Nightmare Excerpt, 11/10

It was Witches Dance when the Runners were brought to the edge of the village. The time when Restless Hearts crept out to stare longingly at freedom, or lay in their beds and cried for hope.

“They’ll never come to us,” said Oak. The massive warrior crouched among the runners, his bolstered body heavy and stout as the tree that gave him its name, his hide cracked and gnarled, his legs bent and lightning fast. No Runner could carry him, but he could run with them.

Silk smiled and dismounted, stripping naked and tying his clothes to his Runner. “They will come,” he said, a thin reed flute in his hands.

“Let them come,” he whispered, and put the flute to his mouth as the spirit of the land rose and straddled his shoulders. She plunged one hand into his ear, another into his mouth until he choked on it. She sang through him as the men watched in shock. Music as wild as Dream’s sang through the streets, writhed into the houses and settled in the laps of the Restless Hearts. It grabbed their hands, kissing them and tugging, begging, pleading, urging them to come, to run, to follow. For the Restless, it was irresistible, but others woke and a few came too.

Six came to stand before Silk, their eyes glazed with beauty and hope. The song sighed away, the land pulled herself out of Silk and prodded him out of his reverie.

“We are Free,” said Horizon, “will you be Free with us?”

Six heads nodded.

There were three extra horses with them, so the two grown men and the heavy-set woman were put on them. The children clambered up behind Silent and Horizon and Mischief.

Chatter and Excerpt: Nightmare

Alright, so I don’t have a title for this yet. So, for the moment, the working title is Nightmare.

Also, I’m keeping a fairly simple naming structure for the story, at least for now. I think that the story isn’t ‘big’ enough to need fancy names. So we have the following:

Mask
Penchant
Dream
Chance
Death

Since I’m using a simpler terminology for the monsters and such too, it just seems right. We’ll see, and feel free to leave feedback.

So far, the monsters I have include:

Haven

Behemoths
Breeders
Skinwalkers
Blurrymen

As-Yet-Unnamed-Outside-Country-Financing-Rebellion

Bloodybones
Greenteeth
Soulskins

I started Nightmare on November 3, and am, as of November 7, at 5500 words. My goal is to hit 60,000 words by January 1. No, I’m not doing NaNo. I don’t have time, energy, nor the desire to produce such crap as such a schedule would have me produce. I USED to write 5000 a day, and burned out. 1500 a day is do-able.

That leaves me two months to edit to 80,000 words, a month to polish, and then start the submissions as soon as I have an address in Oregon.

Sooo…there’s the gist of the project. Now for the part you actually wanted to see! It is a very rough draft, so read for content, not quality, please?? Pretty please?

Mask and her brother stared at the house. “We’re supposed to live here?” Mask asked.
“You’ll live where the Queen tells ya,” the Guard snapped. “Now get in there wench.”
Mask shook her head, confused and disoriented by the sudden change. Three days ago, she had had her womanhood ceremony, along with about a dozen other girls. Then the soldiers had come, and chosen five women and five men. Three days later, they were standing in a ghost village, looking down a perfectly-kept street.
Cows still grazed on the town common. Ducks waddled past, quacking. Flowers bloomed in the windowboxes. But no one was around.
She opened the door, noted the slight squeak, and froze on the doorstep.
“This was someone’s house,” she said, her voice quivering.
“Well, it’s your house now,” said the Guard, and walked away, taking her brother with him.
“Wait!” she cried, reaching for Penchant. “Doesn’t he get to stay here?”
“Not unless you want to be breeding with him,” said the Guard, leering.
Shocked, she could only watch as her brother was led to another house.
“Mommy?” said a quivering little voice. “Mommy?”
A little boy, no more than two years old, stood in the doorway, his hand held firmly by an older woman. Mask stared at him.
“This is your mommy now,” said the older woman, her eyes wide.
“What’s going on?” asked Mask, as the little boy yelled “Not my mommy!”
“Hush!” snapped the woman, and thrust him against Mask. “He’s yours now child, best you keep him silent and obedient, or you’ll both end up on the commons, eating grass.”
“Wha–?”
“No questions!” said the woman, and shooed the rest of the children down the road. Mask could see two other women doing the same thing. Maybe ten children, all under the age of three.
“What’s your name honey?” she asked, dropping to her knees by the boy.
He shrugged, sullen. “Want mommy.”
“Mommy’s gonna come back, but let’s go have lunch while we wait, yes?”
He looked up, his face changing, and she thought he really was a handsome enough boy, all shaggy brown curls and smudges of dirt.
“Food,” he said, and ran into the house.
Mask followed slowly, her head spinning.
Three days after her womanhood ceremony, and she had a two-year-old son, someone else’s house, and a mystery.
She’d have liked all of them, but something told her the mommy wasn’t coming back, and she wouldn’t like the mystery.

