The Writer and the Pesky Spouse

I'm sure I speak for most writers when I say that I need control over my environment when I write. Everyone has a setup that works for them, but for most of us, it's one that is one of limited random distractions.

Somehow, I can't get my husband completely on board with this. He knows that once I've made my evening tea and shut the door at night, I'm not to be disturbed. But I like to use my Sunday morning to read through what I wrote the night before and maybe write a little more. For some reason though, Dan doesn't get it that the previous night's "don't disturb" rules apply to morning writing time as well.

And so I get pestered with questions, bits of cheerful morning song, requests for things to pick up at the store when I go run errands later, and tales of what the cat or bunny are up to, and although it's always a lovely thing to have one's spouse in a happy and sharing mood, there are times when it's just aggravating as all hell. I read the same three paragraphs over and over, unable to get the full effect (or just check if there even is an effect) because of the pestering.

"Have you seen my running shoes?"

"Where's the sugar?"

"Does this coffee cup look clean?"

"Come see what the bunny is doing. He's so cute!"

Oh well. There's always tonight for writing.

Post-Apocalytpic Writing

Okay, Hurricane Ike wasn't exactly the Apocalypse, but I'm finding it hard to write about any of my usual post-apocalyptic themes and characters in the immediate aftermath of my own mini-apocalypse. When your life starts mirroring fiction, fiction itself takes a back seat.

Last night was the first time I could write any fiction at all, and I had to force myself to do it. I ended up writing a couple pages of a light, completely non-disaster novel I'm toying with. It felt good to get some writing done, even if it wasn't up to par.

Perhaps the most interesting outcome of this crisis has been the way my writing helped my real life in tangible ways. In researching my novels I've learned a lot about food storage and living without electricity. After the debacle that was Katrina, I moved my personal hurricane preparations into high gear, and it was a real sanity-saver to have a plan and be able to put that plan into action with no insurmountable missteps.

I've done a lot of writing this week, but it's mostly been of the factual variety. I've been journaling and working on detailed Lessons Learned reports to share later on my other blog for people who need ideas for their own disaster prep. Since I still don't have internet at home, getting such things posted will happen as time permits.

So I haven't been writing much fiction lately. My life has been edging uncomfortably close to my fictional scenarios, and reality has been as much as I can deal with. Last night was a start, though. I never wanted to live the lives of my characters, but more than ever before, the fiction can stay on the page, as far as I'm concerned.

Update!

Sorry for the recent shortage of posts. I hope to finish my first big editing pass on Steal Tomorrow this weekend and then I'll have more time for other matters, like updating my blogs, writing more character sketches, excerpts, and perhaps even some flash.

I really do like having a print copy of my manuscript to do edits from. I can read and make notes anywhere, any time, and of course we all know from experience how different things can look on paper as opposed to the computer screen. And for me there is also the time of day factor. Things that seem brilliant at 2 am are...well, not quite so much after a night's rest.

I'm edging downward on my word count and I think I'll be around 95-96K when this editing pass is done. Funny how on the first draft, the goal is more words while on the edits, the goal is less.

Once my first-pass edit is done I'll be soliciting beta readers, so if anyone is interested, let me know!

Word Count Irony

I'm in the first-edit phase of my WIP now. The break from it was nice and I read the whole thing through in about two evenings, made a punch list of items to address, and have been steadily working through it, in addition to doing little cleanups and tightening as I go.

Since I tend to write long, edits usually involve reducing word count, so I'm savoring the irony that while for months I got excited over my manuscript getting longer, now I'm excited to see it get shorter. I'm at about 99K now, down from 101K.

I'm toying with the idea of querying an e-publisher or two, although I think my purposes might be just as well served by posting as serial web fiction with a print version available via Lulu. I'd have to self-promote either way, and my way is faster and less pressure. I'm more interested in being read than being officially published at this juncture, and if I find my writing turning into another obligation on my To Do list, I'll just end up hating it.

In the meantime though, I'm working steadily at dropping my word count, whereas I used to celebrate increasing it. Life is kind of amusing that way.

On Vacation and New Blog

Well, I had hoped to have more content than this before launching the blog for my new novel, but I wanted to leave my friends with something to look at while I’m out of town, so here it is: Steal Tomorrow. Each of the sidebar links has at least some content, and more will be added, perhaps even while I’m on vacation. I’m a veteran road traveler and can stare out the window for hours, but even I can only find so much stimulation in the flat, empty spaces of West Texas!

I’ll be adding tribe and character profiles, pictures, random bits of information, and outtakes throughout the summer. When I’m happy with the main story, I’ll post it, as well. I might even do some flash fiction based on the characters. Since the blog is so new and I still haven't settled into any fixed notions about what or how it should be, thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

Also, for any of my writing friends who don’t frequent my Tri-Bunny blog, be sure to stop by my vacation blog for the next couple of weeks. I’ll be posting pics and an accounting of my adventures nightly, wherever we have connectivity.

See you in two weeks!

