Weekend Writing Warriors February 12

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 below.

Continuing the opening chapter from The Ashes of Home, Shayla escaped two assailants in her room, disguised as servants, by leaping out of her window into the grip of an artificial gravity field. The three of them are now standing, held by the field, upside down on the overhanging eaves 70’ above the ground.

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The first one, the Barras lookalike (traitor or impostor?) swung his rapier. Shayla’s own blade flashed blue and met it with a jarring wrench.

A shimmerblade was a rare and fearsome weapon, highly prized by undercover agents as a weapon of stealth. When activated, the vibrating crystalline edge could shear through anything less than military grade vehicle armor--or another shimmerblade. But when two such blades met in hand-to-hand combat, the results were random and potentially catastrophic for one or both parties.

Shayla’s knife hand went numb. She barely managed to keep her grip on the hilt as she stumbled back against the wall towering over her head to meet the ground hanging impossibly above. But at least she had been prepared. She’d activated her shimmerblade at the last moment and knew what to expect. Her opponent staggered back in the other direction.

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It’s snow joke

I know I’m not an experienced winter driver, but I have driven on snow a number of times in the few inches we typically get around Victoria. I know to take things slowly - only light touches on gas, brake, and wheel - and to think much further ahead than usual. I’ve never had a problem getting to where I need to go.

Until yesterday.

We woke up Friday to an inch or so of snow on the ground, but it was still falling steadily. I got outside and shoveled the driveway clear. By the time I showered and dressed for work you wouldn’t know I’d been out there. Oh well.

We live in a dip at the bottom of a hill. Not normally a problem because our road is a school bus route and they always keep the road clear.

Not today. I guess it wasn’t yet bad enough for them to bother.

Regardless, it was still only a couple of inches. Shouldn’t be a problem. Ali set off ahead of me in the Expedition. That is usually my car but yesterday she needed to get into a parkade downtown so that left me with the much bigger truck. She got out of the slight rise at the end of our drive and made it up the hill.

I followed in the truck. Except I didn’t. She’d warned me that it was light at the back end and prone to slipping getting out of the drive and she was right. Rather than mess around with 4 wheel drive at this point I decided to head the other way. A few yards away there’s a side road that leads back up to rejoin our road - a long but fairly gentle uphill.

Shouldn’t be a problem for a big truck, should it?

Half way up, I realized I was losing speed and the slightest touch on the gas simply span the wheels. No way to keep up my speed. I came to a stop, engaged 4WD and tried to move. No dice. Worse, with each try I was drifting sideways towards the side of the road and a ditch. I stopped again and put my foot on the brakes to consider my next move.

To my horror, I noticed I was slowly but steadily sliding backwards down the hill! Let’s gloss over the next hour of rising panic as I tried to maneuver myself out of danger and back home. I can summarize it by saying I managed to reverse cautiously back to level ground, had another run at it which got me a bit further but not to the top, reversed to the bottom again and headed back the way I’d come only to be defeated by the rise at the exit onto our main road - so frustrating, I was literally across the road from our front hedge but couldn’t get out! I seemed to have absolutely zero traction to tackle the slightest incline. Reversed back to the bottom of that dip, along the way getting stuck across someone’s driveway where I mistakenly though it would be easier to turn around, before finally taking another more level side road and making it back home.

Apart from the sheer frustration, my biggest emotion at that point was profound embarrassment at my dismal failure. One or two smaller cars passed by during my skating exercises, seemingly oblivious to the slippery conditions. There was I sitting in a big 4WD truck completely helpless. I’m sure I must have made good entertainment for some of the neighbors!

To cap it all, I still don’t understand what I was doing wrong or what I could have done differently. Surely a vehicle like that should be able to handle a bit of snow and ice, shouldn’t it? Any thoughts from folks more experienced in those conditions?

Weekend Writing Warriors January 29

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 below.

Continuing the opening chapter from The Ashes of Home, the air in Shayla’s room was drugged but she held her breath at the first taste. Two attackers disguised as servants attacked her. In order to escape, she hit a hidden button and leaped through the windows 70’ above the ground...

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A second later, her feet connected with the broad eaves overhanging her bedroom windows. She hung upside down in the grip of an artificial grav field and drew her own blade, watching the lit window for signs of movement.

