Tag: Prodigies

Interrogating the Hacker

One of my favorite characters in Prodigies (they’re all my favorite characters, honestly) is the notorious hacker Weissrogue. An idealist who feels the end justifies his illegal means, he’s the character you’re glad is on your side:

“You need to know that ‘Weissrogue’ translates just as you may think — to “White Rogue”. I was only about 15 when I named myself, and I look at it now and think it’s appropriate not because I was a white hat hacker but because I was a pasty white kid.” He was indeed, I thought, a pasty white kid still.

“That whole thing I did when I was fifteen — I can’t stand violence in any form. I suppose I would use it in self-defense if I had to, but even then, I wonder. I just wanted to get the government to think differently about weapons of mass destruction —”

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

At age 15, as this passage hints, Weissrogue hacked several world powers and took their missile programs off-line. Realizing he was too talented to kill, the US government took him in and made him their pet hacker.

Now 39 years old, the suspected Prodigy tracks suspected Prodigies in the US — but not necessarily for the benefit of the US government:

“I’m not a double agent,” the stocky man corrected. “I’m the Prodigies’ agent; I’m not a double agent because I’m not letting out anything to help Renaissance Theory or Homeland; in fact, I’m misguiding them. But when it comes to Prodigies, my allegiance will always be to them. Something my employers don’t need to know.”

“So you’re hiding the existence of Prodigies?”

“Prodigies, yes. Organizations that deal with Prodigies, no. That’s why I signed up with the government — on this new project, anyhow. I don’t like anyone ‘managing’ a minority for any reasons, and governments — no matter how benign — want to use Prodigies.”

I wondered if the US was among the benign or not.

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

I’ll take a moment to interrogate Weissrogue, so you can get to learn about him a little more:

Me: So, what’s your real name, Weissrogue?

W: For all intents and purposes, it’s Weissrogue. My birthname was changed by the US Government when they took me in after the missile failure, and I’ve gone by so many names that the only name that has stayed with me throughout is Weissrogue. I have a presence in the real world as Arthur Schmidt, locksmith and cryptologist, but I don’t want people associating Weissrogue with Schmidt. I have to keep that name clean to keep trust with the government, who don’t realize they have a big government contract for security with Weissrogue.

Me: Why Weissrogue?

W: Easy. I was fifteen, and I wanted to make a name for myself as a black hat hacker for humanitarian reasons. “Weiss” means “white” and “rogue”, of course, means “rogue”.

Me: Do you ever hack for non-humanitarian reasons?

W: It’s a waste of time to hack for pizza, or for money for that matter — unless you’re slowly draining some despot’s bank account and giving the money to charity.

Me: Not taking the money yourself?

W: I have enough money. I have a lucrative security contract with the government, remember?

Me: So what turned you into such a humanitarian?

W: I spent my life in military schools as a ward of the US government. I don’t know if I never had any parents, or if they surrendered me. This is a pattern you see with a lot of Prodigies. I was subjected to endless discipline, especially as I was a naturally rebellious person. It got to the point where they modeled me into exactly the opposite of who they were: Instead of conforming, rebellious; instead of hierarchical, egalitarian; instead of military, pacifist. I tried to relate to the people around me instead of their roles, and they punished me until I didn’t care anymore. And I took their hatred and used it to hack into the security software for the missiles.

Me: What did they do?

W: First off, they kept me a secret even after they found me. I can’t blame them — however, it wasn’t entirely successful; the news media was lucky enough to find my leaks. When the government finally caught me, they didn’t know what to do because I was their ward — and they were hoping I would show my talent. We arranged for my death, and I became their top secret government worker. So, in effect, I’m dead.

Me: But you don’t always do what the government tells you to.

W: Shhhh. That’s a secret.

Touching base

So, I’m taking a couple days’ writing retreat in southeast Kansas after the memorial service for Richard’s mother. Surprisingly, Pittsburg KS has one of the best coffeehouses I’ve ever set foot in. I’ve drunk a small nitro iced coffee (after two cups at breakfast at Otto’s Diner, so I’m really caffeinated!)

