Welcome to my journal, where I share a bit about my life and a lot of the creative things I do.

I love friends, and good conversation.  I look forward to talking with you all. 

The purpose of the rest of this post is to help you navigate my journal if you're looking for specific things.  Or you can simply scroll down and start reading.

I don't (yet) have an index for stuff like daily life, the wonders of job-hunting in this post-Bush economy, My Life In Micropoetry (a/k/a my Twitter posts that I think are most worth sharing), pictures of my garden and my travels, or art in progress. Some things are best experienced in the moment, after all.

But other things...

FICTION Imagine a world where people have been adapted to different ecosystems, where some can fly, some can breathe water, some are comfortable in desert sands or deep caves. This is the world of the fireborn, who can be of any of the shapes that humans can be, with an added extra--the firesense, the ability to do magic. The fireborn are relied upon in times of crisis--and feared for their power, for the fact that they are different, though the differences are hidden. It is also the world of the shifters, people who have more than one native form. You can find links to Fireborn, the novel I'm serializing, and other stories set in this world here.

FLASH FICTION Exploring the world of Twitter, I came across #fridayflash, people who share their flash fiction on some un-named day of the week. Here you will find links to my flash fiction that I'm publishing herein, for #fridayflash and, occasionally, for other occasions.

BUSKING IN CYBERLAND Since I was laid off in January of 2009, I started exploring non-traditional publishing venues, including the new-to-me terms, crowdfunding and crowdsourcing. It's definitely a learning process--and one that there are not yet any established experts to learn from, though I've found a few guiding stars. It isn't the first time I've braved publicly performing in the hopes that I'll get some income.  Here are my Busking in Cyberland posts, where I discuss what I've learned, and what I'm still trying to discover.

Speaking of which--please keep in mind that, as I write this, I still do not have a day job. If you like what you read, and can afford it, I'd appreciate it if you would choose to become an active patron of the arts. Michelangelo had popes--a series of them. I have--YOU.  All of my fiction, my profile, and some of my other material has a donation hat for Paypal; if you want to buy me dinner or a drink, and don't choose to use Paypal, let me know and we'll figure out what will work for you.  And thank you!

SONG LYRICS Finally, I have started posting some of my songs in these pages; until I get around to making an index of them, you can search on the tag "filk".

This blog won a Superior Scribbler Award in September of 2009.  You can read more about the award, and see who I nominated for the award, in this post.    I'm very honored, and I will try to continue to live up to this honor, even after I once again have a day job.

Welcome to a world where humans have a variety of different shapes.  Some can fly, some can breathe water, some can hang from trees by their tails alone.  All are related, all are human.  And some, born to each shape, can work magic, and are called fireborn.

Flash fiction in the world of the fireborn:

The Mountain's Fire and The Fireborn Puppetmaker

Fireborn is an ongoing serialized novel.  Links are below, in order.

Wings on His Fingers
A Small Complication
Healer's Work 
Coral Under Water 
Fear 
Nautilus 
Fiery Sunrise 
Wakey, Wakey with Water
Confrontations
Berries and Stories
Koli and Conversation
Truths and Rumors
I'll Show Her
Your Son Bewitched My Daughter
Worried Parents
Seeking Skimmer
I appreciate it, all right!
Handful of Maybes


For My Fans  (who comment on the story):  Background information.

Dramatis Personae to help you keep track of who is who.  If you can't access this, leave me a comment and I'll add you to the filter.

There is special content, viewable only by people who sponsor Fireborn.  

The first donor-only bonus is a bit of story showing a glimpse of the time before people were adapted to the different ecosystems.   Butterfly Dream - A Peek At The Distant Past



General information:

Very short stories, for your enjoyment:

Deep Dreams
Anne's partner was gone, her body drifting in space. But is that the end of the story?

Miller and the Monster
A child develops a plan for how to deal with the night-time monster.

The Grandpa Prank
Four friends in a graveyard, late on Halloween night. 

On the Shore
An old lady sits on her favorite beach, contemplating the sands of time.

Fog and Lembas
This story is fiction about a fan, not fanfic.  Have you ever wanted to walk into the fog, and disappear?

