CAIN’T YOU EVER JUST LET ME GO SOMEWHERE ALONG…

“Where ya going Word?”

“What’s it to ya Well?” Wordy eyed his friend spiciously over his shovel plate of cold beans.

Well smiled.

“Might wanna come along,” Well said right neighborly.

“Gol dangit Well,” Wordy said slapping his sides so that dust swirled up offin his breeches like sawdust in a grist mill. Some of the dust settled back in his beans but Wordy didn’t notice.

“Cain’t you ever just let me go somewhere along?!”

Well was patiently quiet a moment after Wordy’s antipenchant display. As he usually was when Word went off on one of his ineffectual tangential tirades. Then Well threw his head back and finished his drink before leaning forward and spitting out the swill-mash that had settled at the bottom of his glass. After that he straightened.

“So does that mean I’m coming witcha, or not?” he finally asked.

Wordy looked at Well as sasperated as a flied walleyed rout, and then shook his head slowly as if he had just watched a hell-bent bull pull loose from his plow.

“Oh git your damn saddle Well… I ain’t totin you on my back.”

from my Western novel, The Letter Men

SON OF ROME, SON OF MAN

Marsippius stood forth.

“I would speak,” he said clearly.

Many in the chamber murmured uncertainly but Jhönarlk stood suddenly upon the base of his throne and then stepped down from it and approached. Not far from the Commander he paused and spoke softly, but also clearly.

“Then I would hear you,” he said.

Marsippius turned abruptly and faced the chamber. His voice was tired and hoarse with war, and with his recent agonies, but clear and cold with resolution.

“Though I am not of your number, and a Man, I come to you with a warning.”

“What!?” shouted a voice among the Eldevens, after barely a pause, but it was not clear who had spoken or his real intent in speaking. For some among the Eldevens hated the men, and the Basilegate in particular. But some perhaps respected them, or were even secret allies. It was difficult to know, so cryptic and veiled were the motives of most Eldevens to most men.

Marsippius scanned the crowd curiously, hoping to spot the one that that had addressed him, but could not fix upon who had spoken, so he addressed them all.

FF8CA1 PRESTER JOHN. /nLegendary medieval priest and monarch of Asia or Africa. Enthroned on a map of East Africa. Detail from 16th century atlas.

“You know well that I am not one of you,” Marsippius said, and though he spoke with the stoicism of the soldier and his hands remained at his side and did not move, still the earnestness of his words was the only flourish he seemed to need. “Yet I still come from a Free People’s with a High Christian Duty,” and again many among them murmured, deeply suspicious of the man’s god, religion, and ideas about Magic and Miracle. “Thus I say this to you, as long as you all wait for someone else to begin, no one of you will dare. And even if one among you may dare,” and his eyes seemed to shift over his shoulder momentarily back towards the Samarl, “then all his efforts will also be in vain as long as no other join him. To all peoples who have ever lived, on this world, or any other, comes danger, comes hardship, comes risk, and comes war. The time between these things may be long, so that one generation forgets even the nature of what it means to be threatened, or short, so that every new generation rightfully wearies of what must be done, and sacrificed, but eventually all woes and risks return to all peoples. It is only a matter of time; great, or brief. Do not ask me why this is so, I am merely a soldier, not a priest, prophet, or philosopher, yet that is the nature of things. Whether any of you like it, or not. And even those who are not soldiers know this truth, though they are loathe to admit it aloud for lack of public courage. Which we Romans do not lack, and never have, though we lack many other things you have apparently well-mastered.”

The chamber fell silent and yet the hall was constructed in such a way that the echoes of Marsippius’ words ran thrice more around the room so that even those to the very rear of the hall heard them all clearly.

“Yet your mastery is not in dispute. Your courage and your Manhood, if such a term applies to you, and in one great sense I think it does and may even unite your people with mine, however, are indeed presently in dispute. You lack deeds of courage consummate with your mastery of other matters.”

Marsippius paused and openly surveyed the hall and those assembled before him with some obvious and unstated admiration. Even the hostile Eldevens noted it.

“Though what will it matter if all you have achieved is squandered now by shameful passivity? Brought low and ruined by your own inaction; in a day, a week, a month, a year? Disaster is upon you, you know this, and likely war, and you well know this too, and all of your almost countless achievements; your art, your music, your culture, your cities, your farms, your families, your very happiness and future are now to be wasted not by your lack of ability, but by your lack of purpose, will, and public courage? You are still a very formidable people, all with honest eyes can see this plainly, and I would gladly call you ally, and even friend, and I would gladly do whatever I can to defend and strengthen you, yet I cannot save you, and Fate cannot save you, and prophecy cannot save you, and even God will not save you if you make no real effort of any kind to save yourselves.”

The hall was still, as well as quiet, though it was obvious to all that many in attendance were angry, and many others uncertain, though some seem swayed. Or at least swayable.

It seemed also to most that Marsippius had more to say, perhaps far more, but, being the soldier he was, and disdaining much talk he simply returned to his place and turned back in the direction of the Samarl and stood lightly at attention.

Many among the Eldevens, who often by both custom and habit talked at length, found this abrupt ending confusing, even bizarre, uncanny, and unnatural. But Marsippius’ efforts were at an end. He was a simple man, used to action and planning, he looked scornfully on much debate and indecision. As eventually all real men must.

Jhönarlk however instantly understood the hopeful gap the Commander of the Basilegate had opened among his own indecisive countrymen and the various races of the Eldevens assembled there. He did not speak immediately but let the man’s words turn themselves thoroughly throughout the chamber before he acted. And then the Samarl of Samarkand spread his hands before him and looked directly at Marsippius. He spoke not to the hall, but as one old friend might to another, though neither knew the other well.

“Son of Rome, and son of man, then, let us begin…”

from, The Basilegate/The Kithariune

ELK AND MOOSE HUNT

Elk looked at Moose who looked at Steinthal coldly.

Elk looked at Steinthal again and said, “Steinthal you are one of the most smart-mouthed son of a bitches I ever met. You know that?”

Steinthal half-smiled out of the left side of his mouth.

“Really?” he replied enthusiastically. “Thanks for saying. I feel like I never can really hear that enough so it’s always a lotta fun to know how that works when it does.”

Both hired men were quiet a moment. Too long for it to be just catch-up.

“You know it’s dangerous when it works like that too,” Moose said quietly.

“You don’t say,” Steinthal replied, also lowering his voice, but in a different way. “You guys are like Google without the built-in AI. A treasure house of old links running to nowhere. Maybe you should have come here with earpieces and implants instead of pre-programming.”

Elk and Moose’s eyes shifted subtly to Maugham who was watching Moose carefully. Very carefully.”

“You might also wanna know this smartass,” Elk said. “We’re both nearly as big as your man. But you’re not. Not even close.”

Then they both looked at Steinthal.

Steinthal half-smiled again but spoke directly at Elk.

“Well, since you’re obviously the smart one then there’s probably something you should know too.”

“Oh yeah?” asked Elk, shifting his weight heavily from one foot to another. “What’s that?”

Steinthal smiled again, but fully this time.

“He’s not ‘my man,’ so don’t fucking expect me to try and control him when you finally work up the manballs to start this thing.”

Suddenly a set of headlights went on up the street and a car engine turned over. The headlights were pointed in the direction of the four men. The engine was quiet and dropped immediately into an almost silent idle. But the headlights stayed bright.

Elk and Moose looked at each other frowning.

“You did bring the manballs to start this thing, right ladies?” Steinthal smiled pleasantly and it was easy to see his teeth in the backglow from the headlights. Then he thumbed back in the direction of the car. “If not I got some guys in the car with extra sets you can borrow. If you promise we can cut em back out again afterwards.”

Elk looked at Steinthal. Steinthal could see Elk’s breath streaming and steaming out of his nostrils, but he remained calm enough to not move. Muscle, sure, but professional enough to be something else too.

The four men stared at each other without speaking and without motion. Until Elk’s shoulders dropped a little.

“They’ll be another day Steinthal,” Elk replied. Then he looked at Moose and nodded almost imperceptibly. Both men started to turn but before they could Steinthal spoke.

“There always is boys. The question you gotta ask yourselves, though, is this; do you wanna risk it ending any other way than it did just now?”

Elk turned and looked at Steinthal again, then at Maugham. But neither man reacted. Moose just stared at Elk. Finally Elk turned away and started walking. Moose followed after a moment’s pause. Both their footfalls were heavy, massive even. But both sounded clumsy and loud to Steinthal. He could use that. He would use that.

When they disappeared into the dark and couldn’t be heard anymore Maugham stepped up beside Steinthal and spoke quietly.

“What now?” he asked.

Steinthal looked over at him.

“Now Maugham, it’s an Elk and Moose hunt. Wanna bag a coupla big ones?”

Maugham shrugged nonchalantly.

“I got nothing pressing at the moment,” Maugham replied.

“Good,” Steinthal replied nodding. “It’s always good to take em before they ever get back to the herd.”

Then Steinthal raised his hand and signaled for the car.

from The Detective Steinthal

I TRULY ENJOYED WRITING THIS SCENE. IT’S A FIRST DRAFT AND BEGINS IN MEDIA RES…

SOME KIND OF EXCUSE

“That’s precisely the way the Real World works Maugham. What ain’t criminal is corrupt, and what ain’t immoral is amoral.”

Maugham stared at Steinthal thoughtfully for a moment. Then said,

“What about everyone else?”

Steinthal shrugged.

“What ‘everyone else?'” he asked.

“All the good and decent people?” Maugham replied.

One corner of Steinthal’s mouth turned up slowly but Maugham couldn’t tell if it was a smile, or a grimace.

“What?” Steinthal said. “You think they don’t know?”

Maugham looked at Steinthal again. Then he shrugged.

“Maybe…” he finally admitted. Then he brightened a little. “But then again, maybe they’re just scared.”

Steinthal looked up into the sky and sighed deeply, but Maugham didn’t feel like it was aimed at him. Then Steinthal looked at his friend again.

“Maybe, Maugham… Maybe. But what is that supposed to be, some kind of excuse?”


from The Detective Steinthal

EYE TO THE FUTURE

THE PAST FEW DAYS IN MY SCIENCE FICTION UNIVERSE

over the past few days I have been further developing/redeveloping my Science Fiction Universe, better classifying the players involved and the better defining the systems and societies and groups and organizations and individuals operating within it, as well sketching out timelines and the major events occurring in this universe and where those events occur.

To that end I have developed the following notes and plans for the Human Navies (space and stellar) in my universe and exactly how they will operate.

Below is an improved list of these organizations and players and their ships:

Stellie – common or popular name for any crew working aboard (any type or form or class of) space and star and planetary ships

Stellarne – common or popular for anyone working aboard a military or patrol type ship

Asterisk – colloquial term for any of the risks associated with or assumed by service aboard any type of space or star or planetary craft or station, uninsurable, and except for the military rarely compensated for in case of serious injury or death

Psychoids – general term for any of the psychological disorders or psychoses common to those who operate in deep space or for prolonged periods in space. Eventually most of these dissipate in lifers and tend to be uncommon (for reasons unknown) in Frontiersmen.

Pathocoers – general term for any of the somatic or physical disorders that occur over time due to prolonged exposure to deep space or to prolonged service in space. Some bodies eventually adapt to these spatial and temporal and positional and accelerative/velocity stressors, others do not and are either forced form service, suffer lifelong chronic disorders, or die as a result of daily living in space.

Ship Forms:

Cosmeres/Spaceships – ships operating farthest from human space and in unexplored regions beyond human Frontier(s); and much later a very small number of ships that traverse different dimensions, other realities, and into different temporal epochs – Typically these are Explorer ships or sometimes, though very rarely, during wartime, that number may include Warships. Ships operating in Extra-Boundary Space, Hyper-Field Space, Protospace, or in so called Cosmic Space.

