Sunday Update - and Popcorn Tigers

A Round of Words in 80 Days Meets The Clarion Write-a-Thon

Wednesday Day 3 - artwork and some notes for the future
Thursday Day 4 - Ep 21
Friday Day 5 - rewrite Ep 4 for ebook
Saturday Day 6 - rewrite Eps 5-6 for ebook

Managed to do four episodes in four days, which was the goal.  I didn't do the artwork I wanted to do.

I also note that I don't feel the need to rewrite as much as I thought for the ebook version. There are a few places (so far) where I have "outtakes" I want to restore. And a few places where the prose is too tight.  Most of my energy is being spent on sorting out the best way to handle the upcoming complications.


The Blog Story Experiment - Changing My Life

I've tried to write this post twenty times.  So far it has turned into The Rambling Incoherent Post That Ate Toledo every time.  (Well, not completely incoherent - I probably have a few very nice individual posts mixed in.)

I seem to have gone from Popcorn Kittens to Popcorn Tigers.  Or something.

See, popcorn kittens is what happens when new opportunities crop up -- ideas and such go zinging around your head like, well, popcorn kittens.  But the thing about opportunities is that they change everythign.  They tear your world apart.  (You know, the song from Les Miz -- "the tigers come at night, with their voices soft as thunder"?  Like that, only positive.  Because they're Popcorn Tigers, not the Tigers of Oppression.)

I wrote that discovering indie publishing two years ago was like Joe Konrath took me by the arm and said "Duck, meet water."  It was like coming home.  Well, I was wrong. That was just a puddle.  That was the first shoe to drop.  The second shoe (the big pond, if we want to keep both metaphors going) finally dropped this summer with this web serial.

This has caused me to change my plans completely.

THIS is what I want to do with my life.  This is it.  It's the unified field of my life: publishing, web geekery, writing and dreaming -- putting an episode to bed, with  illustration and proper links and all that, twice a week.

You know how writers dream about holding the printed version of their book in their hand? Or looking in the TOC of a magazine and seeing their byline and title?  Well, I get that feeling of satisfaction twice a week now.

Seriously, last night I was looking at my bookshelves, and thinking about clearing out that last shelf of old magazines, and I realized that they were the copies of my own works.  And I thought "oh, uh, okay, I guess I should keep those."

I realized that those didn't actually mean that much to me any more.  I was more concerned about my old original editions of Mother Earth News than my ego-copies of my work.  And that was a weird feeling.

The Smile On The Face of the Tiger

"There once was a lady from Niger
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger
They came back from the ride
With the lady inside
and the smile on the face of the tiger"

The problem is that this is changing my life plan -- or at least my three-year writing plan.

I have a very good three-year plan.  I was going to concentrate on writing my two mystery series and getting a solid base for each series.  I've got people waiting for the next Mick and Casey.  (Not lots of people, but enough that I hear from them.)

That plan has a reasonable shot at making some income from writing.  It's an established business model.  It's sensible -- and it's not like it isn't fun too.

When I started this serial it was something fun to do over summer.  I was planning to go back to regular writing in the fall. Sure, I planned to continue posting a serial, but I would use this other story. One I've already written, and it wouldn't disrupt my sensible, well-thought-out plans.

That might be enough for me, and I still might do that.

But right now that tiger is whispering to me, and I'm thinking that this experiment -- with this story -- won't be done at the end of the summer.  I think I need to go a whole year on it.  Or at least through the end of this year.

What's wrong with this?  Why is the tiger smiling?

Well, first, this new plan is a whole flock of birds in the bush.  No, just the sound of birds in the bush. I don't even know if the birds are really there.  It could just be one of those noisy cat toys.

Since I started this serial, I have seen a record increase in blog traffic -- just raw numbers of views on my blog.  But I haven't seen an increase in subscriptions, and reader response has dropped -- fewer comments, fewer retweets.  Book sales have dropped to zero.

I have a theory -- only a theory, mind you -- that this serial is having more effect than it seems.

This is the time of year when internet traffic of all kinds drops.  Sales slump, comments stop - just as I've been experiencing.  And yet my blog traffic is increasing -- due to people clicking through multiple episodes, mainly.  The lack of comments is partly because writers (my regular audience) tend to comment to support each other, but readers read in private.  They don't want a dialog.

So maybe my writer audience is drifting off for the summer as usual, but they're being replaced by regular readers.  Which would be cool, but I can't tell until this has gone on for a little longer. Is it just another of those weird blips in network data?

I have another, larger theory, which is what I have been basing my strategy on for a while:

Readers can take a long time to get hooked on a story/characters -- especially with certain genres, or with totally off-genre work like I write.  It takes even longer for them to get hooked on an author sufficiently to try her other works.  This is why I wanted to write those foundation books for my mystery series -- so that if someone liked one book, they'd find a couple more books with the same characters.

But those books are slow to write.  Neither series likes to be rushed. I've learned that.  It will take years to gain any traction with them.

On the other hand, this serial does seem to be gaining a tiny bit of traction already.  (It makes sense that it would because the episodes each have a new chance to hook the reader -- there is time and volume involved.)  However, I won't know, can't know, if this actually is gaining traction until I let it go through a full cycle.  Let it run in fall and winter, when blog traffic is high.  See if people will buy the first book while the second story runs.

To stop at the end of this story would mean to lose momentum and never know what that momentum could bring.  (I do know, from experience from my other books, what it means to lose momentum.  It ain't pretty.)

So I'm going to continue with this serial, at least through the second story (The Case of the Misplaced Bomb, I think) this fall.  I'll see how that goes. Maybe I'll do a third in the series after that, maybe I'll take a break and start that other series for a while.

I won't stop working on my other books.  There should be time. It'll just be slower and lower priority.

So what else is new?

See you in the funny papers.

MIsplaced Hero - Episode 18

First Episode | Series Intro and TOC | Story So Far | Previous Episode

The Case of the Misplaced Hero

by Camille LaGuire

Episode 18 - The Hospitality Committee

AS THE FRONT hall emptied, Captain Rozinshura cast a glance toward the parlor. He did not want to talk to Colonel Pookiterin yet.  Not until he knew more about his spy, and the spy's mysterious student friend, Alex.

"Tralkulo!" he called.  The clerk appeared instantly.  "Your book of notes, please.  And get more paper, you will interview every one of them again, to get a full list of who is here, and who is missing.  Also, do we still have that brandy we took from the smugglers?"

"We were going to trade it for a truck."

"Now we trade it for cooperation. Where is it?"

"Upstairs, in the front room."