I’ve missed writing to you. As I said briefly yesterday, I finally finished my first draft of Prodigies — but that doesn’t mean I’m finished with it. It only means that I have something to tear apart in the second draft part. Is there going to be a sequel? Let me edit this one first.

Pretty soon I’m going to put Voyageurs back into the rejection cycle. At this point, I’m not sure I’ll ever be published, but I might as well model perseverence for other writers. What I really need to do is get more beta-readers and get information on how to fix the other books.

Beta readers for Mythos — haven’t heard from you for a while. Let me know how bad that book is messed up!

Other readers — want to be a beta reader?

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.

Short note — I’ll  be on a short road trip to visit interns tonight and tomorrow. May not get much written today. If we get to our destination early (the Hotel Greenfield in Greenfield IA) I’ll get an extended writing time. Otherwise, probably not.

I wrote a thousand words on Prodigies yesterday! That’s more than I have in a while! I think the accountability partner has to do with it. It’s hard to blow off writing when you have to report to someone the next day.

Have fun and thanks for listening!

A little of what I’ve been writing today from Prodigies.

After what seemed to be a dozen iterations of the plan and all our roles — Ayana and Weissrogue as the elderly couple, Ichirou and I as the starstruck lovers, Greg infiltrating the sound system — it was time to sleep and reconvene early in the morning. I talked everyone into letting me use the hide-a-way couch in the living room, given that I didn’t think I would sleep much. This left Ayana with Greg (another of my motives) and Ichirou with Weissrogue.

As I had predicted, I didn’t sleep. Every significant event of my journey to this moment unfolded in my mind: The invitation to Poland. Finding Ichirou, looking helplessly young in the darkened room as he spun the most comforting moment I’d had in my life. The uneasy dinner with Second World Renewal; our escape down the fire escape and into the old city of Krakow. The waiter, who ended up being Greg, and our journey with Ayana from Poland to Denmark, chased by Second World’s men. After a hiatus, Ayana returning with a much more mature Ichirou, and our confrontation with someone’s — someone’s men. My death —

That was what bothered me, what kept me from sleeping. I was not afraid to die because I had died already.

I had died already, and I knew what to expect. My death was a comforting place, deep indigo and silver, and a place I yearned to go back to. I didn’t want to die again, really; I just wanted to go back there. Especially tonight, with all the times we fled going through my mind like a video montage.
I thought about the place, the silver-laced grass and the rabbit, my parents walking past me. My death.

No, I wasn’t scared.

I fell asleep and dreamed of that place, deep purple with silvery leaves that ruffled in the breeze. I lay down in the grass, and the rabbit nestled next to me. My parents did not cross the hill, nor did Ichirou come, and a touch of loneliness marred my meditative state.

Then the rabbit hopped up to my face and chided me. “Do you think you can live here forever?”
“I could, rabbit,” I breathed. “Here I would never have to deal with being rejected. Death won’t reject me.”

“Death won’t nurture you, either. If you stay for long enough here, you will never grow any more than you have now. You will never develop your talent, and you will never be loved or nurtured again.”

“I’ve never been nurtured, and I’m not sure I’ve been loved. My parents farmed me out to music schools, and I don’t know if they were in league with the Renaissance movement. And I never will know.” I sat up, not questioning that a bunny spoke to me, because this was my dream.

“What about Przymeslaw? What about your traveling companions? What about Ichirou? And Dr. DeWinter?” The rabbit washed his face with his paws.

“I don’t know who’s side DeWinter is on. For all I know, she’s part of Renaissance. I don’t trust anyone from Interlochen now.”

“Trust somebody. You need something to pull you out from this place or else you’ll be always in danger, like Ichirou. I’d point out, though, that he’s less in danger than you are, because he’s reached a hand out from his place. Have you reached a hand out from yours?” And with that, the rabbit wandered off, sniffing the silvery grass as he bounced away.

I woke up to find Ichirou standing over me grinning ruefully. “May I come in? I can’t get to sleep.”
I held my hand out to him and we cuddled until we created space for each other.

Hiding in Plain Sight

Ther eis one phrase that shows up in every novel I write — “hiding in plain sight”.