Starships – ships travelling between or operating between/for human controlled or previously explored star systems, up to the Frontier. Ships that operate in so-called “Gray Space,” or within Boundary or Inner or Intra-Frontier space. See ship classes below. *

Planetary ships – ships which move between human occupied or human dominated planets, stations, colonies, bases, and facilities along long established travel and trade routes. Ships that operate within the well-established boundaries of Human Space, or within “Safe Space.” Within Inter-Frontier Space. These ships tend to be commercial ships, police craft, patrol ships, and transport ships.

Classes of Ships:

Explorers/X-Boats/X-Craft (explorer ships involved in exploration, science, research, development, and discovery both within and sometimes outside Human Spatial Frontiers) – armed (astatic) and unarmed (silent), ships may rnage in size form mid-range to small craft and even to stealth vessels

Patrol ships – armed, but swift and light

Battle/Conflict/Warships – heavily and experimentally armed, defended, armored, and shielded: battle lightest class, in squadrons of 10 or less, or in war in dispensillas, conflict mid-range in tandem with teams of 2 or 3, or in war to support conflict and Warships, warships largest class, heavily and experimentally armed, and armored, designed to operate singly and independently on long patrols, also designed to scavenge and scoop resources from space, unoccupied bodies (like explorers), and in war operate in wargroups of 2 to 4 with support vessels.

Commercial ships – unarmed or lightly or experimentally armed

Note: All explorers and battle/conflict/warships are of entirely unique and modular designs suited to those Actions most anticipated or expected of them (one of a kind ships), all patrol and commercial ships are of various standardized blueprints and designs with slight Captain or Commander modifications as desired or needed

The Astronautical Corp:

Astroceanic (pronounced as-troscenic by most or by civilians and civilian contractors, or astro-ce-anic by crew) – any ship or event or enterprise involving the Astronautical Corp.

Astronautical Corp – ships transported by armed explorers to worlds with oceans or liquid atmosphere where “subnautica” ships can be deployed to explore those environments. The crews of such ships are call astronauts.

The Curae:

The Curae – the Superpriests of the Future who lead the “Potter’s-Revolt” or Curare against human society

The Frontiersmen:

The Frontiersmen – explorers who operate alone or in very small teams in previously unexplored areas of the extreme Frontier (both in space and by campfall/planetfall), or well beyond the Frontier of human or known space. Such expeditions are extremely resource and capital and technology intensive and are usually funded by megacorporations or private interests or even sometimes by groups like the Curae, despite the fact that most Frontiersmen are anti-authority and hate oversight and often disobey assignments and orders and will even conceal or hide discoveries (like early American Frontiersmen, id est, Boone).

Frontiersmen tend to be highly trained (especially in science, survival, exploration, alien habitats, adaptive invention and innovation, and xenobiology) loners who learn early to forage and scavenge on their long assignments.

If a Frontiersmen is alone on assignment it is called a Soquest and he is said to be soquestered until he returns. If he goes to the same area more than once that is a Sequest and he is sequestered.

If he goes in a small team of 2 to 3 others that is a Commission and while so missioned this team is said to be committed. If it is a multiphased commitment to the same place it is called a Chartor, or Longstake.

Some Assignments can last a year or more and a few have lasted decades though the typical deployment is roughly six months, Solaterra Time (ST – seasonal conversion time adaptive to alien planets) or Solar Orbital Time (SOT – fixed) or Atomic Time (AT) or Astronomical Time (AST) which are standard Time Forms among future humans, though some Frontiersmen go Native even as to counting time.

Frontiersmen are typically deployed by Explorer Craft though some lifelongers or well-funded Frontiersmen design, develop, and have built their own delivery ships, beacons, living shelters, micro and orbital satellites, and other gear. A Frontiersman that expresses a desire to never return to human space is called an Exilean, one who goes Native is said to be “Occupied,” and one who disappears into the Frontier and whose real fate is unknown, even if suspected, is said to be “Bewildered,” or “Baffled.”

Although many other secondary and tertiary players and events are involved, and although larger issues do occur within my science fiction universe (religious, political, corporate, business, alien, military, scientific, technological, etc.) most of the stories set in my science fiction universe revolve around three main groups; the Curae, the Astronautical Corp., and the Frontiersmen. And around so-called “God Technologies.”

HUNTING IS DIFFERENT

THE ONE-MAN JOB

Maugham passed a uniform and a plainclothesman exiting as he entered Steinthal’s office. The officers and Maugham were equally surprised to see each other. Recovering from his initial shock Maugham nodded politely and the two other men, glancing up at Maugham’s enormous height returned the favor, but warily.

The plainclothesman stepped out of the way and held the door open for Maugham to pass before looking back into the room.

“This him?” the suit asked.

Steinthal, sitting at his desk raised his right hand and finger in acknowledgement. The man nodded in reply and shut the door behind him.

Maugham walked over to stand in front of Steinthal’s desk and asked, “What did they want?”

Steinthal glanced at Maugham and said, “Calling in a favor.”

“But I thought you didn’t have good relations with the cops?” Maugham continued.

“Big place, lotta cops.” Steinthal replied. “Besides, what others don’t know can’t hurt me.”

Maugham grunted and suddenly realized there was an open file laid out in front of Steinthal. He glanced at it, and seeing this Steinthal’s eyes also dropped to the file.

It looked like a rather hastily photocopied hardcopy of a case file. Or perhaps parts of it. Maugham didn’t ask but both he and Steinthal knew he knew what had happened, and why.

“No electronic or data trace,” Steinthal said flatly. “Maybe they got something on camera but I really doubt it. Knowing them. Probably copied unrelated material just to cover. I would have.”

Maugham nodded and grunted again.

“So what is it?”

“About a vic,” Steinthal replied. “But that’s not important right now.”

Maugham looked at Steinthal quizzically.

“What’s important is the killer,” Steinthal replied to Maugham’s look.

Steinthal tended to piss off professionals when he talked that way, purposely avoiding terms like UNSUB, or subject, or even suspect when it came to violence. Just “killer” or murderer” was all he would say. Drove the feds bonkers but he didn’t care. And as he liked to say, “Screw the feds.”

“Do they know who it is,” Maugham asked, thumbing back towards the door.

Steinthal shrugged.

“Maybe, you just never know with the cops,” Steinthal said cagily.

Maugham tilted his head sideways.

“Well, what about the Dick?” he asked becoming even more curious.

“Yeah,” Steinthal said. “What I don’t know about what he don’t know can’t hurt either of us either. And that’s true vice-versa too.”

Maugham was becoming agitated at Steinthal’s evasiveness so he kept at him. Maybe out of nothing more than aggravation.

“Well, if you’re not gonna tell me anything about the vic, then what about the killer. Do you think you know who he is?”

Steinthal looked hard at Maugham, as if weighing something in his mind. Whatever it was he was weighing, it seemed to tilt this way, and that, before settling out even.

“Maugham, I’m almost certain I know who he is.”

Surprised Maugham paused a moment.

“Well, what are you gonna do about it?” Maugham asked seriously, thinking he might be finally making some headway.

Steinthal glanced down at the manila file, straightened it, and then folded the cover over to close it.

“I’m going to hunt the mutha-fucker down, and kill him,” Steinthal said without bothering to look back up.

Maugham grunted and it sounded like he had just lifted a heavy weight successfully.

“So you definitely know who he is?”

Steinthal shook his head.

“Is anything in life really definite Maugham? But if I had to lay odds at table I’d say 100 percent. Probably more. Give or take a few points.”

Maugham nodded.

“Alright, who is it then?” he asked.

Again Steinthal stared at Maugham, almost uncomfortably, as if weighing something private in his mind. And again he weighed it awhile before he replied.

“Marcus Octavio Sodworth.”

Maugham heard the name clearly enough but just couldn’t place it. It seemed familiar, and he worked at it for awhile, but then he shook his head. Steinthal waited to see if Maugham could make him but then realized he wouldn’t.

“You may know him as Sod-Spot, or Spotty,” Steinthal said finally.

A look of surprise, and probably real concern passed across Maugham’s face.

“But Spotty is an enforcer for Sinaloa. And maybe Gulf.”

“Maybe,” Steinthal said.

“And he’s a killer,” Maugham said, as if discussing a very dangerous and proficient athlete.

Steinthal stood up in a very fluid motion and leaned across his desk as if about to pounce.

“He is,” Steinthal said. “But then again so am I Maugham. The difference being I’m not just a killer, I’m also a fucking Hunter. And killers don’t live forever around a fucking hunter.”

And as he said it Steinthal seemed to change in nature, and the look in his eyes became so sharp and so clear and so cold that even Maugham froze momentarily.

So Maugham was quiet a moment, and then said, “Let me swing by the house and get a few things.”

“No,” said Steinthal flatly and without any doubt in his reply. “No, you won’t.”

Steinthal glanced up and down at his gargantuan friend as if judging him impassively from a distance. As if choosing teams, and finding no one worth choosing. But then he softened a little.

“Maugham, you’re big, and you’re strong, and you’re good. No doubt of that. But you lumber, and you’re slow. And you’re sometimes loud. And most of all you’re big, and you bore easy. And I’m going to hunt. Hunting is different. You’re not the man for this job. As a matter of fact this is purely a one-man job. And I’m that man.”

Then Steinthal picked up the file, and turned, and walked to his pack and unzipped it and put the file deep inside.

While he did so Maugham thought about what he had just said. He was offended, and a little hurt, but he knew Steinthal had called it true. Maugham was indispensable in a stand up fight, and as muscle he shook even old oaks, but an on your belly snake hunt and a knife to the side of the throat in the dark, he’d be little help at that. And likely an open liability. You had to read people for what they were, not for what you wished they were. Steinthal was right, much as Maugham hated it.

“Dammit John,” Maugham finally said in frustration. “Well then, what do you want me to do?”

Steinthal picked up his pack and threw it across one shoulder. He walked by Maugham and as he did so he said,

“Go home Maugham. If I need you I’ll call you. But I won’t need you.”

When he got to the door he opened it and left it open. Wide.

“That’s it?” Maugham asked.

“No,” Steinthal said glancing back over his shoulder. “Lock up when you leave.”

Then Steinthal continued on down the hall towards the streets.

Maugham shook his head in disgust.

Before Steinthal hit the door to exit the building Maugham called out to him.

“At least tell me where you’re going?!” he asked.

Steinthal might have said something in reply, or perhaps not. It was hard to tell at that distance. But either way he was already gone…

(Tuesday’s Tale: I wrote this scene after watching a pair of “hunters” kill a male lion and then watching them attacked by another lion while taking “trophy pics” of their kill. Was it all real? I mean it is the internet after all… but if it was real then they were killers but certainly not hunters. Like most modern people they didn’t understand the difference at all, and if it was real, they’re probably dead because they didn’t understand the difference. Which disgusts me but also tends to infuriate me. And because he/they didn’t understand the difference the man probably got his wife killed, or at least mauled. But life is what it is and modern people are what they are. Anyway it reminded me of some events in my past and while lying in a hot bath to recover from an injury this scene for Steinthal and Maugham occurred to me and I got out and wrote it. Took about an hour and a half, lot slower than normal for me, but my wife walked in in the middle of it, so I couldn’t write smooth or clean until our conversation ended. Still, don’t think our conversation scattered my thoughts or hurt the scene any but that’s up to you. Hope you enjoy it, it’s a first draft, and if you wanna comment, do so.)

Coda: I subtitled this scene, the One-Man Job. Since I wrote a scene for Denn the other day also about a One Man Job (for a Woman) I just couldn’t resist…

THE ONE MAN JOB

“I don’t get it,” she said. “Or you.”

He looked at her but didn’t respond.