He looked up at the stairs and his bad leg throbbed at the very thought of hobbling back down with a heavy box.

"I'll get it, Kinchin Captain," she said with a slight smile. "My notebooks are up there too."

She handed him the little book where she'd been taking notes, and he thumbed through it.  There was no Alex, or any name like it, listed among the survivors or the missing.  He also found no mention of Professor or Doctor Artemus Thornton.

When Tralkulo got back, he traded the notebook for the box, and sent her to the parlor to account for the ladies -- and also to see that the ladies were not in conflict with the security men.  Then Rozinshura lugged the box into the tavern.

He was immediately set upon by several men, all talking over one another.  He nodded gravely, as if he could make out what they were saying.

"All of your questions will be answered," he said loudly.  "But first we will have a drink. We sit. Kinchin Tralkulo will go over all the information with everybody to see that there are no discrepancies with our reports from the wreck, and we will all have answers together."

"But my cousin--" began one particularly aggressive young man.

"Is your cousin missing?"

"Yes!"

"Then she is not here, and shouting for her in here will not find her. Sit. We will make a plan."

He had almost the exact same conversation four times before he made it to the bar, though their worries varied: Missing people, injured people, missing luggage, hunger, a more comfortable chair, a cleaner table.

And while the masters complained, the servants began to scurry about to please them, even though some were injured or shaken themselves.  Rozinshura restrained his disapproval, and limped behind the bar.

There he found a manservant inspecting the glasses disdainfully.  The man began to pump water to fill the washing tub.

"No, no," said Rozinshura.  "You are not a servant here. You are equal. You sit."

The valet drew himself up and looked on Rozinshura like king looks on an insect.

"If we are all equal to drink from a filthy glass, sir, then I decline the privilege."

Rozinshura would have been insulted, but the glasses were dirty.  He sighed and set down the box of brandy.

"Perhaps I can help you with your equality," said a female voice.

A woman stood behind him.  She was well-dressed, with pearls and a pretty little hat marred only by a broken feather.

"Lady Featherdale," she said, and she flicked a the broken feather, as though it were her trademark. "A little dishevelled, but reporting for duty.  Shall I play mother? You seem to have enough to do."

She took a bottle of brandy and began to pour a small amount into each glass as the valet washed them.

Rozinshura, finding himself useless, took one of the glasses and drank. The brandy was very good -- mellow and warming.  It was better to drink it than trade it for a truck.

He took a bottle and slipped it into the large pocket of his coat.  He remembered that the spy's book -- with its dangerous bit of paper -- was in the other pocket.  It was time to seek the owner of that paper.

---

Stay Tuned for Episode Nineteen: "The Importance of Sandwiches"

First Episode | Series Intro and TOC | Story So Far | Previous Episode

---

The Case of the Misplaced Hero -- now available as an ebook at major online retailers, including:

In most ebook formats at Smashwords, plus Amazon's Kindle Store, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Diesel, Apple iBookstore.  (Coming soon to Sony.)

Now also at Amazon's international stores: UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan.

Or support this site directly;

Update -- Holy Moly it's a Check-in Day!

Dunno what happened to my brain.  I was finishing up, and I happened to realize that tomorrow is Wednesday -- Check-in Day!

I almost never miss Check-in Day because every night before I go to bed, I update this post with what I did for the day.  I think, because I'm doing the Clarion dare too, I felt like my day was done when I updated that....


A Round of Words in 80 Days vs. The Clarion Write-a-Thon

Stuff I did:

Sunday Day 0 - Artwork, and some writing
Monday Day 1 - Episode 1, rewritten for eBook Version
Tuesday Day 2 - Episode 2, rewritten for eBook Version

As you can see I took a little bit of a break from writing new episodes.  I have finished up through Ep 20 -- but that's still three episodes behind where I'm supposed to be.  Still, I have a week or so to back off and think before I run out of episodes to post.  And I do have to think, because right now I have more possibilities than I need.

I'm also still not getting ahead on the artwork: I'm doing it that evening just before posting.  (I wanna do a ROW80 vs Clarion logo, too.)

(Check out the other ROW80 writers checking in today.)


Sleep Deprivation is No Fun

I am very heat and light sensitive. Summer is always awful for me.  I had come up with a pretty good solution for the heat, but the light still slew me.  I've been staggering around like I'm punch drunk.

This is on top of a certain natural side effect of being really excited about what I'm writing.  I'm drooling on the keyboard trying to get that last word written for the night (or last stroke drawn) and then I pop awake way early.

Also the cat. The cat believes I should be awakened every two hours to admire his zombie bunny.

The result of all of this is that I was going to write all about how this serial is changing my life and also maybe more character or background stuff - but I'm too sleepy.

See you in the funny papers.

Misplaced Hero - Episode 17

First Episode | Series Intro and TOC | Story So Far | Previous Episode

The Case of the Misplaced Hero

by Camille LaGuire

Episode 17 - Alex Finds a Sock

THE FLASH MOB had taken longer to organize than Alex hoped. These people were into hierarchy, and they debated over who should go first; the most important or least.  Only then did they sort out the list of demands.

When they finally entered the building, Alex kept to the middle of the crowd.  He figured that this would bring out every soldier in the place, and he could identify them. At first there were only four: the security men and their officer, and the lady with the bayonet on the stairs.

Lord Blinkersley, who was in the lead, tried to address the security men, but as the crowd filled the tiny entrance way, he was shoved right into them.  They shoved back and started shouting, and in moments, everyone was shouting.  The lady soldier on the stairs with the bayonet came dangerously close to taking off the end of a butler's nose.  The butler, crouched like a lineman with two other servants, looked ready to take the stairs from her.

Diversion achieved, thought Alex with a sigh.  But he couldn't worry about people getting hurt now.  It was too late anyway, and he had to get Thorny.  And the girl.  He tried to see into the parlor, but there were too many people in the way.  Instead, he pushed toward the tavern side.  Across that room he saw two more soldiers; his friend the cook and an officer with a walrus mustache.  Probably the captain Freddie had mentioned.  The guy in charge.

Alex sidled in that direction.  He saw the captain give the cook some keys, and the cook disappeared again.  The captain then limped with a long rolling gait across the tavern.  He pushed Alex aside and waded into the crowd, calling for calm.

"Please, no pushing or shooting!" he called.  "You are all welcome here!"

Everyone looked at him.  Alex took advantage of the moment to slip away from the crowd, across the tavern.  As he got to the door at the other end, he heard a voice protesting in the hall ahead of him.

"Are you sure I can't have a drink?"

It was Thorny.  Alex rushed into the hall, but he only caught a glimpse of the cook at the other end, pushing someone around a corner ahead of him.

