On Writing: What's In Store for 2014?

One thing I’m not going to do as I look at my writing year 2014 is to say I’m going to self-publish a book.

Not that I’m giving up on self-publishing, it’s just that I keep saying I’m going to publish but I never do, because I don’t have a book that’s ready to go. I’ve got a few that are close. OK, Maybe two. Maybe. But it could be a year or more before they’re ready.

Doleful Creatures is now fully written. Maybe. I started it a while ago and finished it at NaNoWriMo 2013, significantly cutting what had been written in the past and adding a lot more to it. It’s basically a new book, and thus is only a first draft. No way is it ready.

The Hermit of Iapetus – Product of my first NaNoWriMo in 2011. It’s still in that first draft position as well.

And what of Yershi the Mild, 2012 NaNoWriMo baby? Well, it’s there. But it’s the least developed of the three, and the least likely of the three to draw my attention in 2014. So I can’t count it as anything at the moment.

And just the other night, a new plot came to me in a dream (cliché, I know): Folks escape from one dystopian society built in heavily-fortified underground concrete domes into a paradise on the surface which turns out to be an even worse dystopia than the underground version. What makes it worse right now I’m not certain of, but the fact that everyone drives bulbous cars that look like athletic shoes has got to be a part of it. I even got the title as I slept: St. Anthony. Not the town in Idaho, though that’s kind of how it started out. A Facebook friend pointed out that St. Anthony is the Catholic patron saint of lost things, so that increases the Ironic-O-Meter potential of the novel a thousandfold.

I’ve also got a little project called The Farming Dragon, sitting there with only a few chapters written. I’m not sure at this point it’s going to go anywhere.

And Slouching Towards Bensonville, my magnum opus. Nothing. I got nothing on it, except a weird uncle who checks to make sure everyone he meets has YKK zippers on their outfits. That seems a bit creepy.

So what is next?

Editing, obviously.

Beta reading. I’d like to get my wife involved in it, but she’s so busy with other stuff I don’t think I have much of a chance. I also just finished beta reading a novel for a friend, but he’s expressed disinterest in the novel I’d like him to beta read – Doleful Creatures. Apparently, a fuzzy talking animal book isn’t really his cup of tea. And I’m fine with that – why make someone read a book they’re not interested in in the first place? Well, to get an honest assessment, for one.

Editing is an ugly word. But an exciting world. I know there are things in Doleful Creatures that need to be taken out – but I also know there’s more story that hasn’t been written yet. I just have to figure out where it is.

So what’s going to be my process?

Pen and ink are out. I’m a terrible editor in that way. Oh, it’s a great way to catch spelling errors, errors in grammar and such. But errors in storyline and content require a different approach – live on the document. Taking Doleful Creatures through NaNoWriMo helped bring it to life, and that was done with live editing. So live editing it will be once more.

And should I track changes? To a point, I think I will. But just as a mileage marker, nothing more. And by that I mean a record of how much has been added or deleted.

Here’s the approach:

No editing for grammar. This is storyline only. I’ll do a quick read to identify plot holes and where the story bogs down.

But here I retract a bit of my “no pen-and-ink” rule: I’m going to read this to my kids, and make notes where I see things that need fixing, but more importantly, where they see things that need fixing. I hope I can convince them to listen in that manner.

Churches

“What do the churches look like?” Yershi asked.

I peered at buildings through the carriage windows, trying to sort holy from common. The grey sky merged with soot from a thousand chimneys wet by the constant rain. Through the window came the odors of rotting thatch and horse manure and tanneries and coal dust and carrots and potatoes fresh from the ground.

“I don’t see a church,” I said.

“Every town has a church,” Yershi said.

Wattle and daub and muddy streets gave way to cobbles and buildings of stone.

There, on the other side of a small square, a church.

At least it had a cross on the door – a hard, iron cross bolted heavily to the thick door of oak or yew. There were no windows, only slits of darkness that presumably illuminated the interior. There were turrets in place of towers. Chains in place of the weighted ropes leading to a squat bell chamber – I could not call it a tower – atop the building.

“It’s more fortress than church,” I said.

“Long ago, the people of a village were slaughtered, raped, or burned alive when the marauders came in from the sea. They had no refuge, and the marauders smashed through the windows of their church, betimes throwing the dead or dying bodies of men against the lead and glass until it broke, so they could throw the women and children in more easily to burn them,” Yershi said.

“Thereafter, many villages and towns built churches that could offer a home to God and a refuge of strength from temporal death – though you should wonder why they feared to die if they loved their God so much,” he added.  Towns with churches of this nature hold their hands closed, hold their hearts deep within their cloaks and are wary of strangers. For good reason.”

“Should we move on, then?” I asked. “Find a town with a church open to the air and sun?”

“No,” Yershi said. “For though the rose windows and transepts are beautiful, these slender churches of living stone carry with them their own dangers. They beguile with their openness and charity, when therein lay ravens ready to pick bones clean.”

“You trust no one in the church?” I said. “I know many good Christians.”

Yershi laughed. “I do not mind Christians,” he said. “There are many who attend these church-fortresses who are friends to Yershi, as are many who attend the churches of open air and sunlight. But the churches tell the true story. I can follow the journey of Jesus to the cross while walking through a church and know that within these same walls, the condemned have walked to unjust deaths just as the faithful have walked with tears in their eyes to partake of the body of Christ. Each stone bears the echo of laughter or tears, hatred or love, sorrow or happiness – and oft a mixture of both, betimes one stronger than the other, like the smell of rain overpowering the smell of manure. The perceptive among the Christians and those they deign entrance to their edifices know of this dichotomy. Some stay within and strive to purge the stone and air of evil, to both great and minor effect. Some succumb to the evil. Some flee it and seek good elsewhere, abandoning their fellow Christians to the evils they recognize.”

“Nature recognized when this Jesus died. The heavens wept and the earth tore asunder,” he added, eyes closed as the horses clopped through the town. “Nature retains this sense of good or evil. Rock absorbs it like a sponge. Trees drink it like rainwater. And when rock is carved and trees are hewn, they go on recording, with invisible rings and invisible lichen and concretions, the good and evil that occur around them. Feel the rock, next time you enter a church, and you will know what kinds of Christians breathe the air around you.”

