Derailed, Cont.

It turned out the figment’s name was actually She-Who-Moves-Swiftly, although she preferred the less-formal Swift. When Adam gave his name in turn, she gave him another funny look.

“That’s… not a very auspicious name,” she said. Adam glared at her. He was beginning to find this manifestation of his subconscious to be slightly obnoxious. Who was it to be so judgmental?

“Sorry it doesn’t meet your approval,” he said dryly. “But it’s always worked just fine for me.”

“Huhn,” she said in a tone that said she didn’t quite believe him. “Well maybe you do names differently where you come from.”

“Maybe we do.”

“Still. You’d think… never mind. I’m sure Eyes knows what she’s doing.”

“Who?”

“Eyes. My older sister.”

“She knows what she’s-“

“Ugh, this is taking forever. Can you ride a horse?”

“Can I- what? Maybe?” Adam, taken aback by the quick subject change, fumbled for the right answer. “It’s not really- I don’t do it all the time. I mean, I have ridden horses, if that’s what you mean.”

“Good enough. Get on: I’m tired of this slow pace.”

And that was how Adam found himself jostling up and down, clinging uncomfortably to Swift as her horse raced across the plain. Stupid dream with its stupid realistic physics: now would definitely be a good time for the flying to kick in.

“I thought you said you could ride!” she yelled over her shoulder. He thought she might be grinning.

“Am I falling off?”

“No…”

“Then shut up!”

***

It was probably only an hour or two before they reached the campsite, but it seemed like an eternity to his more delicate regions. Swift hopped down gracefully, pretending not to notice as Adam clung to the horse after his own descent. He wasn’t 100% certain his legs were up to the task of supporting him. Stupid, stupid dream.

He distracted himself from the throbbing in his body by taking a look around. It wasn’t really what he’d had in mind when Swift had said “campsite”- that being a little campfire with some bedrolls. No, this was more like… “camp-village”. There were at least six large tents big enough for several families, as well as a scattering of medium-sized tents, and a few smaller tents obviously meant for only one or two people. (Elves.) (Whatever.) There was also a large herd of horses grazing peacefully, and a whole lot of elves staring at him with obvious interest. Their skin was all variations of the reddish-ochre Swift possessed- some a little darker, some a little paler- and their down/hair color all seemed to fall within the same family, as well. Swift was, however, one of the tallest amongst her people. Adam, who was short by human male standards, suddenly started to feel like a giant. It was not entirely unpleasant.

“C’mon,” his guide said, and grabbed him by the sleeve. She dragged him toward one of the medium-sized tents, and he let her without protest. Who was he to protest what his subconscious wanted him to see? Especially now that it has stopped torturing him via horseback riding…

The interior of the tent held a single female elf- this one with skin the exact shade of Swift’s, but with down/hair the color soft cream. It was a shocking contrast, made even more pronounced when she captured Adam’s gaze with her own: her eyes were a vivid cat-green. It was a little creepy.

“You were right, Eyes,” said Swift, flopping down unceremoniously next to the green-eyed elf. He was exactly where you said he'd be. And he says his name is A Dammed River, of all things.”

“That’s not-“ Adam began to protest, but Swift kept talking right over him.

“I mean really- A Dammed River? What kind of a name is that for a hero? Sister, I think you may have called the wrong one.”

A hero? Adam’s mouth hung open. For all its boring start, this dream was getting a lot more promising.

“We shall see whether or not I’ve called whom I meant to call,” said Eyes. “But in the meantime, little sister, you are being rude. A Dammed River, my name is Eyes That See Beyond. I am shaman for our tribe, and it is I who have summoned you to our aide.”

“My name isn’t-“ Adam protested weakly, but Swift broke in again.

“He goes by A Dam. Which, if you ask me, is even worse.”

“Well no one asked you!” said Adam, forgetting that he was defending a moniker he didn’t actually use. Damn his subconscious was annoying. Eyes hid a smile behind her hand while Swift glared.

“Perhaps, sister, you should leave us alone. I’m sure A Dam has many questions.” Swift rolled her eyes, but got to her feet and left the tent. Eyes gestured to Adam to sit, then offered him a small cup, which he took without thinking.