Alex trotted after, trying not to make too much noise.  At the corner he found another hall, which was empty, but it turned so they must have gone out of sight.  He sprinted to the turn, and peeked around the corner, but it was just another short stretch of hall, and turned again..  Alex sprinted and turned and sprinted again, until he found himself in a cul-de-sac.

No more turns.  No Thorny.

They must have gone through a door.  He pulled one door open, and found a broom closet.  The next was locked.  Then he heard, somewhere back behind him, a door opened and closed.  He slipped back carefully, not knowing if they would come this way.  He found two more doors back near where he'd started.

One door looked heavy and was locked.

Alex knocked softly on it.

"Professor?" he called.  He listened.  Nothing.  He knelt down and looked through the keyhole, but it was dark.

The other door led to a storeroom full of linens and clothes.  Brown uniforms, beige shirts and underwear.  Alex didn't have time to change, but the thought of clean, dry clothes was compelling.  He grabbed up shorts and a shirt and stuffed them in the pockets of the jacket to change into later.

As he reached down for some dry socks, he saw a sock on the floor.  It was damp, and it was green with a knitted pattern of big white block "S" shapes.

That was a Michigan State University sock.

They must have gone into the closet to get Thorny some dry clothes, and Alex had run right past them.

Who knew where they'd gone from here?  The cook knew.  And he had been friendly toward Alex.  He might be induced to chat.

Alex went off to find the kitchen.

---

Stay Tuned for Episode Eighteen: "The Hospitality Committee"

First Episode | Series Intro and TOC | Story So Far | Previous Episode

---

The Case of the Misplaced Hero -- now available as an ebook at major online retailers, including:

In most ebook formats at Smashwords, plus Amazon's Kindle Store, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Diesel, Apple iBookstore.  (Coming soon to Sony.)

Now also at Amazon's international stores: UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan.

Or support this site directly;

The Joy of Imperfection, and ROW80 Begins!

ROW80 begins on Monday -- see the updates at the bottom.

The Magic of Imperfection

Kris Rusch had some great things to say about excessive perfectionism in her "Business Rusch" post this week.  While she had her own major points, the one I came away with was a variation on the old business saying: good is the enemy of great.  That is, when we strive to do things the "right" way, we kill the creativity that makes things rise above the norm.

Perfection kills unique. It kills quirk and unexpectedness.  To put it another way, the perfect potato chip never looks like the Virgin Mary or like Elvis.  When was the last time you saw a perfect potato chip go on eBay for $5000?

I have come across so many variations this theme lately.  One of the reasons I didn't make my goal Thursday was because I went to see Wicked, the musical based on the book which tells the story of the Wizard of Oz from the Wicked Witch's point of view.  The theme is ... Defy Gravity.  That is, defy convention.

Perfection is all about convention.  To be perfect means to be conventional.

Kris used an example of Shakespeare's Midsommer Night's Dream, which has three endings. One ending would do just fine for that play.  And yet, if we were to cut off the most unnecessary ending, we'd lose a great moment in literature.  That's not a good thing.

This is why I so dispise the advice "Kill your darlings."  Noooo!  Nurture your darlings. Your darlings are what makes your work yours.  I don't care if they are wild purple prose, or insipid sentiment, or if they dwell on boring technical stuff:  If you get a charge out of it, keep after it until you can do it well.

Don't hide your light under a barrel of convention.  Even if your light is a little garish and weird looking right now.  Let it shine.

Anyway...to bring this back to what I'm doing, and today's update: one of the sub-points in the post was the idea of limiting rewrites.  A story is never perfect.  You will never be done if you strive for perfection.  Pick a time and declare it done.

I made a comment on Kris' post that I found this serial - with its twice a week deadlines - did that for me.  Deadlines make you stop where you are and just hand it in.  It's like term paper due dates.  And as with those term papers, an approaching deadline makes you stop fussing over perfection and go after substance.

Kris had an interesting (and gratifying) response: She pointed out that 600 word fiction is a really difficult length. Even if it's not a whole story.  She was impressed with doing it once a week, let alone doing it twice.

She's right: It is difficult.  Just like the limits Alfred Hitchcock placed on himself were sometimes very limiting.  It forces you to be creative, and develop your skills....

But it also does something else: it frees you from convention.  You only have time for your light, not for the barrel.

That's the magic of frequent small deadlines.  But it's also true that it forces you to learn a lot.  For instance....

The Fabulous Thing About Imperfections and Serials

The story I'm writing is going to be longer than I thought.

Well, this story -- that is, this plot arc in which Alex has to rescue Thorny and get him back home, preferably before he's sober enough to know what happened -- will be a little longer.  But I intended this story stand alone and introduce the world for the giant plot arc of another series of stories.

But this story is turning out to be an alien pod, full of the seeds for other stories, ones that will happen before the arc I'm setting up.

And what is the nature of those seeds?

The imperfections that crop up from writing and posting to deadline.

This is in the nature of a real serial, as opposed to a serialized novel.  Every dissatisfying little side moment, every minor red herring, is a seed for a whole new story.  I will give you the example of the difference between The Dain Curse and The Big Sleep.

They say that years after Chandler wrote The Big Sleep, people asked him "So who did kill the chauffeur?"  And he didn't know.  It was an oversight.  He had twisted the story several times and overlooked the fact that he'd made it impossible for any of the revealed culprits to have done it.  Oh, well.  You only notice it if you actually sit down and parse out the whole thing afterward.  It seems clear while you're reading it.

All mysteries -- heck all stories -- have discrepancies.  We strive to clean up the obvious ones, or sometimes, if we see them early enough, we use them in the plot.  But an awful lot of them are just mistakes to be overlooked.

I don't know how Dashiell Hammett came up with the twists and turns of The Dain Curse, but I do know that the way it's laid out, it's a perfect model for using imperfections to launch more story.

In it, the Continental Op is hired, and wraps up his case completely in the first act.  He solves the crime, fully and accurately.  The first act stands alone as a story in and of itself.

But as he leaves the case behind, he knows there is a discrepancy.  He wasn't wrong about his solution at all, but that there is something else going on, another story yet to tell.  And by golly, he is called in again to deal with a problem related to the Dain family.

This is what a lot of serials were like in the old days, especially in silent film.  They did not use the classic "stay tuned" cliffhanger endings that became popular later.  Instead, each story was complete, but it often also had a teaser that hooked you into the next story.

