Tag: fiction

Music

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

“A mere tune?” Elora’s eyebrows rose, twisting her scar oddly.

“Music is the only true magic left. It can span time and space, bring joy and sorrow – the stories of entire generations wound up in a few simple notes. The right melody at the right moment can lead an army to triumph, bring a heart to ruin or fill it overflowing with love. Music is the wind that blows across all of history, everywhere and nowhere – commonplace and vital. Every soul can create it, every soul is affected by it, every soul recognizes it. Clearly the Precursors had more respect for it than you, barbarian.”

 

[Quoted from City of Rain: Book Nine of Lodestar.]

Botanists fight dirty.

G. Derek Adams5 Comments

Her overcoat was stiff with congealed agar and the shattered glass of a dozen Erlenmeyer flasks. She slid her battered arms into the sleeves, and tried to ignore the bullet wound in her leg.  A pair of pipettes were still lodged in the right sleeve of the jacket, as well as some tissue cultures from the family Malvaceae.  The battered gumshoe shook the detritus from her coat sleeve, and reached into her pockets — finding her two best friends right where they belonged.

A pair of ugly Colt revolvers, with worn pearl handles.  Watson and Crick — the only partners she’d ever needed in this dirty job.

It had been quite a dust-up in the back offices of ECO-RICH, the multi-national botany conglomerate. She’d been called in on the case, when a pair of their top researchers had turned to whistleblowers–setting up interviews with dozens of prominent science and home gardening blogs. Then they’d turned up dead. Both researchers had simultaneous heart-attacks during a purported sex romp in a jury-rigged jacuzzi powered by eighteen Bunsen burners.

But then the autopsy reports had come back: Baby carrots.

Baby carrots lodged in their aortas.

A contact on the force, Overstreet, had sent her the tip — and she’d made her way down to the offices of ECO-RICH to do a little snooping.

A brace of white-coat goons had been working late, and before she could spool up an alibi — things had gotten frisky.

An ethno-biologist with arms like a steel trap got the drop on her, grabbing her from behind and pinning her arms to the side. Without hesitation she kicked off hard from the face of an approaching zoologist, propelling  her captor into a nearby Spectrograph. A weasely ginger had pulled a snub-nose out of his pocket protector and gotten a shot off, grazing her leg — while the other researchers tossed Petri dishes and glassware like a tipsy housewife when she finds a collar with the wrong lipstick in the wash.

Crossing through the test tube hailstorm, she’d headbutted the ginger sap — the sound of his nasal cartilage snapping was sweet music, and a pair of electron microscopes ripped off a nearby table helped her finish the symphony on the rest of the jolly green thugs.

The gumshoe reached down, and riffled through the pockets of the closest researcher.  She pulled open their Twitter account, and banged out a warning.

— Just got the chloroform forcibly removed from my cell wall’s chloroplasts by a punitive ass-kicking. #ECO-RICH #MURDER #SCIENCE SLEUTH #WATCHOUT

She tossed the device aside, and walked back out into the late night rain.

She was on the case, and had a very promising beginning to the data field required for the x-axis of her perspective bar graph.

A bar graph of justice, and a chart of pain.

[For Jargon Journalist. Take some time and go fondle her comment section.]

 

 

Disappointment.

G. Derek Adams6 Comments
Mr. Chan is displeased.

 

I’ve been feeling a little guilty — I promised some fresh, blog-only content in the new year — and I absolutely have not delivered. I’ve been writing a bunch for Lodestar and That Thing, but nothing fresh for here.

So, the first person who yells at me in the comments gets to pick a topic/genre/main character’s name. Give me a crazy ass writing prompt!

The Mountain

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We all write in the shadow of the mountain.  At the peak — success. Whatever you think of as the goal of your writing — but I imagine most of us here on WP are all thinking along similar lines.

Writing as day job. Paying the bills with your writing, and your stupid, silly ideas.

Having someone read your writing — and say, “This stuff? This stuff right here? This is good stuff. The best stuff. I want to give up some space in my brain, and put your stuff in it.”

You know what I mean — they way that all of us make room in our heads for other creator’s characters, places, and ideas. For me, there can be no higher honor.

If you just think about the base of the mountain, it’s kind of exciting. There are many simple, easy, satisfying things you can do to prepare yourself for the climb.  Like starting a blog, or making a writing schedule, or trying out different styles of writing, or just finding a really comfortable pencil.

And the simple magic of putting your head down and just writing.

But, sometimes you accidentally glance up — and take a long look towards the summit.

“How the hell am I going to get up there?”

There are so many pilgrims battling their way up the slopes, many never reaching the peak despite skill, luck and endless determination. And, let’s face it, there are many successful writers up on the peak who certainly don’t deserve it.

It’s freaking daunting, is what I’m saying.

As a logical, sane human you have to accept that even if you finish your work, even if it’s really, really good — there are still so many pitfalls, crevasses, and awful things that can happen in between that and reaching the peak.

So,  yeah — this is the part where I’m supposed to have some advice, or say something supportive.

How about this?

