Excerptification: Not a Word

I’m never quite sure how interested people are in excerpts, as they don’t tend to attract many comments, but of course are not the kind of thing that really elicit comments. So, if you do happen to feel like clicking through and commenting today, I’d love to know your opinion: to excerpt, or not to excerpt? Interesting or skim-worthy?

Personally, it depends on my mood at the time and how many unread items are in my feedreader O:) :D

Anyway, I’m really excited about the story I’m working on at the moment. I have several Big projects I’m ‘supposed’ to be working on (a rewrite of the 33 Mistakes About Dogs book for rerelease in November, revising Marked for tentative December release, editing Jesscapades and Sanctuary for submission to publishers, etc), but it’s hard to fit those in around the brain and time requirements of The Snowdrift of Marking Doom. The couple of shorts that have pounced on me? Much easier to squeak in, especially since they’ve arrived with Voice, which always, ALWAYS make things easier to write for me.

The one that I’ve excerpted (ha, Word accepts that as a word!) from today is tentatively titled To Dust, and is about the MC’s quest to find out first what the mysterious box does, and then how it can save their society from the [insertnamehere]s. It’s a quirky sort of blend of post-apocalypse and fantasy, and includes zombies and fae and technology and magic, and most of all dust, because dust is important. I’m loving this story, and can’t wait to see what it turns into.

Enjoy :)

[rough draft, unedited, blah blah blah]

Sometimes, walking away is the hardest thing you can do. That day, in Oseena, I swore I’d never do it again – and yet here I am, backpack slung over one shoulder, sunglasses perched on my nose, staring down the infinite road to nowhere, everywhere, anywhere but here. I don’t want to run away. In fact, I rather hate myself for it. It’s so much easier to stay, to fight, to be one of the people who get to die in a glorious blaze of meaning and feeling and then feel… nothing.

But it’s not my day to die. Today, I have to live, because today, I have to get the box away. The perfect cube that can sit on my two outstretched palms, sharp edged and shined to perfection – the only hope we have of stopping the [name] forever.

And that, I want to do. I want to stop them more than anything else in the world; more, even, than I want to stay. Which is the only reason why I set off against the sunset, heading north in a town that runs south, away from the battlefields of the fallen to where the rumours are born – the north, from whence our salvation comes.

That’s what they say, anyway, and as I step past the protection of the last building in town – a tiny drugstore, good for toothpaste and tobacco and not much else – I can only hope that they are right, whoever they are.

The road before me is straight and broad, dust whipping off it in the erratic wind into spirals and billows that whip across the fields like spirits. Dust spirits, earth spirits; spirits of those returned to dust. From dust born, to dust returned. Only that’s exactly it: with the [name] on our doorsteps at last, there will be no return. It might indeed be easier to join the battle, the onslaught, to rush at the invaders headlong and fight – but death at the hands of a [name] is not death at all.

I’ve seen bodies the [name] left behind, twisted, gruesome things with flesh squeezed until the insides popped out, left in the sun to ferment, a rictus of pain on their face – and the eyes. It makes me shudder. The eyes are the worst.

No. Walking away is hard, to be sure, but it’s right. I’ll succeed; I have to.

Hope

There’s nothing I can do, and that’s exactly the problem. If I could, I’d do everything. I’d carry it for you, I’d fall in your place, I’d hold your hand and die with you.

But there’s nothing I can do. sometimes, we have to stand on our own two feet.

You can’t stand up? It’s too heavy? You just want a break?

So do I. So do we all. See, life isn’t the moments were things are perfect, where things are pretty, where things are right. They’re the exception that proves the rule. Life is brutal. Life is hard. Life is clawing our way from one challenge to the next, battling to stay upright.

That’s life: the fight.

We fight against the dark and against the cold, we cling to what we have in the never-ending hope that things will someday, somehow, get better.

You’ve given up hope?

I’m sorry.

There is no life without hope.

Without hope, there’s just the struggle, the battle, the hard work and the effort and the exhaustion and the pain. Always, the pain.

Hope is like an anaesthetic; it helps to dull the pain. You should try it.

No, not like that. Not in a cheesy, superficial way with a too-bright smile that screams of the cracks underneath. Not even in a joyful way, that makes you dance and leap in spin – although that can be fun, in its time.