“Then breathe with them,” he added. “Or endeavor to bring in better air.”

Yershi Babbling

You'll note, dear reader, that I have just published a bit from my novel work in progress, YERSHI THE MILD. Here's why:

The experts tell you when you write anything that the best way to edit it is to set it aside for a week, a month, or longer, then come back to it, read it, and find its flaws.

Well, I have done everything in that formula but read my story again, and I already know where many of its flaws are. I know I need to spend a lot more time with Yershi and Shadow getting comfortable with each other, Shadow learning from Yershi, and Yershi eventually talking about why he's left the field of assassin to become an alchemist. There's a lot more story telling to take place, and this little installment is only a part of it.

Another part of it is that I need to do some more reading and research into alchemy, specifically the writings of 11th century alchemist Roger Bacon, in order to get this new influx of novel stuff working. So I will continue working on such and let y'all know what's going on.

What does that mean: I had hoped to publish Yershi this summer as an ebook, but it's going to have to wait now until fall or winter. Still want to get a 2012 publish date on it, but why publish before it's ready?

Yes, Yershi

Yershi set to weeding the garden, and motioned that I should join him.

He planted a garden, though coin did not lack in his house and plenty of fresh provender could be found at the market in the village. The garden had quickly become a sore spot between Yershi and I. He saw to it that weeding became one of my first chores, and I saw to it that weeding was the chore I despised the most.

“You have no patience, Shadow,” Yershi said, setting his small spade aside. “Look at how you tear the weeds out of the earth.”

“They’re gone, are they not,” I asked, pointing to the weed-free patch near the carrots, where I had been working. “My spot is much bigger than yours. So who is it who is working faster?”

“Haste, yes, always haste with the young, as I recall,” Yershi said. He grabbed his spade, thrust it into the center of the patch I’d cleared and pulled out a scoopful of soil.

“See the white worms – the roots – here in your soil,” he asked.

I nodded.

“They are the weeds lurking beneath the surface. While the green seeks the sun, the root seeks the earth and water. Cut off the green and the root will grow new green, because whatever virtue the green finds in the sun is stored in the roots – this I know because you see the green wilts when it is cut, but the root will always grow back new green unless it is taken out completely.”

He thrust his spade into his smaller spot and poured the earth from it slowly.

“See here, Shadow,” he said. “There are no roots. Well, there may be tiny roots – see how there are hairs on this one. Your patch will be weedy a week or two hence, but this patch, my patch, where I have taken out the virtue of sun and water and earth, will be bare much longer.”

He left to tend the pigs, thrusting his spade into my patch of earth before he departed, giving me a look.

I took up the spade, dug about in the patch and pulled out as many roots as I could.

He was right. Though some were thick, most, near their ends and occasionally on an underground branch, the roots grew thinner and spidery, finally disappearing altogether. I held up a slender root. Therein lies the captured virtue of the sun, I thought. The sun. No wonder Yershi uses so many roots in his potion. I thought at first it was because he had nothing else to put in them. But the manuscripts I have read – I have progressed far with my reading since coming to live with Yershi – call for sun in many of the mixtures, and I never saw Yershi set a cup in a sunbeam.

What virtue lies in sun? On a hot day I can feel sunlight strong on my arms, my neck. Sometimes after too much time in the sun I feel weak and my skin turns red and hurts – too much of the sun’s virtue, I suspect?

But the plants. The plants know how to extract that virtue and store it deep in the earth, hidden in their roots. Maybe, when the fall comes and the plants wither in the cold, the roots go on living, insulated in the soil, to sprout again when they feel the earth thaw and the ice depart.

All that time, trudging through the snow, digging up frozen potatoes and yams, I was eating sunlight.

Pffff. This is Lame

I'm in a rut.

But I'm getting out of it.

This summer:

1. Putting in a sprinkler system. Started work on it last Saturday, and should have the rest of the system in this weekend. Then I have to dig all the trenches and bury the system before winter comes. That'll stink.
2. Editing, illustrating (not sure how I'm going to do either) YERSHI THE MILD, then publishing it as an ebook. There's a good chance my first novel is going to suck. But then again there's a good chance my first novel is going to suck anyway, so on with it, and trichinosis be damned.
3. Biking or walking every evening. Probably going to be walking, since the dog will need her exercise as well. Must also stock up on post-walk chewies. For the dog.
4. Finishing the first draft of THE HERMIT OF IAPETUS. Before that, however, actually going to figure out what the novel is all about. What I've written thus far, however, I like, and that's after putting it away for six months.
5. Coming up with another novel idea to write during NaNoWriMo 2012. Not going to "cheat" this year by going into it with 8,000 words already written, though I did do a lot of organization with that written chunk during the NaNoWriMo window.
6. Pleased as punch to have this entry done so the automatic Mr. Trololo video is off the main page. I won't have to hit pause any more. I hope with that video I've passed on some knowledge on why auto-starting any kind of video or music on your site is bad. Unless that is what you do. Which I do not.

Package that Niche!

I’m here to say that ebooks may be the best thing to hit publishing since, well, mass publishing was invented.

And I don’t mean in the sense of opening up publishing avenues to any schlub with a story to tell – though that is certainly to our advantage as well – but I do mean in the sense that we as writers can get a feel for what exists out there, quality-wise, as we assess our own writing and compare it to what is getting published traditionally, what is being published electronically, and what is being put into the vanity press that is the ebook put out by the common man without a publisher, without quality control and, frankly, without much of a chance to succeed unless a mass following develops and forces that author into a wave of goodwill.
Yes I’m babbling a bit. But it’s good babbling.

You may recall earlier my review of Bob Brooks’ Tales from the Glades of Ballymore, an ebook I recently acquired for free. A good read all the way around – so it stuns me that it’s not been published by a traditional publishing house. Brooks may have his own reasons for going the electronic route, and for that I applaud him. He’s inspired me to do the same with Yershi the Mild this summer.

I also recently read Boyd Brent’s Diary of A Superhero Kid, and, frankly, didn’t think much of it. Boyd has published other books and, by the looks of the Superhero Kid, wants to ride on Jeff Kinney’s coattails into the kiddie lit market. Can’t say I see him succeeding.

