Character Friday: Chris Truscott

This week, Chris Truscott is going to tell us about Holly, a one-night stand to took a larger role than expected.

Camille: First, tell us a little about Holly.

Chris: In Stumbling Forward, Holly's a 23-year-old recent graduate of the University of Minnesota who's trying to break into liberal-progressive campaign politics. This is much to the chagrin of her wealthy and conservative parents in the suburbs, who would prefer to see her get married and start raising a family--like her two older sisters. A bit of a party girl, certainly, Holly's also intensely loyal to those around her and very good at the jobs she manages to land.

Camille: What made you create her?

Chris: Holly was created as barely a step above an "extra." She made what was supposed to be her first and only appearance in the very first scene of the first chapter in Stumbling Forward. She was simply a one-night stand the main character was trying to get rid of one morning. She didn’t even have a last name until I decided to bring her back toward the middle of the book—crossing paths again with the male lead.

Camille: What makes Holly special to you?

Chris: I like this character a lot because she was an accident—a complete and total fluke. (My female lead was also an accident, meant only to be a secondary character before she stole the show in the first few chapters.) Holly is a free-spirit in a political world that produces a lot of people who stick to convention. She's not afraid to be who she is, to have fun and to say what she thinks.

Camille: Do you have more planned for her?

Chris: Yes. Holly evolved from an “extra” at the beginning of Stumbling Forward to a minor character in the middle and a solid supporting character at the end. In the final four books of the series—including the recently published A Referendum on Conscience—Holly returns as a main character. (And she’s a devoted friend to the man from her initial scene and to his new love interest. She’s a supportive and grounding force in both of their lives.)

You can find Holly in two of Chris Truscott's books:

Stumbling Forward: As Election Day nears, Clarissa Rogers, a young idealist, is hit with the reality that winning may not be the best thing. Along the way, she captivates a womanizing political consultant, draws the attention of people who could change the world, and emerges as the one person who might actually be able to send an egotistical, opportunistic and unqualified candidate to Congress.

A Referendum on Conscience: A terrorist attack. A vote against a popular war. A re-election campaign. Rebecca McElroy is looking forward to retiring as she nears the end of her second term in the U.S. Senate. Then terrorists launch a devastating attack on Washington that drives the country into a bloody war and changes everything for the pacifist senator from Minnesota.

Tales of My Travels

I had a great trip Down East. (Well, technically we didn't get far enough North to be 'down' -- which is the north eastern coast Maine. "Down" referring to down wind. Maine is a maritime sorta place.) Took over a thousand pictures, mostly of rocks and water, but also of people walking (you know, for drawing models).

Detroit Metro - The Journey of a Million Steps

If you're traveling with someone in a wheelchair with at stop over at Detroit Metro, always ask for help even if you have your own chair and a native bearer (me). It's one very long schlep from incoming to outgoing gates, involving multiple levels and hidden elevators and lots and lots of distance. Also, if you are doing it on your own, and you use the "people mover" - a wheelchair will usually roll right off just fine, but if it doesn't, the person behind the chair has to have hands free and be ready to push. Just sayin'.

Flying in To La Guardia

You can see the Statue of Liberty (a little green/blue dot on top of a pedestal), as you fly over Canarsie. Also the Brooklyn Bridge, and those other bridges which look familiar but you don't know what they're called. And the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. And also a funny-looking gothic black building that's a little bit up town from them. (Probably the Radiator Building.)

New Jersey - Fresh Mozz and Some Good Tacos Too.

Great informal Italian food in Joisy, both coming and going. I still think the best meal of the trip was the stuff we grabbed at the deli - incredibly fresh mozzarella (made hourly), sopressatta and bread. Also had some rather good tacos in Hoboken at a little restaurant called The Taco Truck. Almost the real thing like you'd get in L.A., except that they didn't get the concept of salsa on the side.

Manhattan - Hear the Beat of Dancing Feet

Forty-second street isn't as naughty and bawdy as it once was, but it is certainly sporty and gaudy. Theaters sparkling everywhere. And cops everywhere hanging out playing with their iPhones. Had really great Venetian food just around the corner from the theater. (Went to see The Importance of Being Earnest, and will talk a little about it later, since the character of Lady Bracknell is relevant to a post I want to make about bossy characters.)

Connecticut -- Where the Burgers Wear TuTus

Paused briefly in Connecticutt where we had old-fashioned diner food around the corner from where travelling companion grew up. The place was famous for the crisped cheese which skirts the burger. Also hand dipped ice cream. And I wish I had known that they mixed their own pop by hand from syrup and soda at the fountain. If I had known, I wouldn't have ordered a diet cola. (Missed opportunites!)

Boston -- The Land of the Bean and the Cod

...where the Lowells speak only to Cabots and the Cabots speak only to God! (Which little poem brought to me the only bit of work I did on the trip: I have been looking for a properly patrician last name for a character, and realized that there could be no more patrician Amerian name than Cabot. Especially if you need a name which isn't Dutch.)

There are no lines painted on roads in Boston, you make up your own lanes. The highways wind around in tunnels under the city. The curbs are made out of granite. We went shopping at Fanieul Hall, took pictures of the Old State House where the Boston Massacre took place. Ate seafood at the longest continuously running restaurant in America. We also had great dim sum for breakfast, and went to the art museum -- which may deserve it's own post sometime.

We May Ride Forever On The Streets of Boston

The concierge gave us bad directions, and we ended up driving in circles for a bit before we just took fate into our own hands and headed for the road we thought we needed to be on. (In the meantime, I found myself singing the MTA song for much of the next leg of the trip.)

Maine -- and Lobstah Rolls at Last!

After setting foot briefly in New Hampshire at a rest stop, we finally got to Maine and stopped at Bob's Clam Hut where I at last got my first bite of a Lobster Roll. Oy it was good. (And I'm told it was unusually good -- as it was all Lobster. No celery filler, and only enough mayo to moisten.)

From there we proceded to bump around the city of Portland (which is almost handicapper accessable -- though all uphill streets are still very old granite cobblestone.) And we also proceeded to take pictures of rocks and water and more rocks and more water. And food and rocks and water. Also, breakfast and more seafood. Forgot to take pictures of the seafood, but this breakfast was, uh, well let's just say the scale doesn't do it justice. That pancake was larger than most dinner plates. (And here I thought one pancake would not be enough.)

Then we took more pictures of rocks and water, and drove back to Jersey for more great Italian food.

LaGuardia -- The Miracle of the Sausages

Under normal circumstances, frozen raw Italian sausage will make it from New Jersey to Lansing, Michigan still mostly frozen if properly packed in a carry on bag.

Under miraculous conditions, it will make it to the tarmac at LaGuardia where the pilot announces engine trouble and goes back to the gate, and everybody waits on the plane while the engineers do some troubleshooting and then finally give up and have everybody deplane, except if you're the one with the wheelchair, you're last off and can't get a good seat on a remaining flight... but at LaGuardia the employees fight to push wheelchairs, and so we got lots of service and finally got booked on flights the next day, and given a hotel room and inadequate meal vouchers, and a ride to the hotel, where there's a refrigerator with a FREEZER in the room.

Yes, the real Italian sausages made it back to Lansing still semi-frozen even after a particularly long layover the next day.

So now I'm home but still discombobulated. Tomorrow I'll post another Interview about secondary characters -- but I haven't even got the edits to the author yet.

See you in the funny papers.

Search Engines, eHow, and Fiction Writing

A month or so ago Demand Media -- a publisher of internet articles -- decided to close down one of their major libraries, eHow, for good.

