Progress and Struggle

Sorry I didn’t write yesterday, but I was busy getting a good stream of writing done. I’m actually about 2-3000 words from the end of Prodigies, doing the wrap-up and solidifying a few surprises I added in. I can’t believe I’m getting done with this!

My next steps are:

Waking up my beta-readers for Mythos and see if they’re having trouble starting the document or it’s just life stuff keeping them from reading.
Finishing Hearts are Mountains
Revising Prodigies and Hearts are Mountains
Find more beta-readers
Keep myself from falling into an ugly cycle

More on the ugly cycle. I’m struggling in the aftermath of Anthony Bourdain’s suicide. I think it’s hitting me, even though I didn’t know him personally, but because I share his philosophy of experiencing cultures through their foods. I don’t have the ability to travel as much as he did, but I still let that desire for adventures with people and hospitality to guide my steps.

I’m also struggling with it because I’ve had times where I have had suicidal ideations, those moments where I consider dying as the only way to get rid of an avalanche of pain. The surprising thing is that these moments don’t often happen in a depressive state. They’re just as likely to happen when there’s a triggering event that results in a downward spiral of emotion. During these times, I actually try to talk myself into a suicidal state out of habit, choosing the darkest and most miserable things to think about. The typical dark thoughts go as follows:

I’m not good enough
I’m too weird
Nobody loves me/cares about me.

These are hard to argue against, because they’re opinion and not fact. Depending on one’s yardsticks, my viewpoint is just as legit as an outsider’s, and my proofs are just as valid as someone else’s. Fighting these rationally only drives me further down the hole.

What I have to remember is that these feelings come from a place deep inside me, where my child-self hides and needs to know that she is loved no matter what. And she wants to test it and make it real, because she’s been disappointed too many times.

I love her and will stay with her no matter what. I will not threaten to leave her if she’s not perfect, or if she’s a bit embarrassing. I will always be here for her no matter if she panics, or she snaps at me or argues with me.

I will not let her fall.

An excerpt from my work in progress

As we stepped outside into the night, I saw a group of young men standing in the yard, lit only by the odd lantern. I noted that Hakeem’s colleagues from the alliance wore gang colors — in fact, they wore the colors of opposing gangs, one group largely Latino and one Asian. They regarded each other with a wary cordiality, and I wondered if this alliance could blow up into violence at a moment’s notice.

The heads of each group — one wearing a grey bandana tied around his upper arm, one a red bandana tied around the opposite arm, like their followers — came up to shake my hand. “I hear you’re a Schmidt,” the Asian man with short-buzzed hair and acne scars squinted shrewdly at me. “I have uses for a Schmidt.”

“I’m sorry,” I said very politely — and very uneasily. “I have a quest I’d like to go on.”

“We could make it worth your while,” said the babyfaced Latino leader with a tattoo of a teardrop under his eye — a sign he had done time in prison or even killed someone.

“I’m really sorry. Part of me would love to, but I’m haunted by a story.” I felt nervy telling this to a gang leader, but I boosted my bravado with the reminder I had cheated death once already.

“Let’s tell stories later. I might have one you’d like,” the Asian leader shrugged.

I inwardly sighed in relief, because I was likely surrounded by more firepower than I’d been in the hostage situation.

We moved, with myself the only one not in black, toward the looming refinery. I probably should have been to reduce my visibility in the night. “Break up,” each gang leader whispered to his crew, “two by two.” I stuck with Hakeem, the broker, who looked almost undistinguishable in his faded black hoodie. We drifted, two by two, by differing paths, toward a door in the back.

When I arrived at the door, I expected to see the glow that distinguished a Schmidt 4000 on battery power. I saw none. Rushing to the lock, I realized that the battery had been stolen. I tugged at the handle dumbly, feeling the others’ eyes boring into my back. Of course, the handle didn’t give, because a Schmidt lock with a stolen battery stayed in the locked position.

Frantically, I put together all I knew about Schmidt locks from my father. When a battery died in the lock position — ahh, that was it. The wafer drive could be used as an override key, a secret perhaps only I knew. I reached up my sleeve for the —

No, I couldn’t do that. Any one of the people in the huddle around me could kill me for what I had tucked up my sleeve. They were gang members who were heavily armed, and I was a woman whose only weapon was a shotgun with birdshot back in my truck.

I took a deep breath. “Are you people of honor?”

An anonymous voice near the back snarled, “Those are fighting words — “

Hakeem jumped in. “The lady has to keep her trade secrets. She’s a Schmidt — “

“I already gave you that secret,” I told the leaders. “You’re the only ones in the world who know I’m a Schmidt. That gives both of us a responsibility. On my side, I will have to answer any call of yours I can if it’s a life-or-death matter with that lock. Deal?”