If at least one of her attackers leaned out of the window to see where she’d gone, she’d quickly have one less to deal with.

No such luck.

First one, then the other, appeared through the opening in a tuck roll, too fast and just out of Shayla’s reach. They must have figured out what had happened, but she’d really expected no less. Only the very best assassins ever got this close.

They landed back to back in fighting crouches. The nearer one saw Shayla and signaled to his companion, who also turned to face her.

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Well, Shayla isn’t in the clear yet, but able to breathe again she at least has a fighting chance :)

Cover art

While I’m in the thickets of the critiquing and editing jungle on The Ashes of Home, I decided to get ahead of the game and start thinking about cover art.

Like I did for Ghosts of Innocence, I’ve roughed out some concept drafts and I’m looking for your thoughts. I expect I’ll get lots of contradictory views (like I did last time) but any observations are food for thought.

Some of the things I want to convey are: Far future, space travel, sci-fi, military, adventure, intrigue. But what do these covers say to you?

#1 - Imperial frigate Vixen on Eloon

#2 - The death of Admiral George Leonard

#3 - Visiting the arctic prison

Note - these are rough drafts, the execution is pretty sketchy and don’t pay any attention to the font choice. I just find it easier to imagine an image as a book cover when it’s got an actual title and author name on it. The purpose here is to get a feel for the concepts and eventually to pick one to flesh out properly.

For comparison, here’s the equivalent sketch for Ghosts of Innocence alongside the actual cover, so you can see how things might develop along the way:

Good luck America (and the other 95% of the world)

Because I've got a feeling we're going to need it.

Democracy is all well and good, but such a tiny minority holds such disproportionate power over the rest of the world. And the rest of us are helpless bystanders in a democratic process that we have no say in, but which affects us all profoundly.

How American banks behave affects the rest of the world. 2008, anyone?

How Wall Street and American mega-corporations behave affects the rest of the world.

And how the American president behaves affects the rest of the world.

With such power should come some responsibility.

But with Donald Duck in the pilot's seat, squeaking "America first, America first" I'm not too hopeful.

Weekend Writing Warriors January 15

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 below.

Continuing the opening chapter from The Ashes of Home, the air in Shayla’s room has been drugged but she held her breath at the first taste. Two attackers disguised as servants are in the room with her. She let herself collapse towards the bed, feigning the effects of the drug, then launched herself forwards...

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As she rolled, she glimpsed upside down a face in the shadows of a hood. It looked like Barras, but Shayla noted nose plugs, a tiny breathing unit clamped between thin stretched lips, and eyes filled with hate.

A razor line of blue fire bisected the space she’d just vacated. Holy Space, a rapier shimmerblade!

Groping fingers found the hidden button as she completed the roll. The bed collapsed behind Shayla, halved effortlessly by the shimmerblade. Tall windows ahead of her flew open and she continued her motion, hurdling the waist-high sill out into a seventy foot drop.

Gravity took Shayla as she forced the dregs of tainted air from her mouth and drew in a deep, clean draught from the night rushing past her face.

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Weekend Writing Warriors January 8

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 below.

Continuing the opening chapter from The Ashes of Home, Shayla realizes something is wrong with the air in her room. Someone has released a drug intended to knock her out but she held her breath at the first taste. Two attackers disguised as servants are in the room with her.

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Her hand crept towards the hilt of the knife under her robes. She stilled it and instead stumbled another step towards the bed. She couldn’t fight these two. If the drug didn’t take her, anoxia would.

Another step.

The figures closed in.

Shayla flopped towards the bed, buying herself a few precious moments. As she pitched forwards her legs folded under her, then she launched herself across the bed. She rolled, outstretched hand reaching for a concealed button under the edge of the headboard.

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Well, we are a week into January already. Decorations taken down and packed away, and tree dropped off for chipping. I hope everyone had a good Christmas and that the New Year brings you joy.

I would still like to find one or two more beta readers for The Ashes of Home. If you are interested, please drop me a note either in the comments or through my contact page. Please include an email address I can reach you at, an idea of when you think you could finish by, and also what I could do for you in return.