This phrase refers to the fact that every novel of mine involves people with some sort of preternatural talent — the strength and teleportation of the Archetypes, the time travel of the Travellers, the Gaia-given talents of those who eat of the Trees, and the inborn random talents of the Prodigies. All of these beings, human and other, live in the world of ordinary people, and all of these people deal with what “hiding in plain sight” means.

Josh, poet and Keeper of the Garden, believes that one can do anything in the open and people will re-explain it as something plausible. He is the only human who believes in humans’ obliviousness to this degree. It could be because his given talent is to have visions, which are not very obvious to other humans.

The Archetypes, immortals in human form, are reluctant to “out” themselves to humans, and so generally don’t teleport or lift objects, nor do they transport themselves in view of others. Usually. Lilly (who lived as a human for 30 years) once teleported a car — with her husband in it.  Archetypes even carry themselves differently around humans — their natural state is to look like superlative examples of humans, so they shake themselves into less beautiful forms of themselves — a kind of reverse glamour.

Meanwhile, the Travellers are the most hidden — they don’t hop out of rooms when non-Travellers are looking, and they stick with their own kind complete with secret societies. If humans understood that the Travellers could manipulate the future by changing the past, Travellers’ lives would be endangered, and they have no non-human strength like the Archetypes.

Prodigies’ talents are most often subtle, and so are often practiced in public. A little emotional manipulation here, a little polyglot talent there — nobody catches on. Except for the man who can cure or kill by touch — he’s very guarded by his talent.

There’s a logic here — a risk/benefit analysis. What is the risk of disclosure versus the benefit? It’s the type of thinking I don’t see in superhero movies, where the heros don’t understand why there’s so much anti-human sentiment.

*******
*Lilly tends to be impetuous and imperious, like her namesake.

Another detour

Note — this is finals week at Northwest Missouri State University, where I finish out the school year by giving final exams and hearing last-minute entreaties from students who forgot to turn in 50% of the assignments.  I feel for the students — there were classes I missed 40% of when I was a student, but I didn’t ignore due dates in a class and ask for mercy on the last day of class.

Poor Prodigies — it may be the novel that never gets written at this rate. After editing Gaia’s Hands into a novella — the best decision I’ve made thus far — I’m doing what needs to be done with Mythos and Apocalypse given the time frames and moods — splitting them up into a novella and one novel.  I think my instincts are right here.

I’ll get back to Prodigies. And Whose Hearts are Mountains.  Sometime this summer.  In-between intern visits, writing on one of two non-fiction books, working in the garden, and maybe some sleep somewhere. Oh, and exercise. I promised myself some exercise.

Another excerpt

An excerpt from the work-in progress, Prodigies:

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Feeling constrained by the beautiful, fussy bedroom, I slipped out of the bed I shared with Ayana, put on a pair of tights and a baggy tunic top and stepped out into the living room. Greg was already there, his lanky legs sprawled over the arm of the couch. 

“Hey,” he whispered roughly, and I swore I saw streaks from tears on his homely face. “You might as well know the truth.”

I sat on the floor in front of the couch. “About?”

“About why I can’t see you in a romantic way.”

“Because I’m black?” I asked, beating him to the punch.

“No. Because you remind me of my little sister, Liliana.”

Of course. “I was afraid of that. Haven’t I told you I’m not a kid anymore?”

“That’s not it. Liliana was my favorite sister. And now she’s … gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?” I asked, trying to read his face. 

I sat close enough to see the color of his eyes, an elusive hazel. A tear trickled from the corner of his eye. “Liliana and my other brothers and sisters and my parents were killed in an explosion. It was during the Street Wars in Poland, when the old guard communists fought the self-styled oligarchs with the workers and the educated classes in the middle, and they in turn fought for their lives. My family were in the theater — everything from plays to vaudeville revival. Because we were so well-known in Warsawa, we were thought by many to be spies for the workers. We were sympathetic, sure, and we even sometimes housed a refugee, but we were never spies. I was out of the street busking — I used to sing and play guitar — and I came back with  my take of a handful of zloty to find our townhouse bombed and my family, my whole damn family dead in the rubble of the still-smoking ruins. And the worst part is that I didn’t know I could have brought them back, so they’re lost forever.” Greg closed his eyes and swallowed hard.