The Power of Pastry
It's an old custom, sleep on a piece of wedding cake, and see your true love.  Does it really accomplish anything but squashed cake?

The Mountain's Fire and The Fireborn Puppetmaker
A favorite granny is asked, "Why are we all different?"  This story is set in the world of Fireborn.

The Big Blue Tent
What is art, and how do we determine its value? Or maybe, the question is: Who gets to determine its value" This is the first appearance of my moss-haired twins.

The Perfect Gift
What if the gift you want to give is already taken? The twins each have their own approach to finding the proper natal gift for their mother.

Painted Pebbles
Where'd the bum get the clean blue hat?  And where'd he get the tiny, beautiful painted pebbles?

Since I've started putting my fiction online, I've been thinking about the nature of crowdfunding. I started this series of articles because it occurred to me that this isn't the first time I've put my creative work before strangers, in the hopes that some of them would choose to become patrons of my art and support my efforts.

It has become an occasional series, and this post is to assist people who start reading later in the series to check out my other thoughts on the subject.

1. Personal Retrospective My experiences busking in the subways of Chicago in the early 1990s
2. You Are My Gatekeepers About publishing and publishers, and how fiction finds an audience
3. Feed the Artist The reader is very significant to the writer, and reader response matters.
4. Everywhere is Next Door If all websites are just one click on a url away, that's good right?  Not really.
5. Amanda Palmer on Crowdfunding (though she doesn't use that word)  Why a traditionally-successful musician feels it's important to leave the hat out--the world is changing, and artists need to eat.
6. It's Not a Zero-Sum Game My skills are valuable, and I want to share them.  And if I can make your day better, we both come out ahead.

Today was productive, though it could have been better. Got 3286 words in on a new short story, which is now essentially finished in first draft.

Also got a bunch of Clockwork Dragon done, though somehow a couple thousand words didn't save properly the first time and I had to retype them. Ugh. No fair having my work vanish like that when I'm behind. But I'm now past the halfway mark.

Thinking of alliterative titles to help me post regularly; FridayFlash is obvious, and I wanted Whimsical Wednesday, but won't complaint too much about a Writing Wednesday with over 5000 words in it, especially with the stupid "where did all my work go" stumble in the middle.

P.S. Silly flash drive, I KNOW that if I had a newer computer, with a USB2 port, you could go faster. Do you have to taunt me every single time I plug you in?

1. Are you a “pantser” or a “plotter?”

As in so many things, some of both, though more the former. I started out always working from the seat of my pants, but got tired of getting stuck on middles. Plotting ahead keeps me from getting into those dead "stuck" areas, for the most part. But even when I start with a plot in mind, there's so many things that are just potential, that aren't real, until the words area actually on the page.

2. Detailed character sketches or “their character will be revealed to me as I write”?

I sometimes do character background stuff, but it isn't real until I'm writing. I think it comes from my gaming background, where I designed a set of characters to go with a scenario, and then got to watch different people play the same exact character--well, the character was the same on paper, and the broad description never changed, but they were SO very different in the reality of the action. Amazingly so.

3. Do you know your characters’ goals, motivations, and conflicts before you start writing or is that something else you discover only after you start writing?

Mostly, I discover things as I write. Though I have to admit that the dreaming/thinking/imagining part is as much a real and necessary part of writing as the typing part. But everything can be changed before it's typed into the story. No--wait--it can be changed even then, but there's more work involved.

4. Books on plotting – useful or harmful?

Sometimes useful, but in a limited way. The gestalt of the story--the characters and world and action and mischances and all--is a much better governing factor than somebody else's theories of writing. And the next most important thing to keep in mind is the reader, giving the reader the parts of the action that are needed for understanding and for the enjoyment of the story. Every rule that exists can be broken, and sometimes must be broken to get the best story possible out of the raw materials on hand.

