Busy Days

Oh, it's been a busy last couple days, not at all helped by storms last night and a real inability to sleep. Then today I found that something I should have had days ago for work only now got to me -- just one of those things where it got lost in the email. Then a second of the same type of thing, but a different set of people. If the first hadn't seemed to get to no one on the list, I would have thought it a problem on my end. Instead, it was just one of those odd coincidences.

I have the first part of one done, none of the second done, and very little writing done for the day.

I did jump into the JulNoWriMo stuff a few days ago, just as something fun. I wish I had more time to drop into writing and run with it, but I'm still doing okay. I have not added yesterday's count yet because of the storms.

With luck, I'll get a bit more done tonight.

Here is a little bit from Draw the Line. Yes, it is still moving along. Doing quite well, in fact. I've added quite a few outline notes to the end and I'm working my way through them. It's helping to focus the story again. In this, Etinon is an alien and only recently came to be in human company so much. The Norishi are another group of aliens who are acting quite oddly at the moment. (I have not reworked the Ksa lines to take out the p,b and m sounds. I'm looking at a new way to indicate this, like a replacement of one letter with another. I think it might make it easier to read.)



Morgan, Ritter and Ardhi left, leaving Rafe, Etinon and Doc behind. Doc stood at the edge of the door, looking worried. "If there is trouble, I'll treat the injured elsewhere -- we'll say it is specifically because no one should be around you --"

"I could go to my room," Rafe suggested.

"No. Stay here where the others can come without being too obvious, and where you are closer to the control stations. Everyone is staying close, you know. It doesn't look odd, especially since you spend so much time here already."

"You can trust me, you know."

"No, I can't," Doc said. Rafe saw the way Etinon looked shocked by the words. "I cannot trust you to take care of yourself. And I can't trust others -- except Etinon, Morgan and Ardhi -- to keep watch over you. They may not be enough if the Norishi come in for you."

"If they come for me -- if they really come in fighting -- then I need to go with them."

"No," Etinon said. He should have realized that Etinon would be a problem in this. He looked back at his guard, ready to argue the situation, but Etinon leaned down and looked him straight in the face, startling him. "No. You will not go with the Norishi. They do not hold honor with prisoners."

"You know this?" Rafael asked.

"They kill all prisoners they take, unless they happen to be important females of the race. They may want you because they think you are important and a link to the station. That would, perhaps, save you for a while. Or they may have decided that a male link to the station is something they must destroy. You will not go with them."

"I need to talk to Neva and make certain no one surrenders," Doc said. He hurried out to the comm equipment.

"That's something we needed to know. Humans will sometimes surrender if they think that continuing a battle will lead to inevitable destruction, or that it might harm others."

"It is so?" he said. "Then good that they know it is not an answer."

"Yes," Rafe replied. He looked back at the computer. "Let's see if we can figure out anything else in this information."

Etinon nodded and moved closer. Rafe waved him toward the chair.

"It is not proper for a guard to sit."

"There are things that are far more important going on than you guarding me, Etinon. It's not that I don't appreciate your work, but we need your help to save others. That's more important."

"You do not understand your own importance."

"Then explain it to me -- but it had better be good to make my life worth risking the lives of others rather than help me find answers."

Etinon blinked several times. Then he looked at the chair. It took him a moment, but he finally took hold of it and pulled it over. He sat down, stood, moved it again, and sat down once more.

"None can get past me to reach you," he said with a nod. "Let us see what we can learn."  ¶ 7/08/2009 10:46:00 PM 0 comments

  On to Rat Pirates

The end of June was far too busy for me! Vision, FM, DAZ stuff.... but I got it all done and up, and I'm happy with how the new look for FM turned out. It still needs a little bit of work here and there, but I can fix things as they come up.

I did well with writing last month, too. I did manage to finish one short story along with a lot of other stuff that came to a bit over 100k in words. So things are going very well in the rewriting world. Draw the Line is up to 90k and finally turning that corner towards the end. I even wrote out a few notes to start directing myself toward it. Still working at 500 words a day on it. If I ever do this kind of experiment again, it will not be with a novel. Short stories and maybe research -- but I need to run with novels and let them flow at the rate they want. The book is downright boring in some places, and it's going to be a lot of work to figure out the problems and rewrite it.

I've started the rewrite of Rat Pirates, a book that unites characters from two previous books -- Vita's Vengeance and Badlands. It's going well, in fact, so I'm happy. I'm also considering some experimentation with where this series of books go when I'm done with them. We'll see. I have time to think about it.

