Amanda Helms

Okay, at Starbucks, just hanging around until it’s time to head out for dinner theater. Promised myself I’d finally get some planning done, though by “planning” I currently mean freewriting and hoping something decent comes out of it. I have a Grande Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte by my laptop, and a book to read in case I really luck out with planning. But hopefully that won’t happen, as we’re now 10 days away from the start of NaNo, and I still only have a basic plot.

I have thought, though, that my Big Bad is going to be Neptune or Poseidon or a decendent. Motivation on his (or her, if decendent) part can be to get the Stradivarius as the power of the siren spirits inside it can help reestablish the Big Bad’s precendence/godlike status–or become a god in the case of the decendent?

I do keep saying I want to have kids, but there is currently one here who is a babbler, a high-pitched babbler, and [redacted] the child is annoying. Very annoying.

Anyway. Descendent would want to become a god, or Neptune/Poseidon wants to get back to the old status. I’m currently thinking the Big Bad will be a descendent–seems to fit better. Rich, probably, because she’d need the resources to hunt down this Stradivarius in particular.

And I’d turned off my Internet in order to save battery, but I may need to turn it back on–can’t remember what connection, if any, Neptune/Poseidon had with the sirens. Or even which one is Greek. If I’m going to go with sirens, might as well use the Greek version of the sea god, hey?

Or the Big Bad could be Athena or Aphrodite or whoever it was who supposedly sprang out of the ocean foam. Or a descendent, as the drill goes.

Ah, good! Poseidon is the Greek version. I was thinking I like the name better. Which isn’t as much of an issue if I go the descendent route, but still.

Got the Internet going again. Poseidon fathered Orion, looks like, and he raped lots and lots of women. So maybe my Big Bad is a descendent of Orion, a little more happy than being descended from, say, the “Giant Sinius,” and she’s got a sort of nobility complex, so to speak.

Whoops, looks like Orion was a rapist, too. Okay, so my Big Bad has issues with being descended from a line of rapists. Maybe she’s not quite a man-hater, but she doesn’t particularly like them–well, maybe she prefers women all the way around. Hmm.

She’s not directly in this book, anyway. Or at least I don’t think she is. But at least I’m thinking about the backstory. It’ll help the series (oh, am I seriously thinking series before I even know if the first book works?) go more smoothly.

Okay, looks like Aphrodite was the sea-foam goddess, but I don’t immediately see that she had much connection to Poseidon. For that matter, I’m not sure how much connection Poseidon had with the sirens. Though it’s my world, so I can do what I like.

Another issue is what I want to do with whole Greco-Roman bit. If I get into the whole Pantheon, am I saying that all the gods/goddesses are single, with the two names, or that there are (were) different entities?

Right now I’m thinking just the single set. I suppose in the backstory the divergence of the Greco and Roman gods could’ve resulted in split personalities–the whole “followers’ faiths giving rise to gods’ mainfestations” bit that comes up with decent regularity. But I’m not 100% sure about that.

And yet another consideration is how God in Judeo-Christian terms comes into things.

Loud baby is gone now. She was cute when she wasn’t going “Ah ba ba ba ba!” at the top of her lungs.

Anyway. My God. I hate to say that my God doesn’t exist in this fictional world. And Shay sings in a choir. The gospel songs soothe her and that deathsong thing. So there’s a definite place for the Judeo-Christian God–and I hate referring to him like this, since he is my God and I am a Christian and I hate trying to figure out how my faith, exactly, fits in with the things I write. Which is a terrible thing to write–I shouldn’t hate it at all. But it doesn’t come easily to me. I don’t have it in me to write quote-unquote Christian fiction. It’s hard, hard, hard to do well.

Or maybe that’s just an excuse to make myself feel better for not writing stories involving the love of Jesus.

[Redacted as I went into a long discussion about my obligations as a Christian and as a writer to myself, my audience, and the story that had nothing to do with NaNo plot development. Though it may make for an interesting post if I can get some cohesive and coherent thoughts together rather than brain-vomit.]

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And I’ve got another three pages where I delved a bit more into my main character and tried to name my male MC, but three pages single-spaced is a bit much for a single post.

Bear with me, readers-that-be. Next week we’ll actually be into NaNo, so theoretically I’ll have an actual excerpt to post, which should be more interesting.

Theoretically.

It’s a bad sign when I miss my exit because I’m thinking about this recipe. I love King Arthur Flour, both their products and their recipes. I can’t recall a single failure from following their recipes, and though I think I make a pretty good baker, I seem to consistently get the most praise with King Arthur. So when I have a hankering for pumpkin cinnamon rolls, and then the heavens smile upon me and lead me to a King Arthur recipe for pumpkin cinnamon rolls, you can bet I’ll pay attention. And now it’s been over three weeks since I first read the recipe, and these cinnamon rolls have yet to grace my kitchen.

I will remedy that this weekend. And I missed my exit because I was thinking of all the iterations I might try on the recipe: What if I did a sourdough version? Not the best idea since my sourdough baking still leaves something to be desired, and especially since the weather’s turning colder, so the rise would be even slower… hmm. What if I tried adding whey to the dough to give it a bit of oomph? But I don’t have any whey on hand and probably won’t strain yogurt before the weekend–

And I want a nice, gooey filling. Preferably maple. But how to make a gooey maple filling? It’d need butter or other fat, since the dough would absorb the liquid from the maple syrup. Could also add brown sugar, but would that mask the maple taste? Wonder if I could find a filling online that I could modify…

And so on, until

Oh crap, that was my exit!