5. Are you a procrastinator or does the itch to write keep at you until you sit down and work?

Again, both. When I know what I want to say, I feel a strong need to get it down on paper, before it mutates or vanishes. I may still change it later, but I don't want to have to retrieve it after my brain moves on to the next plot problem or whatever. But when I don't know what I want to say, giving my brain time to process is good. Though I'm not sure it's "procrastination", which is putting something off until later that you could be doing now. If the idea is still brewing, then I can't write the same thing now that I could write later.

6. Do you write in short bursts of creative energy, or can you sit down and write for hours at a time?

I would guess that whoever wrote these questions didn't imagine they would get so many "both" answers.

7. Are you a morning or afternoon writer?

Evening and late night, mostly. But any time is the right time, if I know what I want to say and have time to say/type it.

8. Do you write with music/the noise of children/in a cafe or other public setting, or do you need complete silence to concentrate?

Music is good; silence is good; company is good; a guardian cat is good; sometimes even TV is good.

9. Computer or longhand? (Or typewriter?)

Bite your tongue! Longhand is distressingly slow, and I hate typewriters. Though you use what you have, when you don't have the right tools. But computer. Definitely computer. And an ergonomic keyboard if at all possible.

10. Do you know the ending before you type Chapter One?

Only in general terms, and not always. And even if I know, as characters actually do things, my understanding of them and the setting and everything else internal to the story changes and grows, so the ending I "know" will happen as I write some early chapter is often not the ending that actually happens.

11. Does what’s selling in the market influence how and what you write?

Depends. I have been thinking about what short story to write with a myth or folklore theme for several weeks now; the idea that finally stuck wasn't the first one I considered. If someone has several ideas that are equally compelling in the writer's imagination, it's perfectly reasonable to pick the one that's most likely to sell to work on first. Likewise, if the theme of an anthology or the like sparks an idea, that's a pretty cool thing. However, a religious inspirational football story is right out. At least, unless you're paying me a WHOLE lot.

12. Editing – love it or hate it?

Editing is good. If you're careful who you let do the editing, anyway.

Between NaNoWriMo and Windycon, it's been a while since I posted a new chapter of Fireborn. So, before I start, I thank you all for your patience!

For my new friends, the story starts here.

MIST

Mist was distracted through dinner, trying unsuccessfully to catch a glimpse of Orchid. Either she was working hard to avoid her mother, or she simply wasn’t there. And it wasn’t like Orchid to skip a meal, especially after flying off in a huff—Mist was well aware of her daughter’s tendency to fly off her anger, and remembered how hungry that made a growing girl from her own childhood.

Once people were mostly finished eating dinner, the Mayor wasted no time in chasing people out of the center of the sunshade. They settled into a rough circle, mostly under the sunshade, but the mothers on infant duty and a few others gathered within earshot in the water.

The mayor wasted no time on introductions. “So, Healer, who is the fireborn?”

Mist stood up. “Mayor, “ she bowed, “Sturgeon School” she looked across the various people gathered in the big sunshelter and nodded, then nodded toward the water too. “I have not yet established whether there is a fireborn among you.”

( Read more... )
________________

Since authors love comments (I'm not unique, in that at least), I hope you'll take a moment to let me know you're reading, and tell me what you think.

Windycon was mixed; I got to talk with lots of people, which was good. I was on panels, which were interesting and well-attended, which was good. I got stuff into the art show, which was good, but nothing sold. I was exhausted the whole weekend for some reason, didn't manage any filking at all, not so good. Driving home was no fun, tired and headachy. But when I got home, the headache and excessive tiredness started to fade. I think by dint of getting lots of sleep instead of filking, I may have fought off some bug--but it's Not Fair that I couldn't have done that at home, instead of at the con.

Oh, and the costuming was inspired. Lots and lots of cool things, though I didn't feel focused enough to take pictures.

I do want to do a write-up of panels, but am feeling very behind on NaNoWriMo and other writing.

But in the meantime, I wanted to share a link:

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2009/11/15/michael-moorcock-answers-fans-about-writing-doctor-who-novel/

I wanted to get the next installment of Fireborn done today, but I woke up with a headache, and though it's finally mostly gone, I wasn't much good for creative things all day. I did get various necessary but dull stuff done--cleaning out my purse and entering receipts into my records, checking for more places to send job applications (and found a few, including yet another one that required me to type everything in my resume and then some into their online form), and stuff like that.