No, I mean like this. Quietly, patiently, somewhere deep in your soul. In here. Where there’s nothing else.

There’s nothing else because that’s where hope is supposed to sit. It’s a hope-shaped hole; hope’s all that will fill it up.

I know, I know you’ve tried before. But you have to keep on trying. Hope isn’t a one-time-only thing; it gets used up, like water, like life. You have to replenish, refresh. Here, take this, take my hand. I’ll give you some of mine.

No, it’s okay, I don’t need it. You have it. Yes, I’m sure. It’s okay.

I’ve felt it before, you see. I know what hope looks like. I’ll find it again, even if it takes a while. For now, I’d rather you have it. You need it more than I do. Here, in my hands – see the flames? Flickering orange and red and blue? That’s hope. It’s like a fire.

It’s like a fire, it’s like life; life is a fire. It burns.

But you can’t walk around empty. It’s cold. The fire will warm you, at least. If you’re burning you can’t die of cold. I know the heat is hard to handle. I know it makes you feel strange. Don’t cast it aside because of that, though. You’ll get used to it, in time. You will. And then you’ll wonder how you lived without it.

Cold. So cold.

Take the flames. Have them; they’re yours. I was only babysitting them for you. Really, they belong to you.

Take them. Breathe them. Be filled with hope – and life. Life is a struggle, life is a battle – but that’s life. To be human is to fight against it. Rage, rage against the coming of the night. That’s what it means to be human. To be alive.

Be human. Be alive.

Hope.

Writing Snippet: Borderlands

Borderlands, my current WIP, has an alternating structure, THEN sections with NOW. This is an excerpt from the first NOW section. Remember, rough draft, completely unedited, blah blah, etc etc. Be nice :P :)

The shout that echoed down the street was perhaps even more disturbing for its volume than its content; no one shouted in the City, ever, for any reason. So Kuyen was not the only citizen who whipped around to stare at the man in strange layered and divided clothing who was running towards them, cloth flapping behind him, at first glance pursuing a young girl but, Kuyen surmised a second later, actually running with the girl, if a little behind.

Kuyen rubbed her nose. Very strange indeed. She wished Samir was here to sniff for her and warn her of any danger.

The man gesticulated wildly at the staring people. “Run!” His shout came even louder as he drew closer, and Kuyen felt a grain of uncertainty. Perhaps maybe she should run... If only Samir was here.

She glanced back at the water and her pulse leapt. The once-docile stream now foamed and bit at its banks, a rushing turbulence that promised to carry away any who fell at its side. Kuyen felt as though she’d returned to her home in the Embassy to find Samir suddenly turned rabid.

One more look at the man and the young girl dashing towards them down the street convinced her; she turned and fled.

The water roared, bringing with it the smell of cold stone and minerals, and long-forgotten places underground. All around her, people began to scream as slowly, inexorably, the water breached the cobbled walls that held it in and flooded up the street, lapping at fleeing feet, tangling and tripping.

Shrieks mingled with splashes as the water rushed on, and even though she ran as hard and as high as she could, keeping so close to the buildings on her right that she knew she’d bear the grazes for at least a week, the water tugged at Kuyen’s feet too.

To her left, the man and girl overtook her, knees lifting high as they sought freedom from the binding water. She clutched at her soggy skirt, hoicking it up around her thighs and splashing through the flood. Her spare hand clutched at her ears, trying to block out the sound of screams, of gurgles, of her own terror tearing from her mouth and streaming down her now-wet face.
In front of her, the girl tripped.

The water surged as though it had been waiting. It gulped her up, and though she struggled it tore her from the street and swept her into the drain – and then, like a sluice gate had been lowered or a switch flicked, the flood abated, the water’s hunger satiated, and all that was left on the street were the sodden forms of those who’d fallen, and the man, who threw himself to his knees at the water’s very edge and gave a cry that twisted Kuyen’s stomach and brought her reeling to the ground.