I am trying not to think too deeply about what this means for me as a writer. I don’t believe I’ve ever missed an exit because I was ruminating about  characters or plot. And I’m also trying not to think too deeply about what this means for NaNoWriMo in particular.

Hey. I do have an idea. And characters. And things the characters will do. Even if those lists aren’t particularly long yet, they’re existent.

Besides, I kind of like to wing it.  More of a challenge for the ol’ imagination. Really stretch it to its limits. Flex my creative muscles.

Cough.

Anyway.

Since I’ve posted previously about my love of pumpkin, it likely doesn’t come as a surprise that I’ve taken to hoarding pie pumpkins. The last few times I’ve gone to the grocery store, I’ve had to resist the sudden leap of joy: They’re still here! I can get one! (ignoring that it’s unlikely they’ll disappear from supermarkets until at least Thanksgiving. And if that happens, it means there’s a pumpkin shortage.*)

Because they’re still sitting on my kitchen counter. Well, I’m down to one intact pumpkin, but still. I have a bit of puree left from my first pumpkin, all the puree from my second, and the third is patiently waiting its turn to be gutted, roasted, and bludgeoned to a pulp.

Some of my current puree will go toward making pumpkin chili for the chili cookoff/Halloween party at my work. Never made pumpkin chili before–and I’ve never participated in the cookoff–but I figure I’ll give it a go. Some of it I’ll add to my morning oatmeal. And the rest for those luscious cinnamon rolls. It’ll make for a lovely Halloween breakfast, a pre-NaNo fortifying treat.

Maybe I’ll miss some exit on Saturday as I panic about NaNo. Or reminisce over the taste of the cinnamon roll; whatever.

*A pause while I clutch my chest in fear and whimper. I must be strong.

As I feel the need to curl up into a ball to allow myself to recover from the astronomical number that will show up on my credit card bill next month (stupid car requiring stupid tires, compounded by purchasing of birthday gifts and sweaters and coat for yours truly that really have been on her to-purchase list for quite some time) I’m just tossing in the NaNo prep I did at the airport while waiting on my flight from DFW to Abilene last week.

I would say I normally don’t have sentences that long, but this is me we’re talking about.

Anyway, here ’tis.

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I realized yesterday that Shay’s mother’s name is Daphne. Which means that it’s Daphne Donovan. There will have to be mocking of that. I think at some point I also had an idea for the antagonist’s name, but I’ve spaced it.

Brian? Bran? Curtis, Martin… dang it, just not feeling any of those. And it’s always so irritating how I can’t really get my head around characters until I’ve named them. Ethnicity of the guy–he’s probably still white. Not that evil people are limited to being white, but I’m afraid that he’ll turn into a stereotype if he’s evil and, say, Middle Eastern.

Ankles are cold. I think I could probably check about standby again at 8:40. Maybe 8:30. Now 8:08.

Tony. Antonio. Blurgh. Antonio’s bad–makes me think of a crappy romance novel. “And Antonio took her in his bulging arms…”

Andrew? Andrew may be a contender for the male love interest. Interesting that I don’t necessarily want to call him the “male lead” or the MMC. Because I’m not 100% sure he is the “MMC.” I don’t know what his airtime will be, so to speak.

Anderson. Not sure I like the surname as first name thing. Griffin. Would be eternally reminded of Cody and Tina’s nephew. No.

Gryffindor. Hah!

Jordon. Gregory. Scott. Mike. Bill. Tim. Thorn. Talon. (Talon’s from the story about the boy who was thought to be in the helium balloon but then turned out to be hiding in his family’s attic. Give me five months and I’ll likely have no idea what this parenthetical means.)

Wonder how many people in this waiting area are supposed to be on the Abilene flight. It’s not terribly crowded here yet, which is good. So far looks like most people are boarding for the Des Moines flight.

Donovan. Ohh, that’s a good contender. Feels maybe-evil.

Caine! I was going to call the villain Caine.

And it can’t be Donovan. That’s Shay’s last name. Headdesk

Ah, the NaNo-speak has returned.

Caine may be his last name, which means I’d still need a first name, but I think he’ll refer to himself as Caine, and have other people call him Caine, so for the moment it’s good enough.

8:16.

Wonder if it’s in me to do an interview with Caine…

Not yet.

Could do some freewriting on the plot, though.

So Shay saves–or at least momentarily prolongs–the life of the werewolf whose heart is donated to Caine, turning Caine into a supposedly prophesied werewolf.

I’m thinking that the original werewolf was initially the focus of the prophecy about uniting the werewolves/bringing out a new era of peace/whatever it is. Should really solidify it. So someone–an agent of my Big Bad–gets hold of Caine and explains the prophecy to him, saying that now the prophecy’s mantle has fallen upon Caine.

Caine… he’s thrilled with not feeling weak anymore. He’s been contending with this heart condition for his whole life, couldn’t run or jump or play or even go up the stairs without getting winded, taking it slow. And now he has a body that can heal itself from almost anything. He’s pretty much impervious to disease, even silver poisoning–which his fellow werewolves are not. So he’s strong, and impetuous, and essentially develops a god-complex. He hasn’t had anyone explain the “rules” to him, so he either doesn’t think the rules apply to him, or he doesn’t even know that the rules exist.

His method of bringing about peace is to kill those who don’t agree with him. That’s the lycanthropy, I guess, controlling him, making his violent tendencies more prevalent. Which isn’t original by any means, but hopefully the heart-transplant thing will make up for that.

