Mmmm
I am going to finish off Your Little Sister this weekend.
New Post in Adventures in Writing
Wow, two stellar posts to follow, and man was that tough.
Every Wednesday you can find me over in Adventures in Writing. Today, I talk about the abhorrent dangers of Ethan Frome.
Work in Progress
I an in love with Your Little Sister. My poor main character, Lexus. She can’t even get a ride without CONFLICT.
I notice the car has pulled over to the side of the road in the emergency lane. Then it stops.
Thor is sitting there, just staring out the window. But his hands are gripping the wheel, and his knuckles are white.
The hazard lights come on automatically. They blink.
Blink, blink, blink.
“You have a problem with that, Thor? You going to lecture me too, claim that I don’t know what I am doing?”
Blink, blink, blink.
After a pause, he sighs and visibly relaxes. The car moves forward and he zips back into traffic.
“No ma’am.”
“You’re not going to tell me to be careful?”
“No ma’am. Careful is sometimes good, but you and I both know at the very center of your being, there is no careful. Careful is not a core option for you and I.”
I sit and look at the back of his head.
I want to ask him a million questions. But I have spent twenty years respecting his privacy, and he has always respected mine. Indeed, this is the most I have heard him say to me in one sitting beyond social niceties.
I sigh. In the end, I do not want to ask Thor any questions.
Because I am more than sure I do not want to know the answers. Not now.
Maybe not ever.
Here we find Lexus at near the end of the book, on her way to visit the Empress.
After her visit, she will never be the same. She will be forever changed, even more so than she is now. If you compare Lexus, at this snapshot, with Lexus, at the begining of the novel, she is a different person. Most of the difference is good. Some of the difference is so very bad. And now she will start the process of facing her inner demons at long last, even if the process unravels her sanity.
Even if it might kill her.
There are worse things than dying.
There are truths that should go unspoken.
There is resolution to conflict.
Can she catch the killer?
And if she pays the ulitmate price to do so, what happens to her afterwards?
What happens next?
Okay, New Plan
Screw playing the piano.
While I am at it, screw my work in progress, Your Little Sister.
Screw ammo prices,
I am going to the rifle range. It is 72F and wind is zero.
Oh ya Baby, now that’s what I am talking about.
Alone
I am a creature of the family familiar.
Sometimes, the family leaves for a trip for the San Juan islands and I catch up later, because they have the time off, but I am at work on Friday.
So there I am after work.
In a quiet house.
No wife.
No kids.
No dog.
Two angry cats.
And me, waiting for the next day so I can catch the ferry and join them.
Sounds like a recipe to get quality writing time in?
Well, no.
It just sucks.
I wish there was a local church that offered Friday services. Then I could go and sing, rather than play the piano and sulk.
Marriage Strife in the Year 20
Because I love my blog harem, yes I do. I bring you an unedited little slice from near the end of Your Little Sister. I got your conflict here, Baby. I got it down, you know what I’m saying? We’re talking conflict Big Love style, only, with nanotech—and spankings.
I step out of the garage into the rain. I make my way to the nearest vine maple bordering the woods and hike my dress up. I draw my combat knife and cut myself a nice switch. I carve the nubs off it and smack it against a cedar tree trunk to get a feel for it.
I head back into the garage to the door there, I am not too sure the front door is going to open for me. I enter the mudroom, and my borrowed cotton dress is soaked.
Percy, our dog, barks at me and not to kindly. In rushes the other dog. They growl.
I raise my switch. “Bad dogs! Bad! Now get!” I take a step towards them.
They run.
I emerge from the mudroom and there is the Toulouse family household, minus the new Wife.
“Oh fuck,” says Vash. He turns to Bill. “I thought you were joking!”
“Shit,” says Juan.
“Oh no!” says Cazandra.
“Oh, this is bad,” says Mitch.
“Where. Is. She.”
Bill points up the stairs. “Guest bedroom.”
Sunday Reflections, 29
“There’s nothing inherently dirty about sex, but if you try real hard and use your imagination you can overcome that.”
First Seven Chapters of Monster Hunter International Posted
I have the collector’s POD version of Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International, and Baen has just published the first seven chapters for free.