Taking Over The World By Contest

Like so many other authors I know, I've been letting myself get totally distracted with the joy that is Wordle. Actually, not distracted so much as using it for bribery - every time I finish a chapter or two I can create a Wordle :D

Having just finished chapter 12 of How Not To Take Over The World, here's my current Wordle:



Yes, there is an atrocious number of words such as 'like', 'glanced', and 'just', but that's a problem for editing, not nano-ing - and it makes your task a lot easier >:)

Task, you say? Why, what task?

*bounce* Here's the deal. You write me a sentence using (mostly) words from my wordle, post it in the comments, and you'll be entered in the draw to win a copy of the e-magazine Greatest Uncommon Denominator, issue 3!

Yay! Contest!

Are you excited? I am :o)

Rules:

1) Write a sentence using (mostly) words from my Wordle and post it in the comments. To see a bigger version of the Wordle and thus more of the words in it, view the Wordle here.

2) I get to decide what 'mostly' means. Pretty much, it means you can use small words like at, is, the, and, etc - and not much else, OTHER THAN THE WORDS IN THE WORDLE.

3) If you tweet about the contest, that's +1 extra entry. You MUST INCLUDE @Inksie in the tweet so I can see you've done it :)

4) If you're already a follower or become a follower, that's +2 extra entries.

5) And finally, if you blog about it and leave a link to said blog in the comments, that's +3 :)

6) The prize is a PDF version of GUDmagazine Issue 3.

7) THIS CONTEST CLOSES ON DEC 1. The draw will be held shortly after that :)


The contest is open worldwide (since if I restricted it to my home continent it'd be a very small contest :P).

And finally, an except B-) Beware, it's rough - NaNo rough.

Muffled grumbling sounded inside the courtyard, and then the doors that hid the courtyard from view swung open and a lovely, dark-haired woman glared at him. "What do you want?"

"Pardon me, Ma'am," he said, sweeping into a graceful bow. "I am here to meet with the Spawn of Evil that rules this place."

"Are you just?"

Why did the woman look so amused? Did she not realise that she stood within the walls that shielded the most evil being known to man - the Overlord? He cocked his head, trying to read her.

Perhaps she didn't realise. There was a feral gleam in her eye that didn't feel quite sane; maybe she had no idea who it was that held her imprisoned.

Reth edged towards her, hands held out placatingly. "There, there," he soothed. "It's okay. I've come to save you."

The woman's face spasmed. Poor creature, he thought. She's probably been warned that if she tries to escape he'll kill her. "It's okay," he said softly. "I can help you."

The woman tilted her beautiful face, full lips pouting slightly. Her eyelashes drifted closed before she peered up at him, soft and ripe and full. "Yes," she breathed. "Perhaps you can. Tell me your name?"

"Reth," he said as he reached the portcullis, pressed his palm against it, reached through the bars towards her. "My name is Reth."

She spasmed again, and he thought his heart my break in his chest.

"I'll help you," he whispered. "Tell me where the Overlord is. I'll fight him, and I'll set you free."

"Oh, I'm sure you will," she whispered back, capturing his hand in hers and caressing his palm. "I'm sure you will."

He blinked at her, delighting in the way her lashes fell softly against her cheek as she examined his hand, the way her off-balance stance emphasised one hip, the way the cut of her dress revealed everything and nothing all at once. He sighed. The world's most perfect Damsel in Distress.

Reth curled his fingers around hers. "Tell me, damsel sweeter than air. Where is the foul beast that has you trapped, that I may slay him and carry you home?"

The woman's nostrils flared. "Oh," she said. "I don't think you need to bother with him any more."

She was trying to protect him; how sweet. "But lady, I must, for how else can I win your assured affection?"

The woman looked him over. "How about we start with the shirt?"

"What?"

Footsteps interrupted their exchange.

"Overlady? Why are you chewing this man's hand?"

Reth stared at the intruder, a wizened old man bearing the stench of evil. His jaw twitched. Surely this was he, the foul monster who held the lady trapped.

"Overlady?"

The woman sighed, dropped Reth's hand, and turned to the man. "Ainor, you really do have the most apalling sense of timing, you know that?"

The man called Ainor pursed his lips, chin and upper lip turning white. "Be that as it may, Oh Lady Most Evil, I would still like to know what you are chewing on a hand that patently belongs to a Hero."