New Story, New Word Count

My story in Word Catalyst is up! A few of you will recognize it as one I submitted to a contest earlier in the year. It wasn’t what they were looking for, but it’s a decent little story and I knew I could find it a home without much trouble.

I passed the 75K mark on my WIP last night. At this rate I might just make my goal of finishing before I leave for vacation in a few weeks. I really would like to have the draft complete because vacations having a way of rebooting my brain and I’ll be able to tackle the revisions with fresh eyes immediately upon my return.

I think I might end up with something worth pitching. I’m at least not having much trouble coming up with a query letter in my head, which is something I can’t usually say about my stories. So depending on how this turns out, I may shop it around a bit and see what kind of response I get. If it turns into more hassle than my time is worth, though, I’ve got a lot of fun ideas for how to put this out on the web.

I'm sometimes tempted to post excerpts or character sketches, but I'm holding back for now because I think I may end up changing some names and making the story more dark and gritty overall (as if it isn't already). But I'm at that stage where the characters are pestering me all the time and sometimes it's hard to shut them up. The only way to silence them is by letting them out, so we'll see how much longer I can keep them bottled up like this.

Does anyone else have this problem with their characters, or am I just crazy?

WIP Update!

I broke 60K here in the wee hours of Sunday morning, and I finally got my MC and her man in bed. Sheesh. I'd been trying to make that happen all week but between their chaotic lives and my limited time for writing during the week, I only just now got to that scene.

Well, it was worth it, both for plot purposes and because what's the point of having characters if you don't torture them a little by making them wait and throwing a few needless (to them, not to the plot) deaths between them and their desires?

A lot of interesting things are happening with this story-- themes I hadn't planned are emerging and characters are developing in unanticipated ways. I'm a little concerned that I may have too many characters and sub-plots, but that's a matter for the editing phase. For now I'm just enjoying being in the zone with these characters, and I hope they keep talking to me and get me to the end with a minimum of difficulties. Ideally, I'd like to be done with the draft before I go on vacation next month. At my current rate of progress, it just might happen!

Publishing and the Overworked Writer

I’ve been thinking lately about the time commitments of mainstream publication.

I don’t know why this never occurred to me before (or maybe it did in a subconscious way) but if I were to quit writing for a little while so I could focus on submissions, and if I actually hit pay dirt and got an agent and publisher, would I even have time to do all that’s required of a modern author?

Looking at how constrained my writing time is already, I don’t know how I would manage the iterations of the publication process, the marketing (much of which is the responsibility of the author), the book signings, and all the other things it seems a traditionally published author must do, all the while working toward deadline on the next book and doing everything possible to make sure sales of the first book were sufficient to earn out on the advance and not get dropped by the publisher.

Sheesh. Sounds like I’d have to quit my job to do all that. Or at least quit running marathons, working out, cooking healthy meals and having Saturday lunches with my husband. For sure I’d have to give up something and I don’t have much I can really give up. I don’t watch TV unless something important blows up and I want to see the live news coverage of it. I don’t rent movies. I don’t go out to movies. I don’t do much blogging and I’m rarely on a forum more than ten minutes a day. I eat out only once a week and don’t go to bars, festivals, concerts, classes, or anything else. The only things I could cut back on would be work, sleep, exercise, healthy cooking/eating, reading the news, researching my stories, and writing.

In other words, I’d have to give up the very things that enable me to write in the first place.

Several of my blog friends have had recent breakthroughs on the road to publication and I’m going to be watching very closely to see just how much time is really involved in making that leap. If my suspicions are correct, I may be overdue for a little honesty with myself. I’ve been on the fence for awhile, dabbling in non-traditional publication methods, such as blog and POD, while holding back some of my work until I can pursue a more traditional route for it. Instead, maybe my strategy should be to just give my all to non-traditional publishing for awhile, embrace it and quit kidding myself that I can somehow find some extra time hidden under a stack of unread magazines or in the back of one of my cluttered closets.

I can always get back on the traditional publication track when I take my early retirement. And who knows? By then I might have a following and a New York house would be as thrilled to have me as I would be to have them. Or not. Maybe by then I’ll have very different ideas of what I’d like to do with my time. But one thing I know for sure: if the realities of traditional publication are incompatible with all my other life goals, something’s got to give, and it’s not going to be my health, my marriage, or my career.

Head Space

One of the things I find interesting (and a little scary) about writing is the way worlds and characters can take over one’s mental space. For several years now, the characters of my post-peak oil fiction have so dominated my consciousness that I’ve had a hard time moving on to new projects. Oh, I’ve been able to turn out a bit of unrelated flash fiction, but my attempts at anything longer came to nothing. My other characters were too dominant, their world too easy to slip into and get lost in. Every time I tried to move on, my old characters would pester me, tug at my sleeve and whisper in my ear, telling me new stories and begging me to stay just a little longer.

But finally I got a new idea that was compelling enough to stick with and I began work on a new novel. I’ve struggled with it, not knowing this new world very well and not able to “hear” my characters. After so many years with Amalia, Will, Diana, and their friends, I was used to being able to get answers to my questions with ease. Not so with my new characters! I was almost to 30K words before the first of my new characters started opening up to me. To my surprise, it was one of my male characters. I had expected my female characters to be more accessible, but they were more cautious and still remain a little wary of me. They've probably heard the rumors of how I like to torture my imaginary friends!

