Blood Ties

Did you really think I was going to get any prompt story writing done this week? Well don’t you feel foolish? :-)

Today’s excerpt is from the beginning of the final book in the Moonstone Chronicles, Blood Ties. This is also the final excerpt I’ll be posting from it, at least for a while. NaNo begins on Sunday, so hopefully next week I’ll be posting a excerpt from my NaNo novel. This year I have two challenges ahead of me – writing a novel in 30 days, and editing one in the same amount of time (or less, even).

Howard Ruskin stared at the object that rested dead center on his work table. It looked like an adder stone, or hag stone. He’d awoken to the sound of a thunderclap and the vision of that very object. It had hovered over his bed and then floated slowly out of the room. He’d followed it, and only when it settled gently on his work table did he realize he wasn’t dreaming.

“Howard . . .” a disembodied voice said. “Activate your scrying bowl.”

A few months ago, Howard would have been horrified at objects floating around his apartment and disembodied voices talking to him. He would have thought seriously about getting some psychiatric help.

But that was before he’d learned that real magic was possible and learned how to use it himself. Before he’d accidentally sent his best friend into a magical realm in another dimension. Before he’d talked with wizards from this other realm by way of the scrying bowl.

With a yawn he went over to the book case and pulled down the bowl he used for scrying. Using his sleeve, he wiped the dust off of it - it had been a while since the bowl had seen any use. His friend Jessica preferred using a mirror to communicate, while Paranithel, the wizard teaching him magic, was in the midst of the Trials - the final examinations for the senior students at his wizard school.

He fingered the moonstone pendant hanging around his neck as he waited for the oil in the bowl to settle. At one time the pendant had been a link to his friend Jessica.... There were actually two parts to it and they each had half, but hers had been lost somewhere in the magical realm.

Jessica, it turned out, was not a native of earth, but of the magical realm. She’d been sent to earth as a baby for her own safety and had grown up not knowing she was adopted nor her magical heritage. Unbeknownst to Howard, when he used Jessica in a teleportation experiment to prove magic was real, her father and grandfather cast a spell at the same time to bring her back to her own universe.

Unfortunately, the spell worked better than anyone had expected and she overshot her mark. Instead of landing in the southern lands close to Thackery and Paran’s magic school, she’d ended up in the Kingdom of Ghren where she met up with the dastardly Prince Ewan.

She escaped his clutches with the help of the bard Sebastian, and was making her way southward when she accidentally turned a thief into a dog and was forced to wait a month before she could change him back. It turned out that Dominic, the thief, was an old friend of Sebastian’s, but before they could continue their journey, Jessica was kidnapped and ended up back in Ghren.

Dominic also turned out to be Ewan’s older brother, who had, thanks to Ewan, disappeared many years before. With the help of some ghosts from the past, Jessica was able to stop Ewan once and for all, and since Dominic didn’t want the job a new king of Ghren was installed.

The last Howard had seen of them, Jessica and Dominic had been getting quite cosy. As for Jessica’s father and grandfather . . . now that he was no longer needed to act as a go-between with Jessica he rarely saw her father, Thackery. But Paranithel, her grandfather, kept the promise he’d made to teach Howard the rudiments of magic that would make the most of what little power he had access to.

The oil in the bowl churned and then cleared to show the face of a beautiful woman with brilliant blue eyes, silver hair, and slender, pointed ears.

“Aracelia!” Howard said in surprise, then added, “Ma’am.”

The Lady Aracelia was Jessica’s fairy grandmother, or to be more precise, her elven grandmother.

“Howard, you are looking well, my friend.”

“Ah, thank you. You’re looking well too. How may I help you?” he asked politely.

“Paran has told me what a promising student of magic you are, but he finds your world’s lack of magic most frustrating.”

“As do I,” Howard admitted. Truthfully, he found it far more than just frustrating.

“I have sent you a talisman imbued with elven magic that should aid you in your lessons. It should last for several months, at which point you have only to contact me and I will re-energize it for you.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Howard said, astonished. “Your generosity humbles me.”

She smiled gently. “You have been a good friend to my granddaughter and I feel somewhat responsible for the loss of your connection to her.”

Unbeknownst to Howard, it had, in fact, been totally her fault. She arranged for Jessica’s half of the amulet to be stolen in order to test her magical abilities. Unfortunately, the amulet, along with the young elf who’d been drafted to steal it, had been lost and Aracelia had been shouldering a double burden of guilt.