Here is a short passage from Rat Pirates where someone is explaining the politics of Caliente to a couple people :



"They don't want us here?" Page asked. Avrial thought there might be a hint of hope in his voice.

"They're divided on the question," Palman answered. "They're divvied on everything; it's nothing new. The altos -- they're the tech-trained elite -- decided policy for Caliente before the last war. Now the Rats demand their own say and are getting it. There are two main groups of Rats. Those who live in the Inner Pueblo, close to the church, are settled and conservative. The other sector, the gangs, are generally younger and radical. There are four gangs: Rojo, Cuchillo, Peligro and Calle. There was a fifth, but the floods virtually destroyed the Noche. That doesn't mean there won't be a Noche resurrection. The gangs fight each other and everyone else."

"These gangs are the trouble then?" Avrial asked.

"Sounds that way, doesn't it?" she said and shook her head. "Well, that's what most of the Altos and Inner Pueblo Rats want to believe. They are trouble, beyond a doubt. They have their own ways, and they can defend them really well. However, the Altos, my friends, are the real problem. They want control of Caliente again, and you are a threat to them. Don't be quick to judge the gangs. In fact, I'm hoping because of who you are and your own reputation, that you might come into this with an open mind.

"Who is the authority on this world? Whom do we deal with?" Page asked.

"There is a general Council, newly formed, with twelve members: six Altos, an Inner Pueblo Rat and one Rat from each gang. And Padre Julius -- he's the Rat's Catholic Priest. Put all twelve of them in the same room, and they won't agree on which way to set up the table. However, individually, they are all people of note."

"If this Council is so useless, how does anything get done?" Avrial asked, feeling more and more like this had to be a mistake.

"By necessity. The colony faced starvation until the Lindy brought in supplies three weeks ago. Everyone cooperated for distribution and getting food prepared. They cooperated to bury the dead after the flood when they faced the risk of serious epidemic. Now they're managing to get one of the grow domes up and functioning again."

"As long as they're faced with an emergency, they can cooperate," Avrial said. "What happens when the world goes back to normal?"

"The Altos retire up to the Spires, the Inner Pueblo Rats hide behind their walls, and the gangs have a go at each other and anything else that wanders their way. "  ¶ 7/01/2009 09:50:00 PM 0 comments

  A bit late....

I am a day or two from finishing Badlands, which is always an exciting, fun time for me. I want to rush through and do it tonight, but I have other work that has to be done. And besides, if I draw it out for one more day, it gives me a little extra time to come up with the next book to do. I think it ought to be Rat Pirates because I did Vita's Vengeance and Badlands, and Rat Pirates ties those two together.

Only there is a problem. Rat Pirates is at least a decade old. I'm sure I have a copy, though.... I have copies of everything, sometimes in various versions.

Well, I just spent hours searching and no sign of it. So I checked my older computer files and I lucked out. I had a copy from 1998 -- but it was in an old WPS format that the new copy of Works that came with the computer couldn't read. Then I found a file from 2000 where I had put all the chapters together and saved in a doc file -- and it opened! Yay computer!

So now I can go ahead and finish Badlands and go straight into this one and have all three rewritten in one year! Yay!

Oh. Forgot to post this! Up it goes now. No snippet this week -- too late to go find one. Maybe later! On the good side, I wrote over 5,000 words today and I should have Badlands done tomorrow.  ¶ 6/25/2009 01:36:00 AM 0 comments

  Of Storms and Things

I opened one of the last boxes of books still to be catalogued at LibraryThing a couple days ago, and there I found most of my Andre Norton collection. I should have had the books listed by now, but I've been slowed down by reading a few pages out of several of them. Andre Norton was one of the earliest sf authors I ever read. I can't remember how I learned she was a woman, but it had an impact on me. Yes -- it was then that I realized women could write these types of things that I loved.

Norton had a lasting effect on my style and the type of story I tell. I tend to write young adult material with a lot of 'outsider' main characters, for instance. That probably doesn't sound particularly Andre Norton-ish, but it was from her that I fell in love with that type of character. I still want to write like Andre Norton, even though her books are outdated in some ways. But they were great adventures. They are still great adventures. I'm having trouble putting them down and getting work done.

I always loved her sf better than her fantasy. I'm still not certain how I got sidetracked into fantasy and writing it -- and selling more fantasy than sf, for that matter. But maybe this was really what I needed, to revisit the things that inspired me.



Ah... well, a bit later now. Had quite a storm here and I got some incredible lightning video. It was, in fact, the lightning that knocked out the power and left me without the computer for a little bit. I was just turning the camera off when it hit -- which means I missed the incredible sound afterwards, but that's all right. It was so loud it might have damaged the camera's mic.



