A shout-out to my childhood town:

Outside of Chicago, the scenery of what the mapmakers in Grand Marais called The Jungle seemed no different than the rural areas of North Ontario or Minnesota. The land was flatter, and in the March weather, the overgrowth of grasses just started to show green through last year’s dried stalks, and the trees in the distance didn’t glow with green buds yet. The farmland that would have spread for miles in a farm economy sat fallow and grey, drought and the collapse of factory farming ending the land’s purpose to the economy. The highway, with its occasional potholes and washboards, was no different than those I had seen North. 

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px ‘Courier New’}

I turned off the road at a ragged road sign that announced a town with a preposterously French name, hoping to hear some stories there. At the bottom of a graceful hill, I heard the sound of a shotgun close by, a warning shot. I spun the truck around and headed back up the hill. Nobody had shot at me in Chicago proper, but here in the rural Midwest, someone shot at me. 

*******
Writing that was almost more fun than killing off my ex-husband in Gaia’s Hands. 

Thank you, friends, for reading. Now to go write a few thousand words.

I’m still going — 3000 words today

I made it through my 3000 word goal, although I am seriously not feeling well today. (I also made it to work). The fun today was writing in a bit of urban shamanism:

The collective had offered me a place on the floor of the Commons building, which I took with gratitude. I suspected my days sleeping in a bed would be over, and I suspected that I would sleep in the cab of my truck after I left this place.

I laid out my bedroll, using my backpack as my pillow as always. The moment I laid down and closed my eyes, a voice behind me, low and gravelly, said, “Tina and I need to talk to you outside.” I turned around and saw some of the few white people from dinner, a man of about average height with long, wavy greying hair and goatee; and a diminutive blonde woman, all dimples.

“Okay,” I queried. “What’s the reason for the secret meeting?”

“You looked really freaked out back there. During dinner.” He raised his eyebrows, and I noted that he looked much like the Asian Boys in Duluth, only with stunning hair they wouldn’t have sported.

“Well, David talked to me about hearing voices in my head. I got uncomfortable.” The shorter woman shot me a sympathetic look.

“David’s not crazy,” the man shook his head. “Streetwise, like me, but not crazy. You might want to listen to him.”

I knew I should be taking these notes down in my head, or in my notebook. The collective had a tendency toward superstition – the tree that protected, the wise crazy person — but that wasn’t the story I looked for.

“So who are you?” I asked “And why are you here?”

“I’m Allan Chang, and I should tell you I’m a shaman so some of this makes sense. This is my partner, Celestine Eisner.” Celestine, who looked about twenty, waved in acknowledgment.

“A shaman. How does that fit into the collective?” Most self-identified shamans in the post-Industrial era did not come from a culture that believed in shamans, and the likelihood was that they used mysticism to compensate for being powerless.

“They think it’s strange, because they’re not used to Asians hearing spirits.” He grinned, a wolfish grin that for a moment made me believe in totems.

“So, what’s our business tonight?” I hoped it was a story of the Alvar, because I hadn’t gotten my quota for the day.

“We need to consult the subway oracle.” Oracles in subways? That was a new one to me; previous to this, I had thought the conjunction of fortune-telling and technology had been limited to tarot readings and Miss Cleo.

“And you need a ride?” I asked, realizing that my sleep time would be shortened.

“No. By we, I mean you need to consult the subway oracle.” Allan emphasized. “I can feel the agitation David is causing you.”

********
Incidentally, Allan and Celestine show up in a couple of earlier books. Celestine, it turns out, has something in common with the protagonist of this story.

A short excerpt — I’m on a roll on a difficult part

I have a couple hours to write before work today, and I want to get moving, because my mind is playing with a difficult part/concept: What if your first memory is of being full-grown, but totally bewildered by your surroundings:

The faded man sitting next to me introduced himself as David Burris, Valor’s son and Justice’s brother. It seemed odd to me that he looked as if he could be Valor’s father, not vice versa. Then he asked a question, a nonsequitur that nonetheless resonated more than a stranger’s question should have:

“What’s your first childhood memory?” he asked, his gaze searing into me.