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If you want to find out what Howard really does with all that power, you’ll have to wait until the book comes out. :-D

Superstitions Part I – Halloween

What better time to start a series on superstitions than right before All Hallow’s Eve?

This Halloween is particularly special because it’s being lit by a full moon, which happens only once every 19 years. And rarer still, it’s blue moon (the second full moon in a month).

Here in Canada and the U.S., every year hoards of children dressed in costumes, converge on innocent neighborhoods, knocking on doors to get free candy or other goodies before going on to the next door to repeat the process. So just how did this tradition get started?

This tradition can be traced back more than 2,000 years to the Celtic belief that the spirits of the dead still remained present on our plane of existence, and required food and drink to be placated. Failing to leave out an offering was sure to invite the disgruntled spirits to cause mischief and ill fortune in retaliation. Later, people began dressing up as the spirits in order to receive these offerings of food, and playing practical jokes on those who did not furnish them.

In Ireland, there was a practice among the peasants of going door to door to collect money or food in preparation for the festival of St. Columba.

In England, the poor would go around to different households on All Souls Day (November 1) begging for food. They would be given "soul cakes" in exchange for the promise to pray for the family's dead relatives. This practice was known as "going a-souling".

In Scotland children, or guisers, would have to impress the occupants of the houses they visit with a song, trick, joke, or dance in order to earn their treats.

In Mexico they celebrate Dia de Los Muertos, otherwise known as the Day of the Dead. This celebration is designed to honor dead ancestors, and runs from October 31 through November 2. This is the time when the dead are believed to walk the earth and return home for a visit. Altars to honor deceased family members are built, decorated with candy, flowers, and samples of favorite foods with a basin of water and towel left out so they can wash up afterwards. Candles or incense are burned to help the dead find their way back home. Families gather at the gravesites on November 2, tidying and decorating the graves before having a picnic to celebrate.

Halloween Superstitions

When you ring a bell on Halloween, it will cause evil spirits to fly away.

If a bat flies into your house, beware! You may have some ghosts or spirits visiting.

If bats fly around your house on Halloween night three times, death is inevitable.

If you’re out walking on Halloween night and you hear footsteps behind you, don’t turn around! It may be Death following you, and if you look him in the eye you’ll hasten your own death.

A person born on Halloween can both see and talk to spirits.

If you happen to see a spider on Halloween then the spirit of a loved one is watching over you.

At one time it was believed that Satan was a nut-gatherer, so, on Halloween night, nuts were used as magic charms.

The burning candle inside a jack-o-lantern keeps evil spirits and demons at bay.

If a candle suddenly goes out by itself on Halloween, it is believed that a ghost has come to call.

Always burn new candles on Halloween to ensure the good luck. If you burn Halloween candles at any other time it can draw strange happenings to you or bring bad luck.

Gazing into a flame of a candle on Halloween night will enable you to peer into the future.

The Great Debate

I’m sure anyone that knows me knows what debate I’m talking about. And no, it’s not the presidential debate. It’s something much more important.

I’m talking about NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month for those of you living under a rock. Every year I have the eternal debate: will I, won’t I? Should I, shouldn’t I? I’ve only missed one NaNo in the last ten years. Or two in the last twelve, but I didn’t complete my first NaNo, so I don’t feel like it counts.

National Novel Writing Month, is held every November and has thousands of participants from all over the world. The idea is to write a 50,000 novel in 30 days. That’s 1,667 words per day. It’s fun, and exciting, and there’s nothing like it in the world. If you’ve never heard of it and would like to know more, go HERE.

I participated in my first NaNo in 2006. Coincidentally, that was the first time I actually completed a novel. Too bad it fell short of the 50,000 word limit. I skipped the next year, but in 2008 I surprised even myself by completing the challenge, if not the book I was writing. I continued to complete the challenge every year since, save for 2015. I’m not sure why I chose not to participate that year, but I remember feeling antsy for the entire month.

Most years I say I’m not going to bother, most years I’m lying. One year I vowed not to participate, but on November 1st a name popped into my head. And then the entire story, from start to finish. I had some big word counts that year and in fact, I believe that was the longest NaNo novel I’ve written to date.

This year . . . *sigh* The old debate is hanging over me again like the sword of  Damocles . On the one hand, I love the energy and excitement of the month – the camaraderie between the participants, the late nights, the lack of sleep. On the other hand, I have a crap ton of editing to do and an anthology to put together for my book flood.