The woman wrinkled her nose. "I was nibbling, not chewing. The difference being that one is sensual, the other canabalistic. And it's practically in the rules that the Evil Overlady gets to seduce the Hero." She pouted.

"Whatever your Evilship insists." Ainor bowed.

Reth watched the interchange with a growing sense of dread. "Your... Evilship?" he said hesitantly.

The woman turned to him, teeth bared in a vicious smile. "Yes, my pet?"

He opened his mouth, fisted his hands, and stepped away from the portcullis, shaking his head. "But you're the Damsel in Distress!"

She rolled her eyes. "Sweetheart, do I look distressed?"


And that's it! Go! Enter ye contest! :)

NaNoWriMo, Round the Second

So, we're more than one week in. As of yesterday, I should have been at 15k. Am I? Nowhere near. I'm at about 10k. BUT I'm still ahead of where I was last year, and last year I won :) So I'm okay.

Another advantage I have this year is the absolute awesome shininess of my story. The more I write, the more in love I am with the book that is becoming Jesscapades. And, because I'm still in the death grip of my last assignment (even though it was due yesterday, ack-ack!), I'm going to cheat on this post. Today, instead of thoughts, you get writing :) More specifically, you get my favourite scene so far of Jesscapades - the flashback to the first (and only) time she's been in the Glass Room. It's Nano, it's rough, but I like the sentiment :)



It had been a week after her somewhat unorthodox acceptance to the Academy. It was something all the new students were shown, to introduce them to the concept of what they were about to undertake to become, and, Jess suspected, to awe them.

And who couldn’t be awed?

They’d taken the students up one at a time, the rest milling around the bottom of the tower, watching as the evening light deepened into gold and hit the tower, refracting into a thousand million rainbows, cascading over the white pebble paths of the surrounding gardens.

The group of students had been strangely quiet; awe at the place, their acceptance, their decision to step forward and become Shards, assassins of Fate – and, although she hesitated to recall it, more than a little fear at what their new lives would entail.

Jess smiled at the memory of the group, all in their late teens and yet barely more than children, huddling together for comfort, and simultaneously holding themselves apart as they felt befitted their new station in life.

Jess’s pulse had raced when her name had been called, and for one stupid moment she’d been frozen in panic: What if they’re taking us up there to kill us?

But of course, the other students had all come down, and the expressions of certainty, peace, absolution on their faces fed the hunger and curiosity inside her.

She’d stepped forward to the teacher’s side, and peeked around him to the interior of the tower.

He’d smiled kindly at her, confirmed her name, and checked it off on a list before turning to lead her in.

Although the tower was wide, several hundred meters across, the inside was almost completely hollow. A rich wooden staircase ran around the perimeter, spiralling slowly upwards against the walls until it reached the top and formed a balcony the whole way around. The slit windows in the walls allowed only a little light, but Jess had seen the dust dancing through the air, smelled the dryness of a place seldom disturbed.

Which, now she thought on it, was a little odd, since a Shard went up there twice daily. But then, one person coming and going would not make much difference, would not disturb the tower overmuch.

At the top, railed walkways arched into the centre of the room, like wheel spokes suspended in the air. Jess remembered how she’d held her breath as she’d crossed, feeling the emptiness of seven stories of air below her, around her, teasing about her hands and feet and wanting to pull her down, over and down.

A wooden ladder, right in the centre of the room, where the spokes met to form a platform. The teacher had gestured Jess ahead, and she’d been halfway up before she realised he wasn’t climbing behind her.

“Go on,” he’d reassured when she’d look down, licking her lips nervously as her gaze accidentally drifted over the edge of the railings. “He’s waiting for you.”

Who? Jess had thought, before turning and resuming her climb. As she neared the top a strong, lined hand had reached down to take her, pulling her up and out of the hole...

And Jess’s mouth had fallen open, and she’d gazed in utter amazement.

She stood under an elaborately carved altar, and all around her, in every direction except right below, and above where the altar’s roof protected their heads, as far as she could see – glass.

Glass in every imaginable shape and colour and form, some recognisable items like goblets or plates, others abstract, swirling, twisted, some animals, some ornaments, some intricate, some plain. Thousands upon thousands of glass items filled the room, every one of them suspended by a shining thread from the crystal dome that roofed the tower, every one ablaze in the dying sunlight.