Yesterday was another day of little time for creative work. I spent the afternoon picking my kid up from across town, ferrying her to the doctor and pharmacy (just a sinus infection), and dropping the crabby tired child at her father's place. The evening was spent on errands, useful, but not much time for writing. The last one was to be getting my meds. I got there, realized I didn't have the $10 coupon, and despite being behind on everything I'd planned to do yesterday due to mom-ly duty, I went home to get it. (No job means ignoring that kind of coupon is really not an option.) When I went back again, I ended up standing there for at least 45 minutes while the clerk tried to figure out how to enter the thing into the pharmacy's computer, tried to tell me I couldn't use it for the prescription because the prescription was a refill, went off to talk to the pharmacist, and finally called a manager, who said to go ahead and give me the $10 off my copayment that the coupon promised. Then there was still more typing to enter things into his computer and then he took my meds off to the side where I couldn't see him to do something else to it or with it before he could finish ringing up my purchase. Now, every penny counts, but by the time it was all done, the savings was a very unimpressive "hourly wage".

Yeah, all this is part of normal life in this modern age, but why did I have to get a big clump of time-wasting stuff during NaNo and the week before Windycon? It wouldn't have been so bad if I'd expected it to take more than an hour and had taken something useful to do with me! And I still have to either get the art-show bidsheets and control sheet done before I leave Milwaukee or hand-write them at the con, before my 4:00 panel on Friday.

However, I do have some better news--I have a job interview tomorrow, so I'd best get myself off to bed.

The NaNoWriMo website has a number of fun things going for it. Part of it is just stuff to keep you excited and on-track, like different types of word-count widgets. Part of it is social networking-type stuff. I'm not sure which one the "Novel Info" page is, but it has a spot to upload a mock cover.

Now this is not the cover I imagine for the finished work (for that I've been imagining one of the main characters actually working on a clockwork dragon), but for something thrown together in a short amount of time I'm reasonably pleased.

Attribution:  The dragons in this photo are sculptures by the talented Butch Honeck.  I expect I'll see him at Windycon; I should print a copy of this mock cover for him, EDIT:  website!  http://www.honecksculptures.com/ .

There's also a "novel synopsis" spot, which I took to mean "back cover blurb":

Bartholomew has been hired to investigate whether the playboy, metalsmith, clockwork artist, and wizard who calls himself Michelangelo Da Vinci is an appropriate suitor for a rich man's great grand-daughter, Emma. Da Vinci is a study in paradoxes, sensitive and socially clueless, rich, handsome, and popular, but seemingly lacking a past. Why do the vampires seem drawn to him? And what about the pale apparitions that are being seen around the city? Are they ghosts? Angels? Could they be an artist's muse? Or are they perhaps a modern wil-o-the-wisp, luring creative people to commit suicide?

In the meantime, Emma is intelligent and headstrong, and despite her enrollment in a genteel university's literature program and her musical skills, she puts a great deal more energy into studying vampires and other odd creatures and phenomena than to her formal studies. Her interest in jazz led her to Chicago's new speakeasies, where she first met Michelangelo. With his best friend having inexplicably abandoned him, she is perfectly poised to get to know him, and perhaps his mysterious past, better.

On the website, there's also a bit of novel excerpt, edited both to rub some of the first-draft-itis off and because out of context it was lacking some necessary antecedents.

I'm going to try to paste one of the silly graphs here, but if it doesn't work, my word count, for those who care, is currently 13627.  Actually, if the widget works the way I expect, for those of you who read this after I update my word count on their website, the widget will update.  I think.  We'll see!

<img src="http://www.nanowrimo.org/NanowrimoUtils/NanowrimoGraph/447085.png" />

So, writers, what have you been doing?  NaNo?  Something else?  How's it going?

And everybody else, what creative pursuits have you been doing?  Gardening?  Redecorating?  Food?  How's that been going?