I cannot begin to tell you how freak’n good this book is. The sheer awesomeness starts with the title, and then continues with the first paragraph, and then the first chapter, and it just goes from awesome to, yanno, awesomesauce.
Take, for example, this quote:
“I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. I thought he was a pompous ass from the moment I had met him, and I felt the primal and instinctual need to beat him up and take his lunch money.”
Oh man, how great is that? I am so buying the Amazon version, just because I want to have a complete collection. Paranormal urban fantasy. With guns. And monsters. And hot chicks. And more guns! And then more monsters. I giggled like a little girl for days after reading MHI.
Just a warning. The first sever chapters are a monumental tease. Do not blame me for this. Blame Larry. Kthnx bye!
Readers
Every Wednesday I post in Adventures in Writing. Today I talk about readers.
Do you know your customers?
This Post is for my Blog Harem
I am about to finish off Your Little Sister. I would be done by now, but I decided a minor character was too delicious not to weave into the plot for greater conflict.
Your Little Sister stands alone, but I also have book two and book three outlined. This minor character makes a larger appearance starting in book three, in my outline, but when I came to her part in book one, I could not ignore her unique voice.
After all, when the Empress demands more pages, who am I to disagree with the Empress? Certainly not the main character—and that gets her into all sorts of trouble.
NOM!
Sunday Reflections, 28
“I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand.”
Is it too soon if I call you Sunday?
Portalnd, Oregon has a vibrant music scene, which I will sometimes argue is more jiggy than Seattle.
Does any of this ring a bell Eugue? There is a moral of this story. Be careful who you don’t call!~~~
~~~
Hey Eugene
Pink Martini
~~~
Hey Eugene do you remember me?
I’m that chick you danced with two times through the Rufus album Friday night at that party on avenue A:
where your skinhead friend passed out for several hours on the bathroom floor and you told me
You weren’t that drunk, and that I was your favourite Salsa dancer you had ever come across in New York city
Eugene
Eugene
Eugene
I said hello Eugene
Are you there Eugene
Hey Eugene then we kissed once we lobbed your friend into the elevator and went to write my number on a soggy paper towel
And the car went down
And when we had finished making out we noticed that your skinhead friend was gone. Long gone
And you looked into my bloodshot eyes and said is it too soon if I call you Sunday
Eugene
Eugene
Eugene
I said hello, Eugene
Are you there, Eugene
I said hello (hello), Eugene (Eugene)
Eugene (Eugene)
Eugene (oh yeah)
I said hello (hello), Eugene
Are you there, Eugene (tell me are you there)
I said hello (hello), Eugene (Eugene)
Eugene (Eugene)
Eugene (tell me oh)
I said hello (hello), Eugene (Eugene)
Does any of this ring a bell Eugene?
So Blogging That, Part II
“Grrrrr!”
I glance over at The Wife Unit. She is closing some YA Fantasy novel. Then she glares at me!
“What?”
“You writers! With your cliffhangers! I am annoyed.”
“Ha. Well, are you annoyed that you will never read that author’s books again, or annoyed that you have to wait until the next book comes out?”
“This is the next book! It’s in hardcover.”
“Are you going to buy the next book or not?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the author wins. He wins writing. You are annoyed only in that you don’t have the next book in the series. Ha ha ha!”
“Grrrrr!”
“I am so blogging this.”
“Grrrrr!”
Conferences and the Hack
Every Wednesday you can find me over in Adventures in Writing.
Today I talk about the Hack Writer NOT at a Conference.
Heuh.
Ha!
I was trying to describe Your Little Sister from a thematic standpoint, and came up with this: “A character-driven smutty sci-fi story with a strong female lead that isn’t a sociopathic bimbo with an IQ of 36D.”
IQ of 36D. Oh man, I crack myself up, really, I do.
16.2
16.2K on Your Little Sister since the elusive chapter fifteen. Over the weekend.
Oh so grim.
Oh so sexy.
Oh so sad.
Oh so fun.
Your Little Sister may be a lot of things. Boring is not one of them! The part where—never mind.