And here is a little bit of that short story I began back in April. I've been working on it off and on since then, and I hope to get it done this month:



Keris looked to the window, about two yards away. He looked to the doorway and the shield. Then with a prayer to the gods of fools, he sent the shield out the door and he pushed himself up, dashed to the window and threw himself out --

As he had expected -- hoped -- whoever was after him went for overkill. He had thought they might, given that they sent an entire storm to kill him. As soon as the shield moved out the door lightning struck with a force that destroyed half of the house and sent him flying out the window and into the bushes beyond --

Parts of the house hit him. He dared not try to shield because he would draw attention again and it was all he could do to keep from cursing when something struck him firmly on the back of his right leg. He knew he was bleeding, but he didn't dare move -- he hardly dared breath.

Silence filled the world where only the shift of broken wood creaked now and then.

"Did we get the bastard?" someone asked. Accent. His ears were still ringing and he couldn't quite hear it well enough to decide where the man might be from.

"Must have," someone else said. Magic brushed over the top of him, so close that he could feel it like warmth against his skin. "No sign of him."

Damn poor mage not to have picked him up. He had started to move, but he stopped instead.

"We better go," the other said. "We don't want to be here if someone checks."

"Yes. You start back. I'll follow right behind. Be careful! There's no telling what trouble we might run into back at the palace."

"Lord Faulk will have everything in hand."

"I hope so!"

Faulk. It was a name to make his skin chill even more and a knot suddenly grew in his stomach that had not been there despite everything that had just happened. Faulk was a problem -- a man who had not taken well to being told that Princess Chloe would not marry him. In fact, he had been so rude about it that the king had sent him packing and he'd not been invited back to the palace.

Apparently, he had come without invitation.

Keris felt a wave of hot magic wash over the area and heard the particular wooshing sound of a gate opened. Hellish lot of magic going on around here suddenly, and it did not make him feel any better.

"Keris -- I know you're out there. Go carefully, friend. Go very carefully. We need your help. Chloe needs you. I know you won't let her down."

And then another woosh, and the magic died down. He didn't move. He wasn't certain he could, between shock, injury and worry. He didn't dare mess this up -- and he was a long time out of contact with the court. Too long, apparently.

Though whatever Lord Faulk had done, it must have been recent. He'd had some contact with people, after all. Just last week, Master Ferick had promised him good weather, and there had been nothing strained or unsettling about the conversation. Ferick would have let him know. Ferick was loyal to the royal family.

That, finally, gave him a little hope.  ¶ 6/17/2009 11:52:00 PM 1 comments

  Novel Report

First, before I forget -- I now have a Twitter page. Silly, yeah -- but kind of fun, and why not? http://twitter.com/LazetteG

I have a dull life, of course, but it's fun to drop a few lines there during the day while I work.

And speaking of work....

Badlands is still moving ahead at a nice 2k a day or so clip. I am considering a huge cultural change in the background, but I am getting the plotline and basics cleaned up in this version. After that, I'll put it aside again and continue to think about the work of rewriting the story into a different cultural background. It might work. I have to wait and see. I've been testing out different ideas for the change, and none of them appeal to me as much as the original Hispanic references and the gang groups. They work for this novel, and they are (as mentioned in the book itself) a moderated version of the gangs back on Mother Earth.

Draw the Line has finally reached 80,000 words. I find this kind of surprising because it felt like it wasn't moving at all at its little 500 words a day. Things are happening in the story now that I have focused on plot again, and not just on getting those 500 words written. I am looking at the larger picture, and creating a situation that is far beyond what I had originally planned. I was most of the way into the trouble when I realized that it just was not enough to carry the story. And then I realized it was a great set up for something far worse. It's wonderful how it all fell in together, too.

So here is a short little snip from Draw the Line, and the humans explaining a few things about humans to one of the Kasa. (Who, I think, are about to become Ksa. I accidentally typed that the other day, and think it looks better for an alien race. And a reminder that due to facial structure, the Kasa cannot say the letters b, p, and m -- though sometimes they sneak into my typing anyway.)



"The Kasa will take Rafael into our care if the humans feel they 'ust leave the station," he said. "We will hold here as 'est we can."

"We aren't going to jump ship just yet," Ardhi said.

"Jum' shi'?"

"Leave in a hurry during danger," Ardhi said. "It's an old Earth term from the nautical -- from the the sea-faring days. Sometimes it referred to leaving a ship without permission when in port."