“I hope you like our tea,” she said. “I asked the gods to send us someone from a world as similar to ours as possible, but you never know what will and will not translate.” She held a hand up to the tip of her pointed ear and gave him a little grin. Adam could not help but smile back, and took a small sip. He found the taste similar to chamomile, but with a touch of spice. Pleasant.

“It’s nice,” he said. “The gods, huh?”

“Yes. You have to be… fairly specific with what you ask for. Their sense of humor is… well, one might say a bit twisted, so if you aren’t very careful about what you request…”

“You end up with a strangely pale, round-eared giant with an inauspicious name?”

“Something like that,” she took a sip herself, but he could see her eyes crinkling with delight over the edge of the cup. He decided they were nice eyes. Not creepy at all.

My Husband Is Awesome

If you know me at all, you know that I am a Person Who Loves Halloween. Specifically, I love dressing up. Costume parties are just... they are just fabulous. I start planning for Halloween sometime in June. Seriously. My annual costume budget is like $200 (that's not to say I always spend that much, but it's there if I need it). So yeah- Halloween? Kind of a Big Deal.

If you know my husband at all, you know that he is at the opposite end of the Enjoying Social Events spectrum from me. He definitely does not particularly care about Halloween (they didn't celebrate it growing up) and dressing up isn't really his thing.

All that having been said, my husband very gamely let me dress him up in a complimentary costume (fisherman to my mermaid) and then drove me out to a party with a bunch of people he doesn't even know (friends from my second job). I told him we only had to stay for an hour, but do you know what that man did? He stayed for three-and-a-half hours, and made conversation, and was all in all an incredibly good sport. So I was feeling pretty good about all of this, but then I came upon a cluster of my girl friends who were all there without their husbands, and one of them declared that Nathan is just "too good", because all of their husbands had (individually) ditched them and made them come alone. When you stop to consider the fact that their husbands at least know one another (whereas Nathan knew only me)- well.

My husband is awesome.

I think it says a lot about our marriage that Nathan is willing to go outside of his comfort zone for something he knows is really important to me. He's a damn good friend, and I think that translates accordingly to "spouse".

Now it's time for photos! Wheee!

Some have called me the Deadliest Catch!

aaaand from the back

Derailed

Adam Rivers liked trains. Not in the little-boy-wonderment sense, and definitely not in the Freudian-slip sense. In fact, it wasn’t even the trains he liked so much as the travel via train. He liked that once you got on a train, you weren’t going to get lost. You sat in your seat (or wandered the cars) and you did whatever suited you- you read, you ate, you drank (sometimes you drank a lot), you chatted up strangers (at least, he saw others doing as much), whatever. The point is that you didn’t have to put any thought into getting where you were going, because you were going to get there. You might arrive early, you might arrive late, you might go there directly or make a bunch of stops on the way- but as long as you stayed on the train that was staying on the tracks, you weren’t going anywhere but where you were going. Adam found it soothing to know he could rely on at least one part of his day going according to plan.

He was thinking as much to himself as he settled down for the ride from Portland up to Seattle. The rest of his day had definitely not gone as planned. For starters, he was supposed to have company on this late-night journey. The seat next to him should have contained his girlfriend, and the two across from him should have held his brother and soon-to-be-sister-in-law, respectively. But those seats were empty, thanks to one work/personal/family crisis after another. They had encouraged him to go on without them- they would meet up with him tomorrow and anyway someone had to check into the hotel, etc. etc… whatever. Adam didn’t mind the solitude, and he was used to being The Responsible One, so pretty much par for the course, right? Right. Anyway he had a manuscript he needed to work on, and the three-and-a-half hours of uninterrupted quiet beckoned invitingly. He glanced around the car and found he was its only occupant. Yep, he ought to have plenty of peace for his writing.

But first a nightcap.

Adam reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a silver flask decorated with intricate knot-work. He took a smooth swallow of bourbon and couldn’t help but grin: between the story bubbling in his head and the liquor warming up his belly, it ought to be a fine night, indeed.

***

Bright. Way, way too bright.

“Hon- c’n turnna light off?” he groaned, and rolled to bury his face in the pillow.

Except there was no pillow. And he couldn’t roll over, anyway, because he was sitting up. Adam opened his eyes, feeling severely disoriented.