And for that kind of story, the unexplained imperfection is an ideal hook.  Audiences notice imperfections.  But pulp fiction, and film, was quickly created, and full of discrepancies.  The audience was used to overlooking them... but they still notice.  And if the author picks up on that mistake and says "By the way, I noticed that too and I'm going to follow up," it's like a credit cookie.  It's a reward.

It can still be satisfying even if the author doesn't notice in time to make it an intentional hook.

A serial has the magical property that it creates imperfections by nature of having deadlines.  And it also, because of the need for more episodes later, gives a natural place to put those new stories.

If The Big Sleep had been a comic strip, for instance, with the need for a new episode day after day, it would be natural to pick up the story of who killed the chauffeur after the novel was over.  It would be a separate plot arc, so it wouldn't have to affect the previous story at all. It would be a new story, involving other suspects. (Because obviously he wasn't killed for anything to do with the events in The Big Sleep.)

This story -- the one I'm writing now -- has lots of little hooks.  Some of them I will follow up within the story, but those that don't fit... they're waving their little hands, begging to be turned into stories of their own. 

I blame Rozinshura for this.  Or maybe Lady Featherdale (who will introduce herself on Thursday).  Both of them are interfering types, who like to change the course of fate.  Rozinshura, though, is less likely to leave fingerprints behind.

But in the meantime, I've got to get back to this story.

See you in the funny papers.

---

The Case of the Misplaced Hero is still available to read in its original serial form, and also as a novella-length ebook. Check it out on the intro page here.

Misplaced Hero - Episode 16

First Episode | Series Intro and TOC | Story So Far | Previous Episode

The Case of the Misplaced Hero

by Camille LaGuire

Episode 16 - The Flash Mob

"IT NEVER RAINS except when you have a hole in the roof and no bucket," said Rozinshura to the cook.  Pookiterin had gone back to his parlor, and they were alone for a moment, but the crowd in the entrance way was growing and pushing and getting louder.

It drew Rozinshura back to earth -- after his short flight of panic over spies and wars and coups and assassinations.   That was how trouble was: A small problem is painful.  A big problem makes you forget the small problems. But an unlimited number of overwhelming problems makes everything ordinary again.

"Kinchin Niko," he said, "we have three catastrophes, if not more.  All of our forces are up at the trainwreck or chasing bandits or resources.  We have Pookiterin in our parlor which is always a bad sign, and I have evidence it's worse than we know.  And now we have a crowd of angry people in our vestibule who are too important to ignore."

"And too many to ignore, Kinchin Captain," said Niko.

"And I have a drunken spy in my office, whom I must hide until he is sober enough to make sense," said Rozinshura.  "There are only three of us; you, me, and Kinchin Tralkulo.  And you, I think, are the key to our salvation.  Niko, we must feed all of them well.  The crowd, Pookiterin, anybody who opens his mouth to make trouble, put food in it."

"Yes, Kinchin Captain," said Niko.

"Good food. The best we've got."

"Yes, Kinchin Captain."

"Also, I need you to take charge of our drunk."  Rozinshura pulled out his storeroom keys and handed them to Niko.  "Hide him. Let him sleep until he is sensible. And nobody speaks to him before I do."

Niko nodded his respect and went to fetch the professor.  Rozinshura took a deep breath and headed off through the tavern to the main entry, where the crowd was gathered.

Tralkulo was a young soldier, and only a clerk, but she was also wide of girth and she managed to hold the stairs alone, brandishing her bayonet like a recuiting poster.  The security men were trying, less successfully, to defend the parlor.  Rozinshura had no confidence that they would have the sense not to shoot the Ambassador of Imperia -- who apparently hadn't the sense not to shake a finger in their faces.

So he left Tralkulo to defend the stairs and pushed his way through the crowded entry way to the parlor door.  He pulled himself up on a bench.

"Please, everyone!  You are most welcome, but let us not push or shoot, yes?"

The crowed turned their attention to him, which calmed the security men.  Tralkulo raised her bayonet.

"We are sorry if we have neglected you. Please find a place in the tavern or the parlor, and we shall speak calmly, yes?"

"Not the parlor!" said Pookiterin.

The ambassador, an august man with a trimmed white beard and his arm in a sling, bristled.

"The ladies, sir, cannot be forced into a tavern!"

"Your ladies can sit on the ground!" said Pookiterin.  He said it so rudely that Rozinshura felt a prickle up his spine.

Pookiterin must know who he was talking to.  He must know there would be consequences when Vshtin arrived and heard the complaints of his allies.  Unless... unless Pookiterin knew there would not be consequences. 

The ambassador took a deep breath to reply, and Rozinshura wanted to step in between them, but he was up on the bench, and his leg would not bend.  He could not get down without help.

He considered calling to Tralkulo, but then inspiration struck, and he put his hands heavily on the shoulders of both Pookiterin and the ambassador.

"My friends, we have no need to shout!" he shouted, boisterously.  He vaulted himself down to land between them, nearly knocking them both over.  They were so surprised that they stopped growling at each other.  "We will find a suitable place for everyone.  Kinchin Tralkulo, help the ladies!"

The ladies had already begun to help themselves by moving into the parlor anyway.  Pookiterin raced back in to secure his papers and prisoner.

---

Stay Tuned for Episode Seventeen: "Alex Finds a Sock"

First Episode | Series Intro and TOC | Story So Far | Previous Episode

---

The Case of the Misplaced Hero -- now available as an ebook at major online retailers, including:

In most ebook formats at Smashwords, plus Amazon's Kindle Store, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Diesel, Apple iBookstore.  (Coming soon to Sony.)

Now also at Amazon's international stores: UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan.

Or support this site directly;

Wednesday Update - Plotting and Dreaming

Clarion Write-a-Thon Update

My goals are to finish an episode every one of the 42 days of Clarion this year.  The first day of the challenge was Sunday but they are going with GMT time, which means that it started late Saturday -- and I work at night -- so I'm counting from then:

• Sat: Episode 15 (posted Jun 25)
• Sun: Episode 16 (will post Jun 28)
• Mon: Episode 17 (will post Jul 2)
• Tues: Episode 18 (will post Jul 5)

I still need to do art for 16-18.  And I've got stuff to do Thursday night, so I'm kinda behind. But not too much.

Notes on Writing the Story So Far

Pantsing, Plotting, Pulling The Story From Dreams

Okay, I'll admit to you, when Rozinshura found the slip of paper in Monday's episode (or, actually, the end of the previous episode) ... I did NOT see that coming.

I mean, by the time I wrote it I did see it coming.  It's not that I had carefully plotted out something different, or that I'm an extreme pantser who was surprised to read what I've written. (I've always been ambidextrous on the pantser/plotter front and I am a strong believer in developing both sides of those skills.)