What to do, what to do.

I’ll let you know next week. We’ll both be surprised.

Or maybe not.

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Wordage Report

Last week wasn’t so much about words written as it was about work done

I polished up and presented a new poem to the Cobourg Poetry Workshop. Our “poemwork” for the month was to write a poem that included: a secret box, a velvet ribbon, an ice cube tray. Mine included all three and I was quite pleased with the resulting poem.

I did a whole afternoon’s worth of research for last week’s final moon post – thirty pages in all, which I then had to distil down to two pages for the blog post. It turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself, although it might have benefitted from another day or two of polishing.

I also picked a couple of stories to work on with an eye to submitting them for publication, with a third story waiting in the wings. One story could work well either shorter or longer, so I’m going to try both to see which I like better. The other story needs a little more detail. I didn’t finish them, I did make satisfying progress.

Goals For This Week:

1. Work on the edits for Blood Ties
2. Finish up my stories
3. Start new series on Wednesday
4. Come up with NaNo idea – just in case

And that’s what I’ll be up to this week. How about you?

Prologue

Seeing as I didn’t post a new prompt on Sunday, I didn’t write a prompt story this week. Mostly I worked on a poem that I read to my poetry group last night as we huddled under the picnic shelter in the park, and a couple of stories I’m getting ready to submit . . . somewhere.

So I thought that instead of a story I’d share an excerpt from Blood Ties. This is part of the prologue, where we’re first introduced to the dark lord Anakaron.

Deep in the heart of the Shadow Mountains, darkness gathered. In a cave within Carenkraka, the highest mountain, two men met. The first was a tall, thin man, features so fine and pale he might have been carved from alabaster. He was not, as one would expect, dressed in black robes, but in robes of a deep, dark red, the colour of oxygen rich blood. They were bordered with gold symbols so bright they were painful to look at. He stood in the centre of the magically created chamber, awaiting the approach of the man dressed in brown.

“You wished to see me, my lord?” The man in the brown robes bowed low. At a glance he was seemed quite ordinary, and he took great pains to keep it so. He was both a thief and a spy, and it would not do to have any memorable attributes.

“I have a task for you.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“I seek a talisman, or more to the point, the person in possession of a certain talisman.” He produced a clear crystal teardrop and held it up. “This is attuned with the talisman and will aid you in your quest.”

The man in brown accepted the crystal. “My thanks, my lord.” He hesitated for a second, then spoke again. “The world is vast, my lord. Is there one direction better than the others to begin my search?”

The lord chuckled mirthlessly. “The talisman appeared in Ghren from another world and was lost again in the Darkwood Elven Realm.”

If the man in brown was surprised by this information, he kept it well hidden. “I live to serve,” he said, bowing once more.

“While you serve, you live,” the other corrected him. With a casual flick of his hand he dismissed the spy. Once he was alone, he snapped his fingers and the torches set throughout the chamber flared to life. With unhurried steps he made his way over to the throne sitting on the dais.

Magical symbols were carved in the floor in front of the throne. Concentric circles twined with geometric shapes, phrases carved in dead languages snaked through a river of pictographs, a small, raised altar of black marble in the center of it all.

At first glance the throne appeared to be carved of ivory but it was, in fact, created from cunningly fitted together bone - bones of men, bones of women, even the bones of children. All had been carefully selected and seamlessly joined using magic raised from their deaths.

Before he reached the throne, another man burst into the hall. “My lord Anakaron, I have found it!” He was trailed by two guards who made to catch hold of him, but a quick shake of the head from their lord had them returning to their posts at the door.

“Pharos,” Anakaron said flatly. “For what reason do you approach unannounced?”

“I have found it, my lord. The spell for draining magical energy.” He waved a parchment in the air, beaming the whole while.

“Indeed. And was not your task to bring me the priest who wielded the spell?”

The temperature in the already cool room dropped another few degrees. That alone would have had most men quaking in their boots, but Pharos, full of cocky self assurance, waved a dismissive hand. “I knew the spell was the important thing, it took little effort to dispose of the priest once I had it.”

“I believe you have missed the point,” Anakaron murmured, taking the parchment from him.

“It seems a simple enough spell, although the priest claimed it took years for him to master it.” Anakaron looked at him sharply. “You did not test it yourself?”

Pharos shook his head, far too pleased with himself to realize the danger he was in. “Alas, I was unable to make sense of the symbols. They kept…changing. I have not yet achieved a high enough level of though for such a spell.”