“Whuzza-“

Shit. He was still on the train, and the landscape flying by was lit by sun, not moon. Shit shit shit. He didn’t even remember falling asleep- and he’d bet a million dollars he was now traveling away from Seattle. Why hadn’t the damn ticket-taker come by? Or had he? Shit, how much had he drank? Adam shook his flask doubtfully. It was heavy in his hand, and sloshed in such a way that told him he’d never gone past that first sip.

What the hell?

He rubbed his face, feeling weary and resigned: he was never going to live this one down. Obviously he needed to cut back on the gym, if it was leaving him so exhausted he was sleeping like a coma-victim. He sighed and stood up, determined to figure out what leg of the journey he was on. If he was close to Portland he’d just ride it out and try to get on whatever train his girlfriend was on. If he was closer to Seattle maybe he’d just hop off at the next station.

The first door he tried was locked. Of course. He sighed again and moved to the other end of the car. Also locked.

What the hell?

Okay, so maybe they were… running an exercise? That required locked doors? Adam peered back out the window. He’d done this trip often enough that he figured there was a pretty good chance he’d recognize some landmark or another, and then at least he’d know which way he was headed.

“Uhhh…” he shook his head and looked again, but the view did not change. Rather than the familiar mountains, hills, and lakes of Washington State (or even Oregon, for that matter) he was staring out across a prairie. A flat, endless gold prairie beneath an equally flat and endless blue sky. Maybe it was his imagination, but he was pretty sure he saw a herd of buffalo in the distance.

Imagination! Of course it was his imagination- the whole thing was his imagination, because obviously he was asleep. Obviously. Damn vivid dreams. He hadn’t slept through anything, because he was still asleep.

“But now that I know I’m asleep,” he said aloud, “I can wake up.”

Nothing.

“Okay fine. Then I can fly.”

Still nothing.

“Fantastic. My girlfriend gets to dream about fighting epic battles as a salamander, and I’m stuck in the world’s most boringly realistic dream. And I can’t wake up.”

He gave himself a half-hearted pinch, but couldn’t remember if being pinched was supposed to wake you up, or tell you whether or not you were dreaming. Since it didn’t seem to do either one, he sighed again and sat back down and stared out the window for a while. The landscape didn’t change, but he began to feel more confident that the dark mass he’d glimpsed early had, in fact, been buffalo.

Part of him was tempted to pull out his laptop and get back to work on his story. But another part of him resented the idea of pouring a lot of time and effort into writing something that wouldn’t even be there when he woke up. He was debating whether or not his conscious mind would be able to access something written by his subconscious when he felt the train begin to slow.

Interesting.

The slowing soon became an actual stop, and both doors slid open.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” he muttered, and stood up. Dream or not, he gathered up his coat and backpack and made his way to the end of his carriage, and then out the train. There was no platform, no station- as far as he could tell the train had just paused in the middle of the grass. A prairie dog was watching him warily from about ten feet away: Adam nodded to it, wondering what it was supposed to represent.

“What, are you like the Kansas welcome committee? Should I call you Toto?” But the creature just disappeared down its hole.

Okay then.

The too-bright sunlight felt warm on his bared forearms, but the wind was sharp as a knife and slipped right through his sweater. He tugged his sleeves down, pulled his coat back on, and started walking up the length of the train. He’d almost reached the engine when it disappeared.

Not just the engine- the entire train. Gone. Poof. And the rails with it.

“Oh come on,” he said, but then checked himself. At least the dream was getting semi-interesting.

“Come on what?” asked a voice from behind him, and Adam whirled. There in front of him stood- well, she seemed to have the requisite girl parts in the chest region, but girl was probably not the right word for her. Not human girl, anyway. Her skin was a sort of reddish-ochre he’d never seen on a human, and her eyes were a bright yellow that reminded him of a bird of prey. Her ears were… well, they were pointed. And, unless he was much mistaken, so were her teeth.

“Elf,” he said. The dream was definitely getting more interesting.

“Self?” she said. “Come on self? That makes no sense. Have you injured your head?”

But Adam didn’t answer, because he was still taking in the sight of her. She was shorter than him by at least half a head, and wearing a dusty leather get-up that, to be frank, disappointed him with its practical cut. He was pretty sure he could have come up with a sexier outfit than that for a dream-elf. Her hair seemed to consist of a blending of black and reddish-brown feathers, of all things (or maybe they were called down when they were soft and fluffly like that?). One of her hands was resting lightly on the neck of what seemed to be a perfectly normal horse- but the hand had only four digits, and resembled a bird’s claw more than a human hand. He glanced down at her feet- but they were covered in sensible boots.