“I mean, look at you Denn. There’s literally nothing you won’t do. Seems to be nothing you fear,” she said almost desperately. She momentarily put both hands to her face and then dropped them again and looked down at the ground. “Most of the time I’m just so afraid. So lonely. So tired. There’s no one you need, but I need everyone.” Then her shoulder’s collapsed and she seemed to sag all over.

But Denn stepped forward and caught her and stood her erect again.

“Carole,” he said softly but firmly. “Everyone needs who they need, and I’m no exception. But you’ll never get over fear and loneliness through other people. Some things in life are just one man jobs.”

She sighed deeply and looked up into his eyes.

“I’m not a man,” she said softly, less desperate now, but still unsure of herself.

Denn smiled at her warmly, “That you aren’t my dear. That you aren’t. And yet that still doesn’t change any of the facts. Eventually you’re going to have to stand alone, if you ever want to stop being alone. And stop being so damned afraid all of the time.”

As he held her she seemed to want to move towards him, but he held her at a slight distance for a moment and then he finally released her. Almost as if to see what she would do. She didn’t move towards him, but she didn’t move away either. Instead she stared at his set face for a long time, studying it. He was tall, and his face was cut and hard, but there was also something very relaxed and open and human about him that maybe she had never noticed before. Fearless, but not without obvious sympathy. Height without arrogance, strength without cruelty. Demand without condemnation. Manhood without malice and calculation. She thought about this as a sort of flash of insight, and suddenly he seemed very alien to her, and to most other men she had ever known. And yet he also seemed very familiar. As if he had arisen from a long forgotten memory. But then she came to herself again, and she shook her head and said,

“Well then, will you stand with me?” The question was entirely sincere.

Denn nodded ever so slightly.

“With you Carole,” he replied flatly, though not coldly. “But not for you. With you is my job as a man, and as your friend, but for… well, it’s time you finally learned to do yours. And woman is no excuse in life for failing at a one man job.”

She watched him again, silently and reflectively for a moment, and then she sighed deeply once more and said, “Okay, Denn. I’ll do it your way.”

Denn nodded silently again.

“But what do I do?” she asked searchingly after a quiet moment wrestling with the obvious. “I mean, this is all so new to me. Where do I start?”

Denn smiled and pointed at her chest.

She mistook his intent.

“My blouse?” she asked puzzled.

Denn laughed freely at her question.

“Your heart my dear,” he replied when he finally finished laughing. “That’s as good a place as any to start, and the one place it might just stick this time.”  

(This scene was inspired by something an old friend said to me this morning, about most people in life being lonely and afraid, and seeking companionship and safety above all else (and why this makes them naturally unhappy) and my reply about it.

The story/scene involves my Pulp and Action/Adventure hero Denn Templemann and a girl he knows, and has known for a very long time, Carole Vange.

It is perfect subject matter for Denn and his Pulp stories as Denn fears almost nothing, and needs almost nobody (though he is by nature very sociable and gregarious, just not dependent upon anyone) and Carole, who fears almost everything and thinks she needs everyone, even those who are terrible for her. (She flits form man to man hoping to find one who will “save her.” I’m sure you’ve met females like that before at some time in your life.) And it also, as I envisioned the scene, touches briefly upon their on-again/off-again Romantic attraction and why it isn’t and can’t work with Carole as she is.

Denn is not typically Romantic in nature, as some of my other male characters are [Marsippius, Alternaeus, the Boy, etc.], for he more represents my more entirely pragmatic-romantic side. But like me he is also extremely Chivalrous, in a very antique or Medieval way. He represents, in me, Action-Oriented Romance and Problem-Solving Romance and Manhood-Romance, not necessarily erotic or devotional romance. This is how he handles Carole and how he handles females/women in general. Which tends to confuse most women, but Denn, like me, doesn’t actually care.

[I do have other Romantic and Chivalrous aspects in myself, as my wife can tell you, but if Action-Oriented Romance is what is most needed then again, as my wife and many other females can tell you, that is certainly what comes out first. Problem-Solving first, tra-lah-lah later. For I also, like Denn, have an antique sense of Manhood.]

So, with that in mind, and having wanted to write this scene for awhile but not knowing exactly how to proceed, when my buddy said what he said about other people it gave me an excellent opening. I hope you enjoy the scene and feel free comment if you so wish.

The “One Man Job” is, of course, an obvious play on words and meaning in the scene.)

THE THREE COMETS

had a sort of waking reverie right after arising from a nap this afternoon. It involved 3 Comets.

The first kept changing colors and shape and would appear and then disappear and then reappear elsewhere.

The second would change into different things, appearing as a comet, then a meteor shower, then what might have been a huge asteroid, then it looked like a stationary planet, then perhaps something artificial and then finally into a comet again. But more diffuse. More like a large, mobile gas cloud.

The third at first appeared to move in one direction, West to East, then it turned back upon itself and ate itself. But it did so in a large loop so it looked like an astronomical ouroboros.

These “comets” appeared one after another, though there was some overlap between the second and last as the third seemed to “come out of or erupt out of the second” as the second scattered and disappeared.

Immediately I wondered if it were some type of omen, but to be honest I couldn’t tell as usually an omen makes some type of impression or feeling upon me, usually in my gut or my chest area. Leaves an uncanny or ominous feeling or impression upon me. This was more like almost disinterested “observation from a distance.” (Whether that distance was one of space or time, or both, I don’t know.)

Anyway, after recording it I decided it/they should go into my high fantasy novels The Kithariad. Though I am also not at all opposed to using the same or a similar thing in my scifi novels…

THE LIGHT CHANGED

THEN THE LIGHT CHANGED

Both men walked on in thoughtful silence for awhile, each lost in his own thoughts.

Finally Maugham glanced over at Steinthal and said, “That was truly rough.”

“It was,” Steinthal said in flat response.

They walked a bit further, the quiet a soundless hum between them.

“And,” Maugham continued eventually, “pointlessly tragic.”

Steinthal nodded his agreement.

“Obviously.”

They continued on until the intersection and then paused to cross the street.

“You know,” Maugham said wearily. “For a second there I almost thought you were gonna have an actual emotion. I mean, aside from fury.”

Steinthal seemed to ponder that for a moment, as if from a great distance. Then he finally said,

“Well, Maugham, you know me and deep emotions…”

And Maugham nodded at Steinthal, and Steinthal nodded back. Each without ever bothering to look at the other, or even being sure that either understood why. It was just like that between them.

But, before the traffic cleared or the light waved them on Steinthal added,

“You know Maugham, on occasion, I do have a few.”

Maugham looked at Steinthal.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“An emotion other than fury,” Steinthal said glancing at Maugham, again without turning. “I just tend to keep em all stored with my soul in my Lich-box.”

And suddenly Maugham realized that, in his own way, Steinthal was probably weeping. Not out loud, but where it actually mattered.

Maugham thought back to the little girl’s body. He shuddered, and then was suddenly very tired again.

“Hell,” Maugham said out loud to no one in particular.

“Yeah,” Steinthal breathed out heavily. “Just more fucking hell…”

Then the light changed, and they both walked on, and neither spoke again for a long, long time.

(First draft of a scene inspired by something my oldest daughter said to me with part of a remembered case I worked.)

IN THIS I AM ALONE

“In this I am alone,” Denn sighed to his old friend. “That I know what I know, and yet I cannot truly describe to you what I know, and I cannot truly know what you describe. All we can do is proceed into this thing together, knowing that no matter what else happens, as we go, that ultimately, we are also alone even in what we share.”

Fin sighed in his turn.

“I know Denn,” and Fin paused a moment before continuing, “but maybe that is enough, ya know. Or maybe… maybe it is enough for us.”

Denn stared off into space awhile but then he smiled warmly and clapped his old friend on the shoulder and turned to look at him.

“In this together then,” Denn replied to Fin, already starting to feel better and more hopeful about what was to come. “Alone, and yet together. Live, or die my friend.”

Fin too smiled, perhaps a little less enthusiastically, but smile he did.

“If it’s all the same to you Denn,” Fin said matter of factly, “I’d rather we all lived.”

Denn smiled again and then laughed out loud. He slapped Fin on the knee like they were both young boys and then he stood up enthusiastically and offered his hand. Pulling Fin easily to his feet Denn nodded curtly and said,

“How ‘bout we work at that then?”

Fin nodded back at Denn.

“Yeah, how ‘bout we…”

From The Adventures of Denn Templemann, The Man Who Went Alone Together

My Pulp Adventure novels for boys, young men, and old men

#novel #fiction #pulp #adventure

THE REAL ILLUSION

THE REAL ILLUSION

The World is both Illusion and Real my boy. Yet more the Illusory Reality, I think, than the Real Illusion…

Alternaeus the Wizard to the Boy

from Alternaeus the Wizard

THE IMPERFECT BUT IDEAL CHRISTIAN WIZARD

ALTERNAEUS, THE IMPERFECT BUT IDEAL CHRISTIAN WIZARD

Yesterday I relaxed yet still worked upon my Alternaeus or “Wizard novels.”

(Though it seemed more sport and word-play to me than work. Gladly, I can say that about most of my Work.)

Anyway I sketched out dozens of possible stories about Alterneaus the Wizard, who has become one of my favorite characters. Now many of my characters are actually a proxy-me in fictional form. For instance Marsippius Nicea is the warrior in me, Steinthal is me as a detective and infiltrator, Vlachus represents the monk and priest in me, Thrasher the frontiersman and woodsman and Vadder/explorer in me, Tristas the futurist, scientist and God-Technologist in me, and Alternaeus has come to represent the Christian Wizard in me. He is me as a fictional character. Or more accurately as a fictional example of a Christian Wizard. For I, like everyone else alive, am far more than just one thing. But as far as the Christian Wizard goes he is my paragon or ideal example of one written in fictional form.

But also he has become my fictional exemplar of what an ideal Christian Wizard/Genius should be. Therefore his stories are not just stories but provide a sort of Guidebook in Fiction for how a Christian Wizard should behave and conduct himself in various difficult situations. And in life generally speaking.

Although I am writing a non-fiction set of books about the Christian Wizard/Genius/Theurgist the stories I am writing about Alternaeus sort of flesh out how a Christian Wizard should behave in day to day situations, even though the stories take place in an mostly historical Medieval milieu. Yet the techniques and morality Alternaeus expresses should be applicable to any time period. And to most any situation. That is indeed my exact intent in writing these stories. In addition to being entertaining tales in their own right they will also compliment my non-fiction books on the same general subject matter.

The stories will consist of short situational work tales and moral fables about Alternaeus (as a Christian Wizard/Genius) sort of like most of the cases of Sherlock Holmes or the adventures of Conan. They will be arranged into book form but can easily stand alone as well. They will not be dependent upon each other but will build upon each other.

In any case I spent some time this afternoon and evening briefly sketching out the major stories involving Alternaeus and the lessons he will teach through his stories. Some of these stories will be short, no more than a couple of pages, others quite long depending on the subject matter and what the story describes.

Also I have decided that each book of stories in the novel set, and perhaps even each story, will be introduced with a short section of verse from a long poem about Alternaeus, which, when taken altogether will be a sort of Summary in Verse (Summa Versa, or Summa Esse) of all of Alternaeus’ adventures and will contain, encoded in the verse, various lessons for the Christian Wizard.

This will be very similar to what I have done and am doing with the Viking Cats (found at that link). However, in this case, rather than the Poetic Section merely being a retelling in verse of the prose tales, the prose tales will be types of moral lessons, while the accompanying poem will be a sort of encoded form (in verse) of instructional lessons for the Wizard.