“I see.”

The smaller man fidgeted as his lord unrolled the parchment and studied it. Visions of the riches he’d be rewarded with raced through his mind. Anakaron was always generous to those who acquired new spells or magical artifacts for him. Unable to help himself, he asked, “Is the spell not everything you hoped for?”

“Indeed.” Anakaron looked up at last, and smiled, but it was a chilling smile. He gestured with his hand and Pharos found he could no longer move his body.

“M-m-my lord? I don’t understand.”

“It is because the spell is everything I hoped for that you will receive a quick death, instead of the long and painful one you deserve.” His smile vanished. “I sent you to bring me the priest, not just the spell. This is not the first time you have failed me but it will be the last.”

The paralysis griping Pharos was spreading and he could no longer move, only watch with fear filled eyes as Anakaron turned his attention to the spell once more. The blood mage nodded slightly and then spoke the words of the incantation, spreading wide one of his hands to receive the magical energy. He gasped, a moment of ecstasy flashing in his eyes.

“Yes indeed,” he said to the withered husk on the floor in front of him. “It is everything I’d hoped for, and more. Guards!”

The two guards that had been guarding the chamber entered.

“Send for Darian, the dark elf lord. I have a task for him.” He turned towards his throne. “And have someone clean up that mess,” he said over his shoulder.

By the Light of the Moon – Part Three

I’ve talked about the full moon names and phases of the month, today I want to touch on some of the mythology and random facts surrounding the moon.

First up is the blood moon. While the moon can look red because smoke or dust particles in the air, most often it refers to a lunar eclipse. The Incas believed the blood moon was caused by a jaguar attacking and eating the moon. They would make a lot of noise during an eclipse to drive the jaguar away.

Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring to ensure there won’t be an eclipse, which the Christians believed to be the wrath of God.

Almost everyone is familiar with the term “honeymoon.” It refers to the settling in period right after a couple marries. Legend has it that the term was coined because of the custom of drinking mead (a liquor made from honey) for thirty days after every wedding.

When you were a child, did you believe the moon was made of green cheese? I found two interesting sources for this one. The first is a Serbian fable of a fox trying to outwit a wolf. The fox told the wolf that the reflection of the moon in a pool was a delicious cheese. The wolf tried to drink all the water to reach the cheese and burst.

The second source was a proverb by John Heywood in 1546:
“Ye fetch circumquaques to make me beleeve,
Or think, that the moone is made of green cheese.”
Believing the moon to be made of green cheese became a euphemism for someone who’s gullible.

The full moon has long been associated with strange behaviour and incidents. Lunacy and lunatic come from the word luna, which is Latin for moon. Aristotle and Pliny the Elder believed that because the human brain is the moistest organ, this makes it susceptible the influence of the moon, just like the tides.

Many law enforcement agencies have seen a rise in crime during a full moon. More babies are conceived and born during a full moon. There are more traffic fatalities during a full moon, and it can even affect a person’s sleep pattern.

Almost every culture has a belief about the man in the moon, way too many to go into here. The one I like best is the European belief that the man in the moon enjoyed drinking, a view supported by the Middle Ages belief he was the god of drunkards.

Because the moon orbits in perfect sync with the earth’s rotation, we always see the same side of it. The man in the moon is only seen in the northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere they see a rabbit.

To be moonstruck is to be showing irrational behaviour, especially of a romantic nature. It can also mean just plain old mentally deranged, brought about by exposure to the moon.

A moonraker refers to one of the peasants of Wiltshire, England. In some stories they were said to have tried to rake the moon out of a shallow pool, and in others they were smugglers caught trying to rake up kegs of smuggled brandy and covered their tracks by acting crazy. It can also mean the sail at the very top of the mast of a sailing ship.

Moonlighting is to have a second job, usually without the boss of your first one knowing about it. The term came from the fact that regular jobs are usually during the day, while the second job was held during the night when the moon was out.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, moonshine is defined as “whiskey or other strong alcoholic drinks made and sold illegally.” Moonshine is not limited to the Deep South or the Ozarks of America, the term originated in 15th century Britain.

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s not amore, that’s the supermoon. A supermoon occurs when the full moon is at the point in its orbit where it’s closest to the earth making it appear brighter and bigger than normal. This causes higher tides and the risk of coastal flooding.

Join me here next week when I start a new, fun series.

But . . . Now What??