But now as I come upon the 35K mark, I’m reaching a place where getting information isn’t such a struggle. When I ask what happens next or when I request a bit of backstory so I can understand some future action, most of my new characters tell me. Some go on at great length, not willing to shut up even when I point out that I have important spreadsheets to work on or an email to answer. For the last two days they’ve taken over my head space every time I’ve quit thinking about the needful things of daily life like work, food, and not getting run over by a bus as I cross the street. They’ve quietly taken over in the way my old “family” used to do.

This doesn’t mean I’m done with my old characters, only that I’m finally achieving the distance from them that I feel every writer needs at some point. It also means I’m finally on a roll with my new WIP. The nightly writing sessions are less of a struggle. I’m no longer forcing myself to write something, anything, just to make a minimum word count for the evening. My characters now spend all day filling my head with stories of past and future adventures, their thoughts, hopes and dreams. My nightly word counts are getting longer and the writing flows more easily.

I’m not out of the woods yet. Characters can be touchy creatures and they could clam up on me at any moment. I might get bogged down in a plot conundrum and the story could suck when it’s all over. But it’s a relief to have pushed past the most critical barrier to find that yes, I can make new characters that are just as real in my mind as the old ones. I can enjoy the ride as a new group of imaginary friends introduce me to their screwed-up world.

I’m finally having fun on my new journey and it looks like it’s going to be a fine adventure, indeed!

So who is occupying your head space today? Old friends or new? Are they real, and are they trying to take over? Will you let them?

Re-Write

Nothing like getting 15,000 words into a new novel and realizing first person isn't working and you should be writing in third. I know I'll be happier in the end, and I already think it's a better story, but...grrr....

An Award!

Recently my friend Susan at West of Mars gave me a nifty award from the Shameless Lions Writing Circle!














The instructions include mentioning three things necessary to make writing good and powerful. Here are my thoughts:

1. Compelling characters. I like characters who live, breathe, and do. I want to fall in love with a character, and that won't happen if they're endlessly ruminating without actually doing anything.

2. Believable dialogue. When a character's word choice or mode of speaking doesn't sound right, it ruins the credibility of the character and sometimes the entire story. I want to know a character's voice by the words they speak. Great dialogue is such that I would know that character if they came to life and called me on the telephone or whispered in my ear.

3. What I need to know, when I need to know it. Nothing kills forward momentum like a few pages of backstory. Much of what a writer needs to know to accurately portray a character is totally unimportant to the reader. The writers I love tell me only as much as I need to know and only when I need to know it.

Okay, I'm also supposed to pass this award along, but it's been in motion for awhile now and I'm having trouble remembering who has gotten it and who hasn't. I think Thomma hasn't gotten it yet-- a shameful omission, if so. Therefore, if you haven't been awarded the Roar for Powerful Words yet, Thomma, you're it! (And yes, I know I still owe you a meme. I'm so backlogged on these things it isn't even funny.)

Flash Fiction Interlude: The Telephone

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This one is for Susan, who just returned from a vacation at Yellowstone. This is a new story featuring one of her favorite characters from my book, My New-Found Land. Welcome home, Susan! Enjoy a little light reading!

*****

“What do you think?”

The young woman stood up, a shock of white-blonde hair falling over one eye. “It seems to be a good cable. The problem is probably in the wall. Or maybe in the line running to the building.”

Vince slumped into a chair and rubbed the blue stripe on his face. “It would be so fucking pre to have a working telephone.”

“It's not like it doesn’t work at all.”

“Just not when I want it to.” He was about to say more, but a jangling from the refurbished analog phone made him jump. He lunged for the receiver. “Hello? No, you’ve got the wrong number, but can you—” He held the phone away from his ear and examined it in bewilderment. “Why do they keep hanging up on me?”

“Wrong number.”

“Come on, Three. They could at least tell me what they dialed so I’d know what my number is.”

“It would be nice.”

Vince grabbed Three's wrist and tried to pull her into his lap. “Well, since we’ve got a little time to kill before our gig with the Catorces. . .”

She pulled away. “It hasn’t even been a month.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t have wanted you to never have fun again.”

“Maybe some other time.”

“Okay. I’ve got some calls to make, anyway.”

After Three scooted out of his office, Vince picked up the receiver but found the line dead. It didn’t really matter, since he didn’t know any of his contacts’ numbers, or even if they had phones, but it might’ve been fun to dial numbers at random and see what kind of people answered. He’d had such high hopes when he moved his gang into this abandoned warehouse and found the old non-electric phone plugged into the wall. In a world gone mad after decades of wars and resource scarcity, he was finally on top, one of the privileged. He had a telephone! Wasn’t it just his rotten luck it hardly ever worked?

He heard a tap on the door and looked up. Speedball stood there clenching his big hands, his eyes darting nervously. “Quix is here from the Catorces.”