I used to write for eHow, and it has been a nice, steady source of income for me. I am very sorry to see that income go. They have offered me slightly more than a half-year's take to buy my articles outright. I accepted. Unlike so many others, I never used these articles any place else, and I don't really see reusing them myself for that kind of income.

The interesting thing, for me, was that over the past few months I have been making a LOT more money. In the meantime, Demand Media just announced that they had a big drop in traffic/income over that same period, because of Google's new search algorithm which punishes poor content and rewards quality content. Hmmm. eHow was losing money for poor content on most of their articles, but I was making more....I guess I had quality content.

This is important and relevant to fiction, folks. Writers, readers, indie, traditional. It's more important to ebooks than to physical books, but even physical books are affected.

So listen up:

Google's goal has always been to reward quality content, and they were constantly improving their algorithms long before the upgrade which killed eHow.

When I was writing for eHow, I met many writers who worked hard to game the system. They tended to make more money at first, and then the Google would upgrade and the money would stop. And those writers would get really mad and they'd blame everyone in the universe. And they'd get especially mad at those who had been telling them all along to stop playing games and just write good articles.

Meanwhile, those who stuck with writing quality material, didn't market, and didn't play games, continued with their slow growth whenever Google upgraded the system.

Here's the thing: it's extremely important to Google to serve the user, they do everything in their power to cut the influence of any marketing efforts or attempts to game the system. The algorithm is designed to filter out hype, and give the user exactly the genuine results he or she is looking for.

This is sometimes called a "pull" system, where the system isn't trying to 'sell' anything, but rather just help the user pull what he or she needs from the system. It's designed for situations like the web, where there is an almost infinite amount of content.

Just a few years ago, this had little relevance to fiction publishing. A novel found its way into a reader's hands by a whole different paradigm -- "push" marketing.

With push marketing, the system decides what it wants to sell. For instance, because publishing paper books is so complicated and expensive, publishers and booksellers made an effort to decide which titles to invest in. They had to take a gamble on this well ahead of demand. Then they would push those titles out to the shelves where the readers would find them.

Brick and mortar bookstores have to work this way, because leaving things to chance is just too expensive. They choose, and the readers pick among the bookseller's choices. The user finds books by going to a certain place and accepting or rejecting what is there.

You didn't have to worry about quality in this old system. There are lots of people making judgment calls along along the way. Some crap might get through, but only if there was some other reason the customer might want the product. (Like being on a controversial topic, or it was written by a celebrity.) But for the most part, sheer garbage did not make it through the first step.

This is not true of SEO articles, or websites or blogs. Out on the internet there are companies with servers programmed to produce nonsense pages by the thousands. So when I say there is sheer garbage, I don't just mean stupid or ignorant -- I mean very literally the equivalent of a million monkeys with typewriters, and none of them are typing up Hamlet. Pure random, computer-generated junk.

On top of that there's spam, and there are idiots and nutcases, and there are slanderous sites, and criminal sites.

And most of the internet -- that is most of the websites out there -- is made up of this crap. I mean, you may think you've come across too many of them, but trust me, Google has kept all but a tiny trickle of them away from most users. They're out there, but nobody can find them.

So you could say Google and its algorithms work as a gatekeeper just like the old publishing system did... except that it does it in a completely different way. The difference is: Google does not reject sites. (Except for the criminal and pure spam ones, which they blacklist.) Google makes everything available -- everything -- and lets the user "pull" what he or she wants out of the collection.

It's hard for old-school people to get their heads around this. Both Google and Amazon are focused on helping the user find what they want. I'll repeat that: They are not focused on giving the reader the best, they're focused on giving the reader what they want. That means they even want that low-ranked one-in-a-bazillion book, website or article to be found. No one is lost in the storm, even though it's a really big storm.

However, even though everything is available, not everything is going to be "pulled" out of the crowd.

And this is where fiction writers should take a lesson from those eHow writers. See, right now, indie writers in particular (though I also see traditional writers jumping on the bandwagon) are all hyped up about gaming the system. You hear them talking about raising their rank. You see them talk about clicking on each other's "like" buttons and tags and how to get more reviews.

And you even hear the respected and successful gurus talking about it and encouraging some of it. This is EXACTLY like what happens in SEO writing circles. "You can game the system by playing this numbers game," says the guru. "That's how it is supposed to work so don't worry, it's not unethical." And, they're right that it's not necessarily unethical. It does work for a while...until too many people are doing it, and then Google (or Amazon) changes the algorithm. Or changes the rules.

And then people yell and cry and wonder what is wrong because their sales aren't doing what they used to.

It's not evil to use the system to your advantage. If that's how the system is set up, it's only fair. But you have to recognize that by doing it, you create a situation where they have to change the system. I guarantee it, in this new paradigm, if you find something to promote your book which has nothing to do with how good the book itself is, that method will stop working after a while.

And sometimes the change will hurt more than people deserve. Google changed its algorithm because of all the manipulations, and that didn't just hurt those who had bad articles. It also hurt those with good articles, who used manipulative techniques to promote them. And that brought down eHow for everyone, including those who didn't game the system at all. I'm really sorry to see that monthly income go.

Now, let's be clear: Amazon is not eHow. The world's largest bookseller doesn't just benefit from an algorithm; Amazon IS the algorithm. Amazon's in control, so when people game the system, they can just change the system. Which will hurt those play games, but not those who don't. At least not so much.

Amazon's system -- the system that allows users to find exactly what they want, including your book among the millions -- is dependent on GOOD GENUINE USER DATA. Any time you game the system -- via tagging or "liking" books you haven't even read -- you weaken that data, and make the algorithm less effective.

Remember, this isn't a push system, it's a pull system.

A pull system gives an advantage to the smaller and midlist book by matching them with the niche groups that love them. It can't make that match if the data is cloudy.

All of publishing is now moving into a search engine world -- the pull world. The way to survive in that world is to stop playing games and serve the reader. That's what those algorithms are looking for. That's what every single tweak is designed to do better. The reader finds you, not the other way around.

Next week I'll try to give you the big picture on how these algorithms work, how they actually do help the reader find you, and do the heavy lifting for both reader and writer... and how they define "quality."

Creating a Cover: Finding Models

This is the first of a series of posts covering my process in creating a new cover -- ranging from thoughts about brand and inventing a look, to some notes and tips on the practical process. (See the intro to the series here.)

I may be out to build my own brand and style, but I'm not about to reinvent the wheel. I need to use motifs and a general look which tell the reader a little about my story.

The Misplaced Hero is a pastiche of 1910s through 1930s adventure fiction. I want to call it "Jazzpunk" but it isn't technology driven the way the various kinds of "punk" genres are -- i.e. cyberpunk, steampunk, dieselpunk. (Which I suppose makes "Jazz" a good term for it -- not driven by cyber-tech, steam OR diesel, but by style.) So I already decided up front that I needed a "Art Deco meets Pulp" look.

Some of the very coolest work of the period, though, are things I could never imitate, so I needed to find something other than the quality of the light in a Samuel Nelson Abbot illustration to hang my look on. This is important -- whether you're doing it yourself, or hiring a designer, you have to work with the skills and "look" the artist can achieve.

The other consideration is consistency. Imagine you find a really great stock photo that fits the first book in your series, and that photo is completely unique... what are you going to do for the second book? You want the second book to fit with the first -- so you have to be able to replicate the "look" of that first cover.

Luckily two things really make a design stand up and scream Art Deco: font and lines. There is a sleekness to Art Deco which I can use in a cover template in particular. Think of the marquee of great movie palaces of the time - all lines and curves and very sleek.