__________________________________

Short Stories involving Alternaeus

A Cup of Seasoned Blood Held High and Close
A Summer’s Still Frozen Tomb
A Tincture of Tantrels, Thiggers, and Thieves
Alternaeus and the Afflatable Axeman
Alternaeus and the Ageless Alchemist
Alternaeus and the Ancient and Infinite Desert
Alternaeus and the Apothecary of Arcadia
Alternaeus and the Architect of Always
Alternaeus and the Assentuary
Alternaeus and the Barbarian Scout
Alternaeus and the Cauldron of the Ken and Kithmen
Alternaeus and the Cunning Craftmaster
Alternaeus and the Eldritch Occultist
Alternaeus and the Fateful Forge
Alternaeus and the Forest of Forever
Alternaeus and the Greek Philosopher
Alternaeus and the Harrowed Hide-Man
Alternaeus and the Hermit Saint
Alternaeus and the Hoary Hoardsmen
Alternaeus and the Invisible Merchant
Alternaeus and the Jewish Physician
Alternaeus and the Knight’s Errant
Alternaeus and the Limitless Librum
Alternaeus and the Long and Lamentable Pilgrimage
Alternaeus and the Loom of Longing
Alternaeus and the Maiden’s Moon
Alternaeus and the Man to Come
Alternaeus and the Minstrel’s Tale
Alternaeus and the Mountain of the Magae
Alternaeus and the Pipe of Splendrous Price
Alternaeus and the Plate of Plenty
Alternaeus and the Prince’s Philologist
Alternaeus and the Quidnunc
Alternaeus and the River of Everywhere
Alternaeus and the Roman Engineer
Alternaeus and the Satyrion
Alternaeus and the Serious Syrian
Alternaeus and the Seven Spjallsangers
Alternaeus and the Son’s Last Sun
Alternaeus and the Stalwart Shire-Reeve
Alternaeus and the Surreptitious Sorcerer
Alternaeus and the Theokardia (Heart of God)
Alternaeus and the Thespian’s Thunderstone
Alternaeus and the Unchanging Thing
Alternaeus and the Unknown and Wondrous Ruins
Alternaeus and the Village Pugilist
Alternaeus and the Warrior Monk
Alternaeus and the Wightwright
Alternaeus and the Wild Woodsman
Alternaeus and the Withered Witch
Alternaeus by the High Sea
Alternaeus on the Ocean of Eternity
Echo No More
His Brandish Blade, Before and Beneath Him
Invention and the Erstwhile Industry
Salt and Cloth and Ashes
Slurry of the Norsemen
That Glass that Looked Upon Us All
That Language Long Lost to Man
The Battle of the Earnest Men
The Book, The Bell, the Candle, and the Corpse
The Cleverly Hidden Tax-Taker
The Clock of Hard and Holy Water
The Colorful Cap of the Cloistered Clergyman
The Crucifixer’s Conundrum
The Day of Lost Things
The Dog, the Owl, and the Fish of Christ
The Fall That Rose Above Itself
The Gamboller’s Gamble
The Grail of Living Waters and the Grael of the Drowned Men
The Hapless Hagiographer
The Hearthland and the Foreign Firepit
The Hospitaller’s Honor
The Insistent Incense of the Incensed Man
The Lord’s Last Avenger
The Lotus-Eater’s Lamp of Little Oil
The Lover’s Lonely Lock
The Lute that Wept When the Women Sing
The Madonna’s Terrible Tears
The Mistaken Martyr
The Mnemonic Mansion of the Mind
The Mosaic of No-Man
The Mystikal Map of the Other World
The North-African Acolyte
The Novice of Necessity
The Parchment of the Buried Pearl
The Port of Many Merciless Plagues
The Proverbial Provencial
The Rod of Earth and the Rood Above
The Ship Saved by Sedition and Circumstance
The Sirens of Sumorsǣte and the Persistent Polymath
The Skalding of the Bitter Bard
The Stars Are Distant, Our Troubles Near
The Templar’s Torment
The Theurgist and the Thamuatugist
The Tower of Intemperate Times
The Undiminished and Unbroken Staff
The Deflowered and Uncaring Spring
The Virtuous and Valiant Layman
The Wandring Ghost
The Warmth of Winter
The Wise-Man’s Secret Heart
The Wizard and His Wyrdpack
The Wizard Who Would
The Wizard’s O’erwhelming Wyrd
The Wizard’s Withy Wand
Wendel’s Wanderlust

KELBRAE AND THE KITHARIUNE

This (concept, idea) actually occurred to me as a dream this morning right before I woke. It will now go into my various novels about Iÿarlðma (the Kithariune).

To be used as a plot device.

And it will likely go into my various games and role play games (in modified form, of course) to also be used as a plot device.

KELBRAE, KELBRURAE, and KELBRAE-ILAR

Kelbrae is a certain type of secret writing used in Iÿarlðma that is usually inscribed upon parchment in Eldeven ideographic or pictographic symbols (and far more rarely in Elturgical glyphs) though theoretically it can be inscribed on almost anything. It usually consists of raised letters or symbols not unlike a pictographic form of human braille. However by running one’s hand over the Kelbraec script pictures or symbols or ideas are transmitted directly to the mind of the “reader” rather than “reading Kelbrae” being a process of touch interpretation of letter or word symbols, as with braille. Kelbrae is usually written in an open or visible script (rather than in Elturgical glyphs) though it is still Elturgical in nature and therefore only the intended recipient or reader can usually “read” or interpret it. Others who attempt to read it either envision nothing in the chamber of their mind or sometimes they receive false or confused notions of the real message contained in the script.

If the message is important enough the Kelbraec script can be written in Elturgical glyphs which are rendered invisible or camouflaged from anyone other than the intended recipient of the true message. Kelbrae constructed in this way can be usually be placed onto almost any object or item and can even be written in such a way as to fade away entirely or even to destroy or dissolve the object onto which it has been placed once it is successfully deciphered or the message successfully transmitted to the proper recipient. Kelbrae formed in this way are called Kelbrurae.

There is a final known form of Kelbrae called Kelbrae-Ilar. Kelbrae-ilar is typically constructed and written in such a way as to transmit a deception or falsehood even to the intended recipient or reader. It is designed specifically as a trick, a delusion (sometimes as an actual illusion), or as a form of trap. As a trap the Kelbrae-ilar will sometimes not only convey false information but may also confuse or erase the memory of the reader, convince the reader a false message must be true, render the reader temporally paranoid, sicken or disease the reader, curse the reader, or the message or object upon which it is written may even catch fire or explode. Ilar means, variously, to malign, a secret, to blacken, or a thorn.

AND THEN THEY ATE

“You know what I’ve always loved most about you?” she said reaching for his hand across the table. “You never judged me. You always just accepted me as I am.”

He accepted her hand, and held it gently but shook his head dubiously.

“No, my dear,” he said flatly. “You are entirely wrong on both accounts, and could not be further from the actual truth.”

She withdrew her hand in surprise, a deepening frown creasing her puzzled brow.

“What do you mean?” she said nervously.

“I mean I judged you constantly,” Steinthal said. “I still do. That is what I do. I watch people. I study people. I come to understand a person, and then I judge them. In a brutally honest fashion. I judge everyone this way, including myself. You are certainly no exception to the rule. As a matter of fact there are no exceptions to the rule.”

“Oh,” she said hollowly.

He looked at her intently, staring relentlessly into her face for a moment, and then continued.

“I am no modern man,” he said, as if reading the barometric pressure on a gauge before a storm. “I do not believe in the ‘man without judgment.’ The man without judgment is simply another term for an absolute fool. I am no fool my dear, and when it comes to judgment I attempt to do something far braver and much more vital than avoid judging people, I seek to judge them accurately and in truth.”

She looked down at her plate as if suddenly uncomfortable, or in shame. There was a long pause while she tried to think of what to say. Not knowing how to respond she whispered out loud and to herself,

“What must you think of me then?”

He nodded slightly, though she did not see it. He waited a moment to see if she would say anything else or look up but she did not.

“Since you asked I will tell you precisely what I think of you and how I have judged you,” Steinthal replied, accepting her unintended cue. “I adjudged you in this way. I never accepted you as ‘you were,’ and I will not in the future. Furthermore I judged you not for what you were, but for what I fully suspected you could be. I did not take you for how you appeared, but for how it appeared to me that you could be, if you ever decided you would. And as far as I can see, you did. And did rather well at it. Does that really surprise you?”

She looked up again and stared at Steinthal, but whether more in shock or gratitude neither was certain.

This time he offered his hand across the table.

“I like to think of myself as a very good judge of character,” he told her. “And of potential. I would not waste my time or effort with or upon anyone who did not demonstrate an aptitude for both. So, do not prove me wrong and I shall not have to judge you otherwise. And that will be more than enough for me, assuming it is enough for you.”

She looked into his eyes and could find no hint of guile, or of misdirection. He seemed perfectly sincere. And it occurred to her, maybe for the very first time, just how perfectly sincere he usually was.

She reached back across the table, took his hand, smiled, and said softly, “I think I love you.”

He gently squeezed her hand in reply.

“I am aware of that,” he said.

She kept smiling but sighed with a deep resignation.

“Though you truly can be something of a real bastard.”

“I am aware of that as well,” he said, smiling in return.

Then he dropped her hand and took up his fork. He pointed it at her.

“But how bout we eat now and save the romance for later? After all we have the entire evening, and this meal is hardly the limit of my current ambitions.”

She laughed and took up her own fork.

And then they ate.

from The Detective Steinthal

________________________________

Note: this was not the scene I had intended to write tonight, but my router blew out and that delayed me working on the other scene and since this one seemed to flow kinda nicely I just worked it instead.

THE YARDA-LEL (or SEEMING ROD)

The Yarda-lel is an antique, nearly extinct, left-over artefact from the earlier ages of the Eldeven peoples in my novel series the Kithariune. What the yarda-lel actually is and does is described below. It is based upon the design of a real device I first conceived and invented a long time ago and have attempted on various occasions to build for myself but have never perfected (because of sensing issues). I offer it here in a more perfect and perfected fictional form.

 

THE YARDA-LEL (THE SLEEPING ROD)

Yarda-lel (the “seeming rod,” or sometimes the “sleeping rod”) – an antique rod made of gray and yellow yarda wood which vibrates, heats, and hums when danger approaches. Once a fairly typical item used along the frontier among militia and frontier guardsmen (it was not uncommon for every unit or sufficient size to possess a yarda-lel, or “seeming rod”) which was typically carried by and slept with by the commander of the unit, although sometimes it was also used by the sentry on guard at any particular time. For the yarda-lel was also said to be capable of other functions now lost to time and memory. The ancient Sidhel, for example, were said to employ their yarda-lel not simply as “seeming rods” but also as encoded legates and as artefacts to secretly transmit encrypted messages. It was also not uncommon for wealthy or powerful persons who encamped along the frontier or who settled there for long periods of time to possess their own yarda-lel. Some scouts and infiltrators also carried yarda-lel, especially if they operated for long periods of time along and across the frontiers or behind enemy lines.

It was common to place the yarda-lel either under one’s head or to wrap it across one’s waist or chest or to wrap one’s legs around it as one slept in a dangerous or hostile environment. It is said the hum was transmitted through the bones of he who used the rod rather than being heard by the ear. Some legends persist that the yarda-lel could even interrupt and awaken one from dreams and very deep sleep. Possibly even a drugged slumber.

In time, as the frontier was tamed and fewer and fewer overt threats faced the Eldeven folk the crafting and use of the yarda-lel faded. It is said that few, if any, now remember even how to make such a rod.

However antique examples of yarda-lel, even functional ones, still exist as old heirlooms.

Note on translation: the Eldevens, and the Sidhelic peoples in particular, used the term “seeming” in a way that we no longer do, and in a way not known to men. The precise definition of the yarda-lel is the “rod of yarda wood,” but the underlying connotation is that the rod is both seemly and seeming. Seemly in the sense of being proper and of functioning properly (not to be doubted, but rather to be investigated), and seeming in the sense of both appearing to see through deceptions or to anticipate danger, and seeming as in appearing to be one thing (a simple rod of yarda wood) and actually being many things or many hidden things. A transported or polymorphic sort of seeming. They also meant seeming as in the sense of seeming (for a period of time) to give to another those properties they do not by nature possess.