It's just that I was sure he was just going to lurk around the background making sardonic comments now and then.  And if I needed a deus ex machina at any point, he could limp in and do something.  (Or, alternatively, if the badguys were being too stupid to create a real obstacle for my heroes, Rozinshura can handle that -- he's ambidextrous too.  And being a bureaucrat, he can obstruct with the best of them.)

I only put him in there because he's one of the founding characters of the world, and it seemed like it would be a good idea to introduce him on the fringes.  But he didn't wanna stay on the fringes.  And I guess I don't blame him -- I do have a bunch of stories about him floating in my head, but they didn't fit in the other arcs of this particular series. So he's sort of relegated to the bench.

This story is also somewhat outside of the main story arc.  I came up with it as a way to into the series and the world.  Maybe he saw he could push it into being set up for some of his stories to be told.

So I've been trying to remember where he came from, and how this particular story got started...

Nearly all my stories start with dreams.  Dreams and playing.  When I was very young, I was always playing.  When I took a nap, I was the injured princess in a coma from an assassination attempt -- and when I was awake, I was the detective tracking the assassin.  This all blended together in dreams.

Some of these games were a form of fan fiction -- that is, I played the stories I read or saw.  And I'm thinking, given the name and the pseudo-slavic accent, that Rozinshura might have been born of The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming: One of my all time favorite pictures, and it came out when I was six.  A perfectly impressionable age for creating archetypes.  Alan Arkin got a best supporting Oscar nom for his portrayal of Lt. Rosanov -- a guy with a mustache who is desperately trying to hold things together while the world goes crazy around him.

There have been a lot of influences since then, but I think the main thing that stuck (aside from the mustache, which grew bigger) was the concept of the enemy who was an ally.  That's all over WWII pictures and stories -- especially post-war when anti-communism grew so strong, and the Soviets could no longer be portrayed as just allies.  But I discovered that theme in a lot of WWI era pulp stories too.  And, well, just about all war stories have some "frenemies" themes.  Even up through things like the TV show of M*A*S*H.

A more conscious influence, I think, is Louis Renault from Casablanca. Like Renault, Rozinshura is a survivor in a corrupt and dangerous world, who has morals but has learned to guard them and not take them too seriously.  The difference is that Rozinshura doesn't blow in the wind quite so easily.  He does't need anybody else to influence him to do right.  But he's also a staunch revolutionist/communist.  He may make ironic jokes about it, but he believes in the principles even if he knows -- and has always known -- that the world never lives up to them.

I think that's where the limp comes from.  It represents a certain dogged stoicism.  There's just a touch of Javert or Marshal Sam Gerard in him too.

This is only the second time I've written him -- the first was an unfinished YA I may tell you about later -- and it's an odd experience.  Putting words to what's going on inside his head makes him seem more flappable.  But maybe that's a part of his secret plan.  Maybe he wants to force me to give him an arc -- show how he got to be more unflappable than now.

Maybe next time, I'll talk more about the evolution of Alex, who is not only more recent, but also more nebulous right now.  He started as quite a different character, and he has quite an arc ahead of him too.

See you in the funny papers.

Misplaced Hero - Episode 15

First Episode | Series Intro and TOC | Story So Far | Previous Episode

The Case of the Misplaced Hero

by Camille LaGuire

Episode 15 - But Not a Professional Spy

ROZINSHURA HELD HIS life in his hands.  That little bit of paper with scrawled notes in a childish code.  It held the lives of perhaps hundreds or thousands of people.  The future of all of Awarshawa.

A coup, it said.  And names -- but no indication of whether the names were people to tell about the coup, or people who would perpetrate it.  And both sides would have accomplices....

This bit of paper was a bomb, and if he handed it to the wrong person, it would be a disaster.  War.  A firing squad.  Defeat for Awarshawa at the hands of foreign oppressors. Or perhaps local oppressors.  He could not know what to do without more information.

He had to find out where this paper came from, and where it was going to.

And the answers lay across the desk from him, in the fuzzy head of that drunken, water-logged old man.  Professor Thornton looked back at him with bleery but earnest gray eyes.

"I couldn't be a spy," he said.  "If I were I spy, I would know how to get out of this, and I don't."

"Not a professional," said Rozinshura.  "When a real spy uses a traveler such as yourself as a courier, that makes you a spy too."

"But I'm not a traveler," protested the professor. "I never go anywhere."  The man seemed genuinely bewildered.  Rozinshura was nearly sure that he had no idea what he was carrying.

"Where did you get this?"

"I don't know.

"You were drunk.  Perhaps another passenger on the train gave it to you?"

"I don't think so. I was never on a train.  I was walking home from the restaurant, and I jumped in the river instead, and I came up in a different river altogether."

Rozinshura struggled to understand what the man said.  Was he simply too drunk to make sense, or did Rozinshura himself simply not speak Imprish well enough to understand.

"By restaurant you mean the dining car?  You were drinking, yes?"

"I was drinking, yes."

"Perhaps you were with someone.  Someone spoke to you while you were drinking?"

"Just Alex.  And the waitress, but she was too angry to speak with me."

"Who is Alex?"

"Oh, he's a student.  But not an ordinary student.  Not ordinary at all."  The professor leaned forward confidentially.  "He's invisible.  Not literally, of course -- you can't see through him -- but he blends in until you find out he's a hero. Like Zorro."

"Like a spy."

"I suppose it is like a spy."

"Did he give you anything?  Papers?  A book?"

"Yes, he did show me his paper as we were walking out of the restaurant.  It was all nonsense of course."

Rozinshura sat back and nodded to himself.  Yes, the spy has heard something, perhaps that the train will be attacked, even.  Or perhaps he just fears it will be stopped and he will be searched.  He slips the papers into the book and slips that into the pocket of the drunk to carry for him.

The captain questioned the man for a while, but he could not get a coherent discription of this Alex.  It was worse when he tried to get the man to tell him where he had been going.  In the man's slurred speech, the destination sounded like Meesheegun, and Rozinshura could not resolve it into any place he had heard of.

But then there was a knock at the door, and Niko, the cook, stuck his head in.

"Kinchin Captain," he said, "there is trouble."

He could hear the voice of Pookiterin calling from the hall behind him. "Where is your security?  Get these people out of here!"

Rozinshura quickly slipped the paper into the book and the book into his pocket.  He stepped out into the hall, and saw, though the tavern room, the passengers from the train flooding into the building.

