Amanda Helms

Updates

• I’m 27,000 words into my WIP, so that means I’m keeping up with the lesser end of my word count goal (7,000 words a week minimum, with 10,000 being better).
• I also signed up for some critique partners through Miss Snark’s First Victim a couple of weeks ago, and I think I found some people with whom I’ll get along well and can offer and receive good advice. And it’s definitely good for me to have people expecting me to get some writing done, so that alone is a benefit.

Coming changes

Yeah, the other blog I was so excited about? No time for it, what with the whole writing a novel thing. And truthfully, with that project I discovered I’m not a huge fan of taking pictures of my food. Figuring out staging and lines and light saturation and whatnot isn’t my thing. That said, I do enjoy the story part of it and can see doing the occasional crappy picture for the occasional entertaining post. Plus, I do have a couple of ideas in mind that I’d like to complete.

So at some point I’ll merge all the Storied Baker posts onto this site, and when Storied Baker’s URL comes up for renewal next year, I’ll let it go and save myself the web hosting fees. That also has the advantage of freeing up my Thesis license for use on this site, so I can change things around a bit and pretend I have half a clue about web design over here. Future Storied Baker posts will be part of this site. I’m toying with the idea of actually setting up a dual-blog format, but I’m not sure that’s entirely necessary at this stage.* No real solid deadline on that, other than it definitely needs to be before April 2013 so I don’t have to renew Storied Baker.

*Plus, the WordPress Codex seems to imply it’s a significant enough chunk of work I’m not sure I want to devote myself to that.

Excerpt

I received a couple of positive comments about my last excerpt and requests for another. So I’m (very belatedly) obliging. The previous excerpt and this one are from the old first draft of the WIP. Maybe at some point I’ll post from the WIP as it is now, but generally I like to keep writing until I get a first draft done and confirm it has at least some sparkliness to it. The good kind of sparkly, not the emo-vampire sparkly. Huge difference.

Note: In between the last posting and this one, I updated my first first-draft to use the new name for the Ethan character. He’s Cailean in the WIP. Made it easier when I was still picking up pieces of the first first-draft, but I’m pretty much past that point now.

This is a continuation of the scene started here.

********************************************

I shuffled closer to Horace and Cailean, more to remind myself that I wasn’t alone than to lend them support.

“I’m sure you’re correct,” the warden said. “I’m not here about the bakery.” He inclined his head toward Cailean. “I’m here about the Vessel.”

Vessel? What the– I risked a glance at Cailean, who now approximated the mass of the bag of flour I’d dropped. He kept his eyes on the floor and his arms wrapped around himself.

The counter blocked me from wrapping my own arm around him. Damn my short arms and legs. “I can’t see what a boundary warden would want with a boy. He’s legal, too.” Well, as far as I knew, that was. But surely Eloise wouldn’t entrust me with her bakery and an illegal boy. One or the other, sure, but not both together. She wouldn’t risk her bakery that way.

“Not just any boy. The Vessel.”

Horace met my eyes and gave a tiny shake of his head. So he was as clueless as I. Cailean, though, had to have some idea of what the warden meant, because his flour-bag-size downgraded to sugar bag.

Eloise wouldn’t risk her bakery, but she also wouldn’t give up an innocent boy to a warden.

Well, it wasn’t like I had any true advantage to lose by taking the time to circumnavigate the counter. I did so, passing Horace and moving to Cailean’s right, so that the two of us flanked him.

I tried not to think how my physical presence probably didn’t soothe his nerves any. Sitting on the stool as he was, the ten-year-old was taller than me. I reached up and put a hand on his shoulder anyway. He glanced at me for just a moment, then went back to staring at the ground. My gaze caught the stack of papers on the counter top.

The brass in my voice got upgraded to iron. “Just what do you mean coming in here, anyway, and interrupting the boy as he does his homework?”

Horace made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a stifled snort. I ignored him, instead doing my best to stare down the warden. The reactionary part of my brain shrieked that I ought to spin on my heels and dart out the back, but I wrestled it down. I couldn’t leave Cailean to the warden.

“I’m sorry?” the warden said at last.

I stabbed a finger at the stack of papers. “His homework! There it is, barely half-finished. Cailean’s just trying to be a good student, a good citizen, and finish his homework while he waits on my shift to end so we can go home. And you have the gall to come in to a legal bakery, with registered citizens, and interrupt his diligence? All this talk of how our school systems are failing, and it’s no wonder if we have boundary wardens interrupting young scholars from their studies.”

Yes, that was definitely Horace suppressing a snort. But I had to keep going so I would stay present and not flee, mindless, and probably run into a dead spot for my trouble.