So what makes the two authors and their books different? Both are, in my opinion, solidly written (though Brent has an odd mix of British spellings with Americanisms throughout, so he needed some better editing along the way).

First, I think the difference is a question of niche.

With the success of Harry Potter and the Wimpy Kid books, everyone is trying now to get into those niches. The good will rise while the bad will settle rather quickly to the bottom of the pool. Without illustrations – the strength of Kinney’s work – Brent doesn’t have much of a chance of standing out.

Brooks, on the other hand, hits his niche nicely and in a very quiet way succeeds in convincing his readers that his stuff is worth the time to read.

Then there’s also a difference in packaging.

Brooks teams up with a wonderful illustrator – how he managed that I don’t quite understand, but kudos to him for doing so. His writing is good enough he doesn’t need illustrations, but the illustrations augment the overall ebook package. Brent, whose book screams for illustrations, tries to get by with an acceptable cover and then abandons the reader with blocks of text and nothing else. A successful ebook, then, needs what a good print book needs: Packaging.

So that gets me to thinking: How can I get some illustrative packaging with Yershi the Mild? A back-burner thought is to have my kids read the book and to have my oldest, an aspiring cartoonist, help with the illustrations. That’s one approach. Maybe a bit twee and trite, but it’s an approach. I need something to spookify the entire spooky package in order for this book to sail.

Manuscript Prepped

So, I had an e-mail exchange (briefly) with Editor Kathleen, referred to me by a BYU-Idaho colleague.

Not quite what I was hoping for – she doesn’t do her job for free, dammit – but a bit more than I expected. She’s actually done work with Orson Scott Card, which can be both good and bad news, depending on if you like OSC’s work. (I’ve never read any of his stuff. Well, brief little excerpts here and there, but nothing complete.)

So while I haven’t launched gung-ho into anything, I have kept the door of communication open – after all, she could be the bridge I need to get from aspiring author to published author. Also have to remember I’ve got someone at Stevens-Henager College in Utah who used to work in publishing and who might also be able to assist me in some minor ways. But it’s always good to have as many ins as you can get.

And oh yeah – I’ve got Query Shark where I can submit my query letters for the merciless yet beneficent ministrations of the literati there. Oh, so many tools at my disposal. It feels good.

So what’s next? I’ve got “Yershi the Mild” now in a standard manuscript form, and I need to read it again. And again. Just in prepping the manuscript yesterday, I made a few notes in spots where I need to add more story, more character development (especially character development, since I had no idea who my characters were at the beginning). Plus some plot holes to fill in with hot mud before the freeze comes. This is where writing a novel transitions into editing a novel, and I’m not as good at that. I may pick up where I left off with the “Hermit of Iapetus” as I edit Yershi, just to keep my interest up.

Speaking of the Hermit, I wonder where I left him? As I recall, it’s a novella now, not a short story. But how long? Ah. Just over 8,000 words. That’s not a bad start, as I’ve got lots of ideas and backstory I can use to flesh it out.

Yershi the Mild, Another Update

So I've changed a bit in this ending sequence already. That's fine.

Four thousand words short of my goal. I'll get there.

Here at the End of all Things

NOTE: I've done something here I typically don't do. I've written a bit of my novel out of sequence. I don't like doing that, because then I feel like a moron trying to connect the ongoing thread with this -- especially since I feel like this is the ending of the story. I guess we'll see how it goes. Why did I do it this way? Well, this part of the story kept nagging to come out. And NaNoWriMo pressure is building.

 “Guilt,” Yershi said.

“Long ago, long before I met you, I had a dream. A series of dreams, but all the same dream. I stood in a graveyard. There was no church nearby. It was an old pagan graveyard, long abandoned, in a forest clearing filling with creep. I had a vial of elixir in my hands. I thought, with the sun shining brightly overhead, it would be good to use the elixir, to test it on the corpses lying buried under the stones with the curled carvings. So here and there, I sprinkled drops of the elixir on the ground, which soaked it up. Soon the curls and filigrees on the stones began to spark and glow with that purple-silver glow we know so well – yes, I may have forseen that much,” he said.

Then he frowned. “I did not forsee enough,” he added.

“Next I switched to a churchyard at night, but under a friendly yellow moon smiling down on the lightning-bugs. Again, the vial. Again, I ran through the churchyard, gay as a schoolboy, sprinkling the elixir where I would. The busts of Christ opened their eyes and smiled on me, the stone angels flapped their wings. All seemed right. All seemed well.”

“Then I found myself in a dark alley of a city I knew well. In my hand, a bloodied knife. At my feet, a cooling corpse of a man I had just killed. One I was hired to kill. I remembered him well: A prosperous merchant of fruits and vegetables, named Arthur of Kent. A rival paid me five hundred groats to kill him, for he could not bear to see the other selling his turnips and carrots at prices below his own costs. I do not remember any special feelings in killing him. Sometimes, you see, I feel pity, or understand the envy, or relish the thought of dispatching a character even the mildest bit offensive. But for Arthur of Kent, there was nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing but a slit and spilt his blood quickly as he stared up at me, puzzled, trying to speak, but fading, fading. Fading.”

“To him, I fed a great draught of the elixir, in this my dream, in this my nightmare,” Yershi said. “He swallowed and sighed with his last breath. Some of the elixir bubbled out of the slit in his throat. But as it bubbled, it sealed and healed the wound. I sat there a long time, twenty, thirty, forty minutes, watching the still figure of Arthur of Kent as his breath and pulse came back. Soon, under that yellow moon, his eyes opened. He stared up at me uncomprehending. His voice caught, he coughed. His hand reached up to feel for the wound in his throat, the wound that was gone. He realized what had happened.”

“Was he happy?” I asked. “To return to life?”

“No,” Yershi said solemnly. “He burst into tears.”

“He wept bitter tears, tears I could not fathom,” he said. “’Why do you weep, man, you’ve come back fom that place many visit but from which they never return,’ I said to him. He looked at me though teary eyes and wept more.”