---

Stay Tuned for Episode Sixteen: "The Flash Mob"

First Episode | Series Intro and TOC | Story So Far | Previous Episode

---

The Case of the Misplaced Hero -- now available as an ebook at major online retailers, including:

In most ebook formats at Smashwords, plus Amazon's Kindle Store, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Diesel, Apple iBookstore.  (Coming soon to Sony.)

Now also at Amazon's international stores: UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan.

Or support this site directly;

What Makes a Character a Hero - My Take

Today is the first day of the Clarion Write-a-Thon.  (See goals here.)  Since I'll still be asleep at the time of this posting, and won't have anything to report, I figured I'd start with a post that hits the theme of the story I'm writing.

Some time ago Chris Kelly did a guest post about what makes a character a hero. It's a popular topic and really key to all storytelling, so I figured it's about time to set down my thoughts on the matter -- especially since I'm currently writing a story called "The Misplaced Hero."  I should have some thoughts on heroism, in or out of place.

Be Brave, Be Fair, Do Good Work

What it takes to be a good hero is what it takes to be a good person.  The above phrase is my personal motto, and for me it drives what I think my characters should be doing too.  Not all of them are good at any or all of these above -- but where they are admirable is where they manage to hit that motto.

As an existentialist, I have to add that what makes a person heroic is not what's inside -- it's not what they think or how they feel.  It's in what they do.  Or at least what they try to do.

Try vs. Intend

For all that Yoda says "There is no 'try,'" I actually think try is an important factor.  I agree with those who feel that good intentions don't hold water.  It does not matter what you intend, only what you do.

However, that makes it sound like you must succeed at what you do, and that's wrong.  Anything worthwhile is hard, and runs the risk of failure.  It's easy to succeed all the time if you don't try to do anything tough.

A hero is brave and runs the risk of failure by ... trying.  Trying is a form of doing.

The issue is not whether you try or succeed or fail, but what you're trying to do, and how you do it.  People with good intentions can make half-assed efforts at the wrong thing.  They don't think it through, they aren't brave or fair, and they end up not doing good work.

That's more or less what Yoda had in mind when he said to Luke when he told him to stop trying and start doing.

But that's not even trying.  That's just intending.

Get Up, Stand Up

A hero doesn't just believe in something, he stands for something.  As in, gets off his duff and does something. Even if that thing is not heroic macho stuff, even if it's doing the dishes... or restraining himself from saying something he shouldn't, or pausing to make sure the door is locked.

The hero -- the mensch, as they say in Yiddish -- actually commits to an action.  A hero doesn't assume he'll succeed, but he commits to dealing with the fall-out if things go wrong.  You could say he's committing to an outcome.  If that outcome isn't achieved, he keeps going.  A hero follows through.

Competence -- that is, doing good work -- is important, too.  But, imho, it's a side effect of the commitment.  If you are committed, you learn from your failures. If you don't learn, then odds are you aren't really committed.  You are just intending but not doing.

Heroes who act, of course, are basic to good storytelling.   The old classic "try, fail, learn, success" is the basic model for nearly all plots of all genres and styles of literature. (With the rest being "try, succeed, don't learn, die.")

And the reason that is such a strong theme of storytelling is because that's what we need stories for: they are a way of thinking through the nature of our existence.  It's practice for life.  It's a place to try out things we wouldn't want to do, as well as those things we intend but don't yet know how to do ourselves.

See you in the funny papers.

Misplaced Hero - Episode 14

First Episode | Series Intro and TOC | Story So Far | Previous Episode

The Case of the Misplaced Hero

by Camille LaGuire

Episode 14 - Rozinshura is Disappointed

PROFESSOR THORNTON WAS feeling the signs of impending sobriety, and he didn't like that one little bit.  And when Captain Rozinshura took Thorny's arm and hurried him out of the tavern room and away from that lovely old rustic bar... well, Thorny liked that even less.

Even with the limp, the captain moved faster than Thorny could manage, just like the soldier who had arrested him.

"You people are in too much of a hurry!" said Thorny.

"This is not a hurry," said Rozinshura. "This is the pace of revolutionary progress."  He then paused for effect and added, "Also, I am frightened, and you are drunk."

The captain pulled open a door and pushed Thorny into a tiny room was packed with boxes, barrels and baskets. There was just space for a desk and a comfortable chair with extra cushions.  The captain sat in the chair and propped his bad leg on a barrel.  He indicated that Thorny should find a perch on a box opposite him.

One of the soldiers showed up with a mug and a bucket.  He emptied the bucket onto the desk. It contained  a scattering of personal items, including Thorny's wallet, keys and watch.

Rozinshura took the mug and handed it, and the now empty bucket, to Thorny.

"Drink this.  Try to keep it in."

Thorny took a sip.  It was a horrible sludge, and he immediately threw up into the bucket.

"Try harder," said Rozinshura.

Thorny drank again, and it didn't taste quite as bad.  He struggled a little, but kept it down, and after a moment, both his stomach and his head felt better.

"You are a doctor," said Rozinshura.  "What sort of doctor? You are a specialist?"

"English," said Thorny. "I'm a doctor of English."

The captain leaned forward as if he hadn't quite heard.

"Angliss? What is that?  Is it good with injuries?  Bones?"

"Only the bones of literature."

"Lita... ligaments?" said the captain. "An expert in ligaments is good!  We have injuries and --"  He paused to rub his bad leg.  "You can do operations, yes?"

"No, no," said Thorny.  "You've got it wrong. I'm not a medical doctor.  No bones.  No ligaments, and I faint at the sight of blood.  I'm a doctor of philosophy."

"Philosophy," said the captain, and he stared for a moment, and then he seemed to deflate into his chair.  He made a rude noise and said a number of things in his own language which Thorny was sure were not polite.

"We have injuries.  We need doctors.  Awarshi doctors are butchers.  Worse than butchers. I would trust my butcher before I would trust an Awarshi doctor."

"I am very sorry," said Thorny.  "I don't know anything about butchery either."

"Then go away," said Rozinshura.  "I shall call on you if my philosophy becomes broken.  Now, go."

Thorny paused. "What about Pooki-whatsis?  He'll want to arrest me."

"If you sneak out quietly, he may not see you."

"And...."  Thorny paused a moment longer.  "What about the girl?  Her only crime was helping me."

The captain let out a slow sigh and shook his head.

"No, her only crime is that she is pretty," he said.  "There is nothing I can do. He is a colonel, I am a captain. I could only help you because you are a foreigner, and I thought you are doctor."

He looked down at the wallet and keys and things, and shoved them across the desk. Thorny grabbed his keys and watch.  There was a small book lying half across his wallet, and he started to reach for that -- to push it aside -- when the captain leaned forward.

"Wait!"

