“The servant does as the master wishes. The master desires bread, the servant plants grain. The master desires a keep, the servant lays stone. The master desires gold, and the servant bleeds steel. At the end of all things the servant is still a servant.” Oak replied.
Mercy.
Have you ever thought about that word, Servant of Light?
What it really means?
It means you are greater than I. That you forgive me, that you spare me — that you deem me suitable to exist. That you alone are equipped to know what is Just, and Right. You are the arbiter of the universe, and anything that you do not understand, or fear is worthy of destruction, but through your infinite mercy you will allow me to draw another breath in this world. That anything that is not like you is wrong, is contemptible, is evil.
Is it any wonder we want to destroy you?
That you, a child in this world – given only a few spare years of thought and life, can stand there before a being that has known and experienced more time than you could dare to even conceive, and have the temerity to judge me?
Long ago, before we came to this world, before the world before that, and the world before that — when we were first created in the very cauldron of the Beginning. Each being was given a choice. Will you Serve, or will you Destroy?
I think you know what me and my brethren chose. We are the Hounds of Necessity, the Storm Undying. We are required, we are in the bones of creation — I serve a far greater purpose in this universe than you could possibly imagine, I am EVIL, Servant of Light. And I am old, and I forget nothing and regret nothing. Do you know what Hell is, little thing? Hell is never forgetting, Hell is enduring, and Hell is dreaming of the day when you can break every piece of your disgusting little world, and all of the self-righteous false mercy that it holds.
To prove you false, to show your true selves – stripped of all your lies and empty hopes.
You are all animals, and I will not be judged by the mouse who offers me a crumb of his precious cheese.
So, no. I don’t want your mercy. And I promise you, there will come a day when you will understand the deepest well of my heart.
You all will.
–The King of Open and Shut
Once upon a time, I had certain delusions. Delusions that I would finish my book, and have nice shiny copies to hand out to random people at DragonCon. I had this really elaborate ARG I was going to set up, and it would become a viral sensation — securing my place in publishing, and I could quit my job and eat Hot Pockets on my couch forever.
So yeah, I’m still editing, so that isn’t going to happen.
But, I will be at DragonCon! Who else is going to be there?
If you can find me, and mention Spell/Sword I will be fucking shocked — and immediately anoint you as the first Slaughter Wizards of the nascent swordpunk fandom.
The adventurers stood around in stunned silence, as the illusory image of the Red Wizard faded from view. The strange machine chuffed quietly, working it’s unknown program through the pipes and gears that extended into the stone ceiling out of view. The simple glass decanter sat on the desk, a third full of a blue liquid that glowed slightly – a shade of blue that no one could ever remember seeing before.
The words of Korthan Zul seemed to hang in the air, repeated in the stunned memory of the Lodestar crew.
“My disciples, how glad am I that you have made your way to my inner sanctum. Only
you have proven worthy to glimpse the greatest expression of my power — my mastery over Time Itself.
I stand now on the brink of total domination of the world. The Scepter is in my hands, my armies are strong and vicious, and the pitiful forces of Good are a spineless rabble. But…there is always a but. Even I cannot plan for all the strange storms of the Future, so here I have prepared a doorway into the calm seas of the Past.
If the worst should occur, and I should fall – take this liquid that you see behind you. I have built a machine, that distills the very essence of Time. Drops stolen from the river. One swallow will take you anywhere in Time you choose. Go. Go back before the moment of my defeat, and bring the knowledge I will need to triumph.
Do not fail me. Evil never forgets. It Begins Again – It Endures Forever”
The loris, Mr. Wuzzles crawled down from his place on Carbunkle’s shoulder and wrapped himself around the gnome, pinning his arms with fuzzy insistence.
“Do. Not. Touch.” the loris said sternly
Two more of my Alpha Readers gave me their criticism on the book, and I’m still picking the shrapnel out of my ego. I picked my first readers well — they’re good enough friends to call me on my shit. And called it was indeed. INDEED.
Beyond the psyche-bruising, all this feedback is making me really excited to get back to work on editing. So far, all of my readers have overall enjoyed the book — and the problems they’ve called my attention to are concrete. Maybe not easy to fix — but definitely doable. I can see multiple ways to change things to evade their criticism, but I’m going to let all of it settle a while longer. I’m still waiting on feedback from a third of my readers, and I don’t want to over-react to the first criticism I’ve received.
Admittedly, a fair amount of the criticism are ‘no-argument’ types. Grammar flubs, word repetition, confusing passages, jokes that didn’t work, etc. Those will be fixed — -it’s the things that deal more with overall structure and style that I’ll need to carefully ruminate on.
Sorry I can’t be more specific yet! Still drafts out in the wild.
Alpha Readers Responding: 4 out of 12
Two lines, drawn by mortal hand
drawn on a globe must perforce
intersect. No careful ink or
edge of steel can avoid this
casual truth, the imperfect
always converges.