Jess had shielded her eyes with one hand from the brightness, but she could not stop looking, drinking in the magnificence of it all. “What is it?” she’d asked. “What are they?”

The old man beside her had smiled. “They’re lives, Jessana.”

“Lives?”

“Yes, every one of them.”

“And... what do they do?”

“This is our record,” the man had said. “This is our commission. When the object falls, the life is over. It is our job to ensure that happens.”

“How do you know who each one is?”

“The Interpreters.”

“Who are they?”

“They train for years, working with glass, learning it, feeling it, breathing it, until they know it intimately. It speaks to them, tells them its secrets – and they can tell from the colour, the texture, the shape of the glass who it represents.”

“How do the objects get there? What makes them fall?”

“Fate. More than that, no one knows.”

Some People Just Know How To Say It

And, being in the throes of a lab report myself, how could I fail to link to this exquisite description of the lab-report-writing process?

Get my lantern, get my gun, a fun entry from Spartezda's livejournal Iridescent Defenestration.


No. I'm not procrastinating. Not reeeally.... O:)

Logan Appears

So, I appear to have officially decided that BG is on the back burner until it's been world-built better. It's going to be one big, complex story, and I'd like to have a more solid grasp on it going in than I currently do.

I say I appear to have decided, because while I didn't actually consciously decided, the first few lines of Logan (scheduled to be the next wip) appeared in my head tonight - and quickly turned into about 900 words. Nearly the first complete scene :) I intend to complete it after dinner (no, have not had dinner yet, was distracted by computer. Yes, am starving hungry!), and hopefully make a start on the second scene.

Teaser, anyone?

Logan looked up at the wall in front of him. In the nighttime gloom it seemed to stretch up forever, even though he knew it was only as tall as the nearby houses.
"Go on," said his brother, B, from behind.
"No way," said H, shaking his head. "There's no way we can go in there."
Logan glanced left and right to see how the other members of the group were reacting. T looked resonably interested, but the others seemed to be echoing H. He turned to his brother. "I don't know, B. It's asking for trouble."


Yes, the other characters aren't named yet. Deal with it ;)

'Black Gates' Wins Out in the Portalverse...

So, after all my fluffing around, it seems The Black Gates has finally won over Logan in the 'Which Book Gets Written Next' competition.

Why?

Simple. It may not have as complete an outline, but it does have that one thing that Logan sorely lacks - world-building. And now, also, a beginning, which came to me last night as I lay in bed struggling to sleep. Teaser, anyone?

Athara tensed under the blankets and strained her ears in the darkness. Was that the gate?

I'm horrified by the fact that it begins with the MC waking up, but at this stage, it'll just have to cope. Besides, it's not waking up so much as being woken up. And that's completely different, right? *sheepish grin* At least it has a beginning now.



In other news, my universe finally has a name. A nickname, anyway, something quick which I can use to refer to it. It came to me this morning as I was driving to work.

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time reading agent Kirsten Nelson's blog, and subsequently doing some actual agent research (cue scary music... dun dun dun...). It was interesting, though I bemoan the fact that so many more US agents make themselves accessible through the web - I'm yet to find a single Australian agency that even lists bios for its agents :\

ANYway. My universe.

Somewhere in the mountains of advice I read yesterday, an agent spoke of a story she'd taken on - to her suprise, a 'portal story'.

*shock* and *surprise* on my part. Prophecies? Chosen Ones? Sure, they're overdone in fantasy, that's a no-brainer.
But portals?

Well, yes. I suppose so.*

*cringes*

Any of you that know the background that ties my stories together will understand that this is crushing news for me. (Though I don't really care; see footnote below). In my universe, portals abound. They're pretty much a staple, you could say.

And all this rushed through my head this morning as I drove, distracting me from focussing on the on-coming traffic (O:) don't tell my father!)... and the perfect name appeared.

My universe is, officially, the Portalverse.

:D

*(A large part of me wants badly to argue that they're only as overdone in fantasy as space ships are in science fiction... People need to travel after all. But is this self-defence or logic at work here? Who's to say...)

P.S. Say hello to my hundredth post. Hoorah! Aren't I verbose *beams*