Rozinshura was looking looking at the book.  There was a bit of paper sticking out among the pages.

He gestured for Thorny to sit down again and took up the paper. He squinted at it and moved his lips as though deciphering something in his head.

Then, with a gasp, he half rose out of his chair, and then settled back into almost a crouch.  He looked up at Thorny through narrowed eyes.

"I think, Doctor Specialist of Drunken Philosophy, that you are a spy after all."

---

Stay Tuned for Episode Fifteen: "But Not a Professional Spy"

First Episode | Series Intro and TOC | Story So Far | Previous Episode

---

The Case of the Misplaced Hero -- now available as an ebook at major online retailers, including:

In most ebook formats at Smashwords, plus Amazon's Kindle Store, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Diesel, Apple iBookstore.  (Coming soon to Sony.)

Now also at Amazon's international stores: UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan.

Or support this site directly;

Ready For The Write-A-Thon

On Sunday I begin the Clarion Write-A-Thon for 2012, which will continue until August 4. Six Weeks, Forty-two Days.

This is a fundraising effort -- trying to support the Clarion Foundation and help defray the cost of the six-week workshop for participants who have talent but can't afford it.

I hate flogging for money.  "Come read a post about how many words I wrote today, and btw, donate money for this boring privilege."

But you know what?  We always say that the best promotion for one book is another book. Well, let's see if that works for a charitable organization.

I'm doing a blog story -- a serial -- as an experiment this summer.  I've decided to dedicate that to the Clarion Write-a-Thon.  You get to see what I'm writing as I'm writing it. I will be removing the book promotion links from those posts, and replacing them with blurbs for the Clarion Foundation.


A quick summary for those who haven't been following the blog:

I'm doing this for fun, and to expand my writing skills.  This is about fast, quick, and short. (Aiming at 600-700 word episodes.)  It's basically blog-pulp -- getting a working episode up, on deadline, with illustration, twice-a-week, come hell or high water.

The story is called The Misplaced Hero, and the genre is what I call "Flicker-punk" -- set in an alternate world based on the kind of story you see in silent movie serials and adventure fiction of 1910-1927 or so. (Check out the intro to the series here.)

The episodes post Mondays and Thursdays at 8am EDT.

(Note: I also post progress updates on Sundays and Wednesdays, as a part of the regular "dare" progress of this blog.)

I've published 13 episodes so far, I expect there to be about 32-36 episodes, which means they'll run through the end of August, or the first week of September. However, I plan to finish writing it during the Write-a-Thon -- by August 4.

But wait! I plan on doing more than that!

I am going to expand it into a long novella or short novel for publication, but I don't see this as a rough draft, really.  It's deadline-driven pulp -- written to suit the medium, and as done as the format and time constraints allow.

However, it also makes a kind of "prose storyboard" for the expanded edition.  How expanded?  I don't know.  Probably longer by a third unless there are some subplots I want to explore.  I hope to have this done by August 4, even if the serial won't finish posting until the end of August.

I will make the beta (and later the final) ebook version available free to those who donate to the Write-a-Thon.

You can check out the Introduction, or jump to the First Episode. I also have summaries of "The story so far" for those who are impatient and don't really want to read (or who forget what happened and want a refresher).

As for me, I need to get back to tomorrow's episode, in which Captain Rozinshura meets with disappointment.

See you in the funny papers.

Misplaced Hero - Episode 13

First Episode | Series Intro and TOC | Story So Far | Previous Episode

The Case of the Misplaced Hero

by Camille LaGuire

Episode 13 - Inciting the One Percent

THERE WERE MAYBE two dozen people milling around in front of the small school building where the wreck victims had been sent.  All of them were well-dressed, though some well-dressed as servants.

A kid in a maid's uniform sat on the step to the school, trembling and hugging herself.  A middle-aged woman in a fur stole and fashionable little hat -- with a huge, but broken, feather in it -- patted the maid on the shoulder.

The two young men who talked to Alex were standing nearby, the tall one pacing angrily, the shorter one looking amused.

"They're neglecting us," said the taller young man.  "They said they would keep us informed!"

"Patience, Freddie," said the woman with the feather.  "They can't give us word if they don't have word to give."

"We haven't seen hide nor hair of them since those security fellows arrived."

"Excuse me," said Alex.  "You said you tried to get into the building too.  Why?"

"We haven't got any luggage," began the shorter fellow. "We haven't got any rooms, or any tea--"

"Basil!" said the other sharply.  "I think our cousin is more important than your tea!"

"Sorry, Freddy," said Basil, and he turned back to Alex. "As it happens, we're also out of baronesses."

"Our cousin is the Baroness of Beethingham--"

"A baroness in her own right, no less," interjected Basil.

"--and she has been kidnapped by those bandits who derailed the train."

"Or perhaps killed by them."

"Basil!"

Alex looked around at the people standing there. They looked uncomfortable and disgruntled and worried.  Disgruntlement is a powerful force.

"I've got a friend who's missing too," he said slowly.  Then he raised his voice so they all could hear him.  "Are there a lot of people missing?"

"My companion, Miss Vilthrop, for one," said an elderly woman.

"And Emmett, the undersecretary to Lord Blinkersly," said a man. "Nobody has seen him."

"Lord Blinkersly is missing!"

"No, I just saw him. He's just behind the building, having a smoke.

"Well, I haven't seen anything of my footman...."

Voices were calling out about people and luggage and sore feet. All sorts of complaints. They were ready to turn into a mob. Alex felt guilty for even thinking of taking advantage of that.  Still you can't incite anybody who doesn't want to be incited, and their complaints were legitimate.

The question was how to take advantage of it?  A diversion, maybe.  Or just a covering crowd....

"When you were inside just now," said Freddie, "did they tell you anything at all?"

"No," said Alex.  "I only talked to the cook.  The place seemed practically empty."

"They've got everybody up at the wreck, I expect," said the woman with the broken feather.

And older man pushed his way to the front.  "You're telling me they've got room in there for us?"

"Well, I only got a glimpse.  I mean, I didn't see upstairs or into the guest rooms, but there's a parlor and a tavern room which are just completely empty."

"Sounds a darned sight more comfortable than here," said the older gentleman.

"Listen," said Freddie. "Did you see that brute of a captain?  The gimpy one with the walrus mustache?  He's in charge, you know.  We should march in there and take him hostage until we get some answers!"

"Freddie," said the woman.  "You're beginning to sound like Basil."

"Not me!" said Basil, "Takin' a hostage sounds like jolly fun, but it also sounds like work."

Alex took a deep breath. Here goes his plan....