Bestiary: Blurryman

Mask saw the Blurryman the second day of her relocation. An ugly little creature in the skin of a human, hunch-backed, eyes the size of watermelons, clawed little hands. He sat on the common and munched on skinned grapes, popping them between his teeth.
Mask crept by, doing her best to be invisible.
The Blurryman’s head turned to watch her, watermelon eyes in his chest peering through human skin, while he raised his human-skin hand to cautiously wave at her. Mask choked and forced herself to wave back. Blurrymen were a secret, the Goddess-Queen’s secret eyes.
To see one was the sign of a witch…and witches were killed by the Blurryman.
She did, however, wonder where he’d gotten so many fresh grapes.

Excerpt: Untitled 10/30

There’s a saying that, if you walk up the side of Harmony Mountain, you will hear the angels sing.
If that’s what Heaven sounds like, then something’s gone wrong with this world. Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe my head’s so fucked up, maybe my ears are so twisted and my heart so black that even Heaven sounds like Hell.
I wouldn’t be surprised.
After all, I’ve been to Hell. Doesn’t really scare me, y’know? It’s like going to a haunted house. You know there’s got to be ghosts and shit there, so it’s just a trick of the mind, a primal weakness when you scream because some guy in a crappy costume jumps out at you.
You should come to my haunted house sometime. Just sayin’. I’ll show you some crap that will turn you inside out.
Horror ain’t all in Hell. It ain’t all what you see. Sometimes it’s what you are.

Writing Habits…

…are something I could stand to improve.

Sorry for the lack of post yesterday. In my defense, I honestly thought it was Saturday. ALL. DAY. LONG. I thought it was Saturday. How sad is that? So it wasn’t a lack of dedication, but a lack…well, a lot of other things. Most notably, a brain. Anyone got a spare sitting around please?

Anyways, just finished another round of editing on On Aralu’s Breast. I am pleased with the story. It went from 1200 words to about 2200. Not bad. It’s also heavily erotic. Which leads to the point of this post.

I’ve written two stories set in Sumerian culture now. New Name was not directly Sumerian. In fact, it was meant to tie into my Shadow and Soul world. But further research for Aralu pointed out that I really did write a Sumerian story there. Kema makes a very convincing Ereshkigal, and Hell there is the dusty Aralu of Sumerian myth. I didn’t do that intentionally, I swear.

And it didn’t start out to be sexual. It ended up so. Not blatantly, although a rewrite would change THAT significantly.

The last lines of the two stories were also originally very, very similar. And on thinking back, I’m beginning to notice some common things in my writing.

1.) A sort of passive ‘possession’ that allows the protagonist to see through someone else’s eyes. In Inherent, it just got tweaked so that the narrator saw the entire series of events through the eyes of everyone there. In Aralu, Ku-Inanna is watching through the eyes of a nameless god.

2.) Killing off an old god for a new one to rise. Substitute ‘dragon’ for god, and there’s the story about Prometheus right there.

3.) Changing names. In Inherent, two of the main characters take new names after coronation, and their personality actually shifts to reflect the new things. In Aralu, Ku-Inanna’s name changes to reflect his new situation. Names are power.

4.) A certain ‘breed’ of witch. Namely, one who works just this side of insanity, is very dark, and has the attitude of a goddess. I like my witches.

5.) Dragons. Three different forms at this point. There’s the dragon in Hidden Fire, which is the most ‘traditional’ of the three. Prometheus is a sort of magic/tech hybrid, and Inherent’s dragons are the most odd of the three.

There are more themes, like immortality, vengeance and being consumed by power, but those above are the ones that crop up the most frequently. So, there you have it. I have habits.

Heaven and Hell

Argh, late morning is late, and I have to be to work early, and nothing got DONE yesterday! Except the tattoo that is.

Anyways, two pieces were done in the Heaven and Hell collection. The results were radically different. Songs of Sheol was liberally bashed by the people who took a look at it, and rightly so. It is CRAP! Oh well. I didn’t have a good handle on that one. Tossing it to write it a new way.