“Do you often have wardens passing this way? Interrupting the diligent study of young pupils?”

I didn’t like the wry cant to the warden’s lips.

“No, as a matter of fact, we don’t, because as I have repeatedly said, we’re a legal bakery with legal citizens.”

Naturally, that was the moment when our own dead spot flared up. And I, being what I was, reacted to it.

Faster than I could pour a cup of sugar, the boundary warden drew his sword. And faster than I could slap a lump of dough on the table for kneading, he had that point held to my throat.

“She’s registered,” Horace said quickly, since the only thing that came out of my own throat was a terrified squeak. “And she’s got dispensation. Like she said, we’re all legal.”

“And you have a hole in the middle of your bakery.”

To Horace’s immense credit, his voice remained calm. He was a bastion of equanimity. Which was probably what made me want to hit him at that moment. “Not the middle of the bakery. In the corner, well marked and blocked off.” He jerked a hand toward the yellow caution signs and the rope. The hole was a good ten feet from the nearest table—not that anyone ever sat in it, anyway. But still, it provided a nice saftey cushion. Or at least all the locals thought so.

“But you have a hole in your bakery.”

I licked my lips and had to swallow a couple of times before I could get my throat and lips and teeth to cooperate and produce coherent sound. “We’re aware of that, yes. As Horace mentioned, it’s marked and blocked off.”

The warden stared at me for a moment. “Is it growing?”

“No. It’s stable.” Or at least, Eloise told me it was stable. I gave it a wider berth than even our most skittish customers. If I owned the bakery, I’d have razed it to the ground and moved to a new location the instant it developed. But I didn’t own the bakery; tight-fisted Eloise did. I loved her, but she had her faults. Massive ones.

More staring from the warden. “You realize the bakery will have to be relocated if the hole proves to be unstable.”

Horace stepped a little closer to me. I took back my previous thoughts about hitting him. He could have a kiss instead. “I’m sure Eloise, the owner, already knows. But we’ll be sure to remind her when she returns.”

The point of the warden’s sword pressed the tiniest bit into my flesh. I’d made the mistake of inhaling a little too deeply. I froze.

“Well, I suppose if a bakery has a hole, it might as well be one that employs a crosser.”

Curious. While it wasn’t illegal per se to have holes be present in public buildings—they way they formed, it was sometimes inevitable—but I’d have expected the warden to raise a bigger stink about it.

Pressure from the sword tip bit into my throat. This time, it wasn’t my fault. “Assuming that you are, indeed, a legal crosser.”

Ah. There it was.

I had to swallow a couple of times before I could get my voice to work. If it kept failing me like this, I’d have to start carrying around a pad of paper and a pen. “My documents are in the back. I can go get them. If you’ll let me.”

Probably not, unless you happen to have memorized my home page. Which will at some point become an about page, as I’m thinking I might as well make the blog the home page.

But ahem.

This site used to be about how I’m an aspiring author of speculative fiction. I was going to build my platform as an aspiring fiction writer. I was going to post a lot about NaNoWriMo and my writing goals. I was going to include excerpts of my work. And for a while, I did that. Then I had lots of dead air (pages? space?). Then I had intermittent posts about food that may or may not have involved ninjas and leprechauns. And at one point I tossed in a post fictionalizing my dog’s thoughts. And more recently I supposed I would more or less abandon this site in favor of this other one where I wouldn’t have to feel quite so awkward about the food + ninjas and leprechauns (or zombies, as the case may be).

And then.

I started to reread my 2010 NaNoWriMo novel. It’s still unfinished, and it’s still rough. It needs more world-building. Some plot solidification. And tighter characterization. But I think there’s something there. And yeah, novels are intimidating, as I mention here. But I’m still a character girl, and I’m still a story girl. And the other site doesn’t quite get me the fix I need.

So I’m getting back into writing again, this time with more upfront work. Sweep out the tumbleweeds, kids; this site isn’t dead after all.

For the curious, here’s a (lightly edited) part of the first chapter of the 2010 NaNo novel.

1.

A blast of heat stung my face as I opened the oven, hands safely ensconsed in mitts, and shoved a bread peel under the hardened crust of the loaf. A few muttered curses, and I worked the edge of the peel under the loaf and managed to slide it out of the oven and on to the counter top. Soon the smell of fresh bread permeated the kitchen. I inhaled deeply, a small sigh of happiness and contentment escaping my lips.

“Smells great, Aunt Aida.”

I glanced up to see Ethan from the open doorway. “No minors in the kitchen,” I said, but without heat or any true insistence to get him out. “And don’t call me Aunt. You’ll give the patrons the wrong idea.”

He rolled his eyes. “Can I have a slice?”

“Has to cool. Crumb’s better that way.”