8:24. Workers have disappeared from the B6 gate. I assume they’ll show up again before the Abilene flight. One would hope, anyway. Maybe I should do my bathroom break now, be ready to pop over there when they return.

Watching a lady’s bag for her while she goes to bathroom, so that means I can have her do the same when she comes back. Signing off now.

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I still have faith that this will all come together in a cohesive plot. Preferably in ten days (well, nine by the time this post goes live) so I have a clue what I’m doing. Vive la NaNo! Carpe diem! And other foreign-language calls to action!

(I trust my readers are title-readers, but if not, go back and read it.

Done? Okay.)

I had a cold and was traveling to Abilene, TX, for my five year college reunion. That’s why.

The following came about while waiting in the airport Friday morning (I was supposed to arrive in Abilene Thursday night, but circumstances beyond my control as I do not have godlike powers, or even Superman-like powers that would enable me to fly around the world and turn back time, caused me to miss my connecting flight from DFW to Abilene Thursday night). On a second read, it more or less makes sense, and this way I won’t have to worry about getting in a Monday Miscellany post once I’m back home and concerned about things like buying groceries for the week and laundry. Yes, I am lazy.

So. Here it is.

Notes from airport 10/16/09

Sitting in the airport after missing my flight into Abilene last night. Issues with the flight out from Denver to DFW–wound up leaving about an hour and ten minutes later than we were supposed to, and though the flight made up about forty minutes en route, it wasn’t enough for me to make my connecting flight. At least American Airlines cashed out for a hotel room, though my stay at the Days Inn and Suites was hardly what I would call primo conditions. Also I am spending more money than I would have otherwise, just from tipping the shuttle drivers. Not like it’s their fault my flight was delayed and then missed, and of course they have those “Tips constitute majority of drivers compensation and are greatly appreciated thank you” signs.

I can forgive the run-on and lack of plural possessive apostrophe. I have reached the point of frustration where it actually shifts from frustration to a sort of benign neglect/nascent zen-like benevolence toward the world at large. So I tipped the drivers a couple of bucks going from and to the airport.

Shuttle was named RC Express. Maybe it was the tiredness kicking in, but last night as I waited forty minutes for my shuttle to arrive (though the American Airlines desk worker who handled my missed-flight issues had assured me it would be fifteen) I found myself wondering what the “RC” stands for. Royal Crown? Royal Crest? No, I think those are the names of dairies back home.

Righteous… something. Righteous Custard.

It was then I realized the missed flight had addled me more than I thought. “Righteous Custard.” What would that even be? Supercilious ice cream treats?

Shuttle itself looked run-down. “RC Express” in blue lettering across a white van. Dusty all over, minor dents in the door, and a few rust spots. Shuttle driver popped out and asked me where I was going. I knew this and told him.

“North or South?”

“Ummm…” Vaguely remembered seeing on my room voucher one of those directions, but couldn’t remember which, spent several seconds scanning my voucher and wondering why my hotel name with the crucial directional designation had faded from my voucher in the 35 minutes since I’d last looked at it.

Driver came to peer at the voucher with me, and eventually found it. “North. Good. Because sometimes it’s South and we don’t service South.”

I also discovered that the Righteous Custard Express serviced several hotels in the area aside from the Days Inn. This was because we picked up other people who had missed their flight and were also put up in a hotel by American. I tend to externalize my problems and assume that others are dealing with the same difficulties I am–maybe because it makes me feel less alone in the world, I don’t know. There’s likely a philosophical take on it that would reveal the depths of my psyche, but I’m running on around five hours of sleep and still fighting a head cold, so I’m disinclined to spend much time pondering things that may give me headaches.

So yeah, maybe not everyone on that shuttle–six of us all told once we finished hitting up every terminal, during which time my driver found it necessary to pull over to the curb and get out to ask people where they were going. I guess he suspected that, unlike me, his potential passengers took a lackadaisical attitude as to their hotel transport. “What was my shuttle called? Ringling Circus Express? Ranger Cowboy Express? Oh well; I’ll just assume that rather than having to watch for the shuttle myself, the driver will pop out and ask me where I want to go.”

Just realized I never truly finished the first sentence of that paragraph. Maybe not everyone on that shuttle had missed their flight and was relegated to spending the night in a Dallas-area airport. But at least one other was, because I noticed the familiar logo on his voucher. And I noticed the way the shuttle driver also peered at this guy’s voucher, much as he had mine, and I recognized the “North or South?” confusion on the passenger’s face that must have graced my own just ten minutes prior.

Only this guy’s voucher turned out to be for Wyndham Hotel, which, from the outside, looked much nicer than what I knew to expect from Days Inn. Which made me wonder if American had blacklisted me for having bought my tickets off Priceline rather than directly through American’s site. Maybe-fellow flight-misser was even a first-class passenger.

Oh well, thought I, it’s only one night.

And it was only one night, with a complimentary breakfast. Breakfast also required a voucher, procured simply by showing my card at the front desk, otherwise it would’ve been $5.95. Which made me wonder–people who stay at the hotel get the breakfast for free. Do the fine folks of Days Inn truly expect outsiders to come in for their breakfast? “You know, honey, I have a hankering for the tasty reconstituted eggs, dubious sausage, and toast made from Every Day Value bread* from Days Inn. Totally worth the $5.95. Whaddya think?”

The whole spread reminded me of a post by Cheeseslave on what makes real food in America. This wasn’t it.