“I sat on the ground with him, sat in the pool of his own life blood, and comforted him. I cradled his heat in my arms as he wept. The moon continued its journey in the sky and soon passed behind the buildings looming over the alley, casting us both in shadow,” Yershi said. “When the light dimmed, the man spoke.”

“’You see the dimming of the moon,’ he asked me. ‘You feel the absence of the light.’”

“’I do,’ I said. ‘What does it mean?’”

“’You killed me, that I grant you, and for that I hate you,’ the man said. ‘Though that hate will fade in time. But then you brought me back to life. That, sir, is the cruelest trick of all.’”

“He wept a while longer and in shadow, in darkness, all I could do was cradle his head and watch the line of moonlight march up the walls of the house across the alley, up onto the roof and finally up the chimney until the moonlight climbed up the smoke pouring from it,” Yershi said.

“After a while, I found the courage to ask the question: ‘Why the cruelest trick?’”

“The man coughed and wheezed, waved his arms, tried to stand. I helped him to his feet. He was a bit wobbly. Once or twice, he slipped on the blood spilt in the alley. ‘I was with Martha,’ he said. ‘I was with my mother and father,’ he added. ‘I was with my brother Francis, my brother Albert, all passed on before me. We were in the greenest of meadows, dancing, shouting, hugging. A reunion. True, I had life left to live here, but with my wife gone, my family gone, and only the street urchins whom I fed on vegetables and bread to keep me company, I rather looked forward to a bit of rest. It was warm there. And pleasant. And you took it from me as easily and in the same cavalier manner with which you took my life. For killing me,’ he said, ‘I now find the strength to forgive you. But for bringing me into life again while tantalizing me with a vision of the life to come, I spit at you, sir.’ He stumbled off, supporting himself on the shadow-dappled buildings, coughing into the night.”

“My dream then shifted back to the pagan yard, to the church yard, where other souls, many long since unburdened of life, wept and wailed and screamed in torment as life flowed back into their limbs but the veil of forgetfulness refused to close to conceal to them once again the pleasures and restfulness of the life that follows the one we call so precious.”

“We do not know what we do not know,” Yershi said. “As the last Roman said: ‘Everything that is known is comprehended not according to its own nature but according to the ability to know of those who do the knowing.’ I know how to dispatch God’s creatures into death. To bring them back to life, that I also know. But it is beyond my knowing, perhaps beyond all knowing, to understand what it is like to be dead yet brought back to life, without that veil closing. Only the one knows that, and he knows all.”

Rell and the Lady wept silently as Yershi finished his story.

“The abbot seemed happy to be restored to life,” I said. “What you experienced is just a dream, perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” Yershi said quietly. “Perhaps. But perhaps just as easy as it is to take life, we should not make it as easy to restore life again. We do not always understand fate, nor the will of God.”

“It is time for you to leave,” the guard said.

Rell leaped from her seat and climbed up in Yershi’s lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. He looked surprised, then patted her on the back. “I’ll miss you, father,” she said as she wept.

He returned her embrace. “You I shall miss, my little squirrel.”

Yershi the Mild: An Update

I'm behind.

As of today, right now, I'm 4,992 words behind.

But I'm still going, and that's what counts the most.

Hit 40,000 words today. That feels great. I'm trying to make every word count, but I know I've got a lot of work to do in that direction. I've got five days. Just under 10,000 words to do. I think I can do it.

Teetering on the Brink

I’m close to giving up on NaNoWriMo.

Not that I’m giving up on “Yershi the Mild.” I still like the story, and think I can carry it to an acceptable conclusion. Just not on the NaNoWriMo timeline.

My writing tends to come in spurts, with a strong bout of writing stretching over days or weeks ending in a time when I do little or no writing on a piece. I call this percolation, because the story and the characters are always at the back of my mind, sending me little messages which I duly note in my notes and then, when the muse strikes again, I’m back at it, working away.

I’ve hit that familiar ebb with “Yershi the Mild” at just under 32,000 words in.

I have the familiar excuses: I’ve been doing a lot of remodeling at the house – we replaced four windows and I ended up having to do some wall repair, drywall, plastering and painting as well to make up for the mess discovered once the windows were removed – and that’s eaten up way too much time at home. And though I confess I do sneak some writing time in at work, we’ve been busy enough with official work stuff that the unofficial stuff has had to slide. And I’m also teaching two courses, which take up a lot of time as well. So what time I get for writing comes intbetween things, and I haven’t had much inbetween time lately.

To my credit, I did do t a3,600-word writing sprint over the weekend which helped bring my NaNoWriMo numbers back up, but I’m facing another such sprint today. Time will tell on that one.

And oh yeah. I’ve got another blog I want to start as well, been promising that for a month now and set a Dec. 1 deadline for myself. So whee I’ve been busy.

Mount Hebron Dead, From That

Yershi smiled over the pile of roots, berries, bark and herbs on the table. “With this, and with what we’ve brought, we have enough to try yet again,” he said. Out of his bag came the cooking-lantern, the mortar and pestle, other oddments of tools he would need.

He set me to drying and grinding. The Lady juiced berries, extracted seeds. Rell watched at the door, ostensibly for intruders, but she watched so much over her shoulder and cried “What are you doing now?” often enough a herd of cattle could have clambered into the ravine and become trapped and bellowing and she would not have noticed it.

At the end, solemnly Yershi took his crucible and lantern and the final ingredients into an alcove hidden by a woven mat. “This is the part where I have failed in the past,” he said. “Betimes the fumes are nearly overpowering. I do this concealed so if something goes amiss, we might not all succumb.” His words spoke fear and caution, but his eyes, his round, moon-like eyes, shone bright. He darted behind the mat.

We heard the clink of glassware, the gentle swish of a stirring rod and then with a clap of light that stopped our ears without sound and seared the eyes without pain, a deep silvery-purple glow sprang from behind the mat and filled the cave. It must have been a sight, the hill punctuated with pinpricks and day-shots of light in the starry gloom.

Yershi emerged, holding the crucible in his hands. The glow was brilliant yet gentle, illuminating his face without obscuring his features. He moved the crucible around slowly in the air, the shadow of his nose darting across his face like the needle on a sundial. “I think,” he said, “it is ready. Now, to test it.” He placed the crucible on the table. From his pocket he pulled, gently, a small brown sparrow, still, lifeless. He placed it reverently next to the crucible. He gently prised the bird’s beak open and, with a bit of the elixir on the end of a stick, coaxed a drop down the dead bird’s throat.