Annie clutched the slice of wedding cake to her plump bosom. No matter how tempted she was, this slice wasn’t for eating. At least, not until tomorrow. She reached into her purse for the ziplock baggie that had held her lunch cookies, and slid the cake into it. Then she placed it resolutely into her purse—getting squashed wouldn’t hurt it any. Not for her purposes, anyway.

Besides, it was a great party, with plenty of other food. She partied until long after the lucky couple had left for their honeymoon, then went home to her lonely efficiency apartment.

She pulled out the cake and opened the bag. It wasn’t as squashed as she expected, and her stomach rumbled. Resolutely, she added one petal from the rose Maria had given her, out of the bride’s bouquet. Maria was slim and pretty; it was no surprise she’d caught it. But she was generous to her friends too, she gave everyone a flower, “for luck”.

Then Annie got out her grandmother’s Book, checked the directions again. She chanted the nonsense syllables, breathed into the bag, sealed it, and placed it under her pillow. Then she laid down, willing herself to dream, to see her own future husband.

Again and again her thoughts wandered, but Annie refused to get up for a snack, or to let herself daydream about cute musicians. She focused on that bit of cake, on herself in a wedding dress. Her thoughts became disjointed, but the images of the cake, the wedding dress, kept flitting through them.

( Then she was pinned by a bright, oddly-green light... )

I hope you'll leave me a comment.

My feral cats appear to have vanished. I haven't seen them in several days.

I'm pretty sure someone else was feeding them too, so I hope they are with loving people, and were not simply caught by the authorities. At least they were healthy and looked good, and were at a point where I was comfortable that if I gave them away they could bond with a human person or family. Though, of course, a kitty that's comfortable with being picked up in a calm, familiar situation may still seem totally wild after being captured and tossed in a scary cage. But all I can do at this point is wish them luck.

Good luck, kitties.  I miss you.

Allergy attacks with lots of sneezing take up lots of kleenex and are Not Helpful when you're trying to write.

Neither is getting out of the chair to change clothes and mop.

Universe, stop trying to sabotage me!

So, last night I posted that there was a poem that I found out was accepted for publication basically as it appeared online, published.

This morning, before getting the girl from the train station (she had been visiting Chicago relatives again) and taking her to a meeting off in the land of confusing road signs, it happened again!

My poem, The Chatter of a White Scaly-Gull is published in the premier issue of With Painted Words, at www.withpaintedwords.com

The premise of this publisher is that they request submissions each month of no more than 1000 words, to match a particular piece of artwork.  The artwork is very nice, and I'm definitely jealous of the artist's phone, which was the media of creation! 

This first time they ran it as a contest--of the stories and poems they published, the artist will pick his favorite, and that person will get a print of the art. 

They have next month's piece of art up on their website, for those inclined to poetry and flash- or micro-fiction.  (They define flash as 1000 or fewer words, micro as 500 or fewer.)

I took a notebook to the kid's meeting, intending to do some NaNo drafting, and instead found my brain providing me with the bones of a story whose deadline was today (well, here-time, now technically yesterday), and which I'd resigned myself to the conclusion that I just wouldn't have time for. 

After dropping the kid off at her Dad's place (she now has a room at both places, giving her two homes in this city, in addition to a permanent welcome at three different homes in Chicago), I found one last late farmer's market that had cooking pumpkins, and bought some for My Angel, who has spent the last week complaining that Libby's bought all the cooking pumpkins that would normally go to the big grocery stores.  I also bought some other veggies.  And took a few pictures, though sadly I missed the moon while it was near enough to the horizon to have made a good picture.  (The kid would have taken a picture for me while I drove, but the phone was in my pocket, and we lost the spectacular view by the time I got it into her hands.)

So, when I got home and had eaten dinner and tended pets, I wrote and rewrote the short story, proofread it, and sent it off. 

So, now, here I sit, trying to convince my brain it's past time to be writing a novel, already!

Stuff I found in my e-mail:

My story, DEMM Wizard, is now published in Issue 12 of Crossed Genres magazine.

http://crossedgenres.com/

You can visit the website and read it there, or buy a copy (print, kindle, PDF, or PRC).  And look at the whole cover--the art is gorgeous!  I like this vertical ad better than the banner one. 