As you might have guessed from my lack of posting last week, I finished the first draft of Blood Ties.

Blows horn, breaks out the confetti.

It feels great to get that monkey off my back, but at the same time it’s a little sad. I’ve been working on this book for a long time and it’s the final instalment in this series. Despite the fact that I started the Ardraci Elementals first, I had the idea for Moonstone Chronicles long before that. And yes, I knew from the beginning it was going to be a trilogy.

Now comes the real work – editing this sucker. Believe it or not, I’m looking forward to it. When you’re a pantser (someone who writes by the seat of their pants instead of following a rigid outline) you’re always coming up with ideas for things that could happen earlier in your book. And I had lots of these ideas that I want to go back and incorporate.

Anyway, I thought I’d take this time to reflect on some of the things I’ve learned whilst writing a book series, just in case someone reading this cares to give it a whirl. :-D

The first thing you want to do is figure out if your story idea can handle being more than one book. Some ideas can, some ideas can’t. While I’ve had stand alone story ideas come to me, most of them have been for multiple books. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Then you need to figure out if you’re writing a trilogy or a series. A trilogy is a story told in three, connected parts and you really don’t want to read these parts out of order. However, bear in mind that unless you’re planning on releasing all three books at the same time, your readers are going to forget a lot of went on in the previous instalment so you might want to jog their memory in the beginning of the second and third books.

A series is an interconnected story spread over multiple volumes. While the story is still told in chronological order, each volume has its own resolution and can often be read out of order. The same characters can be featured in each one, or other characters may take the spotlight with previous characters having only a minor part. But they’re all working toward the ultimate goal of the final volume

Next you need to map out the plot. I know, I know, strange advice coming from a die-hard pantser, but here’s the thing. You’ll save yourself a lot of headaches in the long run if you know where your story is going. This goes for a series as well as a trilogy.

When I started An Elemental Wind I was writing it for fun in response to a challenge to write a novel and serialize it on my blog. I’m not sure when, exactly, it happened, but I suddenly found myself really enjoying the story and making the decision to write more elemental stories.

At that point we knew the alien race the Illezie were searching for “the One,” and that was a thread that carried through to the other books, but it wasn’t until the second or third book I figured out why and what it meant to the story. It would have been really nice to know this in the beginning so I could have incorporated this information earlier. I ended up having to do some fancy explaining in the last book.

My final piece of advice: keep a notebook. I wish I had. In it you can keep track of characters, plot points, myths you might have created, little things than might be important later in the story. This is especially handy for the editing process. Instead of scrolling through a document or previous volume to find the information you’re looking for, you can just flip through your notebook.

That’s my two cents worth, but if you’d like some more tips for writing a trilogy or series, try NY Book Editors or Now Novel.

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Wordage Report

Seeing as all my time and words (around 5,000 of them) were spent on Blood Ties last week, there’s not much else to report. And all my goals (other than finishing Blood Ties) were pretty much a failure as well.

Goals For This Week:

So . . . Blood Ties is done.

*looks around, whistling aimlessly*

I have no clue what I’m going to work on next. It’s always best to let a story sit for a few days before editing. Maybe I’ll start the edits on An Elemental Spirit while I’m waiting for Blood Ties to cool down.

Or maybe I’ll start editing some of those stories I keep saying I’m going to edit.

Or maybe both!

Other than that, I’ll try to get the rest of my blog posts done this week, and on time. ;-)

And there’s what I’ll be up to. How about you?

Lost Girls

Here’s the thing. I’m having a bad week, so there’s no prompt story.

However, I keep getting these single lines, sometimes two or three lines, popping into my head out of nowhere and then yesterday I got had the first verse of a poem just suddenly appear in my head.

Now the unusual thing about this is, I haven’t really been writing poetry this year. I’ve met up with my poetry group I think three times so far, but other than spiffing up a previously written poem, I’ve had nothing new to contribute.

So having this partial poem appear and having no prompt story, I figured why not finish the poem and post it here? And furthermore, I’m thinking maybe I’ll even post a poem once every month or so, just for a change of pace.

It will give me a break from the prompt stories (which can get rather irksome), and it’ll get me writing a poem once in awhile.

So . . . here you go. My first bona fide poem of 2020. I’m not sure that it’s done yet, but it’s done enough to share.