When it touched flesh, the elixir seemed to jump off the stick, leaving no residue behind. A tiny spark, a silvery-purple glow, started, then grew, in the bird’s eyes. The body twitched. A claw clenched and unclenched. Rell gave a startled yelp when the bird flapped one wing, snapping it quickly to its side. Yershi beamed down at the bird on the table like an oak watching an acorn sprout its first leaf. The bird chirped.

Then it leaped.

It leaped into the air, singing. It flapped its wings and took to flight, whirring in circles around the cave ceiling, swooping and dancing through the purple light that seemed to trap the white of the lanterns and candles and the orange of the fire to keep it from leaving so only the silvery-purple could part. Flying faster and faster, chirping more loudly, the bird burst into song and seemed, for a time, that it would explode. Then with a final pump of its wings, it shot out of a hole in the ceiling into the night.

“Yershi,” the Lady said, tears in her eyes. “It seems to have—“

“That is but the first test,” he said. “Now, the next test. He thrust a larger stick into the elixir, stirring it up. The stuff climbed up the stick as he swirled it like honey. He put the stick into the Lady’s hands. “It worked with a bird,” he said. “Now we shall see if it works on human flesh.” He turned to me, a knife suddenly in his hands. With the purple-silver light behind him, I could see but shadow on his face. “Shadow,” he said, “pray.” He thrust the knife into his stomach, yanked it upwards then collapsed, flinging the bloody blade away.
The Lady screamed. Rell screamed, too, and ran from the cave. I moved towards Yershi.

“Stop,” he said. “Do not help me. You saw what I did with the stick, with the bird. When I am dead, you must do the same” he coughed and spat up blood, with more of it dribbling down his chin. “You must do the same for me.”

He slumped to the floor, breathing heavily, a froth of blood at his lips.
“So this,” he said, “is what it is like to be murdered by Yershi the Mild,” he said. The Lady knelt down, cradled his head in her arms. He reached up to pat a hand. “It is more painful than I led myself to believe. Perhaps I am losing my touch. Others have passed – have passed more quickly than this.” He looked at me. “You know what to do, Shadow,” he said. “You must do it. I would prefer if you wait a day, but I understand if you do not.” He breathed more shallowly, his face pale in the purple light. “I understand if you do not. Oh.”

Silence.

“Oh.”

More silence.

“Oh,” he said, his eyes wide. “I see. I see. I see it all.”

His breath ceased.

Silence. The only sound, the light coruscating from the crucible the Lady set on the table, and from the elixir clinging to the end of the stick in my hand.
“He is dead,” the Lady said.

I thrust the stick into his lolling mouth. As with the bird, the elixir leaped from the stick, sloshed into his mouth and disappeared down the dark bloody hole that was his throat.

Silence.

Silence.

“It was fast with the bird,” I said. “But he is much larger. And died, perhaps, a more violent death.”

Yershi the Mild, Falling Into Place

Those of you familiar with my writing style know I do little to no outlining. I just start where I left off and then, at the end of the day, decide if I like where the story has ended up. I may get an inkling here and there along the way of what needs to happen next, or where my characters may end up.

Writing today, that happened with Yershi the Mild. In a loose sense, of course. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but there are many exits from this book as it stands now. I may turn in another direction, face the darkness again, only to see a different point of light somewhere else along the way. I’m not worried. I’m having fun.

NaNoWriMo Update: I’m just under 26,00 words in, or nearly a thousand words above par. And I like the novel still. I like it a lot better than the other stuff I’ve written, and I hope this isn’t just the “I’m in love with what I’m writing” phenomenon, and that the writing is actually good. That’s my wish. Now, lemme see if I can find some rich stuff with a picture of Martin Sheen on it . . .

Yershi the Mild: 20,000 Words

As with past novels, I've got a love-hate relationship with Yershi the Mild. It's good in that I've got a sustainable story, but bad in that I tend to wander down one path without really having a destination in mind. I need to do more pre-planning, but part of me believes that really robs a novel of its spontaneity. Of course, spontaneity isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I do like the story and characters, though. That helps. And that has helped me hit a milestone: 20,000 words in.

So how is Yershi the Mild doing at NaNoWriMo? Slightly, ever so slightly above par. Of course the only par NaNoWriMo is interested in is the word count. I wish there were more about quality there, and that's a possibility given the writer's community, but I'm not one much for the community thing. I should be.

Dragon Dust

NOTE: For those of you not following my NaNoWriMo progress over at the Targhee Writers Blog, here's a bit more from "Yershi the Mild." I've shifted gears a bit from the last installment here. Enjoy.

“Tomas,” the Lady said. “Tomas.”

She looked at me, guiltily. “A name. I love names. Tomas. Tomas.”

The Lady looked uneasy when Rell rose from the mat and joined us at the table. “I remember,” Rell said. “You’re Shadow. Though your real name is James. I like James better. Shadows are all dark and all they do is follow you except when you go into dark scary places then they wait outside and won’t ever go in with you.”

“But they will walk with you in the moonlight,” I said to Rell, teasing. The Lady looked slightly more at ease.

“But then they’re always hiding in the trees and they jump out at you and scare you. I don’t like that,” Rell said.

I laughed. “Squirrels should not jump at shadows,” I said. “Squirrels should be asleep in their trees when the moon is out.”

“Rell isn’t my real name,” she said. “I have a name like James. Do you know how I got my name?”

The Lady’s face paled.

I thought instantly of Jans – his old superstition that one should never tell another his name unless they were close friends. “Witches,” he said, “can use your name to cast spells, to harm you from great distances. They will employ many tricks to get you to reveal your name. Have a nickname, Shadow, have a nickname. That is important. With a nickname, the witch is less likely to succeed.”

Agatha. The name too witchy, she’d said.

“How did you get your nickname?” I asked.

