Thursday, July 28, 2005 :::
 

Here is a scene snippet from the next story in the Eagle Ridge series:

/begin/

"There are small gods and big gods, gods everywhere. That's who we pray too," she said, stepping closer to him and setting her hand on his cheek. Despite the heat of the day and the exertion, her flesh was still cool against his skin. Her index finger lay across the top angle of the faded scar, scraping against the jagged edge. Most days he could almost forget it was there, it'd been some time since he had stood in the bathroom, the mirror coated in foggy mist except for the dewdecked circle he cleared from it - and stared at the white line. The reminder left to him of his near fall into bestiality and the souvenir of what Eagle Ridge was.

Underneath her finger, the scar burned like it had when he was first inflicted with the festering, infected wound that caused it. The other scars, slash marks from the claws of teufel, began to warm as well, spreading fire into his blood from the slashes across his chest and back.

He stepped closer, pressing his cheek into her hand, placing his own over hers. His hand felt rough to him, like sandpaper and he worried about scraping the smooth silk of her skin. Dark brown eyes, almost black, stared at him, watching without judging. The seriousness of her voice hadn't made it to her eyes. They still danced with some inner mirth, some detachment from all that was happening. Uncluttered because of the childlike innocence still inside her.

"They're the gods we pray to, the ones we ask to make us braver than we are," she said, her voice low and whispery, but infected with the wonderment in her eyes. It was as if he were a child and she were trying to explain a too difficult concept. "But they can't make us braver than we are. They can't make us anything we aren't already. All they do is put us into the fire until all that isn't who we are is burned away. Refining us and leaving us what we were meant to be. But we don't always burn, sometimes we put the fires out and then we can't be what we are, what we should be."

In her eyes he saw himself, not as he was, but how he should have been. How only one other person had alway seen him. In her eyes, he burned like the molten heart of the sun. Fire burned in his cheek and through the scars on his body - the slashes and then the stab wound from the sword hanging still in the cavern below his house.

Esme, he thought, only Esme had ever saw me like that. The fire in his body was nothing compared to the burning in his heart and he had to pull away, pull away from the quenching coolness of her hand, away from the sustained belief in her eyes and away from what she was saying. He wasn't an angel. Not anymore. He gave it up, stopped doing it. Being what he was only reminded him of what he loss. Still now, three years later. Standing next to this girl, this slip of a thing that lived in her own little world and had somehow dragged him into it, he wondered why they had sent her back. Why now and why like this?

/end/

{..posted by Rabe at 00:30..}

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Saturday, July 09, 2005 :::
 

Forgotten I have, the 'thrill' of the very quick, two day rejection.

*sigh*

Wasn't there a reason I stopped subbing to markets? Oh yeah. The rejection.

Yeah, that's it!

{..posted by Rabe at 21:16..}

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Thursday, June 30, 2005 :::
 

First round:

[image removed]

She looked out across the water. It was pretty enough. Green and dense foilage would help her find plenty to eat. The fog would help hide her. It was a location that was hard to get too, all of which made up for the heat that she would have to become accustomed too.

Would her children be able to find her?

"What do you think?" the realtor asked, her hair done up so perfectly that Nessie almost believed it wasn't real. Maybe some form of glamour. Her sinuous tale flicked behind her while she stared across the water again.

"I don't know. It's nice enough. The price is right. But I'm not sure. It's so different than the loch I'm currently in."

"Yes, but the neighborhood is great. Right next door are a couple luck dragons. You don't get that over in Scotland." The realtor's voice was pretty enough, mellifous though. Not what Nessie would have expected from a yeti. Still, she did have a point. And it was secluded. No more late night dunkings of drunks trying to find their way to her. No more film crews and scientists to hide from. The last 'When Nessie Attacks' special aired on the American Fox Network had almost caused a nervous breakdown. Still, it was awfully far away. And very pricey.

"It's got great potential. So green, almost like you've never left the Emerald Isles!"

"That's Ireland," Nessie said, her tail flickering faster. "I'm Scottish."

"Ireland, Scotland. What's the difference? Here you'll have peace, privacy. It'll be great. Lots of room to expand. The rainy seasons come and you'll have all that back acreage to swim in. It's got plenty of room for the grandbabies."

Nessie considered. She did have lots of grandbabies. And great grandbabies. Great, great grandbabies even. She scowled, maybe she even had great, great, great grandbabies by now. Who knew.


Second round:

[image removed]

The sculpture arrived at the musuem that way. Two feminine figures huddling together, covered in moss. Probably old cast iron. Possibly a piece cast in the lost process of cold wax. That was the theory anyway.

It wasn't true.

It wasn't a sculpture at all. It wasn't even that old. A few decades, maybe. I know. My father was there. He's the demon that turned them that way. Two tribal witchwomen who tried to stop him from destroying their village. It's hard to feel sorry for them, they, at least, are still alive.