“Well, don’t just stand there. Send him in.”

Speedball stomped away, grinding his teeth, and a few minutes later Quix appeared, dressed in black, with an oily fringe of red hair peeking from beneath his leather hat. Vince jumped up and shook his hand. “Quix, buddy! We’re gonna do some business tonight, right? Looks like you brought us some already, by the way Speedball’s acting.”

“Your man can’t keep out of the white stuff, that’s for sure.”

“Takes all kinds, mano. Have a seat.” Vince pulled a stained chair on rusted casters from a corner, then went behind his desk and fumbled with a mis-aligned drawer. “Whiskey?”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Over good Kentucky bourbon, the young men settled into a discussion of logistics for the evening’s “gig,” a heist of pharmaceuticals from Chicago. “My boys north of town delayed the train as much as they could,” Quix said. “Unless an unaffiliated derails it, we should see it pull in around eleven, and they'll be shipping the goods to the east side warehouse no later than one.”

The phone rang, bursting in on their plotting. Vince tried to stay cool. “Excuse me. I’ve got a call to take.” He picked up the receiver. “Vince, here. No, not Brian. Look, can you tell me. . . dammit.” He threw down the receiver.

Quix stared in wide-eyed admiration. “What happened? Nice phone.”

“Yeah. Uh. . . line went dead. El Duque hasn’t done shit for city services, you know.”

“If he had, we’d be out of business.”

“Right. Now, as you were saying. . .”

They quickly wrapped up their plans and shook hands. “I appreciate you taking this gig,” Quix said. “If you ever think about selling that phone. . .”

“Not happening. Plastic pickers love these things. Top dollar on the black market when they work.”

After Quix had gone, Vince spent a few minutes making notes about the evening’s plans so he could have his thoughts in order when he held the strategy meeting. Then he turned his attention back to the telephone. He played with the buttons, especially the one the receiver rested on. He unplugged the cord from both wall and phone, reversed it, and plugged it in again. Same result. The line was dead, with only a faint hiss of static.

After about an hour, Three poked her head around the door. “We’re waiting on you, boss.”

Vince grunted in answer, still absorbed in the workings of the phone.

“No luck?”

He slammed it on the desk in disgust and the bell clanged faintly. “Only time the fucker works is when someone’s got a wrong number.”

“Well, it is free, you know. It’s not like you’re signed up with the city for any kind of service. We just found it here.”

“With the kind of crap services El Duque provides, he ain’t getting a nickel out of me.” Vince grabbed his notes. “Let’s go.”

“Pay’ll be good for this one, right?”

Vince wished Three would walk ahead of him. She looked deliciously fuckable in those leather pants. He would have to think of an assignment that would put her in them more often, but in the meantime. . . “Sounds like Quix laid the groundwork pretty good and all we have to do is collect.”

“Works for me.” They were entering the main room of the warehouse and now she moved in front of him, giving him a nice rear view before she found a place to sit on the rat-eaten sofa.

While she checked that her Glock was loaded and the safety set, Vince suppressed a sigh. Nothing like a pretty girl with a gun. He pulled his notes out of his pocket, called the group to order and began giving out assignments.

Unheard and unanswered, the phone on Vince’s desk rang and rang.

Identity Management

No, I’m not going to talk about single sign-on, LDAP, or strong passwords, so disappointed techies will be advised to keep moving.

* * *

Okay, are we writers alone now? Good. Because I want to take a minute to discuss who we really are.

In the years I’ve been writing and meeting writers online, I’ve seen a wide range of attitudes toward the end result of our efforts. For some, just getting their work into the hands of a few friends is enough, while for others, print publication and financial success are the only markers that their long hours at the computer have not been in vain.

Why such a disparity in what a writer considers “success?”

Clearly, some of it is innate. Some people are naturally oriented toward the external trappings of success (such as a positive review in the New York Times) while others see success as something internal. (Who cares if anyone else likes it? I had fun!)

But there’s another element to all this that had eluded me until recently: Identity.

When you define yourself first and foremost as a writer, that means something to others, and you’d have to be made of stone to not be swayed by the cultural assumption that if you’re a writer, you therefore must be published. For those of us who see writing as our primary identity, a sense of true accomplishment can only come from commercial success.

Even if we hit the brass ring of traditional publication, that doesn’t mean the book will sell or that we'll ever be published again. Therefore it seems to me that we writers would be wise to better appreciate our other identities.

Most writers are fully capable of developing other artistic skills, so why not paint, learn a musical instrument, or sing? If you already do these things privately, maybe there’s a retirement home that would enjoy some new paintings or a piano concerto. Maybe there’s a church or civic choir that would appreciate your lovely voice.

Get some new certifications and develop new career goals. If you don’t have a non-writing career, why not do a little volunteer work?

Want to do something non-creative for a change? You could take up a sport. Go back to school. Learn to fix cars or re-upholster furniture. Plan a garden for spring. The possibilities are almost limitless.

Then when the query-go-round has got you down, your writing is only one piece of your identity that’s not going as well as you would like. People love your great ideas at the office. Your brownies/quilts/therapy pets were a hit at the retirement home. You finally mastered that tricky heel work in your flamenco dance or hit a shot on the golf course that made your buddies jealous.