Also in my e-mail was an acceptance letter for one of my poems, Under a Fey Moon, for publication in the November issue of EMG Magazine. 

www.emg-zine.com

This issue also appears to be available for viewing and subscriptions now.

So that makes two publications appearing in one month! 

Nothing's perfect, of course. 

I haven't heard from Vampyr Verse whether they're accepting or rejecting my poems, though I thought they were to be publishing for Halloween.

And I got a rejection letter for another short story. 

Oh well, I sent it out again.  And paid the bills that are due in the first couple of days in the month. 

I'll be on several panels at Windycon, so it's really cool that I'll have a couple of print copies of Crossed Genres by then.  They will be:

Clacks and Clanks -- making your (steampunk) world's technology unique
Steampunk and Magic -- how the magical and mechanical can combine
Doing the Science in Steampunk -- how can you do the science in your stories well, if you're not a scientist
Nonverbal Communication -- other ways aliens might get their point across

Can you tell that they have a Steampunk theme this year?

Anyway, if you want to accost me with your musings or questions on any of these topics, there's a whole bunch of empty virtual space provided below, just for you.

Silly cape-making follies left me exhausted, and I hit the pillow early last night, slept a lot, woke for breakfast, and started falling asleep again. So I went back to bed. Woke feeling much better, and tackled the flash fiction piece I was doing for #fridayflash and Brigit's Flame.  (How the heck do you get a community tagged as such using the html?)

Got that done and tried to post it; had too many technical difficulties and headed out for the Lytheria Halloween Party late and very frustrated.  Talked with people and did music, which was good, though some stuff I wanted to do in honor of it being Halloween I normally do on autoharp and I had only the guitar--one instrument is enough to drag into a monster party, and I didn't have time to tune the autoharp before the party anyway.  Did pretty well on those, though.  Left feeling much less frustrated, to hurry back and re-read my entry to the Torn World contest, polish it, scan the art, and submit it.

And I couldn't find it anywhere. Not in this computer or the ancient one upstairs or on either USB drive.  I found other stuff I'd wondered if I still had, but those words appear to be totally lost.  Sigh.

So instead of starting NaNoWriMo, I rewrote the whole thing.  (Why waste a perfectly good piece of art?)  Still, it's not the same.  Maybe better, maybe worse (most likely a bit of both), but not the same. 

Hopefully, I redid it in time, though with the Daylight Savings Time change and the differences in time-zones, I'm not positive about that.

So now I'm reading on twitter people's 2000-3500 word NaNo brags and feeling frustrated.  And tomorrow I have to take the girl to a meeting, which will tie up my time for probably several hours. 

Sigh.

Then I turn to my e-mail and find other stuff to talk about.  But it doesn't fit the theme of this post, so you'll have to wait for the next one!

Diana set her witch hat aside and looked at the stage. Times Square, with Christmas décor, fake snow scattered around the ground. In the foreground, crime scene tape, a pool of red, a garish yellow outline of a body. A bloody Santa hat. The pool of blood was spread under the crime-scene tape toward an open guitar case, with a little cash in it. There were number-tags in the dirty snow, marking footprints and other clues. Red and blue lights blinked, reflecting off everything reflective, coloring faces and fake snow.

"Come on, folks, let’s get some footage rolling!” Diana waved at the cameramen, who rolled their eyes, but started shooting. “Try to get interesting angles—this is to cut into the final video. She wondered again why she’d agreed to this. She hated Christmas, hated its commercialization, hated its ubiquity, hated the fact that one started to see Christmas decor before Halloween. Yet here she was, on Halloween morning, directing a video full of cliché Christmas stuff. But this was the only time she could book the space for two days running and still have the video ready to release on time.

And Mhairi, the lead singer, wanted the song out this year, as a memorial for a childhood friend, who’d been lost to a gang drive-by in August. This would be the first year since high school that he didn’t dress up as Santa to give out toys to needy kids. She wanted to release the video on his birthday, November 29. Diana couldn’t argue with that.