So I browsed for models that gave me design, rather than just cool art, and I settled on these two as the right general look for the cover of my Serial. They aren't exciting in the way a real pulp story is exciting, but they are something I can do consistently:



The Nature Magazine layout is exactly what I need. The framing box is so simple and easy to replicate -- you basically have a "look" as soon as you've put in a font and rule. It's easy to create artwork for the box inside the frame. And it is a very common look for the period. Of course a part of that look has to do with the illustration inside. Stylized, bright colors.

Nature images were a common motif in the period, and when I concentrate, I can certainly handle something like that. But the eye is forgiving of trees and water and birds which aren't quite real. We're less forgiving of human figures. The range with which you can fudge people is much narrower.

I'm good with silhouettes, though, and the Porto Sandeman ad is really slick, ain't it? It evokes Zorro and The Shadow and all sorts of adventure stories. You really get the feel right away of the kind of shadowy hero my Misplaced Hero should be.

The only problem is that he isn't that hero yet. The Sandeman ad evokes Zorro, but not Don Diego (i.e. Superman, not Clark Kent.) The Misplaced Hero is about the transformation a modern college student into a shadowy hero in another world. I need to suggest both.

This is where sketching comes in. And where doing it on PAPER comes in. Which is what I'll talk about next Tuesday, when we'll see my rough sketches for the design, and we'll also talk about the value of gesture drawings. Part 3 - Gesture Drawings.

Story Notes - Why I Don't Write SF

These are notes on yesterdays story, "The Captain's Solution." If you're worried about spoilers you should go back and read it.

Why I Don't Write More Science Fiction, or "This is not the Zamboni we're looking for."

I happen to love this story, but I'll be the first to say that it's hardly science fiction.

The truth is, it's hardly even space opera, which should include scary aliens and zap guns and teleportation and stuff like that. Space battles, and cliff hangers. It's kind of the sitcom version of space opera. What they call in the TV world a "three-camera sitcom." That's the kind of show which is filmed on a set in front of a live audience. Actors posturing on a stage. (A "single-camera" show is filmed like a movie - all TV dramas are filmed that way these days.)

I have never submitted this story to any magazines. I can't imagine a magazine which suits it. But I will undoubtedly write more stories like it.

This story takes place in a world I made up when I was younger. That universe did have space battles and zap guns and though the aliens were not scary, the robots were. (Imagine being chased down a narrow corridor by a zamboni with horns.) But that was the novel that Kate and Damon shredded (rightfully) and got abandoned back in 1982.

Every now and then, though, a story from that universe will push its way out. It doesn't always involve zap guns or vicious Zambonis. As a matter of fact it usually doesn't. The stories just involve people caught up in some element of that world.

Looking back, I think the reason I only come up with ideas like that is because sf readers (imho) take their zap guns and Zambonis way too seriously. SF readers, even when reading comedy, actually care about the oxygen content of a planet, even when that info doesn't drive the plot. In a proper SF story, a zap gun isn't just driven by friblitz power; it's a plasma beam or laser. A Zamboni doesn't corner very well.

And space ships shouldn't jostle one another in space they way they might on the water.

That kind of jostling can do deadly damage. I know this. I am perfectly aware of this. I didn't write it that way because I don't now better. I write it that way because, to me, other planets are all just a variation of Oz or fairyland... or Ruritania.

Ruritania, for the uninitiated, is a small imaginary country in Eastern Europe, ruled over by the Elfbergs, and the setting for The Prisoner of Zenda. Although Zenda wasn't the first book to create such an imaginary place for exiting romantic swashbuckling stories, it did end up lending it's name to a whole genre: The Ruritanian Romance. It's a place where the costumes and politics and customs are different, and the props are really cool toys. (Swords and draw bridges and pistols and horses, and even a throne and a crown! Sometimes historically accurate, but often running on the equivalent of friblitz power.)

(In case I'm leaving any non-sf people behind -- "friblitz power" is something I made up. It's nonsense.)

It's true, I never got into the kind of sf they used to make into movies and TV -- the really old stuff with the tin-foil suits and zap guns and giant robots, all running on friblitz generators. But the only reason for that was because, frankly, the drama sucked. Shallow characters, posturing. I only got interested when I saw Star Wars for the first time. I know that parsecs are not a unit of time, and I don't care that they used that wrong, and imho, The Force is just another name for friblitz power. But Tattooine? THAT'S a Ruritania. They had me from "a long time ago in a galaxy far far away..."

I'm not saying this to criticize modern SF. These days modern SF is all about drama. It has been for decades.
But it's also about the world-building, and parsecs and the effect of the smaller gravitational field on a small planet. Which is worth writing, and I even read some of that stuff. Even some of the stuff which is all world-building and no drama. But for the most part, world-building doesn't it interest me all that much, and I'm not interested in writing it.

I write Ruritanian Romances, even when I'm writing about the real world. So sue me.

"The Captain's Solution" a space opera, sort of

For Story Sunday, I give you a mild-mannered space opera/space fantasy, about a space ship captain who takes his duty seriously. (Science fiction fans be warned, we don't need no stinkin' science in this story....)

==============

The Captain's Solution
by Camille LaGuire

THE, UH, INCIDENT occurred when I was mate on the North Current. And, of course, there was more to it than ever came out at the competency hearing. Even the court knew that. It really started when we were rotated from our usual patrol to temporary escort duty. It was a reward. We had a good record of dealing with the Galactic Commerce Authority with neutrality and diplomacy.

We ended up on Iria, a little backwater planet that held the distinction of being home to the only humanoid non-humans anybody'd ever heard of. I mean, the Irians seemed human to me, but they claimed not. They evolved on that planet, they said, from some goddess and a tree, I think. Or maybe a grape vine. They insisted they couldn't be related to us, and they were stubborn about it, even though it would have been more convenient for them if they gave up on it. If they were human, they'd have some rights.

We were in a bar on Iria, drinking Irian wine, which is so much tastier than our Peschian seaweed beer. Captain Arkeesh had been gazing into his glass for nearly an hour. He was always a quiet one. Always watching, always listening, always thinking. People like that usually make me uneasy, but not him. I think it's his sad eyes and droopy mustache. Whatever it is he sees and hears and thinks seems to weigh heavily on him. It gives him an air of responsibility. He was gloomy just now because we had been approached by an illegal wine merchant who had two cases to sell. They were not supposed to approach officers. Officers are under strict orders to turn them in, and the captain takes his duty seriously.

"I'm not going to report him," he said suddenly. No need to explain who he meant. "We are, after all, representatives of a neutral planet. We shouldn't enforce Commerce Authority rules. Nor should we consider ourselves subject to them." That meant we should buy the wine. I nodded in agreement. A quiet voice came from behind us.

"You don't fight them either."

A woman was standing at the captain's elbow. Whether she'd been listening or just walking by, I don't know. The captain turned to her, looking even sadder than usual.

"No," he said. "We don't fight at all. We don't think killing is a good thing."

"So you accept the killing that goes on around you."

"Killing on both sides."

The woman slipped in between us, and shoved me off my stool. She was a small, wiry woman in mechanic's overalls, who was attractive enough that I let her have my seat, and I bumped Kallos off his. Kallos grumbled and bumped a drunk Tertian pilot off his seat. The Tertian dropped to the floor and stayed there.

"You are a Planetary Guardsman." She pointed to the insignia on the captain's sleeve. "Wouldn't you kill to defend your planet? Self-defense?"

The captain sat back and studied her a second. He gave her a slow, cautious nod. She sat back, mimicking him.

"You have such high ideals," she said flatly. The captain simply shrugged, took a drink and waited for her to go on. "You say you're against war," she continued. "Yet you allow CommAt slave ships through your space every day."

"We allow no aggressive actions, no weapons shipments, or prisoners-of-war...."

