanwhile, I’ve also finished the first draft of a non-fiction booklet on handling writer’s block. This will be a companion to my earlier Critique Survival Guide. As this is only a short booklet, I plan to edit and publish Breaking the Block this year alongside editing The Long Dark.

WeWriWa - Shayla makes things right

Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.

Continuing a chapter from Ghosts of Innocence, Shayla has stolen the identity of a new high-ranking Imperial appointee, Brynwyn bin Covin. She’s been met by a soldier (Kurt) from the Imperial Palace Guard, who’s escorting her to the Palace. Outside in the square Kurt spotted a row of coin-operated punishment stalls. Shayla stopped in front of a young woman prisoner with two young children, and had no choice but to live up to expectations of her position by inflicting some pain on the woman. But she put a halt to an further torture, declaring that the woman has been punished.

=====

Shayla called the Overseer, who had been hovering at the edge of the crowd. She whipped out her notepad and scrawled briefly on it, then pressed a handful of coins into his palm. "See to it that these children are properly fed and clothed."

He looked blankly at the handful of money.

"I have just lodged a pledge that this gift be used appropriately in the spirit in which it was given," Shayla continued, "witnessed by all people present here. The timestamp will tally with surveillance records. You will ensure that this pledge is honored." The man didn't look overly dishonest, but it never hurt to be sure.

He bowed. "It shall be done, Magister Summis."

=====

An Indie interview

I’ve just been interviewed by fellow author, Katherine Luck, over at How To Write Like. Please hop over to the site and say hello, and while you’re there read up about a variety of authors.

Katherine Luck is the author of the novels The Cure for Summer Boredom and In Retrospect. Her latest book, False Memoir, combines the high stakes of a gritty psychological thriller with the guilty pleasure of a sensational true crime tell-all. You can read more of her work, including the “Dead Writers and Candy” series, at the-delve.com.

I was also tickled to learn that Katherine is just a short hop away, across the water in Seattle. I hope they’re enjoying a touch of the welcome spring that we’re enjoying here in Victoria!

WeWriWa - Shayla recovers from her slip

Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.

Continuing a chapter from Ghosts of Innocence, Shayla has stolen the identity of a new high-ranking Imperial appointee, Brynwyn bin Covin. She’s been met by a soldier (Kurt) from the Imperial Palace Guard, who’s escorting her to the Palace. Outside in the square Kurt spotted a row of coin-operated punishment stalls. Shayla stopped in front of a young woman prisoner with two young children, and had no choice but to live up to expectations of her position by inflicting some pain on the woman. But she slipped out of character when she stopped others from following her example.

=====

No! This can work, and remain in character too. Her mind raced as she saw a way forward. "How can you stand to see this? A woman resorting to stealing to feed her children? This is a holy town, a site of worship. You of all people should help your poor. The collection box at the temple is supposed to be there to help people like this, so they don't need to steal to live."

She surveyed the circle of faces, staring down anyone who dared meet her eyes. "This woman has sinned, she has been punished."

=====

WWW - and across the finish line

Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.

Continuing a chapter from Ghosts of Innocence, Shayla has stolen the identity of a new high-ranking Imperial appointee, Brynwyn bin Covin. She’s been met by a soldier (Kurt) from the Imperial Palace Guard, who’s escorting her to the Palace. Outside in the square Kurt spotted a row of coin-operated punishment stalls. Shayla stopped in front of a young woman prisoner with two young children, and had no choice but to live up to expectations of her position by inflicting some pain on the woman.

=====

A few people cheered. One man stepped forward with a coin in his hand, but stopped short when Shayla whirled round. "Shame on you!" she spat. "All of you!"

It took Shayla a fraction of a second to realize her error. Wouldn't Brynwyn have approved of further punishment? Yes, but Shayla couldn't let this continue.

The crowd fell silent once more, faces showing anger and confusion.

=====

Oops! Seems like her character has slipped! It’s not over for Shayla yet.

“Across the finish line” in the post title refers to the fact that I’ve finally finished the first draft of The Long Dark. Just a fraction over seven months’ work but there’s still a long road ahead. I expect to be revising and editing for the rest of this year and I will soon be looking for beta readers to provide feedback on high level story flow, plot and character development etc.

WWW - a tough act for Shayla

Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.