So it was, and so it will be on
the street of elms, the street of
circumstance. Two forces,
winds of a bifurcate purpose
did meet in a way most spectacular
and strange.
A frog, a simple amphibian, making
its way from pond to leaf, unaware
and gullet full of river-minnow.
And a car, a humming mountain
of steel and motion.
In a pond, most plain
on the edge of a green field, filled o’er
with garish faces and spinning wheels,
and the quiet clink of metal against
white balls, slapping their way
down their predestined course.
The car jumped the curve, as the
frog jumped the leaf.
A collision most strange, even
though unremarked by most.
For the frog did not die, yet was spun
into the heavens by a black wheel
and came to rest on the gleaming
crimson hood of the car
goggle-eye staring into blank stare
of its pilot.
The frog and the man did not exchange
names, or titles or the
memories of the quiet little lives.
They both hopped away, thankful
for their lives
and hopeful that their lines
would never again
intersect.
[Story on Demand for Jackie Jones. This is a weird one.]
Put something in the comment that can happen in two minutes, and I’ll write story about it.
I am super clever.
I have to write a review. I am writing it now. A review for the Town & Gown Blog, that is where this review will be posted.
Writing a review of a show about people writing a show. So should I write a review of my own review of the show about people writing a show?
Perhaps I must.
So far, this review is not very good. It seems very recursive, and poorly structured. Also, there’s no actual information about Town & Gown’s production of [title of show] — which is unfortunate, because it’s quite good. [Much better than this review, that’s for certain.]
Man, I just don’t have much to say in this paragraph.
I should probably mention the solid direction by Melissa Darnell, but it seems too early in the review. Shouldn’t I be mentioning the excellent music and singers – – shouldn’t I be mentioning the clever…
View original post 280 more words
boy/girl
squire/mage
comedy/tragedy
hero/villain
beginning/end
murderer/guardian
madman/sage
friend/slave
true/false
hunter/prey
jonas/rime
spell/sword
witch/is which?
[Just playing around with some text – potentially for the back cover of Spell/Sword. As a young nerdling I used to spend quite a lot of time in bookstores and libraries. I’d spend hours reading the inner jacket, and the back of every book — deciding if it was what I wanted to read next. In bookstores most of all, five bucks for a new paperback was a serious investment. Of course, I immediately became a critic. I was flabbergasted at how many ‘back cover summaries’ were totally misleading, and were clearly written without the author’s knowledge. I was still a little too young to understand about marketing, publishing, etc.
But I vowed, that when I wrote MY book, then I would make sure I didn’t have a crappy summary on the back cover. And since I’m self-publishing, I can have whatever wacky text I want.]
I was woolgathering on the way to work today, when The Beatles’ Daytripper came on the radio. [Yes, the radio – and YES, the oldies station.] I started thinking about a character that I created for a friend’s Super Hero campaign a few years ago — a young time controller named Marley Burch, who named his alter ego after the song.
Then it hit me. Didn’t I start a story about that guy and never finish it?
It took a little digging on my computer, but I found it! It’s totally a WiP relic — the beginning of the first chapter, with no ending. It just kinds of peters out. You’ll also notice some odd numbers at the beginning of each story beat — mad bonus points if you can figure out what I was getting at. Trust me, it took me more than a few minutes to remember. Then I shook my head and said aloud “You are a goddamn nerd, sir.”
For historic purposes, I’m dumping this on the blog – UNEDITED. There are several typos and I would dearly like to give it a serious edit, but for now here it is, in all it’s unabashed glory.
Anyone playing the home game — I wrote this in January of 2010, about 8 months before Lodestar began. If this blog is partly a travelogue of my adventures in writing, then this is an example of the first time I went camping — then got scared at 2 AM and ran back home.
TC: 11-17-1984-1615-32 E:14-9-3-6-5-46
Marley was ahead.
The blue water finned off his hands like a tidal wave. He cut through the chlorinated sea, arms dolphin-ing. As he reached the far wall, he flipped lazily, catching a quick glance at his opponents. He stopped, and waved at the coach on the far end of the pool. The rest of the team were thrashing mightily between the ropes to catch up with him.
They weren’t even halfway across the pool. Chumps.
Sucking in a lung-exploding amount of air, he kicked off from the side. Marley grinned. He was about to make this Olympic-sized pool seem small. Out of nowhere, the last song he heard on the radio popped in his head. I’ve got my back against the record machine / I ain’t the worst that you’ve seen. / Oh can’t you see what I mean?
Water rushed past his goggles, and he reached for more.
TC: 11-17-1984-1616-51 E:14-9-3-6-5-48
Marley flung himself out of the pool, and spun around. He had gained even more distance on the other swimmers.
“Ha, ha…c’mon…really? Did you guys shit bricks in your trunks?” he said respectfully.