No matter how much our writing lives mean to us, we’re more than our stories. When we stop narrowly defining our success, we become open to many more ways to feel a sense of accomplishment.

Let’s not succumb to the temptation to box ourselves into narrow ways of interpreting our lives.

Halloween Fiction Carnival

Welcome to my first Halloween Fiction Carnival!

Not sure what to wear to this shindig? That's okay! We're easy. Just follow these tips from Susan Helene Gottfried's ShapeShifter boys about what not to wear, and you'll be fine.

So let's get started with a little tale of Hoo Doo. Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy tells of a conjure supper and it's eerie aftermath.

And after reading about supper, if you're ready for dessert, Virgina Lee has A Chocolate Tale for you!

Still hungry? So is Ernie on Jeff's blog! Or if what you're really after is more candy, the boys in ShapeShifter have a proven method for getting the Halloween goods without having to knock on any doors!

Do you think you've got the upper hand on the unexplainable? So did my fictional friend Coyote until his Ghost Story took an unexpected turn.

And speaking of the unexpected, a young man finds something he wasn't expecting in Thomma Lyn's The Saddle of Private Lucius Gray

Not scary enough? Vesper has written a darkly evocative piece for the season, A Mother's Gift. And speaking of gifts, Vesper has a poem and a less traditional story rounding out her Halloween Triptych. Thanks for the treats, Vesper!

Or maybe scary stories aren't for you and you'd rather read about real life? Jerry Waxler interviews award winning horror writer, Jonathan Maberry, (Ghost Road Blues) and gets plenty of food for thought about the horror genre and horror in real life. Find out if horror is based on memoir and draw your own conclusions about where the darkness in our world and the darkness in our minds intersect.

At at the end of all this, Kate Boddie wants everyone to be sure they don't have a Halloween Hangover! Scary, indeed!

Happy Halloween, friends!

Flash Fiction Interlude: Killing Their Own (A Will and Diana Adventure)

Diana tried not to fidget as she stood lookout by the wall of a crumbling adobe church. In the dark of the new moon, she could make out shadows where her friend Sachi was stationed on the other side of the road. She would’ve liked to have used her flashlight to send a signal, but didn’t want to risk giving away her position, in case a stranger was nearby.

She leaned against the wall, listening to the faint sounds of music and laughter from up the road. What they were attempting tonight could get them all in trouble. If Javier hadn’t incurred the hatred of the townspeople in the brief time their unit had been camped nearby, they would’ve had no hope of getting away with it. If he hadn’t been so hateful overall, they wouldn’t be doing it in the first place.

A veil of clouds passed over the stars and a mouse rustled among the trash at Diana’s feet. Two men left the bar and came down her road singing about their amorcita. She backed deeper into the recesses of the church wall and waited for them to pass. Then she resumed her station, occasionally kicking a pebble or tracing an arc in the dust with the toe of her boot.

Finally she heard it—the sound of angry voices and threats. She couldn’t see what was happening, but other than Javier's, none of the voices sounded like the young men of her unit. That was a good sign. They had obviously succeeded in getting Javier to provoke someone.

Silence. Then a lone shadow moving along the road, silhouetted against the glow from the cantina’s electric lights.

Diana looked around. This was the moment. If there were people around or anything to indicate this was a bad time to do it, now was the time to signal—

She jumped at the crack of the first rifle shot and again at the second. Will and Boeing rarely missed, but to Diana’s shock, Javier was running down the road, heading toward her lookout station. He was limping as if he’d been hit, but was still moving fast. Dammit, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this!

He veered off the road, heading for the open desert. Diana gave chase and they fled across the barren landscape until he stumbled into a clump of Russian thistle. Entangled, he fell onto his wounded leg with a scream.

Diana trained her gun on him. She couldn’t see his face in the darkness and heard only his labored breathing and pleading words.

“Let me go. Tell them you couldn’t see me in the dark.”

She sucked in her breath. She had never killed like this, point-blank, in cold blood. Javier was hostile, divisive, and a danger to their group, but he had never done anything to her personally.

He whimpered as he tried to disentangle himself from the thorns. “Help me get away. I won’t forget it.”

Footsteps behind her. Frantic scrabbling in the dust and weeds in front of her. More footsteps, running to catch up. Diana took aim at where she knew Javier’s chest must be and pulled the trigger.

She was gulping air in great heavy gasps when Will caught up to her.

“Did you get him? Turn on your flashlight.”

She did, but looked away.

“Nice job.” He pulled out his knife and bent over the body. “Just to be sure.”

Diana hoped her light was steady because if she watched, she would surely be sick.

More footsteps as others from their group approached and clustered around, giving Diana the opportunity to move out of the circle of their lights.

“Can’t believe I fucking missed,” Boeing said.

“I told you we should’ve blown him up.”

“Shut up, Coyote.”

Aguilero shone his light in an arc, frowning in disgust. “We’ve got a lot of tracks to try and hide. Some of us have to get back for watch before Harley finds out.”