Continuing a chapter from Ghosts of Innocence, Shayla has stolen the identity of a new high-ranking Imperial appointee, Brynwyn bin Covin. She’s been met by a soldier (Kurt) from the Imperial Palace Guard, who’s escorting her to the Palace. Outside in the square Kurt spotted a row of coin-operated punishment stalls, and Shayla realizes the crowd will expect her to inflict some pain on the prisoners there. She’s stopped in front of a young woman prisoner with two young children.

=====

A hush descended on the square.

Struggling to quell a tremor running through her whole body, Shayla dropped the coin into the slot.

A dreadful scream rent the air. It tailed off into convulsive sobs, joined by a chorus of wails from the children.

Shayla felt the square spinning around her. She was almost overwhelmed by revulsion at the coin-operated torture she had just inflicted. She gritted her teeth, trying to twist her grimace into thin-lipped satisfaction. Immerse in the character! Brynwyn was a self-righteous prig.

=====

Yup. She did it  :(
The question is, what’s next?

Weekend Writing Warriors February 24

Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.

Continuing a chapter from Ghosts of Innocence, Shayla has stolen the identity of a new high-ranking Imperial appointee, Brynwyn bin Covin. She’s been met by a soldier (Kurt) from the Imperial Palace Guard, who’s escorting her to the Palace. Outside in the square Kurt spotted a row of punishment stalls, and Shayla realizes the crowd will expect her to inflict some pain on the prisoners there. She’s stopped in front of a young woman prisoner with two young children.

=====

"You have courage, my son. Be strong," Shayla said. The boy glared back, hatred in his eyes, tears streaking his grimy cheeks.

The woman looked up from the girl, no more than three or four years old, still clinging to her. "I have sinned, My Lady. I am ashamed. But my children need to eat."

Shayla nodded. She studied the woman, noting the sunken cheeks, grey complexion, and ribs showing through her skin. And so do you.

=====

WWW and it’s snow joke

Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.

Continuing a chapter from Ghosts of Innocence, Shayla has stolen the identity of a new high-ranking Imperial appointee, Brynwyn bin Covin. She’s been met by a soldier (Kurt) from the Imperial Palace Guard, who’s escorting her to the Palace. They have just stepped outside while Shayla’s baggage is loaded into the car. Kurt spotted a row of punishment stalls across the square, and Shayla realizes the crowd will expect her to inflict some pain on the prisoners there.

=====

Shayla sorted through her money and selected a small silver coin. This would be a heavy jolt. Prisoners occasionally died from neural stimulation, despite the safety limits built in, but her briefing notes had been very clear regarding Brynwyn's harsh views on duty and discipline. She had to stay in character.

"Leave my mommy alone!"

Shayla looked down, surprised, at the tiny bundle of fury pummeling her with minute and ineffective fists.

One of the duty guards pulled the child away. He raised his fist to cuff the young boy, but Shayla held up a cautioning finger. The guard bowed his head. "As you wish, Magister Summis."

=====

When we moved to Canada, everyone talked about the long winters. “Not so,” we said. “We’re settling in Victoria, BC where people move to to escape the winters.”

Thing is, Victoria isn’t geared up to deal with snow like the rest of Canada. Most winters we’ve been here we’ve had snow, but it’s always been one dump, one day of traffic chaos. Then the roads are cleared and things settle down. It all looks pretty for a couple of weeks then it melts.

Last three years or so we’ve seen a change in the pattern, to snowfall spread out over multiple days causing fresh problems every day. This past week is a case in point.

Friday I happened to be working from home, catching up after my trip to Ottawa that I mentioned in my last post. During the day, about 5cm fell which I cleared from the driveway before Ali got home. Sunday night the storm hit. About 30cm which closed the highway that night. We dug ourselves out in the morning and I managed to get into work by mid-morning. It takes the three of us somewhere between 2 and 3 hours to shift that amount of snow from our long driveway.

Very scary drive home Monday in near-whiteout conditions. Lots of cars abandoned by the side of the road. Ali and Matthew were home (schools closed) and cleared the drive for me. Tuesday morning - another 30cm overnight and another 2-hour workout to dig ourselves out again. Wednesday was fine, but slippery slushy stuff started falling Thursday. Not much, but enough to be dangerous - probably more so than a proper snowfall. Our drive opens out near the bottom of a hill, and even crawling down at less than walking pace I couldn’t make the turn into the drive. The car just slid sideways. Managed to correct and carry on down to the bottom, then came back up and reversed into the drive. Yes, scary. Another brief workout Friday morning before getting to work.