"Slaves are prisoners of war."

The captain paused, looked into his drink, and then looked up again squinting a little.

"You cannot make war on animals."

He watched the woman closely, and just as she gathered herself for a reply, he raised one finger for emphasis.

"And as long as the Irians insist that they evolved here, then they can't be Human and they are legally accepted as animals. If we Peschians claim otherwise, we damage our neutrality."

"Your precious neutrality."

"It is our self-defense."

"You are using their twisted logic."

"No. We are used by their twisted logic. We don't like it, but we don't have much choice. The Authority nations are strong, and they surround us. The only reason they haven't swallowed us up yet, is that it isn't popular, and it isn't popular because their people see us as neutral."

"I know." The woman leaned on the bar and kept looking at him.

"We can't take chances."

"But you do take chances. Not as a nation, but as individuals. Underground."

"Not underground," said the captain, shaking his head. "We're Fisherfolk. We go underwater."

"All right. Underwater, then. Everyone knows that a slave is safe on Pescha. And that you planetary guardsmen are the chief smugglers of Irian wine. And you can do anything you want on your planet if you bribe the right official."

"An outsider can't fish. No bribe will get you that."

"But it will get people to look the other way from political activity. The official stance is neutrality, but individuals can and do take sides."

"We don't...."

"Don't say 'we," say 'I.' What do you think about Irian slavery?"

"I'm against any slavery. Including the conscription of soldiers into your army."

"It's not necessarily my army."

"Still, you call them allies."

"Some do, but I don't," she said crossly. "I don't think the people fighting my enemy are necessarily friends. Sometimes we are closer to those who aren't fighting our enemies."

"Maybe so. Maybe not." He turned to face his drink. He was still looking at her sidelong, however.

"A friend of mine was at last year's Captain's conference on Pescha," she said conversationally. "She pointed you out to me. You spoke up in support of the bill to redefine 'humanity.'"

"What do you want?" He was still looking at his drink, but now he spoke very quietly. She lowered her voice too.

"We think we can get a few dozen of the Irians out of the enclosure, but we need a way to get them safely out of the area."

The captain let out a moan of pain and shook his head.

"An ordinary ship would be shot out of the air immediately," she went on quickly. "They've got the sky too well covered. But a Peschian ship is submersible."

"No."

"We'd slip right into the ocean, and they'd never be able to track us, because nobody uses submersibles here."

"We would be spotted."

"It will be at night, and we will be making a very quick get away."

"Then you might get the Irians into the ship, and you might make it to the water. But we're bound to be recognized as a Peshian Guard ship. You are not asking us to help you. You're asking us to join you. You haven't thought this out yet, have you?"

"No," she admitted. "The idea occurred to me when I saw you come in."

"I have had escort duty to this port many times. I can tell you, mass escapes from those enclosures are always bloody and pointless. Your submersible idea might work, but you don't have a ship. And you can't have mine." He paused to tug at his mustache. "On the other hand, small escapes happen all the time. If you can bring me one, at the most two, adults. I'll put them in uniform and try to pass them off as crew members."

"We don't want to get them to Pescha; we want to get them home. And we want to get more than one or two out."

"They'd be safer on Pescha, and it doesn't seem to me you have a choice."

"And why adults, anyway? If we had to choose, I'd rather get out children."

"I can't pass a child off as a crew member."

The woman chewed her lip and looked at the captain for a moment. The captain gave her a helpless shrug. I was still leaning over her shoulder to listen, and she shoved me away.

"Thank you anyway," she mumbled, and barged off.

#

We waited for the woman to show up again, a pair of confused Irians in tow. We were sure she wouldn't bring one if she could bring two, and they'd probably be straight out of the Irian forest, not knowing the first thing about a ship. We hoped she would think to bring men, since Fisherfolk do not have women in the guard. Our women do just about everything, whether we want them to or not, but they do not fight.

The captain scanned local news constantly. He was probably looking for news of an escape, or a failed one. The woman never came, however. We lifted off with our assigned freighter, two crates of wine and a feeling of relief. We thought we'd never see her again.

We were wrong.

About three months later we were back at our usual patrol duty. We came across a small ship, drifting at our perimeter. Its identification markings were smaller than standard, and partly obscured by what looked like rust. When we hailed them, they moved off quickly, but before the captain could give orders to pursue them, they slowed, and answered us.

The woman met us at the docking bay.

"When I saw the North Current, I hoped it was you," she said quickly. Behind her stood the crew, three men and four women, heavily armed, but not threatening. Their expressions were uneasy, but determined.

"Put away those weapons."

"Listen to me. A slave ship will be coming out of lightspeed to go through Peschian space at any time now. We're going to stop it."

"No you're not. Put the weapons away."

The woman started to argue, but their captain, a large woman with gray hair and yellow eyes, put the butt of her rifle on the deck, and the others holstered and otherwise put aside what they carried.

"This is Peschian space. Any aggressive action is a violation of our neutrality."

"Not if you consider it a theft of cargo."

"Then it's a criminal action. We have strict piracy laws here."

"But it isn't really a criminal action, is it? Slaves are not really cargo. They're people. You just call it piracy so no one will accuse you of taking sides."

The captain took a breath and studied her for a minute. He shook his head.

"You like to argue, don't you?"

"I like people to recognize when I'm right." The captain wiped his hand over his face and looked at the deck, shaking his head again. The woman went on, ducking to get into his line of view. "Captain Arkeesh, the slaves aboard that ship are all children." When the captain didn't answer, she added hopefully. "They are headed for Tertia."

"Slave barges are very well armed."

"What if they sell them to perverts?"

"You'll just get them killed. And yourselves, and the crew of the barge, and probably us too."

"We don't need you to help us. All you have to do is go away. Pretend you never saw us."

He shook his head slowly and pulled at his mustache, so she continued, leaning in closer.

"You don't have to worry about it being an armed slave barge. It's an ordinary freighter carrying wine and lumber. They just happen to have twenty-five children aboard."

"All Commat ships are armed. You'll never even get aboard," the captain said absently. "No. We'll meet the ship when it comes out of lightspeed. Just as usual. You'll come later."

"You'll help?"

"No. We're just going to do our job." The captain's mustache twitched, which was as close to a smile as he ever got. Then he immediately sighed and looked as if another planet-size weight was put on his back. "I don't like this."

#

When the freighter came out of lightspeed, we called it to stand to and boarded for a quick inspection, which is not all that uncommon. Usually, when a ship is not destined to land on Pescha, the captain just glances over the manifest, asks a few questions and gives a few warnings.

As we boarded the ship, Captain Arkeesh straightened and frowned. Instead of his usual politeness, he growled his demand to see the manifest. When they showed him to the screen, he squinted at it and examined it as if it were a contract he was supposed to sign. He questioned the volume of the wine, the weight of the lumber, where they had come from, where they were going, whether the proper papers had been filed. When he came to the slaves, he grunted.

"Irians."

"That's right," said their captain impatiently. "We have twenty-five Irians."

"What does it mean by 'immature?'"

"They are all under sixteen standard years."

"How much under? Are they old enough to be away from their mothers?"

"It isn't really your business, is it? We have a treaty. You can't interfere with our trade."

"I want to take...."

At this point their communications officer interrupted. Our ship was calling Captain Arkeesh.

"Sir," came Kallos' voice. "We have a small private craft approaching. They have a serious medical emergency aboard."

"Have them dock at the port bay, and send the medic aboard," snapped Captain Arkeesh, as if he were annoyed at the interruption.

"You've seen our manifest," said the captain of the CommAt ship. "Perhaps you had better shove off and see to the emergency."

"My medical officer will see to that. I want to inspect your Irians."