Etinon nodded and apparently filed that information away for future use. Morgan wondered what the Kasa thought of their sayings. That last one said a great deal about them, after all. Leave at a time of danger. Abandon duty.

Only it was not true of them as a species.

"If the situation becomes one where we think that our presence will make more of a problem than our leaving, then we might leave," Morgan said, drawing his attention. "If it looks as though the Norishi might try to kill us all, we will go. There is no honor in dying without a good reason. We'll fight back, but we are mostly scientists and not warriors. We will save our information, retreat from the trouble, and come back when it is safer."

"You would come 'ack?" Etinon said. "Even if the Norishi is still here?"

"If we thought it was safe to be with them," Ardhi said. "And if we didn't, we might find that we would remove the Norishi first."

Etinon started to say something. He stopped. "You think you could re'ove the Norishi."

"You would be surprised at what humans can do," Neva said and looked up at him. "There is something about our nature that you might not understand. We are also extremely territorial. We believe that once we have settled somewhere, it is ours. This appears to be hardwired, and it allows us to believe we are home wherever we settle for a length of time. And we defend our homes."

"Ah. Ah." He looked from one to the other, then glanced back at Rafe. "The Norishi are dangerous."

"So are we," Neva said. The words seemed to give her strength and she stood. "I need false information to feed to the Norishi spy. Let's come up with something inventive to tell her."

"We can fake the call of a ship coming in," Ardhi said. He tapped his comm. "If she has direct contact with the other Norishi, we might be able to scare them into backing off."  ¶ 6/10/2009 07:22:00 PM 0 comments

  June already!

Wednesday. It almost got away from me there!

So, we're into June and coming perilously close to half a year gone already. It's gone far too quickly. But I have done better than I expected. I am already a bit over 500k in word count, and I have managed to send something out almost every month. I've written about nine short stories, and I have several rewritten novels. Draw the Line is almost up to 80k, too. It's still not going quite right, but I at least have something to work with.

So, in many ways, the year is going well for writing. Better than last year, and likely better than the year before. But I am trying to focus a bit better this year. I think it is helping in some ways and not in others. Part of me wouldn't mind just floating along and not worrying over anything at all, but that's probably not wise.

All in all, not too bad for the first few months. Better than I hoped. We'll see how the rest of the year goes.

So here is the opening to one of the short stories I did:



It's never good to find the fae at the gate first thing in the morning. When Captain Kirlin arrived and looked down, he shook his head in worry. It could have been worse, though. They could have just blown the gate down and come into town. That hadn't happened for at least a decade, though.

So maybe this wasn't so bad.

Living on the edge of Fae Lands was always a challenge. He liked it here. He even liked the fae... but it was never good when there was trouble between the two groups.

And this looked like trouble.

"I'll go down," he said. He tried not to sound worried. "Carla, you go up to the keep and tell Lord Martin that we may have trouble. I'll send word when I find out what it is."

Carla gave several quick nods and hurried away, plainly relieved not to have to deal with whatever trouble stood at the gates. He almost smiled at the haste with which she carried out the order. She hadn't moved that quickly in days.

But he looked back down and saw, unexpectedly, someone he had not expected. Ashilina looked up at him. She gave a quick wave of her hand -- magic sparkled through the air in a sign they had made between them, and meant this was serious trouble.

He hurried down the old wood stairs -- time to replace them. They'd grown slick from use and he nearly fell. He cursed softly, but reached the bottom in good time and without any broken bones. He brushed down his tunic, wishing he'd known about the guests and had worn his dress uniform. He unbuckled his sword and handed it to the guard who opened the portal door. In a moment, he slipped out into the clear morning light. Dew clung to the grass and the wood of the gate door. The fae stood a few steps away, quiet and calm, but he could almost feel the worry in the air. This was not going to be good.

"We have a missing child," Ashilina said. She lifted her pale, thin hand and laid fingers on Kirlin's arm. He could feel the chill of her touch, which was normally so warm and comforting. "It is Halley."

Kirlin felt his heart start beating far too quickly. Lord Martin's son, child of a lovely fae woman named Sisa. She had disappeared when the child was barely two, and the boy had come to live with his father for a while. He'd been a frail, quiet boy who had never seemed quite connected with the world around him, and who walked with a slight limp.

Life with his father hadn't worked out -- the Lord's wife was not real happy to have a half-breed bastard son in the house, especially since she had no children at all.