Those moments you’re looking up at the top of the mountain, and feeling small, depressed and defeated — look over to the left, where I’m sitting. You can look at me, and I’ll look at you — and then I’ll shrug, and make a farty noise.

It’s not much, but it’s on the table.

And accept that the doubt is part of the gig, and get back to climbing. No use to worrying about the trolls in the heights, until you’ve made your way out of base camp.

 

 

Arm’s Reach

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“It was…necessary.” he replied. “Many strange paths, many dark days — all for necessity.”

The Browncloak coughed fiercely, sending more purple phlegm across his chest. At the end it turned into weak laughter.

“Listen to me, getting a little maudlin and drippy. I always get a little choked up when I talk about child-murder. Ah, so many happy memories….” the villain leered at the paladin.

“Ah, Gentle Sir Knight, with your wide cow-eyes. I think you will soon understand a tiny part of what I mean — about necessity. Because now the great game truly begins.” Izus flopped a wounded hand off his chest onto the floor between he and the others. With battered fingers, he slowly began to draw crude figures in the strange ichor that was his blood.

“The board, Kythera.” he drew a wide oval. “The pieces – a key, a shield, and a girl.”

Three crude drawings slowly appeared inside the oval.

“Now the key has been removed, but the game still moves on.” Izus wiped away the crude picture of the Crimson Key. “And the girl is also out of your hands.”

He smudged out the picture of Talitha. The Browncloak was beginning to pant with exertion.

“The only piece that remains is the Shield — and whatever knowledge you’ve brought with you, or can discover in the Unbroken City.” he concluded.

The villain laid his palm flat on the floor, covering the picture of the shield.

“Ah….but you don’t control the Shield. I do. ” his voice became thin with exertion. ” And if I die, you’ll never find it. ”

Izus coughed again, regaining some strength to his voice.

“That’s what I mean about necessity, Sir. If I die, you’ll never save her — you have to keep me alive to give yourself any chance at all. Keep me alive, knowing what I am.” Izus leered again, the flesh of his face cracking horribly. ” Keep me alive, knowing that I’ll kill the girl as soon as I have her in arm’s reach.”

Barbarian read book.

G. Derek Adams1 Comment

[Was discussing exposition with Kristin McFarland, and how it’s preferable to have characters find clues or learn new information via in-world texts – instead of having Jagerspike Shatterpaw, Bear Pugilist and “Wise Wizard” show up and dump some plot on the main character’s heads. Here’s an excerpt from Lodestar with an example.]

The green flame’s bored directions soon led the barbarian to a large tome, nearly four handspans in length, and almost as thick as Agnar’s arm. The cover was simple leather, embossed with an ornate representation of the Arkanic symbol, Knowledge.

The Northlord found a quiet desk, hidden away in the towering stacks and set his guide down on the stand provided. The sprite brightened visibly, giving Agnar sufficient light to read.

Opening the first page, a musty fume filled the air. Heady and thick, but not unpleasant. The scent of old books.

The first page was filled with large block representations of several major Precursor symbols, a few of which Agnar found himself surprised to recognize. The numbers, and the symbol for Fire seemed to jump out at him.

Turning the page, the barbarian found a simple rhyme.

How’d they come, and where’d they go?
Little boys and girls all want to know!
East of the Sun, and West of the Moons
On silver roads born of Star
Walking and singing their secret tunes
Far and near, near and far!

The green flame tried nobly to roll its eyes, before remembering that it didn’t have any.

The next few pages are gorgeously illustrated with a series of landscapes.

Primitive people going about their simple lives, farming and hunting. Agnar gazed critically at some of the spearmen — they were holding the weapons completely wrong.

Flip.

A time of darkness, fire and death. Monsters roam the land, killing and maiming the simple tribesmen.

Flip.

A shining knight, marked with the Precursor Sigil of Power — light shines from him in all directions, making the monsters flee.

Flip.

The simple people’s village rebuilt, but grander and stronger. The shining knights walk amongst the people, helping them build things, till the earth.

Flip.

The village is a grand city, with ships that sail through the air and towers in the clouds.

Agnar stops a third of the way through the tome.

The barbarian finds several pages missing, sliced neatly from the overall tome — the barest stubs of paper remaining at the center of the binding.

The next pages showed fanciful illustrations of scholars and researchers looking through the ruins of Precursor structures, with descriptions of the undying wonders left behind by their civilization.

Maybe you will solve the mystery! Maybe you…. one page had solemnly written.

Ring of Silver

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

Material Plane/Lodestar

“Look!” Alice interrupts with a hushed whisper, pointing towards a gash on the Browncloak’s leg.

At the edges of the wound, the flesh was beginning to blacken like the charred edges of a fireplace log.

The princess immediately resumed binding his wounds with scraps of fabric, tying quick knots with a spool of twine. The black corruption was obvious on several of his other wounds. She spoke hurriedly as she worked.

“I’m not familiar with the energy of the floatstone — but my magic is aligned to the plane of Light. I’m afraid that any similar energy will only harm this….person? Demon?”