They're free from the pain of living though. The droughts that struck, the pestilence that came. They survived all that. Almost makes me not want to try to turn them back. But I have to. If I'm going to stop him, I might need their help.

Their's, and the other victims. God help me, but I'm going after him. He gave me everything, took me in when I was nothing. Sure, he infected me with the darkness of his soul, but I've had a privileged life. I've never wanted for anything.

Not like these women. Goddesses to their tribe, but that just meant a little extra food, people got out of their way. So small, so fragile. You can see it in their bones. They were big fishes in very small ponds. I'm about to make them very tiny guppies in a huge pond. And then use them as bait.

My father won't understand. Or, I dont' know, maybe he will. That scares me more than anything else.

The security guard, a graying old guy with more gut than balls, stares at me, his orthopedic shoes smacking the polished tile floor heavy as he starts my way. I glance at the paper in my hand, some sort of brochure about the exhibit and start to walk off. I hear them calling for me. They know I'm here. They know why I'm here.

They're willing to do it, just to be flesh and blood again. Even though it means they'll die. My father won't be so generous this time around. He'll kill them. They're not powerful enough to really hurt him. At most, lightning bugs. But they can distract. Big Belly is still watching me, I can hear the whine of his hearing aides from here.

{..posted by Rabe at 21:01..}

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looking over my database today, I realized it's been a year, to the day, that I last subbed anything.

Not surprising, considering I've been working on dark fantasy and science fiction novels in that time frame. Of course, of the four I've started, I've finished one. *sigh* (soon, though, that will be two! both dark fantasy novels).

But, because it's a horrible joke that this should be so, I've subbed 'Soldimehndi' out to a literary journal today. They've not gone live yet and I'm sure I've just bought a ticket to Rejectionville again, but what the hell. Life's all about rejection yes?

{..posted by Rabe at 18:07..}

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Sunday, June 26, 2005 :::
 

Sometimes there is a problem when I force myself to stop writing before my mind, or possessing spirit - whichever it is - is actually finished with the words.

That problem?

Tossing and turning in bed with words spilling through my mind. Words from the next scene, or from what is to come. Where my mind - or possessing spirit - cannot shut down from the writing and allow myself to go to blissful sleep.

Such was the case last night. Too many words going through the mind and not enough time to keep going. Kind of like I had absorbed all those words and they would be exorcized, whether through keyboard or fitful, chilly half-conscious dreams. Either way, good to them.

Not so much to me.

And the worse of the problems is that the half-crazed night words are better than the ones I wrote and forced myself to stop. *sigh*

{..posted by Rabe at 17:32..}

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Wednesday, June 22, 2005 :::
 

have I really been saying that I'm near the end of this book?

Which I've been saying since it was about 87k words?

Where it's now over 110k words?

And I still think I'm as exactly far from the end as I was then?

*sigh* Sometimes, judging distances to go? Not my thing!

{..posted by Rabe at 21:09..}

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Sunday, June 19, 2005 :::
 

...the only real comfort if I'm super tired at work tomorrow, if getting out of bed this morning will be extremely hard, is that I have this problem whereby when I *shouldn't* be writing because I *should* be going to bed...I get many words.

Over 5k words in the last hour and a half.

And I get to be surprised by characters revealing things that I didn't even suspect, but the subconscious knew.

I thought it was another character that was manipulating things, connecting with spirits that caused a lot of trouble for another MC. Only to find out how wrong I was. The first character is innocent, almost, of that. And I'm not so sure how much I like, now, the character that was behind the series of events.

What I will be dying to find out though, is how my reader reacts to it. I may just send her everything up to that point tomorrow in order to find out. Or, I may just wait. Because, again, the end is in sight. It really, really is. Tomorrow, in the story, is the day that everything comes to a head. I've one or two more scenes to write to get me to 'tomorrow' and then possibly one scene to set up the final conflict. Then...well...we'll see what happens.

Which is good. I promised my reader this would be done by July 8th.

I wouldn't mind having it done and a good chunk of some other project started before I leave for the cruise. though, I should have my new laptop by then. Long drives, when others are behind the wheel (*IF* others are behind the wheel...after all, it IS my loverly car and I'm not sure I'm ready to let others drive it for such extended periods of time!) might be good for creativity.

{..posted by Rabe at 23:14..}

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Monday, June 13, 2005 :::
 

A tired puppy I will be for work tomorrow...

But, I think 4600 words tonight is worth that!

I'm getting closer and closer to the end of this thing. And, I'm thinking of killing off a major character in the novel. Mainly because it would be good.

In the end...I don't think it's going to happen. But the temptation is so beautiful and it would be so easy to give in to it.

{..posted by Rabe at 22:51..}

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