“Well?” she demanded.

“Sorry- what?”

“Are you injured?”

“Oh! Uh, no. I don’t think so, anyway.” She gave him a funny look, and then let her eyes travel up and down his body with a clearly unimpressed expression. Adam wasn’t sure how he felt about his a manifestation of his id judging him, but since he’d just done the same…

“I must say, you aren’t really what I was expecting.”

“Excuse me?”

“Come along. My sister will want to meet you, oddly shaped or not.”

“Excuse me?” But the elf-girl did not answer- merely swung herself up onto her horse and began walking it away from him.

“Coming?” she called back over her shoulder.

“Why the hell not,” he muttered, and started following his subconscious into the unknown.

***

(On a completely unrelated note, you The Reader definitely need to see our totally awesome rat-o-latern.)

Workshopping

So I guess this is where you really get to see some of my Process. I'm not allowed to start officially writing on my NaNoWriMo story until 11/01, but it's totally within the rules to work on outlines, character development, etc. So that's what I was doing with my spare time today, which means that is what I am submitting for tonight's entry, which means you basically get a hodge-podge of what is the equivalent of doodling-with-words, brief sketches of ideas and concepts that may or may not make it to the final cut. If you're wary of spoilers, there are lots here. Probably. I mean basically this is my story in a nutshell (unless I change my mind). So, you know... you've been warned.

To start things off I laid out a rough outline. I tend to do my outlines in time-line form, because I'm anal retentive that way. And because it keeps me on-track and helps me avoid temporal inconsistencies- although that shouldn't be such a problem with this book, since, as I discovered, the main story is apparently not going to cover more than about six years, four of which won't even be on the page (see! Outlining is important because you learn things you didn't even know about your story...). I'll refine and expand this as I get further into it, but this is how things stand for now:


Backstory

Dramen beloved by people and Court, crows revered

-22 Dramen and Magician become lovers

-20 Dramen breaks M’s heart

-20 M curses Dramen (to be broken by true love), crows become despised

Dramen mopes. Like, a lot. No mortal will have anything to do with him: curse looks hopeless.

00 Serenity (Sera) born

08 Sera finds wounded crow, nurses it back to health

09 Crows begin to follow her around without D’s knowledge

15 D notices Sera’s affinity for his people, decides she will be the one to break the curse

Novel Begins

16 Sera leaves home

16 D courts Sera (roses)

16 Sera discovers D’s true identity, returns his affections

16 Sera goes to Court, meets Sivon and the Phoenixes, etc

16 It is revealed that D and Sera are not actually in love: just infatuation. Curse remains.

16 Sera, horrified at herself, goes back out into the world for some soul-searching

Part Two

20 D attempts more romances, finds them unsatisfying- goes to Sera to bitch

20 They become actual friends

21 They fall in love without knowing it

22 Some sort of crisis reveals it

22 Curse broken, crows restored.

Happily Ever After. Hooray!

So there's that. Now, the second thing I worked on today was the beginnings of my character sketches. To be fair it's not really the beginnings, since these are characters that have been drifting around in my brain in one form or another for ten years. But for the purposes of this incarnation, I needed to get something written down, that I could come back to and reference. Just like with the outline, these will become refined and expanded as the mood strikes- but for the time being, this is what I'm working with:

Dramen- Crow King. Once beloved by the Court and the world at large. His people were revered, and he was devastatingly charming and clever. Thoughtlessly self-absorbed, regularly broke hearts. After he was cursed by the Nightingale Queen he fell completely from grace: mortals turned from him and his people, their reactions ranging from annoyance to loathing. Dramen became depressed and prone to brooding as he realized people were no longer dazzled by him. Takes himself way too seriously when at the beginning of the book.

The curse has layers. The first is that he’s stuck in crow form any time he visits the mortal realm. The second is that it turned mortal hearts (in general) against crows, while at the same time robbing Dramen of much of his natural charm/dazzle. It can only be broken by true love.