"We have a right to carry our cargo through your space."

"It is my duty to see that they really are Irians. They could be prisoners of war."

"That's ridiculous."

"Is it?"

"It's harassment!"

They went on arguing for a few minutes, our captain saying whatever officious thing would most irritate their captain. The argument had the attention of everyone present. Then several armed, masked figures entered carrying laser rifles, it took everyone by surprise.

Their captain started to call for an alert, but one of the masked figures shoved a rifle in his chest, while another threatened the communications officer.

"You won't get away with this," declared Captain Arkeesh. "This is a violation of our neutrality!"

"Shut up," said the bandit leader. She addressed their captain. "You have wine aboard? And prime Irians?" Their captain didn't answer. "Don't worry. We'll find them."

She left one man to watch us. Captain Arkeesh grumbled about neutrality, and gave the evil eye to the man guarding us. The freighter's captain was giving the evil eye to Arkeesh.

"They came through your ship."

"They won't get away with an act of war in our space."

"They're pirates, you idiot!"

"Then we'll drown them."

When the "pirates" were through, they called their man from guarding us, and slipped off through our ship to their own. We started to move after them.

"Hurry up and shove off so we can give chase," snapped their captain.

"No!" said Captain Arkeesh, stopping to lecture him. "You stand to. We give chase."

"You've messed this up enough. I'm not leaving it to you."

"This is neutral space...."

"Your neutrality be damned!"

"...we will not let a Commerce Authority ship go armed after an enemy."

"Then shove the hell off and chase 'em yourself!"

Their captain had recognized that the argument was giving the pirates time to escape. Arkeesh couldn't justify staying any longer. We hurried without hurrying back to our ship and uncoupled from their hull. We sped ahead, as if in chase. The CommAt freighter, as we all expected, did not stay put.

"Down and to starboard," said the captain, as we came up to the bow of the now moving freighter.

"What?" said Kallos.

"Down and to starboard. Now."

Kallos took a deep breath and down we went, right across the freighter's bow. We could argue later that it was, at least, the right direction to chase the bandits. The freighter kept coming, and we slid along their hull with a jar and a screech.

"Get the hell out of our way," called their captain.

"Stay the hell put," our captain replied. Then he added to Kallos, "Stay in their way." We stayed in their way. Kallos did a masterful job of stupid piloting, while Captain Arkeesh argued with their captain. He aggravated the man enough that they stayed pretty much in our way too. Over all, I thought it was a convincing display of incompetence. The bandits made lightspeed, and the chase was over.

"They'll have us back on the water for this," said Kallos.

"I like the water," said the captain. "It's where a man belongs."

"They left us the wine, you know."

"What?"

"Twenty cases. They only took it so they'd look like pirates."

"That's all we need," said the captain, shaking his head. "If we are caught with that wine...."

"They'll think it's a bribe."

"They'll have us back in the water."

"Don't worry, captain," said Kallos. "We'll sneak it off before anybody knows anything."

"Well, it'll be good to be home with the women," I said. Everyone seemed to be in general agreement with that.

"We should have women in our guard," said Kallos. "Their captain seemed competent."

The captain was gazing at the spot on the viewscreen where the bandit ship was last seen.

"I hope so," he said. "Or that other one will get them killed."

I could see he was going to worry about that. He'd worry until he'd figured out a solution, which wasn't going to be likely, down on the water. On the other hand, with our Captain, you never know. That worries me a little.

======

In tomorrow's story notes, I'll talk about how I don't write science fiction. I write something else.

Update and Weekly Preview

I am currently out of town, visiting the east coast. This post was prepared earlier, but I'm sure my arm is feeling MUCH better and I am enjoying a nice lobstah roll, lots of wonderful Italian food and some Boston dim sum while you read this. And taking lots of pictures of rocks. And water. I'm sure it will all come in handy for a Misplaced Hero story.

I'll report on the trip on Thursday. In the meantime, here are the posts for this week....

• Sunday: "The Captain's Solution" a space opera, sort of
• Monday: Notes on "The Captain's Solution" - and why I don't write science fiction. (aka "This is not the Zamboni you're looking for.)
  
• Tuesday: Creating a Cover, pt 2 - Finding Inspiration
• Wednesday: Search Engines, eHow, and Why They Matter to Fiction Writers
• Thursday: Tales of my Travels
• Friday: Interview with Chris Truscott
• Saturday: Update and posting of SUMMER GOALS!
  

For a preview of my Summer goals: I'll be rewriting two novels for publication in fall, and I also hope to make a run at the Clarion Write-A-Thon from late June through mid-August. I'll tell you more about what I hope to accomplish on that Jun 11 update post.

See you in the funny papers.

Character Friday: Julia March

Julia March is going to tell us about Amber, a secondary character in "The Net of the Magician."

Camille: What made you create Amber?

Julia: Originally, Amber was meant to be a sort of tertiary villain--someone who was on the side of the bad guys, and a sort of mole within the good guys' territory. But I was having more and more fun with her, making her someone too self-centered to be flat-out on anybody's side but her own.
Camille: What makes her special to you?

Julia: She was fun to write about. Also I got to use her to show qualities of my protagonist. In particular, as Margaret's personality changes in response to her discoveries about magic, she starts to respect (grudgingly, maybe) Amber's strengths.

Camille: Do you have more planned for this character?

Julia: No. No sequels planned for this one. Although if you want to know what she's up to... I think that Amber is probably working in the fashion industry now.


The Net of the Magician is a contemporary fantasy about Margaret, an archivist in a university library who finds she must battle an evil magician to keep her job. Read more about it on Julia March's Blog.

Emotional State is Trajectory - Why You Might Un-Revise

To me, a story is a puzzle to be fit together carefully. This is especially true of a mystery, where you have a lot to weave in about what the audience doesn't know, and what's going to happen, and what's a lie and what's the truth -- but it's also true of other kinds of stories.

For this reason, I do most of my revision as I write. By the time it's complete, the pieces really do lock into place, and they cannot be easily moved. So rewriting pretty much involves fine tuning -- polishing up, expanding a little here, and editing there.

Alas, I have discovered that even my way of working doesn't prevent me from revising myself into trouble. I just do it earlier in the process. Sometimes you just have to trust that Heinlein knew what he's talking about. Sometimes you should not second-guess your instincts. Even when it's a different set of instincts that starts you rewriting.

I've been working on the middle sequence of The Man Who Did Too Much lately. It is a relatively simple development of a subplot, with a comic turn. That turn is important to the overall story of the characters, but as I originally blocked it in, the sequence didn't really advance the mystery plot much. It had to do with the interpersonal drama which was tangled up with the mystery -- a place where we learn some deep background and are introduced to hidden clues -- but it was mostly character development.

At one point I looked at it and thought: "Gee, this is an awful long sequence which doesn't exactly move the story forward in any obvious way. I need to pull it apart and shake it up. Introduce a "man with a gun" or something."

This is a very good instinct -- that a story has to move forward overtly. It's critical. I wasn't wrong to be concerned about this.

So I pulled the sequence apart. I unraveled it and started playing with ways to bring this back to the main story -- to weave in new threads. I moved everything. But then I realized that if I put that incident here, this other one wouldn't work, so I had to move that around. Drop this major thing , and play up that minor thing here instead. Piddle, twiddle and resolve.

It really required re-envisioning the whole sequence, but by golly it was new and exciting and it really worked! And I let it ripen a bit and worked on other things, but it kept getting better and better!

Sort of.

What actually happened was that I kept running across problems with finely tuned things I'd done in the original. If a certain incident happened later, it took all the punch out of a certain joke, and that joke was the energy that drove this other thing. So I kept coming up with those, and finding other ways to handle it. Taking extensive notes and scribbling out bits of new material. (Note: this was all happening in my head or in outline -- I had not actually accomplished pulling it all back together.)