My mind spun in panic — I had no childhood memories. I couldn’t get to them. The first thing I remembered in my life was a dream of standing up in my parents’ living room, in the old house where they used to live before they disappeared from society. Durant — my father — wasn’t there, but that wasn’t surprising; I had always known he came into my life later. Three people sat in the room: my mother; plump and curly-haired; a man, tall with long black hair and implacable eyes; and another woman, short and slender, smiling like a grandmother. My mother and the man were bundled up in bathrobes and blankets like they’d just come in from the cold. I couldn’t understand. I stumbled away.

“Come here,” the dark-haired woman said, with a curious gesture of her — I looked down at what I quickly learned was my hand. “Let me look at you.”  

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 14.0px ‘Courier New’}

I stepped backward. “Here” came with the woman’s gesture toward herself. “You” — I guess that meant me. 

*******
So this is obviously written in first person, and the person is a Nephilim but doesn’t know it. Nephilim are born full-grown and biologically learn very, very quickly such that in a week, she understands everything in that room and shows proficiency. But, at the moment she describes in the memory, she knows literally nothing. So I have to write the scene dividing her observations into two parts: things she can describe and understand at the time of reflection, and things recalled at that exact moment. Tough, huh?

Thanks for reading, friends.

Rituals and word counts.

Thank you for keeping up, friends! I made the 20,000 mark today after swearing to write 3,000 words today despite not feeling well. I had time to write during my lunch hour, so I decided to stay on the goal. Specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, time-bound.

Honestly, I’m not a horribly organized person who drives toward goals except at NaNo time. I meander most of the year, play with words, set soft goals. NaNo time is different — it’s as NaNo is a ritual I satisfy yearly to belong to my tribe of creatives. It’s like my version of an all-night drumming circle at Midsummer or my First Snow ritual that I no longer hold because nobody’s calendars are clear on that random November night when we get our first inch of snow.

I have to go to class now — don’t tell anyone.

Do you want to read an excerpt tonight? Please let me know!

An Excerpt: A Story about Stories

Day 6 of NaNoWriMo, and I want to get at least 2000 words in before I have to go to work, because it’s a long day and I need to get started soon. I’m at 17,000 words, up 7.000 words, so if I don’t get all the words in today, I’m okay. 

An excerpt (remember this is rough draft time). In effect, what I’m writing is a story about a story:

As I drove down the highway, I thought about Hakeem’s and Bosco’s words — I couldn’t help but laugh at those two young men wanting to — what? Offer themselves up as husbands? Be my protectors? I seldom picked up on those kinds of currents. As role models, my parents gave me the gift of watching their near-perfect relationship, perfect except for my father’s belief that my mother kept a secret he couldn’t crack. However, I didn’t seem to fall for the occasional men who took me out for coffee and complimented me. I literally didn’t understand the process of “I take you out for dinner, you have sex with me.” 

From there, I thought about Sonya’s words. “If you’re looking for the Alvar, you’ll have to look in the worst places.” Wasn’t that always the case with fairy tales? The Hobbits had to throw the One Ring into Mount Doom, a raging volcano. Little Red Riding Hood had to go through a dark forest and visit the wolf to pass through menarche, symbolized by the red hood. Would my quest follow the parameters of the Hero’s Quest?

I was not a hero. I was an academic without a job and without any useful skills except the ability to crack Schmidt locks — and other locks, albeit with the help of a lock pick. I was an anthropologist searching for the inevitable, unpublishable study, a study of the origins of a mythical people. If the Alvar actually existed, what would I do if I found them? If they didn’t exist and I found the human origin of the tale as if it was an urban legend, where would I publish my findings?

Did I chase the legend simply because my mother once told it to me in a bedtime story? 

I pulled myself back to reality and saw a roadblock up ahead, just before Eau Claire.  I slammed on my brakes, nearly skidding as I approached the barricade with three men, all armed with semiautomatic machine guns. When one of them walked up to me, his hand on the strap of the gun slung over his shoulder, I rolled down my window, hands shaking. “What seems to be the trouble?” I asked, trying to school my voice into calmness.

“Your papers,” the man, with the hard voice and face of the military, held out his hand.

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 18.0px; font: 14.0px ‘Courier New’}

Of course I had identity papers. My parents had warned me that, if I had to bug out of town, that I needed at least a copy of my birth certificate and my drivers’ license. I had not been asked for them before this moment, and I wondered if I had hit a border to a newly formed country.