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Lost Girls

I remember those girls
peas in a pod
full of dreams
full of hope
they were going to be
best friends forever
but somehow I lost them
paths diverged
out of step
out of time
gone

I look for them everywhere
in the mall
in the park
in the mirror
but they’ve left
without looking back
leaving a trail
of broken dreams
broken promises
broken lives
behind

By the Light of the Moon – Part Two

Last week I gave you a few facts about the moon and a couple of the more unusual moons. This week I thought I’d explore the names of the full moons, starting with the traditional names but including other names they’re known by.

January:
In January the winter is upon us and wolves can be heard howling at the door. For this reason, the full moon is called the Full Wolf Moon. Other names include the Old Moon, Ice Moon, Cold Moon, Spirit Moon, Severe Moon, and Greetings Moon.

February:
This is typically the snowiest month of the year, which earns its full moon the name of Full Snow Moon. Other names include Hunger Moon, Bone Moon, and Black Bear Moon.

March:
Before global warming, March was typically when the grubs and worms began to emerge as the snow begins to recede and the earth begins to soften. For this reason this month’s full moon is known as the Full Worm Moon. Other names include Chaste Moon, Death Moon, Crust Moon, Sap Moon, Crow Moon, Sugar Moon, Eagle Moon, and Wind Strong Moon.

April:
The pink color of the early blooming ground phlox earned this month’s moon the name of the Full Pink Moon. Other names include Sprouting Grass Moon, Egg Moon, Fish Moon, and Budding Moon.

May:
With spring in full swing, it’s no wonder this month’s moon is the Full Flower Moon. Other names include Hare Moon, Corn Planting Moon, Milk Moon, Mother’s Moon, and Frog Moon.

June:
This is the month when strawberries start to ripen, giving the moon the name of the Full Strawberry Moon. Other names include Rose Moon, Hot Moon, Hoeing Moon, and Honey Moon.

July:
This is the time of year when male deer begin to re-grow their antlers, which is why the full moon is referred to as the Full Buck Moon. Other names include Thunder Moon, Hay Moon, Raspberry Moon, and Salmon Moon.

August:
The best time to fish for sturgeon is during this month, which is why its full moon is known as the Full Sturgeon Moon. Other names include Green Corn Moon, Grain Moon, Red Moon, Black Cherries Moon, and Flying Up Moon.

September:
The summer season has come to an end and it’s time to harvest the corn, earning this month’s full moon the name of the Full Corn Moon. Other names include Barley Moon,, and Yellow Leaf Moon.

October:
Now is the time for hunting and laying in stores for the coming winter, which is why this month’s full moon is known as the Full Hunter’s Moon. Other names include Travel Moon, Dying Grass Moon, Migrating Moon, and Falling Leaves Moon.

November:
The industrious beavers are active preparing their dams for winter, which makes them easier to trap. It’s no wonder the full moon for this month is the Full Beaver Moon. The only other name for this moon is the Frost Moon.

December:
The nights are longer and the days shorter, which means winter has come with its full moon being the Full Cold Moon. Other names for the last moon of the year include Long Night Moon, Oak Moon, and the Moon Before Yule.

The End Isn’t As Nigh As I Thought

So a funny thing happened on the way to the smack down between Jessica and Anakaron . . .

I find using my lap top to write on kind of problematic at times. The problem being, it connects to the internet. So instead of just pausing to think about the next few words, I’ll start playing solitaire, or bubble shooter, or check my email, or surf around . . . you get the idea.

This is why I prefer using my Alphasmart Neo for heavy duty writing. The Neo is great in that there’s no bells or whistles or internet to distract me so I get lots of writing done. But the downside to the Neo is that it’s hard to go back and make changes.

You only see four lines of text and to scroll back up is a pain in the butt. Plus the only way to delete text (that I know of) is to use the backspace key. There’s no mouse, so you can’t highlight blocks of text to move or delete. The easiest way to make a lot of changes is to upload the file to a document on the lap top and change it there.

I worked on three separate scenes this week, and in each case they kind of wandered off into oblivion. I had to re-write their endings to get them back on track and to do this I’d upload them from the Neo to the lap top to determine where I started to go wrong. Once I figured out where I needed to rewrite, I’d go back to the Neo and start from that point and finish the scene.

So . . . while I only have 3,600 words to show on Blood Ties for the week, I probably wrote about 5,000 and deleted 1,400 of them.

And speaking of deleting . . . I did a lot of deleting when I was researching for last week’s non-fiction post. That’s one of the disadvantages of doing research on the internet. It may be quicker and easier, but there’s just so much information out there. You get pages and pages of data, and then you have to distil it down into just a few paragraphs.