Lady Bell had been vocal and cruel, and the child had gone back to live with the fae at the age of ten. They hadn't seen anything of him in the last four years. He hadn't even thought about Halley for quite a while.  ¶ 6/03/2009 09:19:00 PM 1 comments

  Back to work

Russ left about noon yesterday after a wonderful 3.5 days of fun. We went places! Squaw Creek Wildlife Refuge the first day, down to Lincoln and our favorite used bookstore on the second day, to Omaha on the third day -- I spent a few hours at the zoo while Russ visited with people -- and then we stopped at the De Soto Wildlife Refuge on the way home. Before he left on Tuesday, we went to the local nature center and Stone Park.

So I had a very busy few days, and yes I am having trouble even tracking what day it is and what I'm supposed to be doing. I need to get the DAZ newsletter done for this week, and I got a good start on it today. I did make certain I got writing done each day while Russ was here, and we talked about some writing as well -- something I really miss. In fact, I've had far fewer story ideas since he left, and the ones I have for novels are just sitting there, staring at me. I need to find a way to talk about them and get them moving. Otherwise, it's going to be pretty difficult when I need one!

On the other hand, the rewriting of older material was long overdue. I'm still working on Badlands, and at the midway point, I'm starting to think that maybe I need a drastic change in the story structure. I'm not sure, though, so I'm going to continue with it in this style and then look again when I'm done. I've been struck with the 'oh this would be much better!' ideas in the middle of projects before, and found that it wasn't better, only different. Quite often, I end up going back to the original plan. So I'll get this done and then see if I can work up the 'different' idea in notes and see where it goes. If I like it, I'll pull this one out again and write an outline based on it, and then do the drastic changes in characters and culture that I am considering.

In the meantime, here is a snippet of Badlands as it is now:


They had one last challenge before they were away from the area, but getting past the port tower proved easier than Carmen expected. The Altos expected an attack, so they weren't looking for a small group slipping past half a kilometer away and heading into the desert. Her group reached a strip of wild, uninhabited land barely ninety meters across where sandwood grew in knee-high tangles, a maze of prickly limbs that made uncomfortably loud noises when they broke. Tasha took the lead and found an obscure path that he must have known by heart. They never backtracked to find a way through, though they did cross occasional patches of readleaf -- a plant that was more an annoyance than an obstacle or danger. The vines clutched at sandwood, tiny suction cups holding on with a tenacity that sucked the little moisture from the larger plant, and Carmen had to stop twice to cut vines from her legs and from Marcu's.

People in the Pueblo rooted it out wherever they found it in the Pueblo itself, and out here they harvested the older vines. The fibers made a tough fabric, and the only native material from which cloth could be manufactured. They mostly made it to use rugs.

And if Carmen had just been content to stay in the shop and weave with her mother, she wouldn't have been in this trouble now. She would have, however, been far more frustrated by having no power to do anything at all. Sometimes it was good to look at both sides of the 'what if' question to remember the full side of the changes.

They finally reached the edge of Carmen's known world. She had cone come this far on a school outing and remembered how the other children stayed back, terrified by the wide expanse of white desert, lit only by the moon, and stretching far beyond the cliffs. Now she stood on the edge of the slowly deteriorating cliff and looked to the desert for salvation. She suddenly thought of all the crazy and foolish people who had lost their lives out by heading out there and trying to prove ... something.

"It's easy to get down, but harder to get back up," Marcu said softly. He knelt down on one knee, peering over the edge. "The wind blows toward us, east to west. At this point the wind deposits a slope of sand, adding to the talus of the cliff. See?"

She looked down, wondering what the hell he was talking about and why he chose now to teach her something this unimportant. She saw a slope of white sand beginning about two meters below the top of the cliff. It stretched a long ways out into La Tierra Blanca.

"We slide down the slope," Tasha said. He sat down, legs dangling over the edge while he pulled his pack around front, cradling it in his arms. "Just push off the edge here, lean back, and let gravity do the rest. You'll feel a slight jolt when you hit the sand, but you'll slide the rest of the way."

"And Angel, don't try to stop yourself at the bottom," Marcu added. "The farther you slide, the less you have to walk."

"Watch," Tasha said.

And he pushed himself off the edge of the cliff. Carmen saw her demented brother hit the sand with a slight puff of dust. He kept sliding. The dust obscured most of the movement, but she saw him arrive at the bottom. Speed and momentum carried him out into the desert. Then he stood and waved, a faint shadowy figure in the white below.

Angel carefully sat down. He gave Carmen one skeptical look -- but he slipped over the edge without a single word of protest. Carmen watched while he slid a few meters and then lost him in the dust. She glanced once at Marcu as she sat down.

Taking a deep breath, Carmen threw herself over the side of the cliff.

Why not? She'd done crazier things today.  ¶ 5/27/2009 10:36:00 PM 0 comments