So they had become unlikely friends, the man-who-was-not-mortal and the Angel of Death. Their common goal kept them assured of their Divine Master’s love. But Samael walked the earth, and Michael walked only in Sheol, and so the seeds of envy were planted in his heart.

Songs of Sheol

On Aralu’s Breast, however, is spectacularly different. A complete 1200 words in about two hours. Beginning, ending and preliminary edits and all! Damn, that’s unusual for me. This story is a weird bag, combining ghosts, horror, implied sex, psuedo-history and mythology. All the good stuff. It’s actually a fairly steamy m/m story, without any graphics.

After all, possession takes so many forms, and it’s interesting to note that the language used for the two is easy to cross over and play with.

Three times the question. Ku-innana’s answer would seal his fate. He thought about his friends, the quiet city. He thought about the worshipers who coupled with him, the pleasure he found in being possessed by the warriors—for the mighty hunter Gazualum had declared Ku-innana the flower of the temple and he was a favorite of warriors and hunters looking for Innanna’s blessing in the hunt or battle—and of the mighty priestesses. His fingers traced Erishkagal’s thick thighs again, and he knew his answer.

Anyways, editing On Aralu’s Breast today, hoping to get it in under Shock Totem’s eyes tomorrow!

Frustration…again

Inherent continues to bedevil me. I feel that something is missing in the story. There’s not a strong, central theme. But for the life of me, I can’t see how to get around that.

I’m going to keep working on this, but I’m afraid I’m kind of stuck right now. This irritates me greatly.

Synopsis and Query, oh my!

I loath writing queries. I really do. However, I’m to the point where I need to start working on one for Inherent. Not because I’m done with Inherent, but because it’s going to take me that long to beat a query into some semblance of submission.

The question I’m facing now is how to describe Inherent’s structure. Technically, I suppose it could be described as three novellas tied together at beginning and end. But, is that accurate? Is that going to be a turn-off to an agent? How else could I describe it?

Will someone please help me tear my hair out now?

Hmmm…

Top search leading to my blog? “Jaym Gates”. Wow. People are actually searching for ME? Nice. I’ll bask in the glow of my ego for a moment. Ok, done now.

Actually, that’s all balanced out by me being an idiot and a pained one at that. My nervous system seems to occasionally just up and rebel, and this last week has been one of those rebellions. Whether it’s the cold weather, not having gotten back to normal from Dragon*Con and being sick before that, I don’t know. But the last week has been a haze of excruciating, random nerve pain. Pain to the point that my ankle will just fold under me.

Of course, this happens about the time it’s cool enough for me to resume the work-outs. Treadmill is on hold till this is over. I had to leave work earlier than planned last night, came home and crashed straight into bed. This is not pleasing to me whatsoever.

The idiot part? I’ve let Inherent sit with almost no attention for over a month now. At best, it’s been token attention. Now that my goal is to have the edits done by Nov. 1, I’m back to being in a time-crunch. It also means I’ll be submitting queries at the same time as the NaNoWriMo crowd. Not good. I need to adjust my novel-writing schedule somehow though, so that I submit in Sept/Oct. rather and Nov/Dec.

On the short-story front… No news. No rejections, no acceptances, just radio silence. However, Prometheus is coming along nicely. Title will most likely be revised to something like Lord of Heaven and Earth though. Currently it sits at 6400 words and about halfway through the first edit.

I have two articles at Fantasy Magazine, waiting for me to format them so they can be published. Both are on forum-based gaming.

Oh! And Tuesday, I go back in to talk to my tattoo artist. Little Tommy of Ace Custom Tattoo is the flat-out most awesome artist ever. I’m really hoping to have new pictures for you by the end of the month.

Monday is horse day again, so probably no blog.

And, that is all. Enjoy your weekend!

Prometheus Update

The rough draft is finished, 6050 words. It’s still pretty rough. The story is good and all, but the setting needs a hell of a lot of padding. The prose needs prettying up too.

Vritra filled the viewscreen, long and white and furious. Magic—magic that no Dracul was ever able to call—shimmered around him in a blue shield, and Janus knew with sinking certainty that the Copperheads would malfunction before they ever hit flesh.

And then Prometheus screamed and swerved, slashing at Vritra with his heavy tail, his talons raking through the white dragon’s magic and gathering it up in handfuls. Vritra shrieked too, in pain and rage, as his shields were ripped, and he struck, snakelike, coming away with a mouthful of alloy scales.