It was almost easier in the old days when you had to get your research from books or magazine articles. Instead of copy/pasting vast amounts of information into a document file, and then going back and deleting all the repetitions, you jotted down pertinent facts, maybe highlighting a photocopy or two.

Yeah, I know. There’s no reason I couldn’t do it that way. And I have a pretty good reference library myself. But the internet’s right at my fingertips and it makes research so much quicker. It’s just the distilling down that’s time consuming.

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Wordage Report

Editing – 0 hours, 0 pages
Maybe this week will be better

Research – 4.5 hours

Blood Ties – 3,612 words
Not bad, but it could have been better

Blog Posts – includes the post for my regular blog, but not the prompt story.
423 (regular blog)+ 946 + 550 = 1,919 words total

Weekly Prompt – 547 words

Total Words – 6,078

New Prompt
The old photos made her conscious of her age, of how much time had passed – and of what an interesting life she’d had.

Goals From Last Week:
Blood Ties is over 100,000 words! And while I had hopes of finishing it last week, The muse just wasn’t co-operating. But I’m getting closer, and that’s the main thing. Right?

Last week’s prompt still didn’t do anything for me, but I found a different prompt that did (as you know if you saw the prompt story. And a truly weird little story it was.

No editing again, big surprise there, and just a little research. I love full moons, hence the Wednesday post about them. And I’ve got enough left over for this week too.

Goals For This Week:
1. Blood Ties, Blood Ties, Blood Ties! I feel like I’m taking one step forward and two steps back, but I swear I’m going to do my best to get this done!
2. It took me a while to find this week’s prompt, so hopefully I’ll feel inspired to write a story using it.
3. Who am I kidding with the editing? But I need to get a jump start on the research for the next non-fiction series.

And there’s what I’ll be up to this week. How about you?

The Natives of Ionesis

Prompt – use this as your first line: The cloud is my true love and my worst enemy.

Oh, I know. You think I’m crazy, don’t you? I see the way you’re looking at me. But you’re forgetting something. We’re here on Ionesis, and here just about everything is sentient.

See that rock over there? That’s the director’s wife. And that slender tree with the blue flowers? That’s the doctor’s assistant.

You can check for hallucinogens in the atmosphere all you want, but you’re not going to find anything. You think we didn’t test the air and the water ourselves? When the planet first started to communicate with us we were a little freaked out. A lot of us retreated back into the ships and wouldn’t set a foot outside again until the biochemists and biologists and the rest of the egg heads ran every test in the book and proved to us we weren’t hallucinating.

How did Cloud and I meet? I was up in the hills, collecting soil samples, and I noticed this cloud following me. Finally, I stopped to confront him and he . . . enveloped me in his essence. We’ve been together pretty much ever since.

The worst enemy thing? Well, you have to remember, even though we have no problem communicating and . . . other things, they’re not human like we are. They don’t think like us. So sometimes they can be a little inappropriate.

Examples? Well, Cloud’s a bit of an exhibitionist. He likes to make love where we might be seen. That’s not really my thing, but he’ll talk me into it by promising to turn opaque so no one can see what we’re doing. But the minute he’s done, he turns transparent again leaving me buck naked in the center of the greenspace or up on the terrace.

Or maybe he’ll decide to levitate us, which is kind of erotic, but he’ll forget that I can’t levitate without him and when he suddenly disappears I’ll end up being dropped several feet. If I’m lucky I just end up bruised, but once or twice I’ve had fractures as well.

Where is this going? Where does any relationship go? We’re already living together, and we’ve just started talking marriage. Of course Cloud doesn’t really understand the concept, but we’re working on it.

Kids? I don’t know. Our scientists are working on it, but so far it’s not genetically possible.

Yes, I know that it is the responsibility of every colonist to procreate, but there are extenuating circumstances here. No, we’re not breaking the contract by choosing unsuitable mates. The contract was already broken by the people who sent us here.

The Colonizing Act states that only worlds that are devoid of sentient life are to be colonized. It’s not our fault Ionesis has sentient life. If the Corporation had been doing its job we would have never made landfall.

You can try to have us removed, but it’s too late. Most of us have already established relationships with the native life forms. Do you really think it’ll be so easy to break the bonds that have been made?

Bring it on. We’ll be waiting for you. And so will the natives of Ionesis.