“My mother. She said when I was a baby I tried to climb the trees to play with the squirrels. Every morning, I went outside to watch them, and she said I cried when I couldn’t climb the trees. She called me squirrel, but I couldn’t say all that. I said rell. So she called me Rell. My real name,” she whispered, “is Marta.”

I smiled at Rell and tried to look less like a warlock than I have ever tried to assuage the ashen countenance of the Lady.

“Jans called me Shadow because at the mine, when I first got there, I followed him everywhere. He reminded me of my father. Everywhere Jans went, there I was, like a Shadow. And I followed him into the mines. Into the dark scary places where ordinary shadows won’t go,” I said.

Rell smiled. “You’re a brave shadow,” she said.

“And you,” I said, truly can climb like a squirrel. And play the harp like I have never heard. Where did you learn that? From the squirrels?”

“No,” Rell laughed. “I just know how to play. The Lady sings, and I play the notes. It’s easy.”

“She has a gift from God,” the Lady said. She appeared much more composed, relieved that the conversation had shifted from names to music.

Rell picked up the harp and stroked the strings. The Lady began to sing a familiar tune about a creek filled with spring water, flowing over rocks and tree roots, splashing the fish and carrying leaves filled with fairies to the ocean. Rell played and the music tumbled from the cave like falling water.

That is how Yershi found us.

Hollow of eyes, thinner, still a bit weak from the broken fever, Yershi the Mild awoke in our shelter at the river, restless, legs twitching. Still a bit wobbly at first, Yershi found a stick to help him walk. He hobbled to the river for a drink and a splash of water on his face. He found a bit to eat then sat in the shelter a while, feeling his strength slowly return.

Restless still, Yershi walked. Strong enough to leave his stick behind, he walked. He followed my footprints up and down the river bank but saw they were not fresh. The freshest ones led up into the ravine, and he followed. He stopped to rest frequently, panting, wishing he’d brought a bit of water to sip. But as he walked strength poured back into his limbs and he felt ready to walk to Venus.

In the ravine below, he heard Rell play, he heard the Lady sing. And as the final vibrations from the harp faded into the wind, he called “Who is it who sings so beautifully and plays so well, among the rocks in this wild place?”

Rell set the harp gently on the table and raced to the cave entrance.

“Wait, Rell, wait!” the Lady called. Rell, in her rush, did not heed.

“Oh dear,” the Lady said. “Would this be –“

“It is Yershi,” I said. “I know his voice well.”

“Yershi the Mild,” she said.

“Again, the names?”

“I know I have not fooled you,” the Lady said. “But perhaps, for Rell, you can remain in feigned innocence?”

“Innocence of what?”

“We shall soon see, Shadow.”

From the outside, we could hear Rell chattering, and Yershi responding. “Yes, yes, child,” he said. “Surely, I have not smelt lilac as strongly as this in an age.”

They clambered up the rocks. Yershi, though more hale now the fever was gone, was still weak, and Rell went down several times to encourage him in his climb. Finally they entered the cave through the carpet of morning-glory, Rell red-faced and wondering at the chance of two guests on the same day, Yershi puffing, pop-eyed, knees shaking at the sudden burst of work.

His breath caught when he saw the Lady. “Agatha,” he said. “Yet something else I have not seen as strongly as this in an age. You still retain your comeliness.”

Rell looked puzzled, but remained silent as the Lady spoke.

“It has been too long, Yershi the Mild. Too long since the last fare thee well,” she said. She pulled at a strand of her long auburn hair. “But then eight years is not that long, in the eyes of God. But an eternity in the eyes of a child.”

“God watches long,” Yershi said, as if giving a countersign. “But the eyes of a child young eight years past were not yet opened.”

“You talk funny. Just like Shadow,” Rell said to Yershi.

Yershi smiled, glanced at me, unsurprised to find me inside a green grotto with a lady he seemed to know and a young fairy harp player. “I do indeed,” he said. He got down on one knee, lifted up Rell’s chin. “You must be the young harpist,” he said, looking Rell in the eyes. “That is not a young girl’s voice, but that of a siren, that drew me here.”

“All those big words,” Rell said as she pirouetted on her toes. “I know what a siren is. A scary, ugly lady who sings beautifully but eats the people she traps with her song. Yuck. The Lady isn’t ugly. Or scary.”

“Agreed, she is neither,” Yershi said. “Agatha –“

“Perhaps we should go for a walk, Yershi the Mild,” the Lady said. “We can leave Shadow and Rell here. We have much to say to each other that will be boring to young ears.”

Rell rolled her eyes.

“She must be in love with you, Yershi,” she said. Yershi’s eyebrows rose. “She always says it’s boring talk when she wants to talk to a man she likes. I don’t think it’s boring. You can stay. I want to hear. Sometimes the men say funny things about the Lady’s thighs.”

The Lady put her hand to her mouth, stifling a laugh.

Yershi blushed. “A walk,” he said. “A walk. A short one. I am still ill. But perhaps a bit of water before we go.”

“Or a sip of wine,” the Lady said. “Follow me.” She led Yershi toward the other end of the cave, toward another dimpling of greenish light.

“So,” Rell said after they left. “What should we do?”

I looked at the table, my hands, the floor. All my life I had dealt with adults. Even when there were other children at the mine, I did not associate with them, especially the younger ones. I never knew childhood. I did not know what to do.

“I could show you a trick,” I said.

I took a small bag off my belt – a bag of oddments and herbs and stones I always carried for when Yershi wished to test a potential ingredient for his elixir. From it I pulled a bit of brimstone and a few vials. Rell watched as I ground the brimstone in a small mortar and pestle, then piled a tiny pyramid of the yellow dust on an earthenware plate. To the brimstone I added a pinch of bitter salt and another pinch of powdery metal.

“Here be dragon dust,” I said with a flourish of my hands.

Rell watched, silently.

“Dragon dust is the fiery breath of the dragon distilled,” I said. “When the dragon wishes to spout his flame, he breathes out first a pinch of this dust and grinds it in his molars. Like so!” I took a flat rock in my hand and smashed it onto the plate. The dust burst into a quick, snapping flame that sent the odor of brimstone in the air to battle with the lilac.

Rell shrieked and clapped her hands. “Again! Again!”

“But no, milady,” I said dramatically. “Dragon dust is difficult to obtain and has many uses. I cannot use any more here.”