During the quick conference that followed, Will joined Diana in the shadows. “What’s the matter? We’ve killed people before.”

“But I knew him.”

“He was a jerk.”

“But he was still one of us. It was wrong.”

“Too late now, and there’s no point worrying about what’s done.”

By now Dell and Sachi were scraping in the dirt while Boeing and Aguilero cut switches to dust over their tracks. Will and Diana helped dig and when they were done they dragged the body to the edge of the shallow hole. Before shoving it in and covering it with earth, Dell dabbed her fingers in Javier's blood and streaked some down each of her cheeks. “For getting my girlfriend killed on the Terralinda raid,” she said. She spat into the grave.

Sachi followed suit. “For injuring my favorite horse, and for all those things you said about me.”

Aguilero, Boeing and Will followed, voicing their resentments as they marked themselves. When it was Diana’s turn, she hesitated. Will helped, painting blood on her wrists and the backs of her hands when she shied away from having him mark her face.

Knowing she should voice a resentment, she searched her memory. Although she could recall nothing pleasant, there was nothing she could really hate about Javier, either. “Just because.”

She stepped back from the grave and Aguilero handed her a switch. “Be sure to cover your tracks.”

“Yes." Instead of looking at the ground she looked at the sky. The wispy clouds had moved on and the velvet night was alive with stars.

Will edged closer and whispered in her ear. “What do you see up there?”

There were thousands of little worlds up there, glittering with empty promises.

“Nothing,” she said.

Seventy Days of Sweat

It's starting TOMORROW!

My main goal is to write the draft of the last book in my series about life in a resource-poor speculative future. I've struggled a lot with this final story, but since I gave Diana her happy ending in My New-Found Land, I really want to give Will his. I intend to keep torturing him for awhile, of course, but he deserves it. Stoic alpha males are very hard to work with and he's been a total jerk ever since I let Diana leave him.

But as much as I want to get this story written, I feel like I'm getting so much out of writing short stories lately that I've cut a deal with myself. I can write a short story instead of working on my novel as long as the short story takes no more than two days from first word to final edit. Two days may sound like a lot, but my writing time is actually pretty limited-- three hours each weeknight under the best of circumstances, and a little more on weekends. In actual practice I often have no more than an hour or two each night, or even less if I'm sleepy.

I would like to eventually have enough of these stories to make a book, with everything in its proper chronological order. The stories fill part of the gap between Tin Soldier (on a private blog, since it might be publishable) and Bella Diana, in which I torture poor Diana mercilessly. I always thought it would be fun to write vignettes about Will and Diana's years together, before he asked too much of her and everything went to heck in a handbasket. Hence the "Will and Diana Adventures."

So those are my goals for Seventy Days of Sweat: write my novel and/or finish my collection of short stories. Either way, I'm going to be learning a lot.

Can't wait to get started!

Flash Fiction Interlude: Endings Are Beginnings(A 'Will and Diana' Adventure)

AUTHOR'S NOTE: If I were to compile my "Will and Diana Adventures," this would probably be first, even though I write them in no chronological order.
* * * * *
Amalia let the door slam and dropped the bag of laundry in annoyance. The tribe said she and the children were living on their charity, but if that was so, why did they treat her like a servant? She was about to go into the kitchen and check the beans she had left soaking when she heard a splash from the back room. She paused. The children were supposed to be at riding practice, or was it archery today?

“Hold still. I’ve almost got all the dirt out.”

Through the partially open door, Amalia saw her ward Diana swirl a rag in a bowl of murky water, wring it out and bend over someone lying on a lumpy mattress.

“You’re too rough. Leave the dirt in. It’ll make a nice tattoo.”

Amalia pushed the door open. Her adopted son Will raised himself on one elbow, his face and arms bloody where they weren’t already turning purple. He raised his chin and gazed at Amalia in defiance.

“I told him not to,” Diana said, jumping to her feet and knocking over the bowl of bloody water. “Dammit!”

“Watch your language and clean that up.”

“Don’t talk to her like that, Mother. She’s trying to help.”

While Diana scurried to find a towel, Amalia settled her gaze on Will. In the three years he had been under her care, Amalia had learned to pick her battles wisely, but this was too much. “I can’t believe with the danger we’re already in, you’ve got no better sense than to go picking fights—”

“I didn’t pick anything. They were harassing Diana.”

“She can handle those girls on her own. You’re too protective.”

Will started to run a hand through his long sandy hair, but finding it matted with blood, he wiped his fingers on the blanket instead. “It wasn’t the girls. It was the boys. Ba’leetso and them.”

Amalia’s stomach clenched and she felt suddenly cold. “So what did you. . . did they. . .”

Will smiled through his swollen lips. “They won’t try it again any time soon.”

Diana pushed her way into the room and began mopping the floor with a piece of dirty laundry. “I tried to make him stop, but Will wouldn’t let me use my gun.”

“Oh, God, no.” Amalia said. “They’d have killed us all by now.” She watched in silence as Will laid back against the pillows and Diana scrubbed the cracked linoleum with a stained shirt. “I’m going to talk to Hashbidi-chii. Will you two be okay?”

