What Do YOU Want to Know?

I'm running painfully low on blog post ideas. Heck, I'm running painfully low on ideas period. All my WIPs are sitting in their files, half-started, alone and cold and hungry, because I haven't been the least bit motivated to write anything. And school begins in two weeks and three days. Sigh.

In that vein of thought: Q & A time! I've never done one before, and figured it was about time. So, fire away!

Unrelated funny thing:

Conversation with my sister on the ride home from Walmart.

Sister: "I'm SO deep!"
Mom: "Oh, really? How deep are you?"
Sister: "I-- I like poetry!"

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the true definition of deep. Liking poetry. Glad we got that settled.

Shiny New Idea and the Midnight Hour

It'd been months since Shiny New Idea ("Sni" for short) had been home. Climbing the last flight of stairs to his floor, he shifted the keys in his hand and reminisced about all the amazing places he had visited. Anticipation Station had been incredible. The Mountains of Unique Settings had offered an amazing photo-op. And the Forest of Character Traits? Breathtaking. But there was always something oddly satisying about coming home after a long journey. The end of a cycle. The completion of a quest. There and back again, as it were.

Sni put his key into the door lock, half expecting it not to open. It had been months, after all; maybe the lock had rusted through? The door opened with a squeal, swinging inward on the apartment he had not graced for many, many moons. With a sigh of bittersweet contentment, he reached for the lightswitch--

But was beaten to it when the lamp beside his revolving armchair clicked on.

Sni's heart dropped straight through his stomach and splattered all over his designer shoes. Oh crap, he thought. She found me.

The armchair swung around, revealing the occupant. Pen in one hand, notebook just within reach on the coffee table, The Author looked up at him and smiled. "Hello, Sni," she cooed, the slide of her words laced with a sick kind of pleasure. "I've been waiting for you."

White Like Ashes

My first dystopian YA novel! Can I get a woot-woot? White Like Ashes is half in planning stages, half in rough draft stages. I'm a multi-tasker, apparently.

After an encounter with a mugger ends with the mugger choosing to run into the night without actually mugging her, 17-year-old Evan Gorecki starts making sense of the letters she received from her father before he died in an asylum. More oddities follow, such as criminals turning themselves in and Evan's mother 180-ing from a disappointed workaholic to an accepting, cookie-baking Stepford mom. Her father's gibberish uncovers a warning as everyone around her falls farther and farther away from themselves, but who can Evan trust when she's not even sure who can trust her?

Expressions

My first intention with starting a new blog post was to put that picture (<----) in the top left corner. Because it is awesome. Do you think there's some kind of laser eye surgery that could do that to my pupil? But oh oh OH even cooler would be changeable pupils that you could morph depending on your mood. Oh wait, they call those contacts, don't they?

Anyway, this picture got me thinking about expressions, or the different ways people express themselves. Contacts, piercings, tattoos, wild hair color. Or, on the non-physical front, songs, paintings, drawings, writing. The list could go on and on, but it's late and my hand hurts, so I'll keep it short tonight.

Though writing has always been my form of expression, I've always always always wished that I could also sing. Always. I auditioned for musicals in high school and would practice for hours beforehand, hoping the director would leap from her seat and applaud my superb musical abilities. But alas, I was always cast as the character with no solos, and I would watch from the wings as my fellow classmates belted lines of chorus that I would've SO rocked. You know, if I could actually rock. I've since given up on my dream to star in Beauty and the Beast. (Don't feel sorry for me. You haven't heard me sing.)

This mindless rambling spurs an interesting question: what form of expression do you wish you could do? Do you secretly want a tattoo, but fear the pain (*raises hand sheepishly* I have SUCH a low pain tolerance, but I have SUCH a desire to ink myself. Grr, contradicting desires)? Do you wish you could draw as freakishly awesomely as Natalie? Do you have the urge to compose, but all musical instruments boycott you?

Now if you'll excuse me, my puppy is asleep, which means I should be too. Though I have found that no matter how late I keep her up, she still gets up at 6:30. AM. Every morning. It's a good thing she's cute.

What 248 Pieces of Paper Look Like

There's something very satisfying about printing out your manuscript and holding it in your hands. It feels very -- real. Hence the reason books will always be fabulous and those convenient E-books, though popular, will always be second-best. Haha, Kindle. Haha.

Why Writing is Like a Puppy, Part 1

(I say "Part 1" because I'm sure I'll find more reasons why writing is like a puppy.)

Reason why Pippa reminds me of writing (and therefore inadvertently makes me feel bad for not taking full advantage of her nap time to write) #1:

I train her. I do. For a good twenty minutes at a time (because, let's face it, puppy attention span = OOOO LOOK SHINY SQUEAKY THINGS). For the past, oh, four weeks we've been working on the same command. "Come." Four weeks. I know she knows what it means; corgis are notorious for being easy to train. She was housebroken the first week we got her, at about 6 weeks old. And when we do train, she gets very excited when I say the word "come" and it registers in her little puppy head. She leaps forward with boundless energy and excitement and sits patiently-- er, she sits at my feet and gives me that "I did good! Give me a treat give me a treat givemeatreat" look. And I, proud mother that I am, give her the treat and congratulate her and she skips away, happy as a, well, puppy.

But then. Oh, then. A few hours later, I stand by the door and she's a few feet from me. I take the leash ever so slowly from its resting place and hold it behind my back. Then, praying, I say "Pippa, come." She looks at me, looks at my hands behind my back, and blinks. If she could talk: "No way in hell, momma. Respectfully."

I sigh. Again. "Pippa, come."

Another blink. This time, she crouches down and growls. "Um, no. Really, no."