More rarely yarda-lel could actually be translated as sleeping rod or even dream-seeming rod.

ONE WORLD, OR BOTH

I have a question to ask my readers. Something I’d like to ask your opinion and advice on.

I have been working a series of three novels now for awhile. I keep going back and forth on how to best arrange the overall story-line and plot. The tale takes place on two different worlds. Worlds which are separate and distinct, but ultimately related. One of those worlds is our world, circa 800 AD (in the Byzantine Empire, northern Africa, and the Middle East), and the other is another world, at about the same time period (though they reckon time differently).

Without becoming overly complicated in my request my question to you is this:

As a reader would you prefer the first book to take place in only one world (our world for instance,) and the second book to primarily take place in the other world, (the third book will move back and forth between these two worlds), or would you prefer the story to move back and forth freely between both worlds in all three books?

I have been going back and forth on which idea would be better as a story arrangement and plot device. And have still reached no definitive conclusion.

So to you, as a reader, which would you find more pleasing and interesting as a story form or manner of progression – One World at a Time, or freely skipping from One World to the Other in all three books?

By the way here is a link to some of the posts I have made about this book series – The Kithariune

 

WHAT ABOUT HER?

“And what about her? I mean, I know we’ve got him, but what about her?” asked Maugham. “Isn’t she too clever and too important to touch?”

Steinthal looked at him as if trying to search his friend’s mind for sincerity, or the lack thereof.

“I thought you would have known better by now,” he said.

“Know better than what?” said Maugham.

Steinthal bent over and picked up something from the ground, pocketed it, then turned back to Maugham.

“Everyone thinks they are too big to touch. Everyone thinks they are too tough to touch. Everyone thinks they are too clever to touch. Everyone thinks they are too important to touch,” he replied. “No one ever is.”

“Are you sure about that?” said Maugham.

“Absolutely certain,” said Steinthal.

“Because some people are awful hard to get at,” countered Maugham.

Steinthal narrowed his eyes.

“If you know what you’re doing then no one is really hard to get at. It’s just an urban myth to think otherwise.”

“Good,” said Maugham. “That’s my thinking too. But I just wanted to hear you say it out loud.”

Steinthal looked at him quizzically.

“Why is that?” he asked.

“Because when you say things out loud with that look on your face shit actually starts to happen,” said Maugham. “And I’m about ready for this shit to happen. I’m through waiting. Sure enough.”

Steinthal looked hard at his friend for a long moment, as if weighing him in his mind for a prizefight.
“Alright then,” said Steinthal. “Let’s make some shit happen.”

“Yeah,” said Maugham. “How bout we do that.”

And they both turned and headed back to town.

from The Detective Steinthal

YEAH, SO EXACTLY HOW DO YOU DO THAT?

YEAH, SO EXACTLY HOW DO YOU DO THAT?

“It’s a question of precisely what is the most ethical possible practice,” Termkin said, apparently annoyed by Steinthal’s relentless and unswerving line of inquiry.

Steinthal stared at him intently, but unreadably.

“Is it?” asked Steinthal.

Termkin seemed puzzled by the question.

“What do you mean?” Termkin said.

“See,” said Steinthal twirling the brim of his hat in his hand, “that’s where I think we both know you’re wrong.”

Termkin furrowed his brow, his expression a mixture of ongoing annoyance and a genuine struggle to understand.

“I still don’t perceive your exact meaning?”

“No, I don’t think you do,” said Steinthal. “And I really didn’t expect that you could. But let me simplify the matter for you. You see I have this theory that everything is always really about morality. And that ethics is just something that lawyers and other no count types like you employ as a cheap legal substitute.”

Termkin seemed to follow Steinthal’s explanation at a slightly slower pace than it had been enunciated. But when he finally caught up he suddenly flushed red and showed his ire.

“Why you smart mouthed son of a bitch!”

Steinthal laughed good humoredly.

“Probably,” he said. “But I noticed you didn’t bother to refute me.”

Termkin mulled on that for a moment before his snappy comeback finally came to him.

“Oh yeah, well exactly how is one supposed to refute you smartass types?” Termkin demanded. “You think you’re always right.”

Steinthal stood up and put his hat on his head. He smiled to himself as if Termkin wasn’t even in the room though he was still staring right at him.

“See, that’s the part about this whole thing that’s easiest to resolve,” said Steinthal. “We are always right. Even when no one else knows it yet. Like you. As for the thinking part, well now, if you ever really bothered with that then I presume you could figure it out for yourself.”

Steinthal tipped his hat at Termkin in a peculiar gesture. “But I’m not gonna lay real money on it.”

Steinthal walked across the room, opened the door and then looked back at Termkin.

“I’d like to say it was nice to meet you Termkin. But, we met anyway. So at least we’ll always have that.”

The he left.

Still full of questions, but certain he finally crossed the right man.

______________________________________________

A bit of dialogue involving my Detective Character Steinthal. I didn’t really get a chance to do a Tuesday’s Tale this week. Too busy. So I’m posting this today instead.

My youngest daughter read it and I asked her what she thought of it and she said, “Dad, Steinthal talks pretty much just like you.”

Which made me laugh.

“Yeah, funny how that works, ain’t it?” I told her…

HIGH AND LOW FORTUNE – HAMMER, TONG, AND TOOLS

HIGH AND LOW FORTUNE

“You ask me how I know this and I can only tell you what I’ve seen.

High Fortune came upon me like a silent serpent, slithering from behind in such a stealthy manner as to conceal his true intent and to scarcely warrant my attention.

Low Fortune approached me like a titled lord, resplendent all in showy pomp and decorative circumstance, attired in the lofty regalia of finely whispered shadows spun from venomous spider silks.

Low Fortune is, you see my friend, the King of Seeming and the Prince of Cunning Craft yet I advise you eschew his long seducing and ever seductive company. For his court is all fantastic façade and fraudulent fashion and his manner and his manor are both estates of ruin.

High Fortune, on the other hand, wears no glittered crown of kingship nor rankish robes of high office nor encrusted jewels of state, he is as plain of face, as rough-built by effort, and as quiet in nature as if stable bred. Yet if on turning round by chance or calculation you find him standing nearby then reach out your hand quickly and grasp him in so firm a hold that he cannot escape, and never let him go until he promises to bless you as his friend.

Leave Low Fortune, brother, where he dwells, even if he home in temple renown or palace grand, for he is the sure slum-lord of soon-to-be sad misdeeds and the master of all unenviable fools.

Instead set your watch and wait patiently for High Fortune, for one day he will approach you in sly disguise, silent and unannounced, to see what can be made of you if you will ever dare. For he is your steadfast, stalwart, and subtle Friend and the Maker of that Fortune you truly seek.

Low Fortune churns like stormy waves, he ebbs and flows and never settles ought. High Fortune stands alone and trembles not, he shelters and secures all Men of Enterprise.”

from the Kithariune  (link)

________________________________________________

Since the beginning of this year I have been in one of the most productive periods/phases of my entire life as far as the creation of poems, songs, short stories, novels, scripts, and other literary works are concerned. I have recently produced hundreds of pages of new works.

 

Above is a section of my novel series the Kithariune. In this passage the Welsh Bard Larmaegeon is trying to explain the difference(s) between High and Low Fortune to his friend and companion, the Spanish Paladin Edimios. And why he should wait upon the one and avoid the other.

 

Anyone is welcome to comment upon it, of course.

CROSSING OVER – HIGHMOOT

CROSS OVER WORK

Lately I have been doing a lot of what I call Cross-Over Work.

In this case I mean by saying that I have been doing a lot of work that cross-fertilizes itself in other works I am simultaneously creating. For instance I might be writing one novel and a particular scene or bit of dialogue I create will inspire another scene or piece of dialogue in another book or novel I am working on.

Though such things are not necessarily related to or limited to my various fiction writings. I might be drawing a map or making a sketch, designing something, working on a start-up project, developing an invention, writing a poem or song lyrics, or writing a novel or a non-fiction book and all of these things, or others, might give me an idea for another work I’m currently pursuing.

So today, and below (and in allusion to my previous post on actors), I am posting some of my latest Cross-Over Work. Little vignettes, or to be more accurate, often just little snippets (bits of dialogue, sections of scenes, sketch notes, etc.) of various Works I am creating and pursuing at this time.

Does your Work cross over in this way, from one work to another?

If so then feel free to comment below.

___________________________________________

 

NOT A FAIR FIGHT

“Again I don’t get it. Take one shot at your actual target and three at yourself… don’t seem like much of a fair fight to me.”

From my Western The Lettered Men

 

A CLUE

“Not every possibility is true, that’s certainly true, but every possibility is always a clue – to something other than itself. If you keep forgetting that then it’s very possible the Truth will entirely escape you. And if it does then what other possibilities really matter?”

From The Detective Steinthal

 

TRUE DARKNESS

“True darkness obscures. Few things can thrive in perpetual shade but those things that can definitely always wish to remain hidden. That is, until they are ready to be discovered. For reasons of their own.”

From The Detective Steinthal

 

ALWAYS BEST

“It is always best to hunt in silence.”

The Detective Steinthal

 

YOUR TRAINING IS OVER

“What are you training for kid? To train forever? Now who wants that kinda shit anyway? Only officers and politicians, that’s who. No, you get your ass in the fight. You’ve trained long enough. Time to be somebody.”

From Snyder’s Spiders

 

IT BLEEDS

“And how now is your wound?”

“It itches fiercely, it hurts mightily, it swells darkly, but it bleeds freely and cleanly. It is good that it bleeds so and thus I will not complain of the other things. But if you have any more of that strange brew you drink then I will not complain of a skin full of that either.”

“I have not a skin, but I can manage a cup.”

“Then so can I…”

Suegenius describing to Fhe Fhissegrim the condition of his wound

From my fantasy The Kithariune (The Basilegate)

 

A RARE AND WONDROUS FEAT

“If you cannot stand up to your own old man then you will never stand up to anyone. If you can stand up to your own old man then you can stand up to anyone else, and everyone else.

If your old man ever forces you to rebel against him then do not hate him for it, respect him for it. He has done more for you in that regard, as regards the development of your actual manhood, than any other thing anyone else could ever do for you in the world. That man who forces his son into rebellion has bred a man. You owe such a father an enormous and generous debt.

That father who always insists his son obey him, right or wrong, has bred a mere and helpless and fearful slave. You owe that father your utter disdain and yourself nothing but shame for your own endless submission.

Drink to your father Edomios. Drink long and deep. He has bred a man in you. A man who can stand upright and unafraid. A rare and wondrous feat in our age.

Maybe in any age.”

Marsippius Nicea the Byzantine Commander of the Basilegate explaining to Edomios the Spanish Paladin why he owes his father a debt of manhood

From The Kithariune

 

THAT WAY YOU SPEAK

When Michael first lands in Thaumaturgis he is met by Harmonius Hippostatic
who makes fun of the way he speaks and tries to explain to Michael where he is, and what life is like in the Lands. Michael does not at first speak in verse, but speaks in prose, but as he stays longer and longer in the land of Thaumaturgis he also comes to speak in metered, rhyming verse.

Harmonius: That way you speak, it’s quite a feat
But it will never do,
No meter, rhyme or rhythm,
It’s really quite obtuse.

Michael: Where am I?

Harmonius: Why this is Thaumaturgis,
Don’t you know your lands?
It’s one of the three countries,
Not earth, not stone, not sand.
No one’s ever figured
How it got this way
Tomorrow is the same as now
It’s always been that way.
If want you life miraculous
Or supernatural,
It’s really quite so marvelous
And never, ever dull.
But one thing in this country
You really must avoid
Speaking words in plain old prose
Is what will most annoy,
So put on your best rhyming
Your metered rhythm too
Don’t dally up a worthwhile speech
Without so much ado,
Be mannered in your speaking
Poetic when you talk
Or everyone will soon declare
Your words taste just like chalk

From my children’s book, Three Lands

NOTHING EVER CHANGES – TUESDAY’S TALE

NOTHING EVER CHANGES

“Yeah,” he said. “So I’ve heard tell.”