Mhairi was standing there in a worn coat open enough to show cleavage and a Peace On Earth t-shirt. Her hat and scarf were fetchingly placed. She held her electric guitar held absent-mindedly in fingerless gloves, talking to one of the backup singers, who was dressed as a police officer in a form-fitting uniform. The officer was just standing there.

Diane sighed. “Come on, Amy, take some notes about the crime while Mhairi talks. And Mhairi, stop talking about your Halloween costume, we might get some viewer who can read lips.”

Mhairi nodded, launched into one of her anti-crime tirades, and the “policewoman” brought up the tiny notebook, and her pen started moving.

More back-up singers shuffled around, taking pictures, taking notes, occasionally, with a camera focusing on them, picking up something from the stage and bagging it. In short, trying to look like crime-scene officers despite the obviously fake, very form-fitting uniforms.

Behind them is Patt, in torn blue-jeans and jeans jacket. Instead of a hat, Patt’s dyed her spiky hair red and green. Her drums have fake fronts, so they appear to be plastic, for verisimilitude. She had a metal frame beside her, with chimes, cymbals, and several different shakers. She was frowning as she shook some plastic Maracas. They sounded different than her real ones, but she had admitted she wouldn’t take the real ones into a snowstorm.

“Patt, can you look shocked instead of irritated?” Patt looked up, startled out of her reverie, and Mark caught her wide-eyed look. Diana smiled—digital was so much better, you could see if the cameraman got the shot. “Good, Mark, Patt.”

Honey, the bassist, is more into the spirit of things, clothes-wise—Santa cap and long, sparkly blue skirt. She’s managed to get some of the fake snow to dust the lower half of it, irregularly. T-shirt with an angel under a feathery white—well, Diana supposed it was a jacket. It looked more like extended angel wings for the t-shirt. However, she’s smiling.

“Honey, girl, you just saw a murder. And now the police aren’t letting you play, and you’re not getting any tips. What’s to smile about?”

“It’s going to be a great video!” Honey answered, but she snagged a backup singer, who got her notebook out. Somehow Honey suddenly looked haunted. She started pointing and waving toward the crime scene, retelling the scene they’d shot that morning. Hastily, Diana noted the time stamp for Honey’s mike—they might be able to actually use some of this. Honey could have a future as an actress, she thought.

When Diana thinks they have a sufficient surplus of footage of the undisturbed crime scene and the musicians in it, and Honey reaches a good pausing point in her storytelling, she nods. “All right, everyone, check your tuning. We’re going for the main event as soon as you’re ready.”

They shift a little, everyone looking intense. They can always lay a new sound track, but the video is being done on a shoestring budget; if they have to recreate the crime scene, it’s money out of the band’s mostly empty pockets. And the carefully-choreographed and rehearsed plan will mess it up. They have at most three takes before it’s unusable.

They fiddle and check their positions on the stage, then return to repeating the questioning. But this time is different. Now, there’s a rhythmic cackle of static, allegedly from the “police radios”. Patt tapped her drums nervously, in time to the static, and the bass player joined in.

The policeman talking to Mhairi flips a page on her notebook. “Let’s go over this one more time.”

The Mhairi strums loudly, and sings.

We were singing Merry Christmas
Wishing peace to everyone

The other two musicians joined in.

Brief updatery.

The cape I made for Foodie-Friend is done, after WAY too much pinning. Way way WAY too much pinning. I got frustrated enough that I forgot to take pictures, except for one rather boring one showing the pattern for the sleeves, which I had to tape together and which is longer than my large dining room table. I don't even have a picture of the finished project.

And it took way too long, so I'm behind on some of my scheduled writing.

And on garden work, though the rainiest October in
[I wasn't paying that much attention to the weatherman] also has affected that! I don't have nearly enough leaves on the roses; I should be able to gather some this weekend, when it is supposed to be done raining, but cold. Sigh. At least we don't have snow!

The sparkly serpent story is still mostly finished, but is now more than twice as long. It told me it needed additional scenes. So I may not get it done in time to submit it to the Action Adventure issue of Crossed Genres. Oh, well, I'd rather have a good story than a prompt one. However, Oh My Muse, please take note--both is good.