Looks like we’ve got a reprieve for the coming week, with the possibility of more to come next weekend. We’ll see.

Of course, I’m still thankful to be living in relatively mild Victoria. Much of the country has had it a lot worse, so I can’t really complain. Wherever you are, I hope you’re staying warm and dry and safe!

Weekend Writing Warriors February 10

Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.

Continuing a chapter from Ghosts of Innocence, Shayla has stolen the identity of a new high-ranking Imperial appointee, Brynwyn bin Covin. She’s been met by a soldier (Kurt) from the Imperial Palace Guard, who’s escorting her to the Palace. They have just stepped outside while Shayla’s baggage is loaded into the car. Kurt spotted a row of punishment stalls across the square, and Shayla realizes the crowd will expect her to inflict some pain on the prisoners there.

=====

Shayla started at the far end of the line, scrutinizing each prisoner and reading the placards in front of them. Some met her gaze, some looked away, expressions a mixture of pleading, defiance, resignation.

Theft from a market stall... Insulting the personage of the Emperor... All petty crimes. One in particular caught her eye though. Stealing from the Temple collection box. Brynwyn would not approve of that. She looked at the young woman standing, naked and manacled, before her. She ignored Shayla, murmuring instead to two young children clinging to her.

=====

After months of consistent progress ahead of schedule, my writing took a big hit this week. I was out of town for in-person workshops for a major project I’m working on.

Working face-to-face gives you a level of understanding you simply can’t get from teleconferencing. The technology is great for routine discussions, but it blocks the subtle cues of posture and eye contact that can ring warning bells that people may be using the same words but they’re reading different meaning into them.

With collaboration from provinces across Canada, getting people together like this is costly in travel, but those kinds of misunderstandings can prove fatal to a complex multi-million-dollar project.

It’s also costly in personal terms. Traveling from Victoria to Ottawa is an all-day process. Then the workshops themselves. Then returning home, leaving late afternoon Ottawa time and getting home after midnight local time. Tag on an evening beforehand of sorting out and packing clothes, papers and laptop, and a day afterwards of catching up and recovery from sheer exhaustion. Net result, an entire week gone by and not a word written.

Have to do better this weekend!
 

Weekend Writing Warriors February 3

Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.




Continuing a chapter from Ghosts of Innocence, Shayla has stolen the identity of a new high-ranking Imperial appointee, Brynwyn bin Covin. She’s been met by a soldier (Kurt) from the Imperial Palace Guard, who’s escorting her to the Palace. They have just stepped outside while Shayla’s baggage is loaded into the car. Kurt spotted a row of punishment stalls across the square, and Shayla realizes the crowd will expect her to inflict some pain on the prisoners there.

=====

She tried to ignore the stench of urine and excrement while she thought. How would Brynwyn behave here? She was sure that Kurt would be taking note of her actions. He may appear to be genial and bumbling, but she had felt him observing her. Who might he be reporting to back at the Palace? If nothing else, people there would be curious about her. She was an unknown from the Provinces taking up a senior public appointment. Whatever she did here, whatever she said, every word, every gesture, would find its way to attentive ears in time.

=====

Measure wisely

When I posted about progress and motivation last week, a comment there reminded me of the darker side of targets and measurements. The comment was about feelings of backsliding when the writer took a pause from writing in order to go back and work some changes into the manuscript.

My feeling about that is: if the changes are improving the story, then it’s still progress, not backsliding at all.

The trouble is that it can feel like you’re taking steps backwards if you only focus on one way of measuring progress. And that can be dispiriting.

I think it’s important to be careful how you choose to measure progress, and to pick measurements that make sense. And those measurements will change depending on what you are doing.

For example, while I’m working on a first draft (like I am right now) then word count is a useful measure of progress. It is certainly one that I use, and which I (usually) find motivational as I discussed last time.

Even there, though, you could easily choose other measures of progress. If you are a detailed plotter, for example, then you probably have all your chapters mapped out, so you could measure progress by how many chapters you’ve finished drafting. I don’t work like that, so that measure makes no sense for me, which goes back to the “pick measures that make sense” part.

But when I get into edits and revisions, word count is not a good guide. Instead, I start tracking how much of the manuscript I’ve worked through in the current revision round. Different task, different measure.