I kept fixing things until it was way way way better than before, and then I got too busy and set it aside completely. And while I was away from it, everything quietly moved back into place.

Where it belonged.

My original instincts were absolutely right. I should have paid attention to the rest of that quote from 1776: Piddle, twiddle and resolve... not a damn thing do we solve.

That joke was critical to the movement of the story. That other incident had to happen when and where it did, and HOW it did. Moving it to later, and making it the "climax" of the sequence just made it the whole darn sequence feel contrived. Even though it seemed to support what happened next better, that wasn't the natural place for it to happen, so it didn't help the next bit. It just made it feel contrived too.

Heinlein was right. Sometimes we're just too smart for our own good.

On the other hand, Heinlein was wrong in this: In my efforts to stretch this rubber sequence around to fit a different mold, I created a lot of new pieces, and explored a few more things. I also figured out that I didn't need to change the flow of the action, or even the timing, but I did have to move around bits. Jokes, information, turns of conversation, even clues -- a dozen little things which support the action. This joke is not needed here, but if I put it there, it actually becomes a really good reason for the change in mood which happens there.

Without getting into any spoilers, here is one detail that may illustrate why revision was a problem:

George is drunk. Not plastered, but buzzed. And one of the things that happened with the misbegotten revision was that he sobered up to deal with some things in the middle. And that means the emotional trajectory of the sequence changes. Once he sobers up, he's done being drunk, and done with everything associated with it. It doesn't matter if it's logical for him to continue to drink and get drunk again later -- that's DONE dramatically speaking. Even if he doesn't actually sober up -- if he just acts more sober -- getting him drunk again means starting a new sequence. And a repetitive one at that.

It wasn't obvious, though, because the drunkenness was just a background bit. It wasn't overtly important to what was going on. It's like any character mood. Like being depressed or euphoric. Or afraid. Or brave.

Emotional state is trajectory.

A character's emotional state is everything. It affects not only how the character behaves, but how others behave toward that character. And when it changes, it changes everything -- you can't just go back and forth.

So if George being drunk is the trajectory of the scene, it's actually the front story. I don't need to interject more front story. I need him to get more drunk. Suddenly everything works when I do that. Even the new material -- it all gets woven neatly into the sequence where the headline is that George is drunk. (Furthermore I don't lose anything by it, because, contrary to appearances, George is NOT the brains of the outfit. Karla is.)

And, just as a general rule, letting the characters spin more out of control is a good thing, dramatically speaking. It pushes the envelope, and takes you places you might not have thought of.

True, it is also risky to go with instincts all the time. You can ramble off into nowhere, fly off into space. But that's why you do it early in the process. What I'm learning with this sequence is that the key is to respect the trajectory, and if it doesn't take you where you want, maybe you should take it further. Fiddle with it, but the key word there is with.

Otherwise you're fighting with the forces of nature.

Drawer Time - Change Yourself, Not The Story

It sometimes surprises me how many people don't know how to use drawer time effectively. I was going to say "how many writers" but I think this is a concept everyone could use, but few really understand how it works.

So first a definition:

"Drawer Time" or "Shelf Time" is when you set some work aside for a while, to "get away from it" before coming back with fresh eyes. Most people seem familiar with the concept, but they treat it more like a procrastination tool. Which it is not.

Furthermore, I've heard some people say, "Drawer time doesn't do me any good. It looks just the same when I pull it out as when I put it in."

Well, yeah. That's because nothing has changed since you put it in. My little fable about Alphabet Soup notwithstanding, let's be honest, the words are not going to get up and rearrange themselves while it's in the drawer.

What has to change is you.

On the simplest level, you may not have to change much. Get the story out of your short term memory, and you can look at it with a new perspective. Or if you are just worn out, you may just need a rest, and then you'll have the energy to look at the story with a more critical eye.

Many writers, though, have schooled themselves to hold onto words, and may not be able to come at the story fresh, even with a little drawer time. The story just stays in their heads. Maybe those authors are just unlucky, but I also wonder, sometimes, whether they made an effort to shake those words loose from their heads.

Sometimes you have to make a conscious effort to change yourself while the story is in the drawer.

You may have to DO something while that story is in the drawer. The question is, do what?

For a beginner, it's easy: write more stories, and keep writing more stories. Let them pile up for a while and don't look at any of them. It's a pretty basic principle: learn to write complete stories before you try to learn to rewrite. So write lots of them, good ones, bad ones, crazy ones. Get good at writing the way you get good at walking, jumping or running. Leave the finer dancing until you have control of your legs.

Every single story will change you, when you're a beginner. Put your first couple of stories in a drawer, write ten more, and your whole understanding of the universe will have changed.

The advanced writer will have a harder time making that kind of shift. It's still a part of your natural day-to-day activities to learn and change, but your understanding of the universe does not shift so quickly. Odds are, when you leave a story in a drawer for a week or so, you haven't changed much when you come back to it.

So, if you find simply leaving it doesn't do it for you, how do you get that really fresh perspective?

One solution is to make an effort flush your memory of it. Learn something new. Do something very challenging. Don't just write something else, write something very different. And if you find yourself still thinking about the drawer story, break the thought chain more forceably: write poetry, or a play, or advertising copy. Play music. Learn to tap dance.

If you're desperate, force yourself believe that it's not a drawer story. Make it a trunk story -- a story you've given up on. Put it in deep storage, assume it's lost to time, and get on with your life. If you get truly wrapped up in the next story, to the point where that drawer story doesn't seem so important, you just might trick your mind into letting go and giving you more perspective.

At that point. When you really have almost forgotten it, pull it out and look at it.

Does every story have to go through that kind of extreme drawer time? No, of course not. And in these modern times, you may not be able to afford to leave stories in a drawer for as long as you'd like anyway. Let's face it, publishing fast and sure is going to be a ticket to success.

But if you find a story needs perspective, and regular drawer time isn't doing it for you, you may need to push the issue once in a while. It helps you grow.

In that sense, drawer time doesn't just help the story, it helps the writer.

Besides, while it's in the drawer, you'll write more stuff, so it's all good. You'll just have that many more stories under your belt.

Creating a Cover: Amateur Illustration as a Brand

While I was taking a break from the blog, I had some Kismet on artwork. The events transpired thusly:

1.) Cover illustration was on my mind partly because of my report on my slow progress with the eBook Experiment. A part of what I said there was that I wasn't sure a slick cover would help some of my books, because the books are kind of my own quirky thing.

2.) I've been thinking about "branding" for the oddball indie writer a lot lately too. In some ways it's like making a genre out of yourself. And, of course, cover art is a major part of genre and identity.

Thurber's illo from The Male Animal

3.) I've been on a Thurber kick, because Olbermann has continued reading Thurber short stories on his website every Friday. Thurber, of course, was a New Yorker cartoonist who illustrated many of his own stories in his own pudgey style. His drawings are so closely associated with his work, that when something Thurber-esque happens in my life, I don't remember it as it happened, but rather as a series of Thurber drawings. (Now that's branding!)

So with these on my mind, and my own desire to do more doodling, I had the final bit of kismet:

4.) I went to write at Taco Bell -- where I often go to get out of the house -- and found the place full of students. I mean full. The line wound back into the parking lot and all around. Like fifty people outside and who knows how many inside. I don't know what was going on at MSU, but clearly I wasn't going to get any writing done at Taco Bell, so I turned around and headed for MacDonald's... which took me past Staples.