Because I like to know exactly what I’m putting into my body, while obtaining my “foodstuffs” from the breakfast, I read the ingredients of the little Country Crock spread tubs.

“That’s water,” I thought I heard the waitperson–whose job it was to ask me if I wanted coffee (“Do you have tea?”) and stir the gravy at regular intervals to keep it from forming a skin–say.

“Pardon?” I asked. Surely he wasn’t telling me that if I wanted water, I should open up several of those little tablespoon-sized containers of Country Crock and toss ’em back, like trans-fatty shots.

“That’s water.”

I went for the neutral “Oh.”

It took me another few seconds to realize he was truly saying “That’s butter,” as if I were too stupid to identify what was in the Country Crock tub. Which I’m not, because it’s clearly not butter. Real butter has one ingredient: Cream. And salt if it’s salted butter. Real butter doesn’t have an ingredient list so long I haven’t finished reading it before gravy-stirring waitpeople observe me staring at the packet, think, “Poor lady is unfamiliar with the breakfast stylings of Days Inn and must be informed of what she is looking at,” and so kindly enlighten me.

Anyway.

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*I saw the bag. And I judged. I get judgy when I’m tired.

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From there, my babblings segue into semicoherent rambles about NaNoWriMo and stuff that is theoretically helpful in plot development and character building, but which, if I do post here, I’ll save for my Thursday 300, since it’s more writing-related rather than complaints about missed flights and fake food and musings on the potential meaning of an initialism. Next week’s Miscellany Monday should be more put-together. I hope.

As I’m currently fighting off a cold/potential bronchial infection and therefore find myself disinclined to pursue nonsedentary activities, I’ve been reading that vampire book set in WWII that I mentioned buying my last Miscellany Monday post. So far I’m wishing I’d gone for Keri Arthur or Kelley Armstrong. Or that I’d even decided to spend a bit more money and headed over to the humor section for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

It’s not just the egregious typos, though the copy editor in me experiences a minor brain aneurysm each time I spot another one (at least once every twenty pages–one of which was “aa” for “as.” Seriously. “In” for “it” and “that” for “than” I can understand, but a proper spell check should’ve caught the “aa”). And I love the premise of it–that’s why I bought the book in the first place, why I passed over Keri Arthur and Kelley Armstrong for something that struck me as more original.

But the characterization is flat. Not just pancake-flat, because pancakes, I mean good, made-from-scratch pancakes, have some flavor. The characters in this book are cardboard-flat.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit harsh. Cardboard with a dash of cinnamon. And for what it’s worth, cinnamon is my favorite spice.

Still.

I’ll finish the book, if only for a reminder of what I don’t want to write. And I will grant that this book contains multiple viewpoints–not just three or four, but–at a quick flip-through–nine. So due to space constraints, it’s that much more difficult to fully flesh out POV characters. It is possible, of course. Stephen King is excellent at this. The Stand comes to mind. Granted, The Stand is far longer than this book, but at the same time, the challenge of a short story is to develop characters in the space of 4,000 words or less. Using my math powers, 4,000 words times 9 equals 36,000 words, which is close to half the length of this book. So there still ought to be room for decent characterization.

The character that bothers me the most is a vampire named Eiche who, as far as I can tell, serves as the book’s main antagonist. The basic premise of the book is that Germany has enlisted the aid of German vampires to subdue the bloody English and make way for the Third Reich to take over. The vampires plan to betray rebel against the Germans, but it seems initially they’re willing to appear subservient for the sake of easy meals.

So Eiche and a team of other vampires have been sent to the town of Brytewood as a sort of advance guard/recon group. Honestly, I have to say that Eiche is starting to irritate me more and more. The scenes from his point of view consists largely of “How dare the mere mortal question him!” and “If only the puny human knew what Eiche really was…” Eiche’s arrogance is heavy-handed, and it seems that’s his only personality trait.

I don’t have to like the antagonist in a book. With urban fantasy, and most genre literature from The Lord of the Rings to–well, this book, you don’t go in expecting to sympathize with The Enemy. I don’t need it to be like the Dexter series, where the lines between Good Guy and Bad Guy get seriously blurred. But one of the first things writers learn, or should learn, about characters is that antagonists consider themselves the hero of their own story. They don’t see themselves as evil. And therefore, a good writer should carefully consider the antagonist’s goals and motivations, because it should be more complicated than “to beat the good guy” and “because he/she is evil.”

I’m not getting the sense that any more thought went into Eiche than what I put in that last sentence.

Some might say that I expect too much of my vampires. The fantasy world is full of monsters that are de facto evil: vampires, of course, and demons, incubi, succubi, werewolves, and all manner of beasties whose sole purpose, in their mythological roots, was to wreak havoc upon humans simply because they were evil. That the complicated, tortured vampire, didn’t come into vogue until Anne Rice, and since then, we’ve been slowly altering our monsters until they actually became figures of romance. But the root is pure evil.

Well, fine; it’s a writer’s prerogative to take a monster the pure-evil route–but in that case, don’t stick me in their POV for page after dreary page. I’d argue that the one-dimensional “this character is evil and that’s why they’re opposing the protagonist” characterization is more akin to a man (or woman) vs. nature plot–and when you get those, you don’t cut to the storm or hurricane’s POV, because there isn’t one, even if you personify it. It’s a force of nature, and it’s doing what it’s supposed to. No, instead of the storm, you stick with your protagonists. Because they have goals and motivations and thoughts and relationships with other characters and they’re interesting.

Or least, one would hope so.