“We already made that deal with you,” the Latino leader, stocky with curly hair half buzzed, half-curly, intoned.

“This other secret, though, this trade secret, is deadly. It could get me killed if you know, and it could get you killed if you know. It’s Pandora’s box — you can’t put the secret back in. The secret’s like a deadly virus — if you can’t keep it contained, it will kill you.” I hoped to God — mine, Hakeem’s, or anyone’s — that they would listen, because all that I said was in some sense true.

“Can you get that door open with it?” The Asian leader spoke.

“Yes, but everyone has to turn their backs, so they don’t see what I have.” Everyone turned their backs. “Ok — “ I said before turning to the lock, and saw Hakeem turn slightly —

“Hakeem, no,” I yelled. One of the red bandanaed men turned and clocked him. Hakeem spun to the ground.

“Fair shot,” Hakeem groaned, straggling upward. Everyone again turned their back to me.

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I had one frightening moment when the first pass of the wafer didn’t click the lock open. Then I took a deep breath, flipped the wafer — and the locks snicked open.

An excerpt (again)

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NaNo writing makes for a very rough draft. I look at this and see that it’s a bit more than a plot outline, but not much more. You can’t tell from this that Archetypes are beautiful but not imaginative, that their decor is very austere a a result — think Shaker or Scandinavian design — or that the only wall hanging is a representation of the community logo — which was designed and created somewhere else.

You don’t know that Daniel is having to process that the woman he brought to the collective has probably introduced the biggest danger to the collective, and that his son tried to kill her.

This is why revision exists.

************

Mari called the meeting to order. I noticed, for the first time, that someone had set up a short platform made in the same blond wood as the floor. Mari and Luke and William sat crosslegged on rugs on the platform, looking more austere and more unsettling than they had seemed before.

Mari stood up briefly, projecting her usual benevolence, which did not calm me down at all. “We have an emergent situation, one which involves the events that exiled Jude from Hearts are Mountains, Jude’s questions about Annie’s identity, and the whereabouts of Jude after he left us. Other revelations will likely be revealed that cannot be discussed outside of this space. I would like Annie to come up here and tell the story of how she came here.”

I stood up, feeling my legs wobble. Mari motioned me up to the front where I stood, as she sat down. “Do you mind if I ask you questions? You don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to.”

I realized that if I left any questions unanswered, I would look suspicious to the Archetypes gathered here, and I realized that I didn’t want them to mistrust me. I wanted their regard.

“Annie, can you tell us your name and background?” Mari inquired.

Oh, we’re playing hardball here, I thought.

“The name I was given when I was — engendered …” I began, and I watched eyebrows go up with the words I carefully chose, “I was named Anna Mîr Johnson, and after my mother married Arthur Schmidt, my identity papers were changed to name me Anna Mîr Schmidt. I remember that well now, and I realize this man — “ I waved toward Luke — “created papers for me at my — engendering — and at the time Arthur Schmidt claimed me as his daughter. My birth father was William Morris — “ I waved a hand toward William — “but he left me the day I was engendered. I’m still trying to figure out what engendering entails.”

“This makes you Nephilim,” Kirsten called out, petting one of her clowder of cats.

“Yes, I’ve been told I’m a Nephilim. I’m trying to get up to speed on that, because until today I assumed I was human with a really poor memory of my childhood.”

“Some of us have lived like that,” William breathed. “My parents, Lilith and the Kiowa Archetype, engendered me and left me with the Kiowa to be a brother to them. They didn’t, however, tell me I would outlive those brothers by hundreds of years. It caused me some trouble. If Mari hadn’t found me, I would still think I was human.”

“We’ve been taking Lilly to task since we found you,” Luke reminded William. “All of us have made mistakes, even though we are not human.”

“Anna,” Mari interrupted, “can you explain to us who Arthur Schmidt was personally and professionally?”

I took a deep breath. The stocky, balding man I had called father, Arthur Schmidt, had been my favorite human being on earth — and I realized how accurate the phrase was in this case. “Arthur Schmidt was, for all intents and purposes, my father. I met him two months after I was engendered, and he did not challenge my mother’s cover story that I was my mother’s distant cousin who had suffered from a severe amnesia that had taken my childhood from me. My dad took it upon himself to pull me out of my shell by teaching me about puzzles, cryptograms, and riddles. He was a cryptographer. You would not have known of his work for the government, where he placed his most sophisticated systems. You might have, if you were a burglar, cursed Arthur Schmidt, because his locks were, for all intents and purposes, invincible.”

“How much do you know about his locks, Anna?” Luke asked, rubbing his chin.