Her hands stopped moving momentarily, and she looked across Izus’ body at the assembled crew.

“Should we really be trying to save him, then?” she said stricken.

Spirit World/Lodestar

Careful — careful! Don’t you think we should return to the World of the Living now, pet? The Ianu stone whispered.

Echo ignored the stone’s pleas and pushed towards the shining man. She felt the heat on her face, and smelled sulfur in the back of her nose.

At the center of the man was a hole. The golden light radiated from the opening, glowing white-hot at the center — like a ring of candle-flame.

The druid leaned forward, and peered down into the chasm.

She saw a ring. A silver ring, pitted and worn — no more than a handspan across.

Bound to the ring, with cords of gold were five black hearts.

Five black flames.

The ring spun slowly, as the black flames pulled and fought. Sometimes at each other, sometimes at their bonds — always straining against the circle of silver.

There was something more. Something in the center of the ring, but the erratic spinning of the ring made it impossible to make out.

Time to go, pet. Leave that alone.

Thought-Bursting and Google Docs for Fun and Profit

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

Can I just say that writing on Google Docs has been awesome?  There’s something tremendously useful about being able to add comments on the fly, without breaking up the flow of the narrative.

Sceince happening.

I am really prone to having an interesting idea, plugging in some vague reference to it in the story — then not being able to remember a few days, weeks [or hours…] later what the heck I was talking about.

Here’s an example.

I had a character that I was referring to as Madame XXXX.  [Name redacted, because of reasons.]

So, like many fantasy writers [I assume.] I had the thought-burst. “Why am I using a French word in my uber-creative fantasy setting? And on top of that, this character is a young female, does ‘Madame’ make her seem too old? I don’t want to call her Miss XXXX, because that just sounds gross. Am I overthinking this? Is there a better honorific, or title I could use?  WHELP, TIME TO WASTE SOME LIFE ON WIKIPEDIA.”

[I’m sure your thought-bursts are similar.]

Now, admittedly — I am a giant supporter of Who Fucking Cares?: Have a Manticore Attack school of fantasy writing. I think many genre writers get so bent out of shape justifying their world-building that it sucks all the fun out the fiction, and when in doubt I use a modern term, because it saves time for me and will be most easily understood by the audience.

But, this seemed to fall under the purview of But It Might Sound Cooler If… and WIKIPEDIA is Fun. So, I dove right in — and I came across this little snippet.

The French word evolved in turn from the Latin mea domina, meaning “my mistress (of the house)”.

-From the Wikipedia entry on Madame.

Now, I have a huge word-boner for Latin. It’s my go-to dead language for when I want a cool-sounding fantasy term. So after playing around with it for a bit, I came up with Meadoma as my new honorific. It sounds kind of Madame-y, but it more lyrical and not-French.

Success!

[Well, maybe — I’m already having second thoughts, and may shorten it to “Doma”.]

What was the point? Oh yeah, Google Docs!

So, instead of a cruddy Post-It Note or something, I made a Comment on the page about where I got the idea from, so when I come back through to edit in a month or two, there will be some sort of trail to my though process.

So, in summation: Google — send me a ChromeBook! One of the white ones, please.

Lodestar du Jour

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

Oh, and Lodestar is back! Yay! Feels good to be off hiatus, and back in action.

Of interest: If you’ve read Another Story and The Cost, we’re actually dealing with the protagonist Izus/Jonas in current Lodestar continuity.

For those of you playing the home game, this scene takes place about ten years after the end of The Cost.

Here’s an excerpt –

“I’ve never seen anything like it.” the green blaze of light confessed. ” Whatever it is — it definitely isn’t natural, and stinky. Diagnosis: Stinky.”

Martin and Dayjen took charge of the unconscious prisoners and moved past down the stairwell. “Be careful not to slip!” the blonde wizard yelled over his shoulder.

The smear of purple and green fluid got worse as the adventurers proceeded down below decks. Reeking and thick, it the smear lead to the door of the Sun Room. It reminded Agnar of a wounded boar that he had tracked on his first hunt, disemboweled it had left a red foam for miles before finally falling dead into its lair.

Boots stuck to the floor, and made a sickening sound as they trod through the strange fluid.

Pushing the door open, Haskeer leads the way into the room.

Izus is laying in the wide bed in the center of the room, purple and green oozing from several vicious wounds. A quick glance shows them to be long slashes across his torso, as well as several burn marks that appear to be electrical in origin, and a dozen bullet holes that appear to be made by Seafoam ordinance. A shallow gash runs across his forehead and through his left eye. He appears to be unconcious, breathing shallowly.

Alice is standing over the Browncloak, covered from fingertips to elbow in the strange ichor. She is doing her best to close his massive wounds with strips of bedsheet, and a ball of twine. Her eyes are a little wild, but she is managing to keep her voice calm.

“I’ve already tried healing him magically, but it just seemed to make things worse. You’ve dealt with this man — or whatever he is before, any idea what has happened to his blood?”

 

Since Lodestar will be soon generating an obscene amount of text again, I’m thinking about putting up a taste of it on the blog every day or so — thoughts?