Sera (Serenity)- mortal girl that loves crows. She, too, is amazingly charming and thoughtlessly self-absorbed. People are naturally attracted to her, and as such are more tolerant of the crows when she’s around. She is sweet and fun and not very serious at the beginning of the book- although prone to drama and bursts of temper. When it is revealed that their “true love” is merely infatuation (along with a display of her past behavior regarding people’s hearts) she sobers considerably and goes out to find a higher purpose.

Sivon- Raven Queen, older sister to Dramen. She is the possessor of True Vision, which combined with her long life makes her very wise. She has little patience for her brother’s dramatics, and is herself very good-natured and practical. Her husband is a true raven.

______- Nightingale Queen, former lover of Dramen. Very beautiful and powerful (but highly temperamental) mage. Curses him when he thoughtlessly breaks her heart.

______- Phoenix Emperor and Empress- they rule over the Welkin Court (/Feathered Court)

So there you have some of the main players, and a few of the supporting. There will be others, doubtless, but I haven't met them yet, and thus have not had to figure out anything about them.

Finally, I worked on writing blurbs, because the NaNoWriMo asks for a brief synopsis of your novel. I am going to save a tiny smidge of my dignity by only showing you the one I ended up using. The others... well, let's just say I will probably not be able to write book blurbs for a living. Especially not for books I haven't actually entirely figured out yet...

Everyone loves Sera- whether she wants them to or not. Animal or human, young or old, male or female- everyone finds her charming, delightful, and all but impossible to say ‘no’ to. The people of her village even indulge her strange affection for those filthy birds of ill-omen, crows. As she grows older, Sera begins to capture the romantic interest of boys and men at an alarming rate: even, it seems, that of the cursed Crow King himself.

Reading that gives you a little further insight into what I will be doing with the character of Sera- which I didn't actually realize at the beginning of this day. And of course there is loads more still locked in my brain- stuff that I may never write down, but that it's important for me to know to write this story. Because I, unlike Tolkien, don't think you actually want to hear about ever single political intrigue that has ever arisen in the Welkin Court (or the Empyrean Court, for that matter- what's that? What is the Empyrean Court? Never you mind! Because it's not friggin' pertinent!). And if you do care about that sort of thing... then get lots of people to buy my book, so that I'll be compelled to write a sequel. You know, when I publish it. Someday.

::cough::

EDIT: I did a quick word-count on this, and it came out to about 1150. In order to meet my goal of 50,000 words in 30 days, I will need to average 1667 words per day. So about half again as much as I threw down for this.

Oh boy.

Five

I. Bright black sky, hard and glittering. Silver stars, diamond snow, iridescent swirls of light framing a pewter moon. Winter here is like living in a frost giant's jewelry box. She adores it: adores the gleaming ice that covers everything, adores the pain of the cold in her lungs, adores the blue-and-green carved drifts that guide her passage. Winter may be king in this land, but she is it's queen.

II. How can this be called winter? It's all wrong- the endless gray rains, the relentlessly green trees... isn't anything in this state the way it should be? He stares out the window, listless. Why had he come here? For her? She's gone now- took the sunlight with her, left him in this soggy, sodden mess. It doesn't even have the decency to be cold. At least if it were cold he could wrap himself in protective layers, something to help him keep it out... keep everything out...

III. They love this time of year- love the way the snow makes everything so soft, like a powdery white hug. Love the way their faces get red, love the way the blood tingles when they come back inside to sit in front of a fire. Love the excuse to make pots and pots of hot cocoa, laced with dozens of fluffy white marshmallows that only serve to remind them they should go back outside and sled some more...

IV. Shimmering air heavy in his lungs- this is what he has longed for. Christmas with a cactus. Rolling dunes of gold instead of white. Never ever again was he going north: his bones would someday bleach in the sun and his soul would rest easy, suffused with warm at last.

V. A starving animal clawing at her cabin- she knows it is cliched, but she cannot help but think it. This time of year has teeth, sharp and penetrating, devouring everything in a futile attempt to ease the ache in its hollow belly. She understands this time of year, understands the pain and anguish of having been left, bereft and unfulfilled- but understanding does not bring love, or even tolerance. She hates the animal, and will resist it with all her being. She would kill it, if she could- grind it beneath the heel of her boot, making way for it's gentler sisters. But no mortal can face it down, and so she hides, instead, and prays it will pass on.