“I’ll shoot them if they come here,” Will said. “And I don’t care what you say about not killing Nativists.”

Amalia had no doubt Will meant what he said. She would have to make her errand fast.

Luckily she found Hashbidi-chii at home and the wise woman knew why she had come. “It was bound to happen eventually,” she shrugged.

Amalia knew only too well. Since the new Southwestern Republic had fractured into civil war, the young people on the reservations had become increasingly militant. An Anglo name or hairstyle was enough to get one banished from some places, and if you weren’t of native blood, you were nothing.

Hashbidi-chii set aside her beadwork and patted Amalia’s hand. “We who remember your sister wish you no harm, but we can’t hold the young people in check much longer. It’s the times.”

Amalia snatched her hand away. “Where would we go instead? You know we can’t go home. The United States took everything. Am I to drag the children to a squalid refugee camp or throw myself on the mercy of a drug lord with a private fiefdom?”

“They say your children are good with horses and weapons.”

“No.” Amalia shook her head. “The fighting groups are political, racial, religious, or all three. Hispanos Unidos would take Diana but not Will. The white supremacists would take him, but not her. Besides, they’re too young too be fighting. Will is only fourteen and Diana is barely old enough for her puberty ceremony, which I suppose the tribe won’t let her have now.”

Hashbidi-chii ignored this last remark and said, “Unitas doesn’t care about race or religion, and they don’t let anyone under sixteen fight unless they’ve already been fighting for someone else.”

Amalia’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know this?”

The wise woman looked away. “People talk.”

“Yes, but not so much.”

Hashbidi-chii picked up her beadwork again with a sigh. “We’ve known each other a long time Amalia. Believe me when I say this reservation is not your destiny.” She waved hand at the door. “Or those children’s, either.”

“What is our destiny then? To be nomadic mercenaries? If the tribal leaders are putting you up to this, you can come up with a better lie than that.”

“Unitas isn’t your destiny, but they will lead you there. They have a base in Jonasville. Go or don’t go, but I think you know what will happen if you stay here.”

Amalia did know, and in spite of her angry words, she knew Hashbidi-chii wouldn't steer her wrong. Deep in thought, she walked across the scrub to the dilapidated shack the tribe had given her.

Inside, she found Diana had bandaged Will’s injuries with passable skill and was now bent over his bowed head with a pair of shears. Locks of snipped hair lay in soft waves on the floor and on Will’s pants and sleeves. Without looking up, Diana said, “It’s okay, Auntie. He asked me to.”

Will didn’t move as Diana’s scissors snipped close to his scalp. “They’re a bunch of murderous, cock-sucking bastards, and I won’t dress like them or wear my hair like them ever again.”

Amalia chose for once to ignore his street language and merely said, “Good, because we’re leaving tonight.”

Flash Fiction Interlude: Dark Places(A 'Will and Diana' Adventure)

“We won't make the foothills before night,” Will said.

Diana glared at the horizon. “I’m sure it’s not as far as it looks.”

“Diana—”

“Okay.” She turned in the saddle to face him. “I’m sorry. It really did look like a shortcut back there, didn’t it?”

“It hardly matters now. Just keep an eye out for a place to make camp.”

A few miles later, they came over a low rise in the fading twilight and saw the remains of a village below. “If we can’t find water for the horses,” Will said, “At least we’ll get a roof over our heads.”

But as they neared the cluster of buildings, they found the structures were hardly fit for the wild creatures that inhabited them, let alone humans. Roofs had fallen in and adobe walls crumbled. Wood-frame houses had collapsed of dry rot and mobile homes were stripped of their metal siding. Will was about to suggest making a dry camp among the sagebrush when Diana turned to him in excitement.

“Look—someone still lives here.”

Set back from the road by a dark and overgrown path was a hulking adobe cast in shadows seemingly of its own making, but with a pinprick of light at a window.

They dismounted and approached on foot. They were ready to shoot and flee if necessary, but the pale man who answered their knock merely gazed at them in silence.

“We were wondering if you could spare some water for our horses,” Will said.

“And a place to sleep would be much appreciated,” Diana added. “Anywhere is fine—barn, patio, a little floor space is all we need.”

“Why are you here? Who sent you?”

“We’re travelers,” Will said. “We fell behind schedule. It got dark and we saw your light.”

The man stepped back from the door. “I have no light you could’ve seen from the road.”

Diana glanced toward the window where the light had been. It was just an empty hole now. “The wind must’ve blown it out. So can we stay? We’ll be no trouble.”

“And we can pay,” Will added.

“Yes, money.” The man shivered, although the room wasn’t cold. “Do whatever you want.” He waved a hand and disappeared into the gloom of a hallway.

Will and Diana exchanged glances. “He’s a strange one,” Diana whispered. “But he doesn’t seem dangerous.”

“Just stay close, okay?”

They bedded down their horses in the empty barn then took their gear into the house and made pallets on the entryway floor. They ate some jerky, nuts, and dried apples from their packs, then settled in for the night.