And that was when it all kind of came together. I wanted to sketch. No, I had this urgent need to sketch. I HAD to sketch NOW. It was like a part of my brain was signaling to me: this is a part of what you do. I had nothing to sketch on, so I stopped in and bought some packs of 5 x 8 unlined cards.

I will never be the kind of illustrator who can paint such brilliant work as Samuel Nelson Abbott, or N. C. Wyeth. But I think it might be worth my while to see about putting my stamp on things visually.

A few weeks ago I blogged out the beat-by-beat process of writing the opening for a novelette, The Misplaced Hero. I will probably continue that series as I work through that story (though I may hold back on posting it until I can have spoilers under control).

Now, it happens that the art I worked on that day was a cover for... The Misplaced Hero. Another bit of Kismet? It seems like a good example to continue the "process" posts.

So for the next few weeks I will be blogging every Tuesday about creating that cover -- starting next week with with Part 2 - finding a concept and style to emulate.

Story Notes: How Pies Are Like Writing

Yesterday's story, "The Pie Maker," is based on a traditional folk tale I heard a very long time ago. There are many versions, from Christian apocrypha, to pagan folktale.

But the basic story is this: a beggar comes to the door of a greedy old woman and asks for some food. The woman has just taken a pie from the oven, and doesn't want to give it to him. She makes him a smaller pie out of scraps, and makes him wait. When the pie comes out, it's bigger than the first. Since the woman is stingy and greedy, she doesn't want to give that one to a beggar either, so she makes an even smaller pie, which comes out of the oven even bigger. At which point the beggar reveals he is a god or spirit in disguise and he turns her into a woodpecker for being so selfish.

That story has haunted me all my life. Not because of the selfish old-woman, or the woodpecker or the justice done or anything like that. It's the pie. You try to make it small, and it comes out big. You try to make it smaller, and it comes out even BIGGER!

This is just like writing.

Honestly, if you've been doing any kind of creative work for very long, you've probably had this feeling that there is some perverse force inside your word processor or something. Whatever you try to do, it comes out different. And you know there is a lesson in there somewhere.

The other thing that resonated with me, especially once I got older and more wise to the world, is the repetition. The old woman was given multiple chances to get it right.

And this brings me back to Great, my great grandmother. I'm not that bad a making a pie, but Great made more pies in a single day than I have made in a lifetime. My grandmother could literally just throw together a pie from feel, no measurements, no care. Always wonderful. Because she, like her mother, did it every day of her life, and multiple times a day. Neither one of them needed to go to culinary school.

I will never make a pie which compares to either of them.

I have tried to tell that story many times, in many forms, and it never comes out like I intend it to.

But if I keep it up, I will eventually make stories like they made pies.

Think about it.

"The Pie Maker" - a fable for writers

For the Sunday Story this week, I give you "The Pie Maker," a new fable which I have been trying to write for ages, but it keeps coming out different from my expectations....

=====================

The Pie Maker
by Camille LaGuire

ANNETTE'S GREAT GRANDMOTHER had been the greatest pie maker in the county. And her daughter, Annette's grandmother, was the second greatest. Their pies were legend, not only for their quality and tastiness, but for the sheer quantity. They had baked for lumberjack camps, and in busy restaurants, and for church events and for charities. Pie after pie, beloved of all.

Annette herself, though, was the youngest of many in her generation, and she had been raised in a modern kitchen by an in-law mother who never baked. Her great grandmother had died when she was just a baby, and though grandma also baked great pies, bad luck and poor health took her too, and Annette was left with mostly stories, and a memory of the sharp and sweet taste and the tender flake of crust.

Every year there was a charity event back in grandma's home town. It included a pie contest which was in honor of Annette's great grandmother. They always invited Annette to join the festivities, and enter a pie. They even offered her the use of the church kitchen, because she was coming from so far out of town.

Up until now, Annette had refused in embarrassment that she couldn't bake a pie.

It wasn't that she hadn't tried. Frankly, Annette was determined to recapture the glory of the family honor. She took classes, and had all sorts of baking books. Every week, she worked very hard to bake a perfect pie. She generally failed to recapture the flavor and texture she remembered of grandma's pies, but she knew she was getting better.

Then one day, going through some old letters, she found her great grandmother's recipe for pie crust. Just amounts, no instructions. It called for so little water, Annette could hardly believe it would hold together. But there is was, THE original recipe. It was like magic. It even smelled a little of coffee and lard -- the predominant aroma of grandma's kitchen.

Here it was only one week until the competition, and now she had great grandma's recipe! That was kismet. She could reclaim the family honor!

The night before the contest, she gathered her groceries -- the finest apples, and good pastry flour and real lard -- and picked up the key to the church kitchen. She brought a scale and measured the flour to the gram, and did the same with the lard. She stuck the lard in the freezer to make sure it would be good and cold and prepared ice water for mixing.

When she cut the lard into the flour, and made sure she cut it to the exact size of peas. Then she spooned in the very cold water, a teaspoon at a time.... and found it was not enough to hold the dough together. With a sigh, she added a bit more, until it was just barely enough to hold together. It was still less water than she had ever used before.

The dough broke when she rolled it out, and crumbled when she assembled the pie. She was afraid to handle it too much, because that would make it tough. Still she managed to get the pie together, and she stuck it in the oven. She set to cleaning up while it baked, and suddenly realized someone else had come into the room.

An old woman stood near the door with a basket full of flowers. Annette jumped back. Did she forget to lock the door behind her when she came in?

The woman acted like she belonged there, though. She set the basket down on a bench and fussed at it a bit. She was wearing an old-fashioned flowered dress, which was worn and a bit stained, maybe from gardening.

"Oh, hello," said Annette, feeling awkward.

The old woman just looked over and said "Hmmmf." Now Annette was sure she did belong there. Church ladies can put so much disapproval into a little sound.

"I have permission to use the kitchen tonight," said Annette firmly. She meant to claim her right to be in the kitchen alone, but somehow she felt as if she were merely excusing herself. The old woman looked critically at the scraps of dough on the counter. "I'm just cleaning up!" said Annette.

She began to gather the scraps, and the old woman came over to look at what she was doing, as though speaking were an invitation.

"You're Mina's granddaughter, aren't you?"

"You knew my grandmother?"

"I knew her very well."

The old woman stood back and waited, looking sternly as though Annette were forgetting something important. Annette looked around and wiped her hands on her apron. The old woman sighed.

"You'd better check on that pie," she finally prompted.

"Oh, I just put it in. It's got at least a half...."

The timer on the oven rang. Annette realized she must have set it wrong. Oh, no. How long had it been? How much longer should she leave it in? She hated things to be inexact. Baking pastry was soo fussy. She'd get it wrong.... She peeked in the oven, and by golly the pie was already golden brown and done!

She pulled it out, and though it was a little lumpy and lopsided, it smelled wonderful. Annette set it on the rack and the old woman scowled at it.

"Well, looks aren't everything, and it smells good. May I have a piece?"

"What?" Annette couldn't believe the old woman's gall. "It's for the contest tomorrow."

"Really," said the old woman, looking at it doubtfully. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure."

"Hmmm," said the old woman. "I'm hungry. I would like a piece, please."

Maybe this woman wasn't a church lady after all. Maybe she was just a bag lady who was good at pretending she belonged. Annette looked a little closer, and she noticed that the dress was faded, and had been neatly mended. Should she call someone? Or....

The old woman looked at her expectantly. And Annette recalled herself to the fact that it was a charity event. And her grandmother never would have turned away a hungry person. But she couldn't give away her good pie. Especially not to a woman who might be conning her.

"It's too big for one person," said Annette. "Why don't I make a smaller pie, just for you. I've got all this crust left, and some apples."