Digging Myself Deeper

Well Ladies and Gents, here we are again, home in Birmingham. You might notice that as of the writing of this particular entry, I have not yet updated the "travelogue". And to be frank, it's just not going to happen until tomorrow (sorry, Mom). I'd planned to do it this evening after my flight landed, but then we ended up heading out to celebrate a family birthday, and now I'm full of headache and a desire to sleep in my own bed.

But I figure now is as good a time as any to let you guys in on my latest Queen Sized Endeavor (QSE being reference to the time I decided to learn how to quilt, and rather than start with a nice sampler or baby quilt I jumped right in with a- you guessed it- queen sized quilt. I have a habit of doing this with my creative projects... all or nothing, that's me...): I (along with a handful of similarly insane friends) will be participating in National Write a Novel Month, better known as NaNoWriMo (even better known as NANOMO! in my brain, because it sounds more hilarious). If you don't feel like going and reading all about it, here is the Need to Know part: I will be writing a 50,000 word novel from scratch in the month of November.

The "from scratch" part means that I can't use anything I've already written, which rules out quite a bit (::coughcoughPahlain::). As such, I'm diving back into my past to revive a story that puttered around in my brain for a long time but never really came to much. The tentative working title is The Fall of the Crow King, and it hearkens all the way back to my freshman year at college (that would be over ten years ago, now. Oi.) So we shall see how that goes. In the meantime, Nathan took a lovely image of me today that I thought would work really well as a mock novel cover (cart, then horse- heck yeah). If you want to follow my progress on this ridiculous project, here's my official page. Not that you'll be able to read what I'm churning out, but you'll at least be able to see the word count. Never fear, however- if you really want to read it, chances are quite good that more than a bit of it will end up on here anyway (completely unedited, so be kind) since in order to make the goal of 50k words in a month I'll need to be averaging about 1700 words a day- and I don't know that I'll always feel like doing that on top of my regular posts.

Again I say oi. November is going to be a jam-packed month.

Officially, 100% Giving Up on Chinese Food (Forever)

David has to work today, so he is not around to entertain me. I had originally thought I’d just go out walking around the base and make new friends (because I am good at making new friends when the occasion arises), but it is a bit too cold for such activities. Or, to put it another way, I do not have the right clothes for making friends in the windy, rainy 41° weather that is going on right now. Nope, hat and fleece just aren’t cutting it, which I proved in my valiant two-block trek to Burger King. At least on the way back the wind was at my back. Brr! At any rate, since I do know enough not to needlessly expose myself to hypothermia, I’ve elected to hang out in the hotel room and do things like write this blog entry.

Of course, having done not much more than gotten up, worked out, and gotten food means I don’t really have that much to write about yet. So maybe I’ll just come back to this later.

Aaaaand it's later. I eventually ended up watching some programs on TLC, which has the effect of making me feel like a vastly superior human being (and considering how superior I feel myself to be without any prompting, that's pretty damn vast). I came to the conclusion that not having cable is in no way hindering my Life Experience. David came home just in time to be horrified by how much some people will spend on a dress they'll wear once (I'd like to point out that I've worn my $100 dress at least twice now...) and then we headed out for food.

Initially he had a craving for IHOP, but on our way there he spied a Panda Express, and asked if I wanted to eat that, instead. I said something to the effect of, "Errr..." and he said, "Of course you want Panda Express!" so in we went.

Now the reason I said, "Errr..." is because I don't exactly have the best track record with Chinese: it just makes me feel really ill. I try to avoid it when I can, and when I can't I stick to the vegetables and usually don't suffer too much. And I figured that Panda Express, being a chain, would probably be totally fine.

Oh I was wrong. So very, very wrong. I had chow mein, mixed vegetables, and cream cheese ragoons- should be safe enough, right? Um, again I say wrong. I won't go any further into it, except to say you'd think I'd been struck down with food-poison. Yeah. So today is the day I Officially, 100% Give Up on Chinese Food Forever. I don't care which family member (are you listening, various in-laws and grandparents?) want to go- I will politely bow the hell out. Because I just won't go through that again.

Still, it makes me sad. I have such fond memories of spending Saturdays in college stuffed with Safeway Chinese and anime. ::sigh:: Ah well...