Marley prepared himself to do the Turtle Dance. His teammates hated the Turtle Dance. As did Coach Hendricks, his parents, his teachers, and basically anyone who wasn’t Marley.
Laying chest down on the dripping poolside, he began to move his hands in a flipper like manner. Pushing gently with his toes he moved, slowly, towards the edge of the pool. As the other swimmers popped up at the end of their lanes they were met by a goddamned annoying sight. Marley had flipped his goggles inside out, and was wobbling his head back and forth.
“Awwww….so…..slow…..” Marley began, “…do….you want to …DANCE…with me?”
Rising, he began to wave his flippers in a stately manner.
The response was mixed. The upper classmen rolled their eyes and headed for the showers. The two other freshmen on the team snickered behind their hands. But they left speedily once the chanting began.
“Tur-tul-DANCE. Tur-tul-DANCE. Tur-tul-DANCE!” Marley intoned. His flippers waggled in time to the beat.
He turned to watch his teammates [a.k.a. the losers] walk off to the shower. He saw Coach Hendricks approach, rubbing his forehead. The coach was a younger sort of teacher, no grey hair yet in his close-cropped sandy hair or in his mustache. Marley hoped to create the first.
“Tur-tul-DANCE?” he queried.
Coach Hendricks sighed.
Marley Burch was the star of the Kingscross High swim team. Only a freshman, he was shattering school records right and left, and was making the Coach’s dreams of winning state jack-knife in his head. But this kid is so goddamned annoying, the coach thought.
Marley pushed his goggles back on his head. His yellow-blonde hair was turning vaguely green on the ends from over-exposure to chlorine. He knew that look on the coach’s tanned face. A lecture was coagulating. He stared intensely at the coach’s mustache. If he concentrated hard enough on the mustache, the worst of the lecture would probably spill over him.
“Marley, you ‘ve got to stop parading around every time you win a race. And that was the sloppiest flip-turn I’ve ever seen! It’s bad sportsmanship and really low class. I’m surprised the older boys haven’t worked you over in the locker room the way you carry on! You’re short and 110 pounds soaking wet, don’t you see that I….”
TC: 11-17-1984-1626-01 E:14-9-3-6-11-17
..wear my sunglasses at night. I wear my sunglasses at night, I wear my sunglasses at night. I said to you now: I wear my sunglasses at night.
“MARLEY!” Coach Hendricks roared.
Marley snapped to attention. “Yes, sir coach – I’ll work harder on my backstroke, and eat four oranges every night before bed, you got it!”
A moment of silence gaped opened like the maw of a crocodile.
Marley saluted.
Coach Hendricks ran a hand down his face. Finger shaking, he pointed towards the locker room.
Marley skipped away, humming. His ability to block out useless yammering was approaching Jedi-like levels. Excellent. He couldn’t remember much of what Coach said, but it was really better that way.
TC: 11-17-1984-1658-19 E:14-9-3-6-43-35
Marley slid into the passenger seat of his dad’s Volkswagen. The Wabbit had a pleasant leathery, grimy smell that patted him on the head every time he got in. He carefully pocketed the blood-stained paper towel. Fortunately, his nose had stopped bleeding moments before his dad had pulled into the natatorium parking lot. He hated unnecessary questions.
“But whyyyyyyyyy? “ the small female in the backseat whined. Marley sighed.
“Jennifer. Hush, you’ve been complaining for blocks. I am not allowing you to go to a spend-the-night party with your grades in the toilet! That is final. I have spoken. So let it be written, so let it be DONE.” said Marley’s dad. His eyes remained fixed on the road.
Marley rolled his eyes, and turned to catch his sister’s eye through the narrow space between the seats. Ask mom, he mouthed.
Jennifer nodded in understanding, but still flounced further into the back seat – a scowl etched.
Ensuring a modicum of peace for the ride home, Marley shifted his gaze to the passenger window. Without moving his eyes, he reached across the console and turned the radio up. His dad registered the movement with his eyebrows, but did nothing to stop him.
They headed down to, ooh, to El Paso. That’s where they ran into a great big hassle. Billy Joe shot a man while robbing his castle…
TC: 11-17-1984-1702-04 E:14-9-3-6-43-56
Why did his Dad never look at him while they were in the car? Fortunately, he could pass off his red-face as a reaction to the cold, and not from the knuckle-sandwich he’d just eaten. But still. Marley thoughtfully began drumming on the dashboard.
“Stop that.”, his Dad said.
TC: 11-17-1984-1708-49 E:14-9-3-6-49-33
..in Baltimore, jack. I went out for a ride and I never went back. Like a river that don’t know where it’s flowing. I took a wrong turn and I just kept going…
TC: 11-17-1984-1717-32 E:14-9-3-6-55-46
As the Wabbit pulled into the driveway, Marley’s nose started bleeding again.
TC: 11-17-1984-1719-11 E:14-9-3-6-56-48
The carpet of the hall was a muted beige.
spell-sword.com 