"All right," said the old woman, and she settled down to wait. on the bench by the kitchen door with her basket for flowers.

Annette found a slightly smaller pie tin and quickly rolled out the remaining crust and mixed up some apples and seasonings and popped the small pie in the oven. The old woman fiddled with her flowers and waited, and Annette started to clean up... and the timer on the oven went off. Almost instantly.

She peeked in, and the pie was golden. Was it a convection oven? She grabbed her pot holders and pulled out the pie.

When she set it on the rack, she paused to stare. It was bigger than the previous one. And it was nicer. She looked from one pie to the other, and blinked. The old woman got up and looked at the pie.

"Well, this one looks better," said the old woman, she she picked up a fork.

"No!" said Annette. "This is the pie for the contest. You can have the other. It's cool enough to eat by now anyway."

"I'm not eating that," said the old woman. "It's too big for me, you said."

"But this one's bigger."

"True," said the old woman. "I'd never be able to eat either of them. But I'm awfully hungry, so I guess I'll try."

She reached for the second pie, the nicer one, and Annette pulled it away.

"No, I've got a little more lard and more apples--"

"Good idea," said the old woman. "Why not make a little pie this time, rather than one fit for a lumberjack?"

"But I did make a little pie," Annette protested.

The old woman looked expectant, and so Annette sighed and grabbed her measuring cup and made a half batch of crust. She didn't weigh it this time, because she figured the old woman would get what she deserved for being so pushy. She just did a rough measure and cut it in fast and sloppy, and threw in enough water to hold it together. She rolled it out and threw in the filling and stuck it in the oven.

The timer bell rang almost instantly. The pie she pulled out of the oven was aromatic, golden... and bigger than either of the others.

"That's big enough for a pair of farmhands!" cried the old woman. "I thought you were going to make a small pie."

"I did!" said Annette. Something was very wrong with that oven. It was enchanted, or haunted. And the pie was beautiful. The old woman hovered over it with a fork, and Annette pulled it away. This one would definitely be better for the competition.

"I'll make you a pie for you!" she declared. And she wasn't going to be defeated by an enchanted oven either. She glared at the appliance and then threw together more crust. She found a stack of pot pie tins in the cupboard and made a pie as small as she could manage.

It came out bigger. So she tried again, and the next came out even bigger.

She kept trying until she came to the last of the pot pie tins, and that one came out huge. Enough to feed a football team.

"You'd better make another," said the old woman. "I can't possibly eat all that."

Annette let out a scream and this time she didn't even measure at all. She just scooped the lard into some flour and cut it together until it looked right, and sprinkled in the water. She pulled together the dough and rolled it out and put it in a tiny tart tin. She threw that in the oven and set the timer.

She leaned against the oven door and glared at the old woman, and as expected the timer went off quickly.

And this time she pulled out... a tart. The old woman got up and examined it.

"Now that looks tasty," she said. And she was right. The pie this time was well formed -- oh, not perfect like a pie press, but it was beautiful in an irregular hand-made way. The old woman picked it up, not waiting for it to cool. She glanced over her shoulder at the left-over crust on the counter. "You ought to make one more for the sale tomorrow. You've got all that crust."

Annette saw that she had just enough to make one more pie -- a regular sized one. There were just enough apples left in her bag, so she rolled out the crust and made yet one more pie. This time, she noticed that the pie rolled more easily, or maybe it was that she had been rolling out so much of it, that she was better at it. She found she wasn't afraid of handling it too much, either. She was used to the feel of the dough by now and she slipped the crust into the tin easily. Then she filled it, and laid on the top crust. As she fluted the edges her fingers did not fumble.

She put the pie in the oven and set the timer, and then sat down. She was so exhausted, she started to doze off.

And then the timer went off. She jumped up, not sure of how long it had been, and grabbed the oven mitts.

The pie in the oven was normal sized and beautiful. It was the best pie she'd ever seen. She pulled it out and turned to show the old woman, but the old woman was gone. She'd only left a small tart tin and a fork on the bench. Annette set the pie on the rack and looked around.

It wasn't a dream, at least not all of it. The kitchen was filled with pies, but they were all normal sized pies.

After a moment Annette heard some footsteps outside and she went to see if the old woman was there. It turned out to be three ladies from the event's organizing committee. They just stopped by to see how she was doing.

When they entered they looked around in amazement.

"Just like your grandmother!" said one.

"No, like her mother!" said another, the eldest of the three. "There must be a dozen pies here. These will auction off nicely. These are for the charity auction, aren't they?"

"Um, yes," said Annette. "I guess I got carried away making pies."

This eldest woman shook her head, and circled to look at the pies. She closed her eyes and sniffed the aroma.

"This is like the old days," she said. "You know, I used to help your great grandmother make pies for the fair. A very long time ago. But I can still see her in that old flowered work dress. Rolling and mixing and pinching that dough. Nobody ever made as many pies as she did. Seeing these here, well, it's like she's still haunting the place!"

You don't know how true that is, thought Annette.

=================

I'll tell you more about the writing of this story tomorrow in the Monday Story Notes.

You can read more of my fantasy fiction in The Bellhound, Four Tales of Modern Magic at all Amazon Kindle Stores: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE. (If you hurry, you might still find it offered for free at Amazon -- though that should cange to 99 cents soon.) As well as at other ebook retailers: Smashwords, Barnes and Nobel, Apple iBookstore, Nook, and Sony.

Proof of Proofs! (My book is here!)

In the time honored tradition (which goes back at least six months or more) of Pets and Proof Copies.....

I present to you the very first paper copy of HAVE GUN, WILL PLAY! Yee ha!

Here is Max Sparkler and Mr. Duckie modeling it for me. I will be out of town, so I won't be able to finish any corrections and approve the final version until after I get back.

But it's SOOOO COOOOLLLLL. I wasn't thinking of print when I chose the colors and everything, but I guess all those years as a print operator have paid off, because it all came out really well.


Release date should be mid June (if all goes well). I'll announce when I get the darn thing checked over.

Update and Weekly Preview

I started to make some progress, but I overdid it and my shoulder is back to killing me after typing maybe 100 words at a time. So I'm back to reading and making notes and maybe rewriting a little.

So I am incredibly depressed and frustrated over the delay in finishing The Man Who Did Too Much. I did, however, make some great progress overall, as I realized that I needed to restore the middle sequence to my original vision. I call it "un-revision" and before I screwed up my shoulder again, I wrote a blog post about it, which you'll see Thursday.

But other than some editing I have yet to do on "The Pie Maker," the rest of this week's posts were done ahead.

I'm rearranging the weekly pattern for this summer. My schedule had changed, but I think it also may work better for the blog. Saturdays will now be update days. The character interview will be on Fridays.

And I'm introducing a new feature: "Creating a Cover" will be a once a week (Tuesdays) post which follows the development and creation of a cover for The Misplaced Hero. It will cover reasons, research and inspirations, as well as the nitty gritty of creating it in Photoshop.

Okay it took two sessions to type that, so let's get on with this week's posting schedule. (NOTE: I will be out of town much of next week. We can only hope that will be good for my shoulder.)

• Sunday: "The Pie Maker" Another of my fables for writers.
• Monday: Notes on "The Pie Maker" - and the irony of writing the story. (Everything is Meta these days.)
• Tuesday: Creating a Cover, pt 1 - thinking about using my own art as a part of my brand.
• Wednesday: Drawer Time - why it's not about the story, but about YOU.
  
• Thursday: Un-Revision - Making a sequence work by realizing... Emotional State is Trajectory
• Friday: Character Friday with Julia March. A very short but sweet interview about a secondary villain with a will of her own.

See you in the funny papers!