“I know everything,” I breathed. I saw everyone in the group I faced — Ivan, Summer, Daniel — study me with interest. “I have his codebooks and his lockbox here in my backpack,” I indicated the pack I had carried up with me. “I have his override, which works as a key and as a code simultaneously. I’m the only person in the world who can currently arm and disarm a Schmidt lock.”

The room was perfectly quiet; I wondered what the others thought. I spoke again: “Would that be enough for someone to try to kill me? Would it be enough for someone to rescue me from certain death? To have me followed? To put a bounty on me?”

Luke uttered one word: “Yes.”

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I then understood why my situation concerned the collective. They lived in danger by merely sheltering me.

An excerpt — and the home stretch.

I am in the home stretch with 4000 words left. I might hit the goal today; I might not. I will keep writing till at least the end of the month; it’s possible if I keep this rate up I’ll be close to the end of the book. I doubt I will, however — I’m traveling for a writers’ retreat over (American) Thanksgiving.

Here’s an excerpt from yesterday (really rough). Our protagonist, Annie Smith, has accepted an invitation to the intentional community Hearts are Mountains, built in northern Nevada in the Owyhee Desert, for fuel and water. There are a few mysteries that Annie doesn’t quite register:

I realized, as we went down another circular stairwell, that the underground building was a cylinder longer than it was wide. This being the central cylinder, the rooms appeared to be for collective use. Doors led to, I presumed, the other cylinders below the greenhouses. The layer below the great room served as a craft production room, and below that a root cellar and food storage area, with a full quarter of the area used for —

“Water reclamation?” I asked, spying the tall cylindrical powered unit.

“Got it in one,” Daniel nodded. “We run the unit on skinky — generated outside, of course — supplemented with jatropha, which we grow in one of the domes, and castor, which we grow on the opposite side of the animals so they don’t eat the beans and die.” He indicated the large unit again. “One of the biggest hazards of living in underground units is the humidity level — too much humidity, believe it or not, makes underground living very unpleasant.”

“This is a pretty sophisticated setup,” I remarked, looking at concrete and metal. “Pardon me for asking, but doesn’t this setup require a lot of money?”

Daniel paused for a long moment. I wondered if I had broken a taboo among these people by mentioning money. “I’m sorry — “ I blurted out.

“No, really, it’s fine. It’s hard to explain our funding for this, however. We built this with seed money and sweat equity. Although the cement habitats are prefab, we installed them ourselves. This one goes about seventy feet into the ground, while the others — living spaces — go down about sixty. As you can tell, almost all our living spaces are underground; we had to do some deep digging, and I don’t know if the site has fully recovered after twenty years.”

We walked up three flights of circular stairs past the root cellar and the peaceful crafts room, where a man sat, spinning fiber —

“Derek,” Daniel called out, “say hi to Annie. She’s having dinner with us.”

Derek, a pale man with incredibly long, pale hair, gave us a puzzled look and then smiled. “Hi, Annie,” he said and turned back to his work.

“Is he Kirsten’s brother?”

“Twins. They’re extremely rare among …” he let his voice trail off, and I wondered how the sentence would have ended.

“You don’t get visitors here often, do you?” I queried in what I suspected was a grave understatement.

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“Not too many people are into rock climbing these days,” Daniel shrugged.

Old Hat

I’m not as excited about participating in NaNoWriMo, or that international month of writing 50,000 words toward a novel, as I need to be.

I’m not sure why. It might be because this is my fourth NaNo, or because I didn’t succeed last year, or because I’ve succeeded two years before that. It could be because there aren’t others in my area to have writing sessions with, or because I’ve discovered that the officially sanctioned NaNo group events seem more about cliquishness than encouragement, or because I suspect I wouldn’t notice it was cliquishness if I were part of the clique (which embarrasses me).

Things are so much more motivating when they’re shiny and new, aren’t they?

I need to fall in love with my ideas:

Anna Schmidt/Annie Smith, an anthropologist, embarks on a quest to find the origin of a post-Fall fairy tale in the ruins of the United States. She senses the ghosts of a traumatic incident following her as she pursues her quixotic journey through a world of black-market economies, scrapyard ingenuities, border skirmishes, and attempts at law and order.

In the high desert of Owayee, Anna meets Daniel in the nick of time, and he takes her to his home, an underground communal enclave. She suspects she has discovered the people of her fairy tale, who are in fact real but more unusual than she had guessed. Then her secrets are revealed to the commune, some of which not even she knew. Revealed also is a plot that could cause widespread deaths — and Anna and members of the commune must stop Free White State from accessing a super-lethal virus Anna’s stepfather, a cryptographer, had once locked up.

I need to get a better feel for the characters, perhaps through more interrogation, or through writing a fun part of the story.