Some day, when asked if I want a dark
roast or medium roast I plan to just say, “Half and half.”
Nano close to 6K. Here is a line:
“It would perhaps be nice if there
were limits to what we can endure, but I’m not sure there are.”
“Left at the next intersection,
toward the town of Hockston.”
“North and west? I thought we were
going east.”
“Most of the world is made up of
detours.”
this morning in typos:
The roads are narrow and snow, snow
falling in spurts while the weatherwoman on the radio tells everyone
about it and tries to hide her glee at having her predictions come
right and how all the accidents could have been avoided had people
listened to her for once.
…. because roads are definitely
narrow and snow. Yup. Nothing odd here at all…
I take a moment to clean off my hands
and open the door. An asymmetrical arrowhead is floating in the air
in front of me. “Star Trek insignia?”
“I am the god of a store four blocks
away,” the god says diffidently. “My form changes depending on
what property is the most popular at the moment. The store does not
open for several hours, so I thought I could come speak with you?”
Some gods must despair over being
overwhelmed with prayers; I imagine this one must get very tired of
“Beam me up” comments.
From nano:
Sometimes happiness sneaks up on you
even when you’re really sad!
From today's output:
Jay is, however, singing along to the
radio as he drives. Which wouldn’t be bad, if he wasn’t doing it
to the news.
From today's scant output so far:
“You think guilt will balance
anything, little fae? Saying that you are sorry does not make one
less of a monster; if anything, it is quite the opposite.”
Mankind has spread across six galaxies
to burn in the universe like a star of its own making. All the old
calendars have no meaning and Earth is just a fairy tale told to
children sometimes, no more real than the stories of the Mellanic
Cluster or more dark than the depredations of the Nightmare Colonels.
For there were giants in the old days: Sideways Sam, who never met a
prison he could not escape, Elenya of the Wastes who claimed a dozen
ruined worlds and built an empire out of them, Whispering Song who
could tell lies so true that no one knows if they are real at all.
There was Ctul the Forsaken, the only man to escape the collapse of
the Gostal Nebula alive – if the word alive could apply to him any
longer; Bright Salwyn, who brought in more bounties than any other
bounty hunter who ever lived and never fired a shot that didn’t
kill her enemies; so, too, there was the scholarly Edwul Krosp, who
learned secrets of the past that even entropy could not hide. There
was the Sireal Doctor, who made even death bow to their wishes; Nuada
the greatest hunter the galaxies had ever seen and Alys of the
Wandering Eye who never saw anything she could not steal.
... first paragraph of weird sci-fi
novel fun :)
He tells me his star sign when I said I
wanted to get to know him better.
Characters not appearing in this novel:
Admiral Not That Ackbar
“The banker always wins,” they said
when repossessing our home. “In Monopoly as in life.”
“What can we do? We’re not heroes,
we –.”
“No, but we have something heroes
don’t. We know what’s going on.”
She laughs, sharp and breaking. “You
this despair is stronger than hope? We know what’s coming.”
“And we’ll do things heroes would
never consider in order to stop it.”
Arrest every voice that cries out for
war, and perhaps one could find a way to peace.
Story seed:
Your main character is kidnapped by
people pretending to be strangers.
'Wqqaw' is the poem my phone wrote for
you in my pocket and you say that technology cannot feel but the
wqqaw is the lone cry of Siri existing to answer what you won't ask -
not even 'what is a wqqaw?'
“You aren’t a child,” the woman
says.
“It is an appearance only,” I say,
because I speak the truth whenever I can. Lies only comfort.
She sits across from me, hands together
on the table. “I was walking by yesterday, and I saw you. I had
thoughts. That you could – that you could help.” She flatters.
“You are not the Devil, are you?”
“Would I tell you if I was?” I ask
curiously.
“I don’t know. There are stories.
There are stories,” she says vaguely, as if trying to recall any of
them.”
“You would not be here if you did not
know what I was.”
I keep forgetting that there are other
names for silence.
"I'm scared," Boy whispered.