This goes on for a few minutes until, as though invisible forces are dragging her across the carpet, she comes to me and I put her leash on. The breeder forgot to mention that Corgi translates as "stubborn" in Welsh.

So, how does this relate to writing? Well a story, at first, will seem to be entirely submissive. Everything flows great. The plot, the characters. Everything works. You're a proud mama (or papa), and life is good.

But then. Oh, then. You wake up one morning to find your characters aren't quite as cooperative as they were the day before. They just don't WANT to go through with that particular plot thread, no matter how many times you reassure them that it really isn't such a bad thing. Sure, you can force them to go through with it (after spending a few hours chasing them around the living room while the neighbors scratch their heads and wonder what has happened to the poor, crazy girl who lives next door-- wait, wrong part of the analogy). But it always works out so much better if you spend a few days waiting for them to WANT to go through with that plot thread in their own way, even if that means changing it up. They learn to overcome whatever you wanted them to overcome, and you get the story to continue.

There is one major difference though that makes stories and characters far more appealing than puppies -- teeth. Ow.

(I had to attach a video, just cuz. She's stubborn, but she's still cute.)

A Stream Runs Through Deep Sediments

After much careful consideration, the title contest came down to a tie between "A Stream Runs Through It" by KM Walton and "Deep Sediments" by Mariah Irvin. Both of them make me giggle, so, because I am indecisive...

*random number generator*

1!

KM WALTON, you have won! Yay, KM!

In honor of me getting back into my Stream Pirate-y mood (and in honor of the giggle-worthy titles ya'll came up with), I have decided to post a snippet. And though I was CERTAIN I had posted snippets of Stream Pirate recently, the only ones I could find were from January. Blasphemous. I must rectify this problem at once.

It is SO HARD for me to choose a snippet. A short one, a long one, a romantic one, an action-packed one, CHOICESCHOICECHOICES. Argh. The scene I finally settled on happens fairly early in the book. Alluvial, after employing the stream pirate Yazoo Oxbow to help find her father, was put to work on his steamboat shoveling coal. She runs up on deck when the boat gets attacked by-- well, you'll see.

The river water was green. A murky green, as though Backswamp’s moss and slime sullied these waters. That should have been enough to convince me that I did not want to fall overboard, but something held me there, clinging to the railing with my nose nearly touching the surface.

A face. Green as a strand of seaweed, with eyes so yellow they had to belong to someone who was ill. Strands of sea grass floated around its head – though, as it bobbed up and down, it became clearer that the strands were hair. It smiled, revealing surprisingly white fangs behind scaly lips. Its back and arms, more of the green skin covering bundles of muscle, pulled back, a defensive pose. Somewhere far beneath it the tip of a tail twitched, and it shot toward me.

The great slimy body flew up out of the water, its crocodile tail propelling it up and up. Water droplets leapt off its skin, soaking my hair and clothes, throwing mossy water across the deck. Arms outstretched for me, its smile never wavered, its yellow eyes never left mine.

I screamed. An arm closed around my shoulders, keeping me pinned to his chest. The world around me, the distant tree-lined shore, the brilliant blue sky, all whirled and shifted as I was dragged through the air. My feet slipped on the moss-coated deck and I locked my arms around Yazoo’s neck, hanging onto him, my eyes still on the crocperson.

Its arms still reached for me. The yellow eyes hadn’t left mine before Yazoo’s pistol pointed at its chest. One tug of his finger, and he sent a wad of lead into the crocperson’s heart. The yellow eyes snapped shut as the force of the shot shoved it backward, back into the river, back down into the murky depths it had brought with it. Its body sunk below the surface but left in its wake a slowly-growing splotch of black-green blood.

“They’re leaving!” Perry screamed, but I couldn’t look away from the water. I couldn’t look at the water. I closed my eyes and pushed my face into Yazoo’s shirt, the after-effect of fear making my body quiver in his arm.

When I had composed myself enough to breathe, I looked up at him. There was nothing annoying about him now, nothing frustrating or mysterious. His good eye was narrow, the gleam in it dim and soft. Shoving his gun into his belt, he unwound his arm from my shoulders.

“You stink,” he said and turned for the pilothouse.

Arachne took that as her cue to take my arm and steer me toward the stairs. I was still barely aware of my surroundings enough to maneuver across the slime-covered deck.

“What was that all about?” I asked her.

“You do stink,” she said. “Quite a bit, actually. Working in the boiler room can do that.”

“No,” I shook my head, “why didn’t we outrun the crocpeople? Ron and I could’ve shoveled faster–”

Arachne led me into a small bedroom, complete with a short wash bucket, a bed, towels, and my satchel, looking entirely un-messed-with. “There’s no changing Yazoo’s mind. He’s always been infested with a desire to rid Radial Stream of crocpeople. Could be the richest stream pirate, but instead just devotes his time to blocking rivers that lead from Backswamp. Strangest man I’ve ever met,” she said and slapped a bar of soap into my hand. “There’s a freshwater pump in the next room. Please do us a favor and make good use of it.” She left, waving her hand before her nose to reinstate the fact that my time with Ron had left me rather pungent.

I fingered the soap bar. It was an acceptable answer; Yazoo wanted credit for ridding Radial Stream of the nuisance that was crocpeople. I would have accepted it, had I not seen the look Yazoo had given me.

My father had given me that look after he had finally let me in to see my mother’s body. When I had stepped up next to her bed, seen her pale face, her still chest, I’d dropped to the floor and screamed. Tom had cradled me in his arms but didn’t speak, didn’t cry, didn’t do anything but give me that look. The look that said “It was my fault you screamed. If it’s in my power at all, you’ll never scream like that again.”