I have more to write about–I thought about going into how I would’ve liked to have seen interactions among English vampires (mentioned in Eiche’s POV as being “effete” but have yet to make an appearance) and how the “vampires are superior to humans” and “Germans/the Aryan race are superior to everyone else” aspects would’ve played out in that respect. Would an English vampire be “better” to Eiche’s mind than a German human?

And I’d also thought how I could also better understand Eiche if he were to serve as a comparison to Hitler and Nazi Germany’s ethnocentrism and xenophobia. Because while I’d say that (if I may be permitted to compare historical and fictional persons) Hitler was more complicated than Eiche, I would put him firmly in the “evil” category. No shades of gray on that one; just evil. But the book certainly makes no sort of allusion that Eiche is to serve as an allegory for Hitler.

But that’s my English major resurfacing, five years after my graduation. I probably don’t need to go that deep an analysis for my historical urban fantasy.

And I have some sort of illness to fight, and a book to finish. I’ll try to save my energy and not throw the book against the wall when I get to Eiche’s scenes.

Or maybe I’ll just skip them. I doubt I’d miss much.

Okay, it being October, I’m starting to get semiserious about NaNoWriMo prep. I’ve changed my idea twice now, but I think this one is going to stick. I’m going with urban fantasy, which I’d initially thought to not do since I’d figured the market has to hit the saturation point fairly soon, but my trips to the bookstore so far indicate that the genre is still pretty healthy. However, I think the vampires/werewolves aspect is about to reach saturation point, so I’m doing something a bit different. My MC is descended from a line of sirens, works as a lounge singer/maybe bartender in a Nashville nightclub, and totes a Stradivarius that contains the psyches, I guess, of her ancestors.

Coughbuttherearestillwerewolvescough.*

Plot is still vague. I tend to develop my characters first and get more of a plot later. One of my favorite techniques for developing character, and, as a side-effect, story, is the character interview. Author meets character. Yup. It also helps, usually, to get all the fourth-wall breaking out of my system pre-NaNo so I don’t resort to it for word padding.

Usually. I make no promises.

Anyway,  I’m here posting my first “interview” with my MC, Shay Donovan.

I do have some nebulous thoughts about the story, which the interview alludes to, but since most everything is still sort of vague, I’m not (yet) going to explain it.**

So yeah. The creative mind at work.*** Here goes.

Character Interview: Shay Donovan

Amanda: Okay, we’ll see how this goes as I don’t really have any questions prepared and want to use this as my Thursday 300 post so I can kill two birds with one stone. And I’m leading off with a cliché. That does not bode well. Ack! Another one!

Shay: So do you want me to be snarky about that or comforting or what?

Amanda: I don’t know. That’s why I’m doing this character interview. It worked sort of well for my Every Day After project.

Shay: Except for the fact that you never finished it.

Amanda: Okay, I think I’d prefer you to be comforting. I don’t think you’re snarky. First question: How do you like being a lounge singer?

Shay: [shrugs] Well, it pays my bills, doesn’t it? [pause] I mean that seriously. I am solvent, aren’t I?

Amanda: At the moment. I’m not really seeing major financial difficulties as a point of tension in the book, even as a subplot. But go into a little more detail about your job aside from the financial aspects. Have you found your calling? (And you can ignore that I’ve just put in yet another cliché. This is a writing exercise. Clichés don’t count.)

Shay: My calling. Well, considering that I’m descended from a long line of sirens, that I get paid for singing is mostly a good thing. I guess. I don’t like that I have to be careful and not let myself go all-out, so to speak.

Amanda: That would be on account of potentially causing people to kill themselves.

Shay: Which you do need to develop a little further, you know. Yes, I know I’m based in Nashville and therefore landlocked, so it’s not like I’m going to cause hapless sailors to crash on hidden rocks and drown or whatever, but how exactly would people in a nightclub be lead to their deaths from the beauty of my singing? Walk into an amplifier and electrocute themselves?

Amanda: Well, it’s a thought…

Shay: Keep thinking.

Amanda: What did I say about the snarkiness? I know this is an urban fantasy and all, and it’s like the thing for the main characters to be smart-alecky, but I’m trying to buck tradition a bit here. I mean, sirens in Nashville, that hasn’t been done yet. I don’t think so, anyway.

Shay: …

Amanda: Hey! I’m already past 300 words according to OpenOffice’s counter. Score!

Shay: And you were actually considering the “Tuesday 200” as opposed to the “Thursday 300.”

Amanda: Gotta keep the alliteration, you know.

Shay: Well, written blathering has never really been your problem. Think you’re going to get the novel done in 100k or less?

Amanda: It could happen. Particularly if I have a decent plot drawn out. Speaking of, so your Stradivarius gets stolen at some point.

Shay: I know, and if I could kill you with my song, I’d do it now.

Amanda: You’re a lot meaner than I thought.

Shay: Probably your own latent antisocial tendencies. So my Stradivarius is stolen by my as-yet-unnamed archenemy who’s even more evil than the– Quit staring at your split ends! You’re not getting anything done. Keep at this. You don’t have to give up on it just because you’ve already hit 300 words.

Amanda: I know. Sorry. I really envy Stephen King and his navel stories. Wish I could feel like a story is just getting pulled straight from my navel to the page. It is sort of strange that he’d pick the navel rather than the brain or the heart, but then again back in the 1600s or so, the bowels were supposed to be the seat of emotions rather than the heart. At least, that’s what I remember from Freshman English…

Shay: Your mind goes to the strangest places. I could wish that someone else created me.