When setting myself targets, I prefer to think first about what I am trying to achieve - what is the goal, or the benefit I’m striving for? Then I ask myself, how will I know when I’ve achieved it?

That may be enough for a fairly short task, for example: by this time next week I will have completed X. But if the goal is going to take weeks or months, that’s when measurements of progress come in handy to keep me on track. Then I ask one more question: how can I tell how well I’m doing? This last question should give you clues as to what to measure if you want to track progress over time.

Yes, targets and measurements are powerful tools. Used well they can provide great motivation, but a poor choice can crush you.

Weekend Writing Warriors January 27

Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.



Continuing a chapter from Ghosts of Innocence, Shayla has stolen the identity of a new high-ranking Imperial appointee, Brynwyn bin Covin. She’s been met by a soldier (Kurt) from the Imperial Palace Guard, who’s escorting her to the Palace. They have just stepped outside while Shayla’s baggage is loaded into the car. Kurt spotted a row of punishment stalls across the square, and was busily dropping a coin into each slot until he ran out of coins. Shayla threw him a handful of small change.

=====

He looked surprised, then delighted. "Eternal thanks, Magister Summis," he spluttered.

"Tribute to the Emperor, vengeance to the Almighty," Shayla intoned, showing that she felt it to be nothing more than her duty to help him.

By now, the onlookers had closed in behind Shayla. Talk stilled, as if in anticipation of sport beyond run-of-the-mill torture. She felt eyes burning into the back of her head as she approached the line of prisoners. She felt alone. Exposed. It was not like an assassin to be the center of attention like this.

=====

Progress and motivation

Just a quick celebration.

I finished last night’s writing session a little way past the 90k mark.

That is a big deal, because I’ve now reached a respectable novel length and am on course to top out somewhere near 100k. Some scenes still to write, some still to figure out, but the pieces seem to be falling into place.

Overall, this first draft (like the previous one) has gone remarkably well. I think I’ve taken a more methodical and practical approach to the task than in the early days - basically treating it like a job with targets to meet and a goal in sight.

I have mixed views on targets and motivation. People talk about “write every day” and that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing successfully for the past few months. But it’s not enough on its own. On its own, “write every day” is too vague to be useful, but I team it up a whole raft of tools and strategies to keep the writing fed.

I’ve blogged before about keeping writer’s block at bay, and the more I think about it the more I stand by those basic principles. They seem to be working for me.

So far so good, but here’s the “mixed views” part. That last sentence is phrased very deliberately. I could have said “They seem to work for me” but that implies an enduring and unchanging promise of success. So I reworded it to “be working”, continuous present, with the implied “for now”. In other words, while it works, it works, but if the techniques stop working then it’s important to change tack and do something different.

One of my motivational tools is a graph of my writing progress. Word count. Nerdy, huh? But when I’m generally on a roll, I find this helps me add at least a few words even when I don’t feel like it. It helps me through the tough times.

The evil side to word count graphs crops up when things are not going well. Not just the “I’m stuck” or “I’m tired” kind of not going well, but the “I am really sick of this story but I set myself a target!”

I’ve been there before, and believe me, it’s not healthy. Yes, sometimes it can force you to grit your teeth and get you through the quagmire, but the trick is to know when it’s crossed the line from honest motivation to tyranny.

I won’t be held hostage to any given technique or target. If it ain’t delivering, then adjust it or ditch it. And that’s where I think a lot of people trip up. They find, or learn about, or are advised to try, some miracle motivational technique and then become enslaved by it. Either it doesn’t work from the outset, and they beat themselves up because it’s vouchsafed by *Insert Big Name Author Here* and so the problem must be them. They’re not doing it properly. Rather than acknowledging that it simply isn’t right for them right now. Or it works, for a while, but then it takes over and rules their life even long past its usefulness.

So, it’s good now and again to remind those rules, those tools, those pieces of advice just who’s boss around here!

But, let’s finish off with a pretty picture. Here’s my graph as at yesterday. The blue line is a gentle target I set myself back in July. The red line is my actual count climbing up way ahead of target. My motivation now has been not to see if I can meet my target, but seeing how far out the water I can blow it!

Weekend Writing Warriors January 20

Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.