Rell’s eyes were wide and shining. Her nose wrinkled. “It smells like fart,” she said.

I laughed. “No one ever met a fair-smelling dragon.”

Stroking Cats

NOTE: Well, I still suck at action. But I figured out how to turn action into kind of a Cyrano de Bergerac fight scene, so maybe this works.

Arthur screamed like a bull and shoved Gwendolyn from him. She spun, tripped, and would have fallen to the ground had Yershi not caught her. “Harlot!” Arthur yelled, blood dripping from his lip.
Yershi helped Gwendolyn to his seat by the hearth. “Harlot, he says,” wrapping her in his cloak. “And who is the one doing the kissing?”

“Whose business is it of yours?” Arthur bellowed.

“It became my business when you threw the young lady in my lap,” Yershi said.

“Fool!” Arthur shouted. His bloody torn lip flapped as he spoke.

“Fool I am? I’m not the one with the torn lip,” Yershi said.

Blood and saliva trickled from Arthur’s mouth. The crowd in the pub, never silent, had lessened its noise and formed a slowly widening circle of faces around Arthur and the slight, mysterious black-clad man who had been so gentle with the lady, sobbing and holding her head, still wrapped in the man’s black cloak.

Arthur balled up his fists. “You talk smart, but I’ll pound the smart out of you!”

Yershi looked at Arthur from toes to head. “You probably could,” he said finally. “If you could land a blow. I think I’ll not allow that.”

“A brave one this,” a woman in the crowd said.

“Soon a dead one,” Arthur bellowed. And he swung.

Yershi moved. Quick as a cat blown by a breeze, and Arthur punched the air and swung a quarter turn, startling those in the edge of the circle as the unstopped fist swished by.

“I’m not much at hand fighting,” Yershi said. “My hands are far too delicate.” He held up is smallish hands to show the crowd as Arthur held his lip. “I will throw a punch if I have to, but it hurts the knuckles so. I don’t like it.”

Arthur swung again, missed as Yershi leaped to the side. Arthur’s fist smacked into the mantelpiece, knocking brass plates to the floor. Arthur shrieked.

“That is why I do not throw punches,” he said as Arthur examined his cracked, bleeding knuckles. “Too much hurt, and the hurt even comes from striking soft things. Ever stroked a cat for hours?” he asked the crowd. “You may not think it, but I am a man who enjoys striking cats. But after a while, the fingers throb at the repeated motion and the feeling leaves them. I have rubbed myself raw on cats, and I advise against it.”

Slivers of laughter wove through the crowd.

Arthur put his head down, held his hands out wide and charged at Yershi the Mild.

Yershi dropped to a crouch and carried Arthur over his back, crashing him onto a table just as the crowd parted. Plates and mugs clattered, wooden spoons bounced off the ceiling as Arthur fell and sucked air into his lungs where it had been forced out.

“I am sorry about this, Arthur. Your lip must hurt something awful,” Yershi said. “If you’ve a mind to stop fighting, I might be able to do something about it. I am quite familiar with the knife.”

A knife appeared in Yershi’s hand. Short, sharp, black of blade and handle.

Some in the crowd whispered. With the blade in his hand, Yershi suddenly looked menacing. There were always stories. And rumors. The name of Yershi the Mild was known, though perhaps his face was not.

Arthur sat up on the table, still breathing hard, rubbing the back of his head. His bit lip flapped as he breathed. In his eyes, fear and pain.

The blade in Yershi’s hand disappeared as quickly as it came. From another pocket, he pulled a small black packet, walked to Arthur’s table, unrolled the packet. In it, surgeon’s instruments, needles and thread. “I can repair that lip,” Yershi said. “Given your breath, I’m not sure any more alcohol will be necessary for anaesthetic, but you may take some more if you wish.”

Arthur looked at the instruments, the wickedly curved needle hung with thread in Yershi’s hand. His eyes rolled, and Arthur flopped back onto the table.

With the barman helping and with others fetching towels and hot water, Yershi deftly sewed the lip, using small, neat stitches. “He will have a scar, and I’m not sure his mustache will grow back in that spot, but he will be in much less pain. And he will be able to eat without dribbling.”

Gwendolyn, as Yershi worked, removed Yershi’s cloak from off her shoulders, folded it, then watched as Yershi laid his stitches. When the work was done, Yershi rolled up his packet, nodded at Gwendolyn, and returned to his table.

“I thank you, kind sir, for your service,” Gwendolyn said as Yershi sipped from a beer provided gratis by the barman.

Action Sucks

Once again, I'm at the point of a novel I'm required to write action, not exposition. And action is one of my weaknesses. I'm good at exposition. I can explain just about anything. But characters aren't static. They don't just sit there, contemplating with their coffee. They DO things. And now these damnable characters of mine in Yershi the Mild are going to have to do something, and I'm stuck.

So here's the cure:

Read lots of action. I've got to read lots of action and figure out how the authors do it. Of course, that may not work with my characters; I have to figure out how they'd do it, and to do that, I have to figure out how I'd do it. So yikes. But at least I recognize the problem. As Lucy Van Pelt would say, that means I am not yet too far gone.

Yershi's Going to NaNoWriMo

So, perhaps it’s not cheating to have a nearly 8,000-word head start heading into National Novel Writing Month. At least that’s the implication I get from Nathan Bransford’s post on the topic, so I’m going to go with that feeling.

Can a book be written in thirty days?

Better yet: Can a good book be written in thirty days?

It’s possible. The first one at least seems achievable. The second one, well, there’s the real challenge, isn’t it?

I’m going to do it, though. With Yershi the Mild.

So maybe I feel a little guilty, coming into it with that 8,000-word head start. Should I? It doesn’t appear I should. NaNoWriMo’s Codes of Conduct is explicit about explicitness and not feeding the trolls and such, but they don’t say I can’t come into this with a head start. So I’m gonna.

Why?

For the challenge. For the fun. For the opportunity to kick myself in the butt and actually get Yershi the Mild into nearly-done territory by the end of the year. See, I was in this same kind of situation this time last year with “Considering How to Run,” which I decided to write and edit at least once in 2010. I did that. But it’s not gone beyond that, given that it’s crap and the first novel ought to sit on the shelf for a while anyway while the second novel comes out and is much, much better. So that’s what I’m telling myself.