Amanda: Well, you’re stuck. I’d apologize but I’m still not happy with you talking about killing me with your song.

Shay: Hey, you’re the one who envisioned the “death song” as always being on the peripherary of my consciousness, flicking about the corners of my brain, just waiting for me to hum a bar or two.

Amanda: And it gets worse when you play the Stradivarius.

Shay: Why– Oh, it’s because it has the spirits of my dead ancestors in it, and their combined, er, siren-ness gets a little difficult to ignore.

Amanda: Hey, that’s progress! Only I hope it doesn’t sound quite so lame or unoriginal when I’ve fleshed it out a little bit.

Shay: Watch me be comforting! [clears throat] There, there. This is only the development process, and you’ll only be writing the first draft. Editing and excising of the lameness will come later.

Amanda: That kind of helped. I guess. But anyway (and here comes my fourth cliché) the Stradivarius is kind of a double-edged sword, because it does make you more, um, siren-like and powerful, but if you can harness the…

Shay: Don’t do it! Keep your hair in that ponytail.

Amanda: [puts hand back on keyboard] Right. But if you can harness the power boost (sounds like a crappy Japanese fighter game, “power boost”) and use it for your more positive abilities—the happy songs that are more life-inducing and healing and all that—then that’s a good thing. And I’ll wordsmith that later. Not sure I want to mention “happy songs” when talking about your particular abilities.

Shay: Yup, just keep up that mantra. It’s just the planning stage for the first draft. Edit later.

Amanda: See, that’s the kind of supportiveness I like!

Shay: Well, you’ve got me saving a stranger bleeding profusely from the abdomen in the first chapter. I’d hope that’s indicative of at least a modicum of niceness.

Amanda: We may have to dumb down your vocabulary a bit, though.

Shay: Hey!

Amanda: No offense.

Shay: Offense still taken.

Amanda: Just remember that I’m giving you a Stradivarius to play. That should count for something.

Shay: It’d count for more if it didn’t get stolen.

Amanda: The when on that is still up in the air. It could get played out into the sequel, if there is one.

Shay: In which case the theft would last across books. You’re not helping any, Helms.

Amanda: I’d apologize, but it’s a writer’s job to make her characters’ lives as sucky as possible before fixing things. Otherwise there’s no drama or tension and nobody will want to read the book.

Shay: [grumbles]

Amanda: Well, I think I’m calling it quits for now. I’m going to blame my low blood pressure. Hope it’s nothing serious.

Shay: Most likely momentary. But of course if it’s still low when you try to donate blood next week, you should probably head to the doctor.

Amanda: Aww, see, you are nice.

Shay: And I’d be even nicer if I got to keep the Stradivarius.

Amanda: Not happening.

Shay: [grumbles]

___________________________________________________________

*Hey, saturation point or no, I figure there might be some crossover appeal. Don’t judge me.

**Plus I’m sure the explanation would hit more than 300 words, so I’d prefer to hoard that for another Thursday 300. I’m lazy that way.

***Can be a frightening thing.

Saturday afternoon I bounded from my car and to my local Borders with my $5 Borders Bucks print-out folded semi-neatly in my purse. I always have a sense of when joy purchasing a new mass market paperback for a total of $2–3 and change.

A sign in the window drew my attention just as I was about to pass through the entryway: Bargain Books $1.

Well, thought I, I’m not likely to find anything I’d want for just $1, but it never hurts to lo– Zadie Smith! On Beauty! In hardback! SCORE!

There were several copies remaining, so I snagged one with death grip–no one, but no one, would wrest my copy of On Beauty from me should they be overcome with the awesomeness of the $1 price, so much so that they were unwilling to head over to the entryway to procure their own copy from the remaining five or so. Which would surely depart the shelves quickly, because it’s Zadie Smith for $1. One freaking dollar.

As a prepublished writer, perhaps I should have winced a bit at poor Zadie losing out quite a bit on her royalties, but honestly it never occurred to me. Clearly I’ll have to reorganize my reader vs. writer priorities.

Nevertheless, I headed into the store and back toward the SF/Fantasy section with a certain bounce in my step. The soundtrack of my life, if anyone could hear it but me, would have been playing a jouncy tune à la a 1960s comedy starring Doris Day.

I think. It’s been awhile since I watched AMC.

Anyway, I navigated myself to the A’s of SF/Fantasy. I did think I wanted to get that book about werewolves and/or vampires in WWII England, but it never hurt to browse, did it, just in case I changed my mind.

I glanced at Kelley Armstrong and Keri Arthur, neither of whom I’ve yet read. After scanning a couple of their books, I realized I’d forgotten my tradition of heading over to the H’s to see where my book will be placed upon publication, which is what I’ve taken to doing every time I head into a brick and mortar bookstore. Positive mental conditioning, you know. So I strolled over to the H’s, pausing to note how Charlaine Harris took up a whole case plus a shelf and a half, found my spot snug between Hendee and someone whose name now escapes me, and glanced at Faith Hunter’s books. Oh yeah, been meaning to try her, too.

But after some dithering, I still went for the vampires in WWII England.

Then, still clutching my $1 Zadie and my going-to-be$2-and-change-with-my-Borders-Bucks vamps in England, I set out for the cash registers, pausing to look at the various display tables.

“That’s a wonderful price on the Zadie Smith, isn’t it?” I looked up from my book browsing to see a Borders employee with a shaved head smiling at me. I smiled back.