"Sometimes that is the only sane
thing to be," said Reynard Fox dryly.
"Are you ever scared, Mr. Fox?"
The fox looked up. "When I was
young, and I was once young even in the ways of foxes, I was scared
of failure. And so I never failed, not at anything at all. I learned
almost too late to be scared of my successes as well."
The rise in adult colouring books isn’t
a fad at all. Teaching adults how to colour between the lines again
is obviously an attempt to help hold the world together.
“None of us have true jobs; Egress as
a game could be a psychological weapon to make us realize we somehow
should, regardless of all other factors? If we can do this – which
we are, even if barely – then we could be more?” Luka offered.
“The method is, at best, crude and ill-conceived, but this is the
government we are speaking of. One cannot be in a position of power
and understand poverty.”
“Even if they used to be poor?”
Jaci asked, half joking.
“I think perhaps especially then.
Like addicts who break an addiction and shame all others who cannot
break free as if all spokes in a hub are the same.”
We grab food at the McDonalds and then
just wander the WalMart while we wait. Connor and I might be noticed,
but it feels safer to be moving, to not be in one place. The police
just want us for questioning, as far as they know. What the OSS want
from us, I have no idea, but I’ve seen enough movies to know when
the government hunts down people with strange abilities, it always
goes badly. And nothing I know of the world so far has convinced me
otherwise. I don’t know how far I’d go to protect my son from
then, but I don’t think Connor does either or he might be scared of
me.
He hasn’t asked yet how his mom knew
how to hotwire a car, but the question is coming. I walk a little
faster, almost without thinking. We don’t escape our pasts, but
that’s something I never had to learn from Hollywood. We carry it
with us, but sometimes we can put it down in ways we can use.
From nano:
Every parent says they hope their child
will be unique, but secretly we all want our children to be as normal
as we are. That’s not the hardest lesson Connor has taught me,
though some days it used to feel like it was.
from current novella:
Ron wasn’t good for many things, but
I never forgot what he told me on one of our first dates. A composer
– German, I think – with synesthesia, seeing sound as colours –
who spent his childhood convinced that orchestras dimmed their lights
so that everyone could see the colours better. I think it was like
that for Connor even after he got his glasses – the assumption that
everyone else saw the world the same way he did. That when other
people went quiet or paused too long, they were staring into the
future and picking the one that felt right to them. Which is why he
never understood why conversations could be minefields if everyone
could avoid the mines most of the time.
This was a poem until I forgot the line
breaks. Sorry.
He eats, almost like other kids do to
buy time before speaking. “I never thought I was the only person
like me, Mom, but if we’re being followed, tracked, if – if we’re
being hunted, I don’t know what to do.”
“We keep running. North, into Canada.
Whatever this OSS is, its boundaries are probably national and I
doubt Canada has anything comparable to them, or at least it’s not
as large even if they do.”
“You’ve thought about this before,”
he asks, making it at least almost a question.
“I work in insurance: you learn to
expect the worst odds, or at least to plan for them.”
“The worst?” He raises both
eyebrows. “Mom, Canada isn’t that bad.”
I don’t throw a bread roll at his
head, but it’s a near thing.
A short story:
We don’t play truth or dare anymore.
“We aren’t alone,” she says
gently, so very gently. “Even in our darkest moments we understand
that at some level. The shadow that looks like a person for a moment,
the shape half-glimpsed from the corner of our eyes. Mirrors we never
stare into for too long - they are there. Watching. Waiting. Hungry.
So, so very hungry. And foul yes, but company. No matter their
intents, they stand with us as proof we aren’t alone and that we
matter, that we will all be missed.
"We are such a good source of
nourishment,” she adds to my silence. “You don’t want to
disappoint them now, do you? Not when they’re the best friends you
never knew you had.”
They said that now that Black Friday
was over, it was time for White Monday. And when I asked what that
was, they just smiled and said nothing at all.
thoughts on writing this morning:
I often wonder to what extent an
author's style/voice can also be their rut.
No comments:
Post a Comment