Distrusting their host, Will sat watch. The silence of the house and the opaque darkness beyond the reach of his solar lantern would’ve disturbed a more imaginative young man, but years as a street urchin and soldier had made him sensitive only to physical dangers. With no sign of impending threat, his shoulders relaxed, his head nodded, and finally he reached for Diana, curled beneath her blanket, sleeping with the deep and utter peace of a cat.

He resisted the urge to turn his touch into a caress. One wasn’t supposed to have such feelings for an adoptive sister. He shook her roughly. “Your turn.”

Diana sat up and stifled a yawn. She scooted to the foot of her pallet and stared into the gloom as Will wrapped himself in a blanket and closed his eyes.

Hours passed. Will’s breathing became deep and regular, the darkness thicker and more tangible. Diana shivered as the circle of light around her lantern shrank and the shadows took on a life of their own.

Then she heard it— a murmuring from deep within the rooms, part chant, part pleading, part something else. Diana shook herself, but unlike the transient whisperings of her imagination, the sound persisted.

She stole a glance at Will. She hated to wake him when he so often suffered from insomnia. She could handle this alone.

She stepped silently into the hallway. The narrow walls, low ceilings and peeling plaster closed in around her like a tunnel as she followed the sound and then the faint murky glow emanating from a room at the end of the hall. She paused in the arched doorway, hand on her gun.

By the light of a flickering lantern in a room hazy with smoke and incense, their host bent over a dark form, talking in low tones. It seemed to be an apology of some kind, an explanation and a plea for forgiveness.

Then he saw her. His eyes widened in horror and he stumbled to his feet. “Go away.” he said in a trembling voice. “At least I did it fast. You can't say you suffered.”

Confused, Diana took a step toward him, nearly choking on the rose-scented incense and the putrefying smell beneath it.

“Don’t come any closer. I promise I’ll bury you tomorrow, whatever it costs. A proper priest and everything. But I’ve kept you here out of love, because I couldn’t bear to see you in the ground, because having you here keeps me from forgetting my sins—”

Diana stared at the black-shrouded form on the ground, realizing now what it was. “You sick bastard.”

“I know, I know." He fell to his knees. "Kill me - I deserve it. Do you think the money has made me happy? I don't even use it!”

Diana backed into the hallway, wheeled about and slammed into something tall and solid that held her as she shrieked and squirmed.

“What the hell? Will said.

“He’s got a body in there!” When Will made like he would see for himself, Diana pulled him by the arm. “Come on, before he figures out I'm not a ghost."

Will followed her back to the entryway where they stuffed their gear into their packs and hurried into the night. Once they were on the road, their horses picking their way by the first faint hints of sunrise, Diana told him what had happened.

“So he killed the woman he loved for money and now he keeps the body and talks to it at night?” He shook his head. “Son of a bitch doesn't deserve to live.”

They rode in silence as orange sunlight bled into the morning sky.

“If I died before you, you’d make sure I got buried, right?” Diana asked.

“Don’t talk like that.”

“But you would, wouldn’t you? Not with my family in the desert, but on a mountain where the aspen leaves would cover my grave in fall and where the flowers would bloom in spring.”

“You won’t die before me. But sure, if that’s what you want.”

Diana twisted in her saddle and looked over her shoulder, as if their host's haunted past might be following. “I just want to know I’ll end up in a happy place.”

Will tugged at his hat. “This is our happy place. If it’s not, we need to work harder to make it that way.”

“That’s a nice thought, but—”

“Don’t argue," Will said as the morning sun frosted a few high clouds with gold. “This is all there is.”

Product Review: Laptop Stand

My laptop stand finally arrived last week, after many delays. It looks fantastic and greatly increases my writing location options. I need quiet when I write, and I need to know I won’t be interrupted.

You’d think with no kids I’d have oodles of uninterrupted time on my hands, but my husband is a bit of a pest, bless his heart. If he’s awake, I won’t usually even bother trying to write because sooner rather than later, he’ll have a question or want to tell me something, or start doing something that involves making noise. Luckily for me, he goes to bed relatively early, whereas I’m a night owl. It all works out. And now I have a nifty laptop stand so I can write comfortably in any room in the house.

As for the stand itself, it comes in oak or cherry finish. I got cherry and it’s lovely. It has a part that doesn’t tip, which is perfect for the computer mouse and a beverage (Yogi tea with soy milk is my late-night fave). And the part that the laptop rests on is fully adjustable. Height adjusts to accommodate working on the sofa, in a chair or in bed. Of course, since it’s on castors, it’s easy to move wherever you need it. And it’s so easy to put together that even my husband was able to figure it out! (I’m the mechanically-inclined one in this family, I’m afraid.)

I’ve seen cheaper laptop stands available for as little as $79.99 online and at office supply stores such as Office Max. But you get what you pay for, and I wanted something that looked like real furniture and would blend in with my existing décor.

I’m all ready now for Seventy Days of Sweat!

Grammar Alert!

This is just "hilarious."

The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks

Too "funny" for words!