“Oh yes, it is!”

“I was kind of upset to see the price go down like that–I mean, I could’ve gotten it pretty cheap if I’d waited!” Chuckle, chuckle.

“Mm-hmm.”

But I also wondered if I was being judged for purchasing my vampires in WWII England book as well. And I wondered that again when my cashier also commented on my fabulous Zadie Smith deal.

I like Zadie Smith. I’ve read The Autograph Man and White Teeth. She’s a funny writer with a deft, and I mean deft, hand for characterization. She’s good. And I was an English major; I do appreciate good literature. I just also happen to think that urban fantasy can be good, too.

Which brings me, more than 600 words into this post (maybe I should work on shortening my anecdotes) to the reason of why I don’t write stuff that will be shelved in the Fiction & Literature section of my local borders. Why it’s Charlaine Harris I pass when seeing who my book neighbors will be, rather than Thomas Hardy or Alex Haley.

And I don’t know. I can say that escapism is part of it, and it is, I suppose. Or maybe it’s because I thrived on fairy tales and myths when growing up. My bedroom sported unicorn wallpaper, for the love of God. And I don’t know where my mom found them, but for a couple of years my calendars unicorn calendars. Not drawings, mind you, but photographs of white horses that had had horns attached to their heads. These calendars engendered talks with my mom about how “unicorns aren’t really real, you know. Someone just glued horns to those horses’ heads.”

Yes, I knew. But I loved those calendars all the same. And the first story I clearly remember writing featured a unicorn. I don’t write about unicorns now, but maybe fantasy is just ingrained in me.

Others more eloquent than I have written on fantasy’s worth, and I don’t feel compelled to defend the genre, as it were. I will say that character is paramount for me. If I can’t get on the character’s side or believe the character’s actions, then I’m done. And since much of genre literature (forgetting for the moment that “fiction and literature” is itself a genre) is plot-based, it’s perhaps not uncommon for characterization to fall by the wayside.

But I also don’t go for pretty language at the expense of character. And that’s where much “literary fiction” loses my interest.

I don’t have much point with this post, other than to note I don’t like that I still cringe a little at not going the literary erudite route. But what does it matter, really? I like to write. I like to tell stories. And every story, I think, is an escape from something.

So yes. I am an escapist.

Since the actual post is long enough, figured I’d put this in another entry.

On the whole, I’m pleased with the monster prompt. Major issue is that there’s not enough hints from the beginning that Jeremy didn’t like his dog much, but for something that’s hardly edited (I added an “a” and changed a “for” to “of” and checked for misspellings) I think it turned out well.

But honestly I’m not likely to post my abject failures. Maybe the self-critique thing is unnecessary.

Prompt from Writer’s Digest

When you were little, you could swear there was a monster under your bed—but no one believed you. On the eve of your 30th birthday, you hear noises coming from under your bed once again. The monster is back and has an important message to deliver to you.

I can’t really imagine anything worse than waking up on your thirtieth birthday and realizing you’re still the same failure you were at twenty-nine, at twenty-eight, twenty-three, all the way down to six years old, before it even occurred to you that you could be a failure. But in kindergarten art class, I was a failure. Mrs. Morgenstern complained—but in a nice way, as all kindergarten teachers should—that my pictures were all the same.

“And what have you drawn, Jeremy?” she’d ask, sliding my crayon-covered scribbling out from under my palms. She’d examine the picture, lips pursing, then sigh and blow out her bangs, lift a hand to smooth them out of her face. “It’s the monster again, Jeremy.” Said in a flat, you’re-a-failure-and-you-don’t-even-know-it-you-poor-idiot tone.

“It lives under my bed,” I’d say, like I hadn’t told her that every day of art class in the weeks she’d been my teacher.

“Now, Jeremy.” Mrs. Mortgenstern would give me my paper back, a frown playing at her lips. “You know that monsters don’t really exist. You have a dog, don’t you? Or some other pet? Why don’t you draw me a picture of him?”

I didn’t draw a picture of Rover because the monster had eaten him, and drawing pictures of my dead dog brought up unpleasant memories. Not that anyone believed me about that; the story was that Rover had run away one day, “like dogs sometimes do,” according to my Mom. But she hadn’t heard the crunching, and the whimpers. I had.

In the intervening years we’d moved to a new, monster-free house, and I’d done my best to move on, too, and draw pictures of things other than monsters and think about things other than dead or missing dogs. Childhood failures fade, eventually. The adult failures are more difficult to let go of.

But back to the being thirty and a failure bit.

The night before I was to turn thirty, I shucked down my bedsheets, ruminating on how I wasn’t married and indeed hadn’t had a girlfriend in over three years, how my job as a manager at the chicken processing facility was so not what I’d envisioned my future to be, how I still lived in a crummy apartment and had no five- or even a ten-year plan to get out of it, and I thought about how all those problems would seem that much worse in the morning because I’d shifted from two-nine to three-oh.

What a difference a change in two digits can make.

At 10:32 I flicked off the light and told myself I was going to sleep. At 10:33 I heard a familiar rattling under the bed. A rattling I hadn’t heard in over twenty years; a rattling I’d have rather forgot.

“No.” I said it aloud because the negation felt more real that way. Solid. Powerful. A force to be reckoned with, as they say. “I’m not hearing anything. It’s an… aural hallucination induced by dread of turning th-th-thirty.”

More rattling. I screwed my eyes shut tight, and my hands grasped fistfuls of the sheets, willing my brain to stop hallucinating.