Maugham sighed, then leaned over with a groan and put his head in his in hands for awhile. He rubbed the top of his head slowly as if to somehow comfort his own mind. But it didn’t seem to work.

When he lifted his head back up he looked at Steinthal.

“Do you think it will ever change?”

Steinthal looked at him and then shrugged wearily.

“I suppose that’s entirely up to the people involved. I only know one thing for sure… and even that’s not much…” and then he fell silent.

Maugham waited but when Steinthal said nothing else he just stood back up. It was obvious he was hurt though, so Stenithal moved over and put his arm under his friend’s and around his back and helped him start to walk again.

“What’s the one thing by the way?” Maugham asked as the men made their way torturously out of the ruined building.

“Oh that,” said Stenthal, as if he had just assumed his friend already knew. “Nothing ever changes much when no one ever much changes.”

So they made their way back to the river, dripping sweat, shedding blood, grunting in pain, and limping as they went.

from The Detective Steinthal

PACKAGES, SAMPLES, AND STOCKWORK – HIGHMOOT

Going to attend an author’s conference and seminar tomorrow.

Already have my packages, seminar samples, and stockwork prepared and in order for presentation…

KAL-KITHARIUNE – THOUGHTS ON THE END

KAL-KITHARIUNE

I finally have the ultimate titles for my set of mythic/high-fantasy novels. They shall be called Kal-Kithariune (Or, The Fall of Kitharia). Originally the series was to be called The Other World but I was never really pleased with that. It was only a preliminary and place-holder title anyway.

The Kal-Kithariune shall link back to another myth/history or time epoch called the Kol-Kithariad (or the Rebirth or the Establishment of Kitharia). I have not really decided if the Kithariad will refer to a period of time 300 years prior to the Kithariune (when Kitharia undergoes a Rebirth or Renaissance) or to a period 3000 years prior when Kitharia is first established and founded.

Ideally I’d like to work it out so that the Kithariad refers to the Rebirth of Kitharia, 300 years before its Fall, but realistically I’m having real trouble making that fit and so it may have to refer to the Founding. It may be better to use the Founding as the other reference point anyway, to contrast the Genesis with the Armageddon and End. But I’d prefer the Rebirth. Though that might be impossible.

Kitharia is a both an analogy and a metaphor for America. And all of the Eldeven lands for the West even though the events take place in what would in our world be The Orient (near our Real World Samarkand).

The individual novels in the series will be entitled:

The Basilegate (The Emperor’s Legate)
The Caerkara (The Expeditionary Force)
The Wyrding Road
The Other World (or perhaps Lurial and Iÿarlðma)

The novels will be a tetralogy. Now that I finally have all of the titles, know the plots and endings of all four books, have the languages developed, many of the poems and songs written, some of the maps and illustrations drawn, have hundreds of entries in my Plot Machine and thousands of notes, and about 200 pages of the each of the first two books written I suspect I can complete the entire tetralogy in under 2 years.

This is by far the very most complicated thing I have ever constructed (to date), at least as far as writing goes and that includes a couple of epic poems I’ve written. I first conceived it in 2007 as a single book and I’m sure I have thousands and thousands of hours sunk into it since then. Despite my other workloads.

Eventually I plan to write a set of children’s short stories connected to it and to at least plan out or begin the Kithariad though that will likely have to be passed on to others.

Before I start either of those though I just want to complete the Kithariune and then move on to my other novels, such as my sci-fi series The Curae (which will be every bit as big as the Kithariune), my detective novels, and my Frontiers novels, such as The Regulator and the Lettermen. And I want to complete my literary novels such as Modern Man and The Cache of Saint Andrew. Plus I want to finish my epic poem America. And I want to write some scripts. Not just TV scripts but movie scripts. So once I finish the Kithariune it may be a long while before I return to myth and fantasy, such as after my “retirement” (though I don’t plan to ever really retire).

I have however learned much by writing the Kithariune. I now know exactly how to plot out both long, complex novels and series, and much simpler single books. So the learning and research and study period was worth it alone in that respect. And it should both add to the richness of the Kithariune and to all of the other novels I write thereafter.

THE YEAR OF CHARACTER

I’m sitting here tonight (last night actually) working on the major characters that will be a part of my fictional book and novel series. I’ve spent much of the past week doing the same.

One invaluable thing I learned from James Patterson’s Master Class on commercial fiction is the importance of ongoing, serialized characters that others adore. I’ve known this intellectually for a long time based on my own reading history both as a youth and throughout my life (John Carter, Tarzan, Spock, Jesse Stone, Sherlock Holmes, Doc Savage, Batman, etc.) but looking back on my fiction writings I’ve realized that it hasn’t really sunken in until now. It had sunken into my mind long ago, but not into my soul. Not until now however. But now, finally, I am fully getting it.

I’ve always been a “Story-First” kind of guy and looking back upon it all I suspect I very much now know why. I was trained and self-trained to write stories through D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) and through game writing in general and D&D was indeed the very most excellent practice and training for story-development. But because I so rarely played and was almost always the DM or GM (Dungeon or Game Master) and was always the one creating worlds and writing the stories I never concentrated much at all upon “Character Development.”

That is to say I always let my players develop and run their characters with as little possible interference from me as I could ever get away with. Therefore almost all character development was in their hands and I become STORY AND PLOT AND WORLD FIRST and in many senses, I just habitually adopted the idea of STORY ONLY. Character-Work was for them, I was the World Man.

Not that I couldn’t write or develop characters, I did have several characters of my own I played and I developed some very complex Non-Player Characters (NPCs) but that kind of thing happened rather rarely compared to my World Building and plot and background elements development and so Character Development became a secondary and almost a background issue to me as a fiction writer and story teller. I realize now that I have for most of my life had this sort of subconscious psychological habit of developing stories in complex detail but sort of letting Character Development handle itself in a laissez-faire fashion when I did not outright ignore the issue.

But now that I realize this fault and oversight in my own writings, and the way I go about writing, I have decided that for me this will be the Year of the Characters. This year Characters and Serialized Characters become equally important to me as Story and Plot and World Building.

This is to be my Year of Character, and the genesis of the development of the Great Characters of my Fiction Writing Career.

This year I build Men and Characters and not just Worlds.

Linear Progression or Scene-By-Scene?

So in writing the Old Man for NaNoWriMo this year I had carefully planned how each section (since the novel is divided into four or possible five long short story sections) would go and how each event in each section would proceed. In a linear, chronological progression. That is how I actually intended to write the book. I’m at over 10,000 words so far and have not written anything in linear progression so far, even though that was my original intent.

In truth though I find that most all of the fiction I write – short stories, novellas, novels, etc. always end up being written scene-by-scene, as they occur to me, and then later have to be stitched together in chronological order. The one exception to that being children’s stories (for very young children, not YA – those I also tend to write scene by scene) which, like poems and songs or the music I compose I tend to write in chronological order or by linear progression.

If it’s a longer work however, like those I listed above, then I always end up writing it scene by scene as the scenes occur to me in my imagination. No matter how hard I try or what I plan or how carefully I outline the book in my imagination it always comes out being written scene-by-scene, or in the case of non-fiction, subject by subject.

Apparently this is simply the way my mind works in constructing long, complex stories. It used to bother me, that I found it so difficult to write a novel or long story chronologically, now it doesn’t, but it has always made me wonder, how many other people approach writing novels in this way?

So I ask you. How about you?

Do you tend to write novels and long stories in chronological sequence, or poco-a-poco, and scene-by-scene?

How does your mind work when writing such books?

Do you find any advantages in either method? Do you find either method nearly impossible because of the way your mind or imagination functions?

Or is there some other method or technique of construction you use other than the two I described above that I haven’t thought of?

CURRENT WORD COUNT: 5056

My current Word Count on my NNWM novel the Old Man is now 5056.

Here is my Summary Page: The Old Man

By the way I am looking for a good Agent(s) to represent my fictional and non-fictional writings, my poetry, and perhaps even my songs in the near future.

To all of the other participants in NaNoWriMo I hope you are doing well, good luck, and Godspeed with your novels.

FIRST WORD COUNT 2373 +

AN ACCOUNTING SO FAR AND A BIT OF ADVICE FOR NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH

My Word Count output for the first day of NaNoWriMo 2015 and my novel The Old Man was 2373 words plus (I lost count after that because I wrote another scene right before bed). Today, since it is raining so hard and I can’t go help my daughter look for a new car, I plan to have an output of 3000 or more words.

I have also been using the Writing Tools I received in my NNWM writing packet along with my own Tools.

This morning I wrote what I thought was a superb introduction and set of first lines for the science-fiction part of the novel. But I still have a lot of work to do today.

Rather than in order or in linear or chronological progression I seem to be writing the book out in independent scene-sections as they occur to me. Which I’m assuming my mind will knit together in proper order later on.

I am very much enjoying working “sans editing” or by avoiding the editing altogether process as I go. This has made the writing process itself much, much easier. And this may be a better and faster way for me to write in the future, though it takes some mental effort on my part for me to get used to. Old habits die hard.

Also I am not typing anything myself but rather producing the manuscript in long-hand at my kitchen table or in bed. The way I used to write as a kid. Before I got my first typewriter in High School or my first personal computer. I very much recommend this (recently rediscovered) method. It not only produces a superior thought and plot flow, it is much more psychically comfortable than typing or dictating at my computer or office chair, both of which I detest.

Plus as I go back to hand-writing I am once again becoming very quick at it.

Tomorrow I plan to conduct a test to see how quick I am at both methods, composing at my computer, and at hand writing. I suspect I am faster at hand-writing. Certainly I enjoy it more and it is far easier to write in that way.

THE OLD MAN BEGINS…

I’ve cleared my entire calendar for November in order to write my novel for National Novel Writing Month. Aside from some type of emergency, and I don’t anticipate one (though you never really do, do ya?), writing my novel will be my chief priority this month.

So my blogging and other social media efforts will likely lag as a result. So will every other non-essential pursuit as the novel will be my Essential Activity for November. Fortunately I anticipate a very quiet month which will allow me the opportunity to write completely without distraction.

I’ve decided to go with THE OLD MAN as my chosen novel.

I intend to produce between 1500 and 5000 words per day, depending upon the day and the way the story proceeds and progresses. I already have much of the plot, all of the sections, and a few of the scenes sketched out.

Because of my broken wrist I will be writing the novel out in long hand on long notepads and my daughter will be typing it for me. I begin as soon as I’ve had breakfast and I walk Sam (my Great Dane) as it’s been raining this morning and prevented an earlier walk.

Congratulations to all of those pursuing writing their novel this month.

Good Fortune and Godspeed.

See you at the end of the month if not sooner…

WHICH NOVEL WOULD YOU PREFER?

This year I have decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month. And this year I have several good ideas for a potential novel I’d like to write for NaNoWriMo.

However I am trying to solicit the opinions of others on which idea and novel they’d prefer to read. Of the three novel ideas/plots I’ve I’d like to write for this November and that I have personally shown to family and friends so far I have the following results:

13 votes for The Old Man

10 votes for The Cache of Saint Andrew, and

4 votes for The Wonder Webs (all have been kid votes)

So I’d like to ask you, as my readers and internet friends, which novel story would you prefer to read: The Old Man, The Cache of Saint Andrew, or The Wonder Webs?

Right now I’m leaning towards The Old Man but still have a couple of days or so to finally decide. So if you wish to voice your opinion then just let me know. If you want to tell me your reasons that would be appreciated as well.