Continuing a chapter from Ghosts of Innocence, Shayla has stolen the identity of a new high-ranking Imperial appointee, Brynwyn bin Covin. She’s been met by a soldier (Kurt) from the Imperial Palace Guard, who’s escorting her to the Palace. They have just stepped outside while Shayla’s baggage is loaded into the car. Kurt has spotted a row of punishment stalls across the square.

=====

Kurt grinned and strode across the plaza, rummaging in his pockets.

Shayla followed at a more sedate pace, swallowing back acid. She knew what would be expected of her.

The sparse crowd, mostly pilgrims on their way to the temple, parted before her.

When she caught up with him, Kurt was moving down the line slipping a small coin into each slot in turn. Moans and screams followed him.

He stopped near the end, turning out his pockets with a frown.

"Run out of small change?" Shayla asked.

He nodded, the corners of his mouth downturned.

She tossed him a few coins.

=====

Quick update on The Long Dark

Writing has been going very well recently, and after last night’s session I started to get that giddy excitement of feeling like I’m on the home stretch.

To put it into perspective, I’ve been plugging away at this since the end of July, and I think I’ve got a few weeks to go - maybe end of February? But I’m fleshing out scenes of the final confrontations and, although there are details still to figure out, I’ve got the main plot turns mapped out to bring me to the finish line.

The situation is not much different from any other night in the last week or two, but emotionally, for the first time last night, I felt like I’d crested the hill and can actually see the finish line approaching.

Weekend Writing Warriors January 13

Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.




Continuing a chapter from Ghosts of Innocence, Shayla has stolen the identity of a new high-ranking Imperial appointee, Brynwyn bin Covin. She’s been met by a soldier from the Imperial Palace Guard, who’s escorting her to the Palace. They have just stepped outside while Shayla’s baggage is loaded into the car and Shayla spots air cruisers taking pilgrims up to the mountaintop temple despite air travel restrictions. The previous snippet ended with the soldier (Kurt) saying, "I hear the temple has dispensation from the local security commander."

=====

"The temple has much influence in these parts." Which is why I chose this path into the Palace. Shayla fought to keep her expression neutral to hide a surge of contempt. Bad idea to let religion compromise security.

They walked on in silence for a few moments. Kurt looked across the plaza at the punishment stalls. The hungry glint in his eyes turned her stomach. He caught her eye, hesitant, seemingly on the verge of asking something. She anticipated the question and nodded in the direction of the stalls. "Go ahead."

=====

Reminder: There’s still a little time left to buy any of my e-books for $0.99 before prices revert to normal.

The little surprises in life

My son is usually predictable when it comes to food.

At least these days he’s broadened his horizons, but up until last year any time we asked what he’d like on the menu for the coming week he was guaranteed to say ‘pizza’. OK, pizza is still by far his favorite, but nowadays he’s more likely to put forward other suggestions such as omelets or quesadillas. But he’s still pretty predictable.

Anyhooo ... this evening Ali is out coaching basketball until late, so the evening meal is just us two boys. So I put a choice to Matthew, would you prefer:
(a) Spag bol - which is what we had planned for this evening,
or (b) leftover cottage pie - which we had last night,
or (c) a fry-up ... bacon, egg, hash browns, beans ...

I was certain he’d leap at that last option, and to be honest I was looking forward to a quick fry-up, just for two.

But he floored me by immediately saying “not that last one ...” and then pondering the other options.

Now, I know he likes pasta, but I didn’t imagine cottage pie was even a contender. The astonishing thing is he has never been known to refuse bacon, which (in this household) merits a food group unto itself!

So, pasta it is :)

Weekend Writing Warriors January 6

Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.





Continuing a chapter from Ghosts of Innocence, Shayla has stolen the identity of a new high-ranking Imperial appointee, Brynwyn bin Covin. She’s been met by a soldier from the Imperial Palace Guard, who’s escorting her to the Palace. They have just stepped outside while Shayla’s baggage is loaded into the car.

=====

"This is the first time I've worn these robes." Why am I explaining myself to this man? But Kurt was nodding, and she realized she'd unwittingly hit the right note.

"'If you should seek to serve me, first you must leave your pride at the door,'" he quoted. "Many in your station would have made it known before now."

"Duty with humility," she whispered. She looked across the square to where a fleet of cruisers busied themselves ferrying people to and from the mountain top. "Corporal, I thought you said all air travel had been restricted."

He followed her gaze, and sniffed. "I hear the temple has dispensation from the local security commander."

=====