*******
May you find wonder in your day.

PS: The Words Are Important

I had just enough words left in my mind for a poem:

Just words,
all I have to offer
in the darkling storm.

You, my stranger,
read the words as rain
from a storm you cannot touch.

To you, the story
is that you found the words
when no one else noticed,

the words only important
when they crawled into you,
and became fluttering birds.

Big Audacious Goal part 2

I told myself I wouldn’t post today until after I got my other 4000 words written for the weekend. It’s 10:40 AM Chicago time, and I’ve completed my word assignment. Yippee! Yahoo! Oh Boy! Time to rest!

As I mentioned yesterday, writing 4000 words was onerous. It felt like crawling down the street with three dead moose tied to my waist and the goal of reaching Pumpkin Center ten miles down the road. Without knee pads. And the moose has been dead for a while.

I don’t know why yesterday was so difficult — except that I had put up a psychological barrier of writing 1000 words a day more than I’d been writing. Today, I woke up knowing that I had written 4000 words the day before, so I didn’t feel the burden.

I am not writing any more today. As it is, I dream nothing but this book for the moment.

Thanks for following me.

Big Audacious Goal reached for today.

Officially at 13,000 words (give or take a few!) One quarter of the way through!

*******

Afterward, I dreamed that my dad yelled that I had written the story all wrong and that the aftermath of the collapse on Duluth, MN would look nothing like I’d written it. I fled to the bathroom, and tried to put makeup on for some high school banquet I was about to be late for. I had put on skin correctors of different colors for different parts of my face, except they were glossy and glittery in patriotic red and blue and would not smooth in.

I walked into my room, and clicked the mouse on my computer, reading the notes I had taken when I interviewed a Texas secessionist for my story. I remembered standing on the loading dock as he stood there, semiautomatic rifle slung across his back, explaining that the patriots needed to get the country back from the foreigners. I wrote down the words, sickened.

I tried to dress as quickly as possible, sensing that I would never arrive at the banquet that I would be honored at.

I woke up, reminding myself that the words are important and wondering if I was ever going to get them out in an order that would compel people to read them.

Update on Big Audacious Goals

First 2000 words today — done.

Second 2000 words — OMG, I’m never going to make it! (*scrolls through map*) Where is she going to cross the Canadian border at, International Falls or Fort Frances? When is she going to start noticing the changes in US culture since the collapse? Why the HELL is she going straight into the Jungle? My brain HURTS!

I guess it’s going ok.

Quick post — Big Audacious Goals

Every now and then, it’s good to have a Big Audacious Goal, but only if you have a Big Audacious Plan to go with it. Goals without plans are called … wishes. And I’d rather fail at a goal and learn from the failure than wish about it for the rest of my life.

Goals should be SMART, according to the planning experts. That stands for Specific, Manageable, Action-oriented, Reasonable, and Time-bound.  Writing plans can be as elaborate as an outline that includes every chapter of every scene, or as simple as “I will spend two hours in the morning typing whatever comes out.” Either works, because in their own ways, they’re Specific, Manageable, Action-Oriented, Reasonable, and Time-Based.
Big Audacious Goals have those parameters as well, but also stretch our definition of Reasonable. NaNoWriMo, for example, sets a Big Audacious Goal of 50,000 words in a month. That’s reasonable at 1,667 words a day, or approximately 2-3 hours a day, but it’s more than a new participant has likely ever written in a day, which makes it a BAG. 
My Big Audacious Goal for this weekend will be to write 4000-word days today and tomorrow. The amount is very specific, and I’ll know when I reach it. It’s manageable on a weekend for someone like me who hasn’t gotten anything else planned and whose husband will be putting on a big pot of 13-bean-soup on the stove. The goal is action-oriented — write and write and write. Although that’s a lot of words, I have written 3000 words/day for the last three despite having to go to work, so it’s a reasonable stretch goal. And it’s time-based — 4000 words today, 4000 words tomorrow.
I might not make it. It won’t be the end of the world if I do. But I’m motivated by the way this 30-year-old idea is turning out, and an 8000-word weekend will get me 1/3 of the way toward the goal in 5 days! 
Wish me luck!