 

The Old Man – The Old Man is a mixed genre novel/novella consisting of three or four related stories about the same character set in different eras and story genres. In the story the child or children of a deceased man discover some old and unknown recordings which reveal their father in a totally different light and engaged in a fantastic set of secret lives. One section of the book will involve the science fiction genre, another the fantasy genre, another the detective/espionage genre, and the fourth the horror/weird genre. Despite the complexity of the story and the various genres it should be very easy to research and plot.

The Cache of Saint Andrew – The Cache of Saint Andrew is a literary genre novel involving a white man who marries a black woman. Although I did eventually marry a black woman the book is not autobiographical because I first had the idea for the novel in college and began writing it in college and I didn’t marry until I turned thirty, and at the time I began the book didn’t ever expect to marry. The story involves an older established, fairly wealthy white man who marries a younger (college student aged) black woman. The book describes their courtship, marriage, and the things that eventually dissolve their marriage, such as the loss of their first child shortly after childbirth. The novel is called the Cache of Saint Andrew because of the fact that the man, for years, plants secret messages inside the cache of a grave marker at the Orthodox Church of Saint Andrew in North Carolina. The Cache of Saint Andrew is actually the third book I ever started writing and the first one I started writing as an adult, but I put it aside to start my first business. I have replotted it many times but never actually finished it. It will require fairly complex plotting although I already have the main story well sketched out.

Wonder Webs – The Wonder Webs is a young adult book I first started plotting out a couple of years ago in a writing class. It involves a fictional city, park, and zoo based upon Greenville, SC. It involves three main characters, two boys and a girl of late Middle School/early High School age. It also involves a secret “underground world” in which dwell three magical/supernatural spiders who are capable of building “Wonder Webs” or webs that help miracles occur. This book will be very complex to plot because of the characters involved but especially because of the complicated background/world involved, which is multi-faceted.

 

 

 

 

 

THE DANGER DROIDS AND THE MURDER MACHINES – BOOKENDS

THE DANGER DROIDS and THE MURDER MACHINES

Due to a recent internet conversation on constructs I’ve decided to write a new series of short stories to add to my science fiction universe that will involve androids, drones, and robots whose primary function and programming is to provide protection to clients or organizations. Or even to protect specific areas/locales/geographic points.

These “danger droids” are designed to “sense danger” and respond by warning away potential threats. If the warnings or interferences fail, or are repeatedly ignored, then the Danger Droids are designed to respond in a defense pattern of three escalating steps: Disable, Cripple, and eventually, to Kill (or DCK).

If disable fails then crippling is applied and if the threat continues thereafter then the Danger Droid will kill the threat.

The story will center around the activities and experiences of these danger droids and how others attempt to overcome and thwart them and how the droids themselves adapt to these new threats and methods of attack.

Another set of stories, running parallel to those concerning the Danger Droids will involve the so-called “Murder Machines.” These are simply machines designed to exploit security lapses or human/target weaknesses and destroy/murder specific targets without being traceable. However if the machines are somehow located and trapped they are also designed to destroy themselves so as to make it very difficult to analyze and track evidence regarding who actually employed the “murder machine.”

In some ways the murder machines will be the exact opposites of, (although none of the machines or droids are actually alive) and the mechanical Nemeses of, the Danger Droids.

So much so that eventually people begin using the Danger Droids in an attempt to thwart and even anticipate the Murder Machines, destroying them before they can strike.

Of course in the stories these devices will not be called Danger Droids or Murder Machines, those are dumb and simple-minded appellations. Although they may, from time to time, be referred to Danger Droids and Murder Machines in a colloquial or slang fashion. No, I will devise basic and appropriate scientific terminology for these artefacts as my science fiction universe tends to be “hard and mundane science” in nature, and these stories will be no different.

20 NOVEL STORYBOARDS TO FOLLOW

20 NOVEL STORYBOARDS YOU SHOULD BE FOLLOWING

August 22, 2015 by athenamarie 9 Comments

Ah, Pinterest, you are both the bane and joy of writers the world over. On one hand we can use Pinterest to create stunning visual representations of the world we are creating with our words. On the other hand, we can distract ourselves for hours at a time in the endless sea of images.

But to me the price is worth it. There’s nothing I love more than creating storyboards for my novels. It’s in integral part of my creative process.

I also love following other writer’s on Pinterest, and glimpsing into the worlds they have created. Not only do other author’s boards inspire me and spark ideas, but I often find the perfect image on another writer’s board. (After hours of using the Pinterest search option to no avail.) We writer’s think in the same dramatic way. We’re drawn to the same types of photographs.

So I decided to compile a list of some of my favorite Pinterest storyboards. All of these are beautiful and inspiring. I’m mostly drawn to the historical, romantic, and dramatic, so that’s what most of these boards represent.

While you’re here please leave a link to your book’s storyboard in the comments!

Don’t have a novel storyboard?

No worries, these boards will be all the inspiration you need.

https://www.pinterest.com/bonaventier/the-good-adventurers-storyboard/

https://www.pinterest.com/justlaina/faith-storyboard/

https://www.pinterest.com/highlyblissed/novel-the-mists-of-bellicent-bay/

https://www.pinterest.com/liathaven/storyboard-revenant/

https://www.pinterest.com/rhpottery/storyboard-raven-hill/

https://www.pinterest.com/jasmoon/storyboard-calageata-ii/

https://www.pinterest.com/liathaven/storyboard-the-ones-who-leave/

 https://www.pinterest.com/greywintersong/storyboard-last-summer/

http://www.pinterest.com/highlyblissed/dharma-and-desire-my-novel/

https://www.pinterest.com/rhpottery/storyboard-emily-rose/

http://www.pinterest.com/brennach/storyboard-chief-king/

http://www.pinterest.com/nessacakes52/novel-storyboard-untitled/

https://www.pinterest.com/Lilyjenness/storyboard-noxumbra-manor/

https://www.pinterest.com/moraduial/storyboard-last-ones-standing/

https://www.pinterest.com/jasmoon/storyboard-the-butterfly-bridge-inspiring-imagery/

https://www.pinterest.com/bethgadar/novel-noir/

https://www.pinterest.com/ninthmoriarty/storyboard-kingmaker-ap/

https://www.pinterest.com/sarahallstein/storyboard-the-wanderers/

https://www.pinterest.com/fullnessofjoy16/the-crown-of-life-storyboard/

 

ACCIDENTS AND HAPPENSTANCE

“So, you think I lived this long purely by accident and happenstance, do ya?” Steinthal said, more statement than question.

He thought about that a moment.

“Well then, since you’re the Detective and have already figured it all out, enlighten me. How did you live this long?” he asked.

“I’ve lived this long because I give only one warning and take only one warning. I suppose this qualifies as your one warning,” Steinthal replied.

“Maybe,” he said looking up at Steinthal and smiling, “but just out of curiosity, what comes after your warning?” he asked.

“Who says I’m giving you a warning? I almost never give warnings. The next time you see me, trust me, you won’t.” And Steinthal didn’t smile.

The Detective Steinthal

 

 

PUBLISHING YOUR BOOK – BOOKENDS

Book Publishing Secrets with S.W. O’Connell, Author of ‘The Cavalier Spy’

Name: S. W. O’Connell

Book Title: The Cavalier Spy

Genre: historical fiction

Publisher: Twilight Times Books

Thank you for your time in answering our questions about getting published.  Let’s begin by having you explain to us why you decided to become an author and pen this book?

SW: I had once published a magazine, called Living History. With each issue I wrote a publisher’s letter and often “ghost” wrote a few articles. I found over time that I preferred the writing to the publishing. After the magazine went out of circulation, I decided that I would get to the writing I liked via my favorite reading genre – the historical novel. I grew up reading Thomas B. Costain, James A. Michener, Leon Uris, Wilbur Smith, and C.S. Forrester. Later on, I read many of Bernard Cornwell’s books. I learned a lot about history from those writers. Yet the stories entertained.

Is this your first book?

SW: No, The Cavalier Spy is the second in the Revolutionary War action and espionage series I call Yankee Doodle Spies. I know the name is a bit “kitschy,” but I like it. I plan on eventually writing eight books in the series.

With this particular book, how did you publish – traditional, small press, Indie, etc. – and why did you choose this method?

SW: I went with a small trade publisher, a small press called Twilight Times Books. A friend, the late Lee McCaslin, referred me to Twilight Times Books. He was a published author himself and was looking for a new publisher for his second non-fiction book. When he learned Twilight Times Books published mainly fiction, he referred me and I was accepted and given a contract for the first three books in the Yankee Doodle Spies series.

Can you tell us a little about your publishing journey?  The pros and cons?

SW: Well, I did all the usual things. After my first manuscript was done, I went on line to search for an agent. I also met with Dave Meadows and Michael O. Varhola, both published authors. Dave has written several naval espionage novels. Michael writes popular history, travel and ghost haunting books. They provided me lots of insight and encouragement. Lee McCaslkin did as well. But most of our dealings were by phone and email. I actually wrote a chapter in his book, Secrets of the Cold War. Then began the long and frustrating search for a literary agent. Mostly by luck (or unluck) I found two and had contracts with them. They provided feedback on my writing but it was a bit of drag and die. I would get some generalized comments. After I would address them and resubmit, I’d get more (different) generalized comments. It was clear different folks were reading these, as occasionally the comments clashed. In any case, I never was submitted to a publisher. In one case I was dropped. In the other, I did the dropping. These were not paid agents but fairly renowned New York agencies. I’d rate the experience as extremely frustrating, not to mention nerve grinding, but I did learn from it.

What lessons do you feel you learned about your particular publishing journey and about the publishing industry as a whole?

SW: The most important thing I learned was to park my ego at the door. When you are writing, you have complete control of the world you are presenting. But once you get into the publishing phase, the situation sort of reverses. Editors and publishers now have a legitimate right to comment and suggest changing things. You have to trust them. And you have to let go of a part of the creative process. The author creates a work of literature for people to read. The editor and publisher have to turn it into a product for people to buy. The kind of fiction I write doesn’t really fit the cookie cutter mold.

Would you recommend this method of publishing to other authors?

SW: Yes, I would. I find the publisher accessible and well versed in all aspects of the business. And this publisher supports its writers.

What’s the best advice you can give to aspiring authors?

SW: I’ll say that there are a whole bunch of folks who will shut you down. For them, your work is a business decision.  This is especially true of some f the agencies. I’d say – find your style… your voice, and hone it. But don’t try to change it. I’d also say be very patient…. And keep writing!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

S.W. O’Connell is the author of the Yankee Doodle Spies series of action and espionage novels set during the American Revolutionary War. The author is a retired Army officer with over twenty years of experience in a variety of intelligence-related assignments around the world. He is long time student of history and lover of the historical novel genre. So it was no surprise that he turned to that genre when he decided to write back in 2009. He lives in Virginia.

////////////////////////////////////

Title: The Cavalier Spy

Genre: Historical

Author: S. W. O’Connell

Website: www.yankeedoodlespies.com

Publisher: Twilight Times Books

Purchase link: http://www.twilighttimesbooks.com/TheCavalierSpy_ch1.html

Amazon / OmniLit 

About the Book:

1776: His army clinging to New York by a thread, a desperate General George Washington sends Lieutenant Jeremiah Creed behind British lines once more. But even the audacity of Creed and his band of spies cannot stop the British juggernaut from driving the Americans from New York, and chasing them across New Jersey in a blitzkrieg fashion. Realizing the imminent loss of one of the new nation’s most important states to the enemy, Washington sends Creed into the war-torn Hackensack Valley. His mission: recruit and train a gang of rogues to work behind British lines.

However, his mission takes a strange twist when the British high command plots to kidnap a senior American officer and a mysterious young woman comes between Creed and his plans. The British drive Washington’s army across the Delaware. The new nation faces its darkest moment. But Washington plans a surprise return led by young Creed, who must strike into hostile land so that Washington can rally his army for an audacious gamble that could win, or lose, the war.