But it didn’t stop, and at some point you decide it’s worse to actually be insane than to let the insane thing happen. I sat bolt-upright in the bed. “All right then, you bloody beast! Come out!”

The rattling stopped. For a moment all I heard was my own breathing, harsh and ragged in my ears. Blood rushed in my head and my heart struggled to beat its way out of my chest. Images of Rover—I hadn’t been the most imaginative child when it came to naming things—flashed through my brain, his tiny stump of a tail bobbing back and forth as he bared his lips and barked and barked and barked at the thing under my bed. He’d known there was something there.

I forced the thoughts away and my breath to ease, and then I heard a sort of scuffling, shuffling noise. And I had to have imagined the slight weight pressing on the end of my bed, just past my feet. I lived alone. Not even another pet; another symbol of my failure at life. So there couldn’t be anything else at the end of the bed.

But there was.

My hand shook—only a little, I told myself—as I reached out to my bedside to flick on the light.

A creature hardly bigger than a border collie sat on my bed, blinking at me. It was purple—in my pictures I’d always used green, never haven gotten a good look at it—with bulbous, watery eyes. It lifted a stubby, clawed hand to block the light. “Would you mind putting that out? It burns.”

Automatically I reached out to turn off the light again, but then I stopped and glowered at the beast. “No. You’re the monster who lived under my bed when I was six, aren’t you.”

It squinted and lifted up its other hand to reveal a crumpled piece of paper. It peered at it, then back at me. “You Jeremy Copenhagen?”

“Yeah.”

The thing drew itself up to its full, and, now that I was six-two rather than four-two, unimpressive height. “Yeah, I’m your monster. Could you turn out the light, please? It’s hurting my eyes.”

A steady, hard anger had begun to build in my chest once I realized what the creature was, and now it burst over. “Hell no, I’m not turning out the light! First you scare me to death each night for a year, culminating in the eating of my dog, then you have the gall to invade my home twenty-plus years later and you want me to turn off the light because it hurts you? You’re lucky I don’t have access to a floodlight!”

A moment of silence. “Okay, you have a point.”

It cleared its throat while I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at it. “What do you want?”

Sighing, it blinked a few more times and then peered at its piece of paper again and once more cleared its throat. “Hello. My name is Grar. I am here because I have done you harm. I apologize for the harm I have done to you, fully and sincerely—”

My jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

Grar glanced at me. “It’s part of Step Nine.”

Brow creasing, I said, “You mean Step Nine as in the Twelve Steps? That Step Nine?”

Grar began to look uncomfortable. “Um. Back when I. Um. It was a very dark time for me.”

I stared at the small creature.

Grar scratched at the side of its nonexistant neck. “I was under a lot of stress, you see. My wife had left me not too long ago, human kids weren’t scaring so easily since all those video games with the blood and the guts had come out, and I couldn’t sleep in the day like I should. So I started drinking just to help block out the light—” Here a hopeful glance toward my own bedside light. Face twisting, I reached out and turned the switch to shift it from 60 watts to 75. Grar grimaced and shut his—couldn’t keep calling him it—eyes, covered them with his free hand. “—then one night that little dog of yours started yapping and barking and barking and yapping, and I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

“So you ate him.”

Removing his hand, Grar looked at me piteously. “I was drunk! I didn’t know what I was doing!”

Swinging my legs off the side of the bed, I marched to Grar and punched his diminutive shoulder. “You ate my dog! And no one believed me when I told them!”

Grar huddled in on himself, clutching the paper to his head. “I’m sorry.”

I hit him again. He let out a small whimper, but didn’t retaliate. I drew back my hand one more time, paused, and let it fall.

Honestly, I hadn’t been that fond of Rover. He liked my sister better, and that always galled me. And Grar— it was hard to hate him, purple sniveling thing that he was. He paled in comparison to the horrors of Turning Thirty and Remaining a Failure. Beating Grar wouldn’t take any of that away.

I sighed and sat on the edge of the bed next to him. He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “Will you leave now and never come back, now that you’ve apologized?”

Grar perked up. “Does that mean you forgive me?”

“Yes. No. Ask me when I’m thirty.” I stopped. That would mean he’d have to come back. “Or don’t, actually.” I made shooing motions at him. “Just… go away and don’t drink anymore.”

Grar regarded me, absentmindedly crumpling his paper. “So that’s a maybe? I can deal with a maybe.”

More shooing motions. “Okay, then. Maybe I forgive you. Now go away and don’t come back. I’ve had enough with monsters.”

He hopped on to the floor and tucked the piece of paper into some fold of skin. “Hey, thanks, Jeremy. You’re my first Step Nine, and it didn’t go as bad as I thought it would. It’s not like I’m high up in the ranks or anything, but I’ll try to make sure your kids—you got kids? No? Well, when you have ‘em, I’ll do my best to make sure my people don’t bother them.” He paused. “Only, if you get ‘em a dog, pick something that doesn’t bark so much, maybe?”

I dropped my head in my hands. “Yeah. Sure.”

Grar hesitated. “Um. I really am sorry.”

“Just go away, Grar.”

Some scuffling, then silence. I waited five minutes, then looked up and around. The only sign of Grar’s presence was a torn bit of paper hardly larger than an eraser tip. I climbed back into bed, trying not to feel hopeful.

When, Grar had said. When I have kids. Not that the monster’s words counted for anything, but maybe I wouldn’t stay a failure forever.

And maybe Rover had tasted like chicken. I really didn’t like that dog.