And I’ve got to confess I’m on a little bit of a writer’s high right now. Reading Terry Pratchett novels will do that to you.

Thys Endris Nygth

“You have a choice,” Yershi said. The first snow of winter fell that morning, portending a long winter as it fell before the last of the apples dropped from the backyard tree. He at the washtub cleaned the breakfast dishes. He never let me wash dishes. He did them in a certain order: cups, bowls, plates, earthenware; and in a certain way: dip, scrub, dip, scrub, dip, rinse; and with a certain swishing motion in the water that he did not have the patience to teach another. For him I chopped the wood and fetched the eggs and water.

“Your choices are these,” he said. “You leave” -- this he said every morning – “second, you hide in the woods nearby for a fortnight, or, third, you pretend to be a mute while my guest is here.”

He would not tell me who the guest was to be. When I pressed, he raised his eyebrows and pointed out through the back door to the world.

I went mute that morning.

At dinner, he said, “You are a good mute. Not a sound. You would do better to lower your eyes, to shuffle rather than stride. To be more meek. My guess, I surmise, will expect such from a mute house-servant. He is an insufferable fop, I am sure. Do not look him in the eyes. If he kicks you, just get out of the way. You do not need to suffer a beating, but striking servants is what he is used to. I will know what he does, how he behaves, even if I am not around when he mistreats you. Fear not,” he said. “He will not be here long.”

That night, Yershi unrolled a thick bearskin from some hidden corner and spread it on the floor, covering the trap door that led to his den below. Daggers and a crumbing mace appeared on the mantelpiece. He silently rolled my bedding and bade me stow it in the chicken coop, where I knew I would be spending the nights while his guest slept on my pallet.

I grumbled a bit as I shoveled manure, spread straw in the coop.

“I hear you,” Yershi called from the darkened house. “He will too. A mute is not allowed to grumble.”

He fretted over his squirrels. For weeks now, he tied apples and small pumpkins and squashes and carrots from strings and dangled them from the branches of the apple tree. The squirrels came in droves, leaping from the tree branches to the ground to snuffle among the snow and leaves to eventually find the vegetables and fruit and dance and stretch and strain and climb to eat what hung there. Many mornings he sat at the table staring out the open Dutch door to the apple tree, laughing at their antics.

“He will not understand such frivolity, from a killer,” Yershi said. “What credibility I have could flee with those squirrels. Cut the strings.”

I cut the strings and tossed the fruit and vegetables to the pigs. The squirrels scolded from the treetop, but soon turned to the apples still on the branch.

A grand carriage arrived as the sun set. I watched from a naked beech across the lane; Yershi bade me disappear until morning. The carriage was black and trimmed with gold and burgundy. The horses, too, were black and clad with black leather. The footman was silent, obsequious. He thrust a wooden step below the carriage door, adjusted it, adjusted it again, then rapped smartly on the door three times. A voice from within shouted. The footman pulled the door open. After a long pause, a figure emerged. Tall. At least a head and a half taller than I. He would tower over Yershi, squat and fat. He stalked towards the house, crunching leaves and twigs under his impossibly small feet. The footman and carriage-man lowered bags and a trunk from the roof of the carriage, carrying them one at a time into the hut so as not to soil their bottoms in the dark snow.

The conversation was quiet, but I could hear the occasional shouted word or phrase. Rough road. Slow. Complaint. Tell. Never. Hanging.

There was much going back and forth from the hut to the carriage. Packages and bags, boxes of stuff. Yershi might have to roll up the bearskin and sleep in his den for want of space, I chuckled from the treetop.

With a trot of hooves and rattle of livery, the carriage left. The footman calling loudly to the carriageman: “This Yoshi will have a rough time with The Pup, no question of that.” They both laughed.

A cat wandered down the lane, sniffing at things, stepping over the frozen ruts.

Though it was cold, I stayed in the tree, silent as an owl, watching the stars come out. That milky band of stars and dust stood out like salt poured on a black cloak. The Evenstar rose, higher and higher. My breath came in billows, but still I perched in the tree, recalling the lullaby, the lullaby I know my mother sang to me as a babe:

Thys endris nygth
I saw a sygth,
A stare as brygt as day;
And ever among
A mayden song
Lullay, by by, lullay.

As I hummed the words silently, another voice joined in. The voice rose and fell, gentle as a mother cradling her infant. The stars seemed to jump and dance at the melody. The cold fled.

“Hush that row, fool! I’ve had a long day!”

The voice stopped. A breeze rattled the bare breech branches. Owls hooted to each other in the distance.

Yershi emerged silently from the front door of the hut, stared up into the sky. He glanced this way and that, then stared up at the beech, at me, through me. In the cold night, I heard him whisper: “That is one.”

The Good Wight

The Good Wight.

It has a nice ring to it, I think. It combines the idea of a wight -- the old English word for a creature brought back from the dead but in thrall to a sorcerer -- with goodness, implying, I hope at the end, a being brought back to life but in full control of its faculties, its will, and its freedom.

It could be a good name for "Yershi the Mild," the book I'm working on.

Or the follow-up book.

I'm excited about this one. Oh, I was excited about "Considering How to Run" as well -- that one still has possibilities -- but The Good Wight might be something that I can pull off satisfactorily.

Yeah, the further away I get from "Considering," the more I realize it's turning into one of those proverbial first novels that have to be written to get the gunk out of the system. And that's okay. Something may still come of it. But it's right now too much a jumble of ideas without a good central thread to it. I can see The Good Wight bridging that gap.

Also, this is more YA literature, meaning I'll have a tighter story, a shorter one. And that's okay. A shorter tale will give me the concentration and oomph to make it good. With "Considering," I felt like I was in the shipyards of Deimos as described by Arthur C. Clarke in "Imperial Earth," where they make ships by the meter and cut them off to the length the customer desires. Instead of doing that with "The Good Wight" (I have to keep trying the title out to see if I like it) I'm going to set a limit of no more than 45,000 or 50,000 words. And make each one of them count.