“Don’t think I’m trying to kiss you,” I said as I stroked his hair. “Why do I remind you of your sister?”

“She was the most alive person I’d ever known. She pulled no punches — she had a talent for saying what needed to be said. Frankly, she could be an unholy terror at times. We despaired that she would ever get a husband, even at age 10, which was how old she was when she was killed.”

“Yup,” I shrugged. “I doubt I’ll find a husband either.” 

“You shouldn’t worry about that, Gracie,” Greg grinned.

Oops, I did it again — Tiny Universes

I’m not trying to evoke the spirit of Britney Spears, but documenting something that keeps happening in my novels — the non-Archetype books keep tying themselves in with the Archetype series in subtle ways. Not like there’s a party and the Archetypes and Prodigies are all invited, but I use tiny inserts of characters in all three subcultures, who don’t know of each other and don’t interact directly with each other.

Last night I unequivocally tied Prodigies with Whose Hearts are Mountains through a background character we only know about through his daughter’s eyes — Durant Smith aka Arthur Schmidt aka Weissrogue. I didn’t put much about him in Whose Hearts are Mountains, but I wrote a considerable backstory about how one becomes the government’s key cryptographer. (The story involves a 15-year-old Weissrogue taking out the weapons systems of the major powers, and the US and Russia realize he’s too talented to kill.) Weissrogue, whose talents went to the US, may have begun Renaissance Theory through Russia’s envy. The thing is, Weissrogue/Arthur Schmidt has been monitoring Renaissance Theory’s Dark Web presence because his name came up there once. He doesn’t believe he’s a Prodigy.

I want to be careful with mixing the “worlds”. I don’t want to write “Justice League meets the Avengers meets the Guardians meets the X-Men meets the Fantastic Four to obliterate a dairy cow.”

On second thought …

 I want to keep my characters mostly in their communities — the Archetypes with the few humans they’ve adopted; the Travellers (not Romani, but a slightly affected bunch of hereditary time travelers), and the genetically blessed Prodigies, not to forget the Tree-given gifts of the collective Barn Swallows’ Dance. The key is, all of these groups are so afraid of discovery that they tend to stay insular. If they meet, they generally keep it a secret, as Arthur keeps his Prodigy abilities quiet to his family, while ironically, his daughter is a half-human Nephilim.

On a related tiny universe note —

What is the effect on Earth that these small bands of preternatural humans exist? Is there such a thing as too many heroes? In a real sense, my characters do not have superhero strength, nor did I intend them to. Many of the problems we face are more than we can handle, but someone who can lift a jetliner like Superman can’t scale down to break up a bar fight or rescue a kitten from a tree.

My question is: can’t heroes be humans complicated by their born or given talents? The DC universe doesn’t do a bad job of it, except for the part where they destroy entire city blocks and nobody really cares. You only get to destroy entire city blocks, endangering thousands of humans, when you’re a superhero. You only can afford a lack of introspection about who you are when you’re a superhero.

In other words, I am a little worried about how convoluted my — world? universe? — is. But then I see Greg (from Prodigies) butt heads with someone in a coffee shop, and I suddenly realize it’s Arthur, and he’s been set to spy on them until he feels a pull from that place in his heart he calls his conscience, and I run with it.

*********
I should give you some updates:

1) My Kindle Scout campaign for Gaia’s Hands is dead, and cannot be turned around at this date. Thank you for voting, those of you who vote. Gaia’s Hands has always been a problem child, where I know it’s stunted in some day and can’t figure out what’s wrong with it. I feel like I should toss everything but the outline and restart it, but I don’t know how.

2) I want to start a Kindle Scout campaign on Voyageurs on April 1 (not kidding!) for Voyageurs. I’m scared, wondering if it’s

  • too soon after the first book failure
  • me making an embarrassment of myself
  • too ambitious
3) Camp NaNo people — I’m registered for Camp under “lleachie”. Anyone want to hop into a cabin with me?
4) I’m still enjoying Spring Break, but I’m back in town after my story collecting trip to The Elms. The food was good, the coffee was good, the people were excellent.
5) As always, I’m glad you’re here.