"What we should do is take the tavern hostage," said Alex.  "As a group -- all of us just troop in there and occupy it.  You know, a flash mob."

---

Stay Tuned for Episode Fourteen: "Rozinshura is Disappointed"

First Episode | Series Intro and TOC | Story So Far | Previous Episode

---

The Case of the Misplaced Hero -- now available as an ebook at major online retailers, including:

In most ebook formats at Smashwords, plus Amazon's Kindle Store, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Diesel, Apple iBookstore.  (Coming soon to Sony.)

Now also at Amazon's international stores: UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan.

Or support this site directly;

ROW80 Update - An Early End

Happy Watergate Day!  (Break in to a luxury hotel near you!  But don't tape the door locks in such a way that people can see that they're taped.  And if the security guard finds the tape and removes it ... really, seriously, don't put it back!) 

A Round of Words in 80 Days update:



Wednesday Day 73 - Deadline Day.  Even though I don't normally write on Deadline Day (I just edit and do art), I was going to try to get some writing done to make up for yesterday's poor performance.  I did not succeed at that.

However, when I sat down to do it, I ended up figuring out how to hook this episode into the next.  I needed to introduce, if only in the lightest way, Freddy and Basil.

Thursday Day 74 - 381 words.  Oh, day job is turning out to be much much more busy than expected for summer semester.  And it's going to be even busier in the fall, which means I need to make the very best use of summer that I can.

Friday Day 75 - Approx. 700 words.  I spent more time working on fussy stuff. I have roughed another 5-6 episodes -- or at least done the major scenes/exchanges from them.  I also did a bunch of artwork this evening.  Not specific to the serial, but rather I worked on silhouette figures inspired by illustrations of the period.  Working on hair and hats and waistlines and such to get the look right, and also a feel for different characters.  Most of what I did today was a little too realistic -- but I'm also playing with cartoonifying it.

The other thing I did... I rewrote Episode One.  I didn't change what happens, but I did remove Lily Beeton's intro and narration.  That was the first and last we see of it in the story, and I think it made the story more awkward than necessary. I was able to introduce Alex and Flavia better  because I had more space for it.

Part of the problem is that I'm just not comfortable with Lily's voice yet.  But I also think that she probably isn't such a great narrator.  I probably won't let her narrate even her own stories yet.  (But I might give her a blog later -- because I think she would take to actual blogging.  That is, reporting and explaining and telling anecdotes perhaps a little outside the regular plotline.)


Saturday Day 76 - 1399 words.  So close to the goal today!  But I did a lot of art, and some editing, and also probably 2500s on something that will likely become several blog posts. 

So there it is.

The early end of Round 2 for ROW80 2012 for me.  I have to start up for the Clarion Write-a-Thon next weekend, which will overlap with Round 3 of ROW80 in July and August, so I'm going to need a break.  This seems like the best place to take it.

Over the break, I will work on art, and try to get as many of these rough episodes done and scheduled to post as possible.  I will post an update on Wednesday.

See you in the funny papers.

Misplaced Hero - Episode 12

First Episode | Series Intro and TOC | Story So Far | Previous Episode

The Case of the Misplaced Hero

by Camille LaGuire

Episode 12 - Scouting Headquarters

THE HEADQUARTERS WAS an inn, which meant it wasn't a secure facility, was it?  It might be hard to find Thorny inside the rambling building, but there were lots of windows and exits for getting out.

Alex wandered over to the inn, aimlessly, as if in shock.  Nobody stopped him.  The security man went in the front door, and Alex thought that door was probably watched.

The side door was locked, but there was a narrow gate which led to an enclosed stable yard behind.  Alex drifted in.  The stable yard was surrounded by a wall and looked like a good place to get trapped.  However, there were barrels and boxes lined up against the walls.  If they couldn't make it to the gate, they might be able to climb out and over, if Thorny wasn't too drunk.

The stables themselves probably had an exit too.  Alex started to wander in that direction.

"You, come here!" called a thickly accented voice.

Alex turned slowly and pretended to have trouble focusing on the voice.  It was a soldier with an apron on; a cook.

"Come," said the cook.  "You need to be with others, or you get lost."

He herded Alex into the kitchen, but there he paused to pour something into a mug.

Alex took advantage of the moment to look around.  The room had a lot of doors, and alcoves.  Another good place to get trapped, but one of the alcoves had windows - that might be a place to duck into if he couldn't get out the door.

"Drink this," said the cook, handing him the mug.  "It brace you up!"

The drink tasted like a cross between yogurt and turpentine but, as the cook predicted, it was bracing.  Alex realized he was shivering from his damp clothes.  The cook saw it too, and grabbed up an old jacket and threw it over Alex's shoulders.  The jacket smelled of the stable, but it was warm. It was also a rusty brown... a uniform jacket of the ordinary soldiers.

The cook was already herding him out of the kitchen and through the building.  Alex got a quick look at the layout as they moved to the front door.  There were not that many people, which could be good for sneaking around, but also could be bad. He'd be really noticeable if someone saw him.

It would also be easy to get lost in the tangle of hallways.  They reached the front hall quickly, after a series of short twists and turns.  It was a narrow room, with stairs going up, and arched doors opening to rooms on either side.

Alex pretended to stumble so he could get a better look into one of the side rooms.  A rustic tavern, empty except for a tweed jacket hanging on a post.  The jacket was wet, and had leather patches.  Thorny's jacket.  Alex started to head in that direction, but the cook gently stopped him.

"Come, come.  This way," he said, and he turned Alex toward the front door.

That was when Alex saw into the other room, which looked more like a parlor.  There were the gray-uniformed security men, and in the middle of them sat a girl.  She was bundled in peasant clothes, her head covered with a scarf.  Her shoulders were hunched with tension, but she held her head high, with dignity.

She turned toward Alex, and he realized she was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen.

Alex decided right then he was going to have to rescue her too.

But then the cook pushed him out the door and led him firmly across the square to where the crowd of train wreck victims milled.  A pair of slightly disheveled but well-dressed young gentlemen watched him.  The taller one scowled at the cook, but the younger one smiled and said to Alex;

"Nice try, old boy.  We didn't even get through the door!"

---

Stay Tuned for Episode Thirteen: "Alex Incites the One Percent"

First Episode | Series Intro and TOC | Story So Far | Previous Episode

---

The Case of the Misplaced Hero -- now available as an ebook at major online retailers, including:

In most ebook formats at Smashwords, plus Amazon's Kindle Store, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Diesel, Apple iBookstore.  (Coming soon to Sony.)

Now also at Amazon's international stores: UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan.

Or support this site directly;