“More than a great spy story… it is about leadership and courage in the face of adversity…The Cavalier Spy is the story of America’s first army and the few… those officers and soldiers who gave their all to a cause that was seemingly lost…”

~ Les Brownlee, former Acting Secretary of the Army and retired Army Colonel

“Secret meetings, skirmishes and scorching battles… The Cavalier Spy takes the reader through America’s darkest times and greatest triumphs thanks to its powerful array of fictional and historical characters… this book shows that courage, leadership and audacity are the key elements in war…”

~ F. William Smullen, Director of National Security Studies at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School and Author of Ways and Means for Managing UP

– See more at: http://publishingsecretsofauthors.blogspot.be/2015/09/book-publishing-secrets-with-sw.html#sthash.RvabPHmv.dpuf

HIGH ILLUSION from THE BASILEGATE

Alatha moved towards Marsippius as he rose. He was naked in the firelight.

When she reached him she examined him closely. Then she took her finger and began to lightly trace some of the many imperfections in his flesh.

“You have been often wounded?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?” she questioned.

“Duty,” he replied wearily. “Duty and manhood.”

“It is manhood to be often wounded?”

“In part,” he said flatly. “Any man without scars is no man at all.”

She stared into his eyes. They were dark like hers. Deep Greek eyes, full of inquiry. Proud Roman eyes, full of purpose. But to him her eyes were inscrutable.

“Perhaps,” she said quietly, “a man should be more than his scars.”

He reached up and took her hand, the finger of which still lingered upon the long jagged white line of an old wound on his chest. The wound of a much younger man.

“Perhaps,” Marsippius replied, “you are very wise among your kind.”

He glanced at the fire. To him the flames in the hearth seemed to burn immensely hot, yet almost entirely silent. He wondered if the fuel of this world burned differently.

When he looked back at Alatha she was once again staring deeply into his eyes. But once again he could not read her mind. He started to move forward to kiss her and then thought better of it.

She did not. Seeing his intent she moved forward and kissed him warmly upon the lips.

Then she leaned back slightly and traced her finger gently across the lips she had just kissed.

“There seem to be no scars here,” she said.

“Illusion,” he said. “There are too many to count. They are nothing but scars. So they seem untouched. Yet…” he added, seemingly almost as an afterthought, “there is room still for a few more, if you so wish.”

She laughed quietly.

“What is wish but High Illusion?” she whispered. So she pressed against him and kissed him again.

 

__________________________________________________

A scene from my novel The Basilegate.

STILL NO JOY – TUESDAY’S TALE

STILL NO JOY… BUT GETTING CLOSER

I know it’s very little to complain about, relatively speaking, but as a writer I just had the most frustrating night/morning of my life.

I went to bed about 11 to 11:30 last night, totally exhausted, and then rose again sometime not long after midnight. Ideas for my novel were running through my head, a lot of them, too many to just note on my bedside table notebook and so I went downstairs to my office and fired up my computer.

I then worked from shortly after midnight until 4 AM on nothing but the title of the novel series I am currently writing. I know exactly what each of the four books in the series will be called separately but I’ve gone through several incarnations of the title for the entire series and have never settled on anything that seems to really fit. My latest, or the Working Title for the series is The Other World or The Other Worlds, which fits to a degree, but isn’t entirely accurate or encompassing of what the books are truly about.

I ran through terms and titles after terms and title with still no joy and nothing availed. I felt like I had been awakened with a purpose but everything I thought of remained frustratingly just of reach and meaning.

At almost four o’clock I sat back in my office chair, cold, tired, and defeated. It was kinda like working a scientific experiment and everything I tried got close to a solution, but eventually all iterations failed.

Finally I looked to my left and saw my new copy of the Poetic Edda and thought to myself, of course, “I’ll use a title something like the Eddas,” suggestive, but not all encompassing or limited. Because for a very, very long time I’ve wanted to use a title like the Aeneid, or the Odyssey, which would be perfect if not for the fact that the books are not really only about one character, even Prester John. So I thought, maybe something like the Eddas?

So I began reading one of the Eddas (about Odin testing himself against the wisest giant) and a later one about Thor dressing as a Freya to recover his hammer by deception. But still nothing specific came to me.

 

At last I put the book away because I was too tired to continue, my brain simply wouldn’t function, but I was still too frustrated to give up. So I began asking God to help me title the series with the perfect title, something I’ve done before many times, but everything he seems to show me in language seems just beyond my perception. As if it is something beyond my own language.

At that point I fell into a kind of trance which was almost a blank mind, but not quite. It was like I was sleeping in darkness but all around me, in the background, I could hear voices whispering and saying things but I couldn’t quite make out the words or exactly what was being said. It was more like images trying to take on the form of words than words forming images. And they were all in the background and still hazy or shadowy. When I came out of that finally it was about 5:00 and I still had nothing specific except the suggestion that maybe I should invent the terms and title I wanted in another language, perhaps in Sidhelic or one of the other Eldeven languages.

Then I was struck by the idea that maybe there should be multiple titles for the series, each expressing a different aspect of what the books are about and each from a different viewpoint, but settle upon a single version for publication.

 

So I began developing this idea, one title each, each title being in a different language. Each title expressing a different aspect or focal point for the series. Such as a title concerning:

1. The Main Character or Person – Jhonarlk, or Prester John

2. The two (or 3 actually, though you never get to see the Third World, only hear of it) worlds involved, something along the line of the Other Worlds

3. The Weirding Roads (central to the story and implying much, much bigger things than simply a Road between worlds)

4. (The Fall of) the Vanished Eldevens – the penultimate event of the series and the seeming point of the entire tale, but not really the point of the tale

and 5. The War of…

 

Only one of these terms will be attached to the books but all of the terms will be spoken of in the books as being different histories covering the same events. And I’ll include little excerpts from these “parallel histories, “ (and I may speak briefly about their authors) each implying a different aspect or idea-set about what really happened and what the tale was really about but I’ll settle on one title for the series. Most of the histories will be in prose or in narrative form, as mine will be, but at least one will be in poetic form (probably the Lay of the Fall of the Vanished Eldevens – English translation, not the Eldeven term) and most of the poems in my series will reference that history as poetic extracts.

But I’ll not write full versions of those histories, only hint at them and include extracts from them and those versions will also have some alternate versions of the events in my book.

 

I’ve therefore, because of last night/this morning written a little author’s introduction to the series.

(The claimed author will not be me, but will be a man by the name of Wyrdlaef, a seemingly very minor character in the books who follows Larmaegeon to Constantinople and then to the Isle of Avalona and after the destruction of the Other World returns to our world and secretly writes his account of these events and hides his books in an Irish monetary which then eventually makes its way back to the Other World. )

The introduction is very rough so far but goes something like this:

“These books recount the history of the Great but Invisible Wars that took place on our world and upon the lost world of Iÿarlðma in the years of our Lord 797 to 835. At that time an ancient and noble but since vanished people fought alongside Man for the fate of the Earth and Heavens and the preservation of their own kingdoms. Great these people were but of what their true nature, like that of man, a created being, or like the very angels in flesh, or like some entirely other thing I still cannot tell, though I lived among them for a long time. Five accounts there were of these events, that I know of, but to my knowledge only my brief and poor and incomplete account remains. But if all were told as it truly happened then, as was said of our Lord, not all of the libraries of the world could contain those accounts for the splendour and wonder of the tale. These books then, my account of these fantastic and horrid events, I call the Fall of the Vanished Eldevens and they speak as well as I am able of the final encounter and friendship between Man and the Eldevens against many ancient evils and monstrosities I still do not understand. For it has been said, with good reason and as I witnessed with my own eyes, that the Eldevens were entirely destroyed by their enemies, wiped from the face of their world, with those small numbers of survivors who did escape driven into the wilds to be hunted to extinction by their remorseless enemies. But I have also heard, from both the seers of that strange people and from the prescient prophets of our own devout holy men that one day, far into an uncounted future, Man and the Sidhs of the Eldevens would once again meet as friends on the shores of yet other distant and undiscovered worlds, and that God would have mightily blessed and enlarged us both. Of that time, if it ever comes, if it is ever true, I shall see nothing, for I shall be long dead and buried. But I hope and pray that my account survives, and that perhaps this prophecy is real. For everyone would be the better for it…”

Wyrdlaef (the Wanderer)

THE NECESSARY TRUTH – HIGHMOOT

“The necessary Truth about them is that, in the end, all modern men will do exactly as they are told, but not a one of them will ever do what is truly necessary.”

From: The Curae

ARE YOU NECESSITY? – TUESDAY’S TALE

ARE YOU NECESSITY?

 

He stood up all wrong to be neighborly.

I looked up at him with a pacific expression to give him a chance to reconsider but he didn’t seem particular to my gentlemanly solicitations. So I followed suit by rising to my feet and placing my hand on the handle of my longknife.

“You know, maybe its age, or maybe its wisdom,” I explained. “Hell, I don’t know, could be a little bit of both at this point I reckon. But I’ve learned over time boy not to push myself any harder than I can stand at any given time, or to act more recklessly than I can endure at any given moment. Unless, of course, necessity dictates elsewise.

So the question I got for you son is this right here: ‘Are you necessity? Do you think of yourself as truly necessary?’

‘Cause iffin you do then I’m certainly prepared to listen to ya proposition, if you’re prepared for my considered reply.”

When he suddenly seemed uncertain and wavering in his deliberations I swung the table out from between us and took to hitting him as hard in the mouth as either one of us could stand. Until he wasn’t no more.

Then I stepped on his face turning it sideways and put the cold, clean, sharp tip of my longknife into his earhole.

“Can you make out precisely what I’m saying to ya now kid, or do I gotta keep pushing my point?”

 

From my Western: the Lettermen

THE MONSTER IS – THE HIGHMOOT

“The monster is and always will be exactly as big as you allow it to become before you kill it.”

Rhorric of Cappadocia (the Vigilante) to Marsippius Nicea (the Byzantine Commander of the Basilegate) on what is to come.

Or, put another way, the Old Man tells the Young Man how it always really is…

NOT A CONCERN – BOOKENDS

“You know, you’re not the first to react this way. A great many people seem very frightened by the fact that I am not frightened. However I am not in the least frightened by the fact that they are frightened by that. As a matter of fact it greatly encourages me when I meet people like you.

You’d be really frightened if you knew just how much.”

Steinthal (The Detective)

THE SCALE OF YOUR WORK

Amazon Pays $450,000 A Year To This Self-Published Writer

Jay McGregor

CONTRIBUTOR

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
The London Book Fair lands on an unusually sunny three days in the capital. The scorching rays – rarely seen at all, let alone in April in the UK – seem at odds with a closed-off indoor book fair. But that hasn’t stopped scores of page-turner enthusiasts scouring the giant exhibition centre’s main floor, looking for publishers to schmooze, books to buy and advice to receive.

It’s the advice from authors who’ve ‘made it’ that seems to resonate most with attendees. Seminars and workshops are scattered in between the stands – all packed with a baying audience that fire off seemingly endless questions. They’re all trying to piece together an escape route out of the doldrums of full-time work.

One man, Mark Dawson, has a queue of wannabe writers lining up to speak to him as we sit down for an interview. Dawson is one of the self-publishing success stories that Amazon likes to wheel out when journalists like myself come knocking. But Dawson’s success isn’t down to simply publishing his crime-thriller series and hoping for the best.

Dawson has become an entrepreneur. With the self-publishing platform, he had no choice. The tactics he employed to promote his series aren’t game-changing, or even particularly clever, but the scale in which he implemented them is what made the difference.

To date he has sold over 300,000 copies of his series about an assassin called John Milton. Dawson says he pocketed “ six figures” last year and he’s on course to make much more this year. And he’s got plans for bigger and better things for this series outside of print form.