“Then can I have a cookie?”

Removing the oven mitts—had to give him a good example, after all; safety first and all that—I quirked an eyebrow at him. “How many cookies does Eloise let you have?”

He tossed his head as if to say, The amount of cookies is a negligible matter. “Oh, she never really put a cap on it.”

I crossed my arms. “Hah. Try again, Ethan. Maybe Eloise wouldn’t care how many of your meals you ruin with cookies, but you can bet she’d care about her bottom line. I’m guessing she groused if you had even one cookie a day.” I strolled toward him, holding out my palm. “Unless you’ve got the money to pay for it.”

He screwed up his face and stuck his tongue out at me. I withdrew my hand. “Thought as much. Now go do your homework; this place won’t produce baked yumminess on its own.”

He groaned, but turned and departed the kitchens, letting the door swing back and forth behind him.

Having the opportunity to return my attention to the boule I’d just removed from the oven, I gave it an experimental pat, then managed to flip it over to thump the bottom. It sounded hollow, a drum of flour, salt, and yeast. Perfect. I went to look at the other loaves still in the oven; I’d shoved them in a few minutes after the first, so they had a bit of time to go.

“Aida.”

I kept my back to Horace, still examining the loaves in the oven. “What is it? I’m kinda busy.”

Horace cleared his throat. “Just thought you should know. Augustus says he saw a boundary warden headed for the bakery.”

My shoulders tensed. I forced them to relax, then righted myself and faced Horace. I blew out a deep breath that momentarily lifted my bangs off my forehead. “Well. Maybe he’ll pass us by.”

“Maybe.” Horace pulled away, headed back to work the counter. “But like I said, I thought you should know.” Meaning, You may want to hide out in the back for a while.

Yes. Yes, I did. Not that I’d done anything illegal that a boundary warden would be interested in, but on the whole I found I did best if I kept out of their attention entirely. I’d managed to do so for close to five years now, and another five—or ten, or fifty—would suit me just fine.

I swiveled back to the oven and my loaves. “There’s nothing to worry about,” I told them. “And if the warden does come here, there’s no reason that he’d want to see me. I haven’t done anything besides bake you.”

The last of my batch of loaves had been cooling for less than five minutes when Horace’s deep voice rose above the general indistinct din coming from the cafe and providing the background noise for my haven. A small whimper escaped past my lips before I reminded myself that I wasn’t afraid of a boundary warden. And Horace could take care of it. Surely.

I swept up a bag of flour as if I meant to do something with it. But I simply stood there, with its twenty pounds weighing me down, and listened.

The shouting increased, broken by an intermittent murmur of a voice deeper yet than Horace’s, one that bespoke nothing but calm laced with disguised menace. A shiver wracked through me. My hands clenched the bag of flour, the canvas eating into my palms. I ought to go out. Truly, I should. Eloise had left me in charge, after all. If a boundary warden had a problem with the bakery (with me) I ought to go handle it.

But despite all my reasoning, my feet did their best to grow roots and send them through the wooden floor to the earth beneath.

Until over Horace’s voice and over the too-calm voice came another, a higher-pitched one, fear making it go squeaky.

The bag of flour fell from my hands and burst on the floor, coating my pants and shoes in white powder. I skidded through the mess and out of the kitchens. Horace stood in front of the counter with his hands on his hips and his face red. Ethan perched on a stool at the counter next to Horace, shoulders hunched in on himself, like he wanted to present as small a target as possible.

And the warden. Though the arguing—pardon; discussion, as wardens never lowered themselves to altercations with the hoi polloi—had gone on for at least ten minutes, the warden remained by the entry into the bakery. His broad shoulders were wide enough almost to touch either side of the frame, and his height put him a mere two or three inches away from having to duck to clear the doorway.

And he wore his armor. His sword, thank the sun, remained in its scabbard. He didn’t look as if he wanted to draw it.

The boundary warden’s eyes had flicked to me as soon as I came from the kitchens, assessing me as I assessed him. I drew myself to the full, hardly formidable height. Best to keep the distance between us; I didn’t much fancy the idea of standing right next to him and confirming my supposition that the top of my head barely reached the bottom of his sternum.

“The Edge is legal, if that’s what you’re here for,” I said. There was less steel in my tone than I wanted. I wasn’t sure I even approached tarnished brass. “We’ve got our papers. I can show them to you if you like.” Even though the thought of getting too close to him made my spine quiver and my stomach reel.

The warden stared at me in silence. Our one customer who remained after the warden’s appearance took advantage of his momentary distraction to slink past him and dart out into the street. Youngman. And he left behind his bagel. Wardens did that to people, made them leave their baked goods behind.