Haus of Rhi

I am trapped. Somewhere between the Bog of Eternal Stench and the Dark Black Forest. It was a painful ordeal of an exercise, but the Trunk Novel now has something that resembles an outline, and a full plot arc. The major one, anyways. Still all the minor ones to consider and flesh out, but the guide rails are in place. And like a sluice gate being cranked open, the scenes are forming in my mind, battering to get out. I want to write.  Finally. It's been rough, slow going, hammering out something like roughly 5k total this month.

I still haven't repainted my living room -- the walls are still some strange hue of fuchsia/pink/purple/raspberry or whatever the hell it is. I'm learning to appreciate it. Or maybe I've just stopped seeing it, or something. Possible. I'm not really one of those people that hangs stuff on the walls everywhere. But I'm finding ways to make the walls pretty, without painting them. And I am far from a quality photographer, either. I just point and click.

Today's snark is an excerpt from my current WIP: “Has Guardian sent someone to witness?” Jaedyn stared at the Emendati, not recognizing either of them as a miles or insigni who’d frequented the ranch in past. Carrying messages, more often than not. Though what messages the Emendatio had for an emeritus remained far beyond Jaedyn’s grasp. “We are venatori .” The man spoke up before Augustus could answer, which earned him a piercing glance. “I am Naethyn Ratan, my insignis is Horus. We were dispatched to escort you back to Favillu.” “So then the answer is no.” Jaedyn nodded. “You could’ve saved some breath and just said so.”

The blurb for Blacker Than Black is now up on GoodReads and Riptide's website . It looks like the final version of the cover art will be ready by the end of the month as well. Just in time for October launch pre-ordering! I can't dance to save my ass, but I'm definitely bouncing in my chair... And this is probably the shortest blogpost ever, barring that one-liner for Marie Sexton's Saturday Snark (and I'm totally doing that again tomorrow, it was So Much Fun!!) but I need to go run to the post office and mail off some cover art flats to some winners. And then I need to get some writing done. It can keep raining or whatever that is it's doing out there, I really didn't want to mow the lawn today anyways. *mwahahaha* Oh, you want the blurb? Of course you want the blurb. How silly of me. Don't mind me, I'm still bouncing in my chair.

Finally managed to get caught up on the transcribing. Mostly because I've reached a scene that's still tenuous and forming in the back of my mind, so I've not completed writing it yet. It's a strange balance I'm striving to create -- in a high-tension, fast-paced scene, trying to keep that energetic charge, while at the same time convey enough description and information that the reader can "see" what's happening. The scene in question is an ambush. Launched by the 'antagonists' against the traveling group of 'protagonists' but this is also the first time the antagonists are taking the stage physically, so this is the reader's introduction to them. Up until this point their influence has been vicarious, offstage, and insinuated or suspected. So much potential to twist and/or play with the reader perception here. The antagonists aren't nearly as clear-cut as the POV characters perceive them. And the idea here is to show that...

I've still four pages of transcribing to complete to get caught up. Some days it's a more daunting task than it should be. I procrastinated with constructing an Eclectic Playlist the other day.(It's hard work, trolling through five decades of BillBoard chart-toppers.) And discovered a very old song that, oddly, I recalled from my childhood and didn't realize was an actual song . When I was a wee mite of a thing, back in the day of Troglodytes and Tyrannosaurs, I had this clunky wind-up music box thing. It was designed to withstand the abusive adoration and overuse that a child like me would give it. It had cartoon pictures of bumblebees, and doves, and apple trees...

From "Dark Edge of Honor" -- Mike wondered if someone got paid to piss in their cornflakes each morning. Check out Marie Sexton's "Saturday Snark" entry for more smiles!

The overhaul of the trunk currently sits at 27.5k. Progressing, slowly. But steadily. It might never really gain the writing momentum that has me churning out 3k a day and more. But it will be told. I've a few other stories laying around as well, ones I want to work on during NanoWrimo this year. It's likely that will interrupt this, at least a little. I'd rather plug away steadily and have no need to do heavy developmental edits. But some days I definitely feel like The Writer Tortoise.

Mind-ridden. The felines were watching, serving as the eyes of the serpen . Aerdin turned his head and looked up at Renji, a slow, incremental shift. "You see them?" He nodded. "Waste, medicus.  Why aren't you umbras. " Because it would be impossible to resist the urge, to hide what he was. Renji just shrugged. "Half my new trainees wouldn't be able to see their hand in front of their face at night like this." "And the other half?"

There was a good bit of exhaustion-fueled hilarity at the day-job, yesterday. Some very interesting conversations. The regular overnight associate, with whom I worked most of a 17-hour shift, is a fount of such quality material. Last night's story was about her elementary-aged son. He has a backpack that he takes to school each day with a full compliment of "survivalist" supplies. A bottle of water, a utility knife, gloves, umbrella, cell phone with emergency phone numbers, that sort of thing. Earlier this week, her boy returned home from school absolutely drenched. Wearing a thin jacket not designed to keep one dry, the boy was saturated with water. And pulled his umbrella out from inside his jacket as he stepped inside. The umbrella was closed, and safely dry, tucked against his torso. I imagine the boy had a passing thought at how useless an umbrella was in the rain, for keeping one dry.

Err, my little corner of it, at any rate. I shall be Nano-ing this year. Yep, you heard me right.

About two thousand words of transcription accomplished today-- five pages of longhand transferred to Scrivener, on the writing machine. This was managed between bouts of working on interview files (and praise the Flying Spaghetti Monster, they're done  at last) and random power outages and even a nap. It's been a very busy and productive day. And tomorrow is free for fresh words, which I fully intend to make very good use of. Though I expect there to be some interruption for another attempt at Taming of the Mulberry.