And since I have that goal, this is just a quick status post, so I can get back to writing.

And to finishing the artwork for another Torn World contest (for which I am, in part, using brushes bought with the prize from the first Torn World contest). (Going to the store with Dragon, who went to the Art Institute of Chicago, and having her explain the various uses of different brushes that I hadn't previously been using, was fun, and I meant to blog about it, but didn't get to it. Yet, anyway, though it would no longer be a current events post!)

This is also your official warning that I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year. My plan is to not allow that to delay Fireborn chapters, but it may well interfere with #fridayflash. Or it may simply determine what universe my Friday flash fiction is set in.

However, if there's something in your journal you want my comments on during November, please feel free to send a message or otherwise call my attention to it; I will likely be reading less so I can write more.

This is the latest installment in Fireborn.  (The story starts here.)

ORCHID

Orchid watched for hours, until the sun started getting low in the sky. Her stomach growled at her, and she launched into the air. She might as well look for some fruit trees while she waited.

It wasn’t hard to find some peaches, but those just made her feel hungrier. Just a bit inland were some nut trees. She ate quickly, cracking the nuts open expertly and letting the shells fall through the leaves toward the ground. Finally, feeling better, she launched back into the air, looking back toward Spiny Cove, the pouch she was wearing full of nuts.

“Oh no!” A fishing party was swimming just under the water, only a few minutes’ swim from the school, and she recognized the Mayor’s tattoos even from this distance.

She sped up, working hard to catch up with them. When she was close, she dove downward, taking advantage of the extra speed that gave her to get above them.

“Hey, Skimmer!” she called.

They kept swimming.

“Hey!” she called more loudly. No response. She could stick a foot into the water, try to tap someone’s shoulder, but she hated flying wet, and she couldn’t swim if she got too far into it. But what else could she do?

The pouch banged again against her thigh. Nuts! Of course! She winged higher and reached her feet up to the pouch, squeezing a nut out the top with one foot and catching it with the other. She lobbed it downward and missed.

Ten nuts later, one of the trailing young men surfaced. He had pale blue skin, but his tattoos were hidden in the water. Orchid had no clue what his name was. “Are you throwing rocks at us, girl?
( Of course not! ... )

No, there was nothing to do but wait and think, and hope she could get herself out of this mess.

Tears spilled out of her eyes. In the best of circumstances, Orchid hated waiting. But this was more awful than anything she’d ever imagined.

The story continues here.
______________________________

As always, I can be convinced to publish the next chapter before next week. 

I love to hear from you.  I hope you'll let me know what you think.

Foodie Friend wants a cape before Halloween, and I have the skills, so we went to a fabric store to buy a pattern and fabric. I've made capes and robes before without patterns, but a pattern means he got to approve the look ahead of time and it should go relatively quickly, which, with autumn things to do and several short stories to finish and NaNoWriMo coming up, is a good thing.

And I determined his computer, though it's newer than mine, also does not have any form of SD slot, which I need to empty the micro-card that is now in my phone full of pictures. Hopefully the laptop that my kid's Dad got her will be able to let me transfer the photos to a USB drive.

I also got a submission into a contest on time (assuming I did the conversion for time zones correctly) and did other writerly correspondence and work.

And I fed and petted the feral kittens who still need homes. Today both purred at me.

We also got the first significant load of leaves on the roses, though naturally, just as we got outside it started to rain. Not much, thankfully, but still, there was wetness.

Tomorrow, there shall be Fireborn in this journal. Poor Orchid!

And tomorrow, I shall look at the sparkly dragon story to make sure the character's voices each work, and are consistent, and there are no eggregious typos or grammos, and whether I need to fix anything else to make the story hang together right.

And I shall finish cleaning herbs off the dining room table, wash it, and lay pattern pieces on cloth. And gulp big-time, like I always do when cutting into whole cloth, and then cut. Pin. Maybe even sew. I'm so casual about most sewing things; why do I always feel daunted when faced with whole sheets of brand-new cloth?