New Novel, Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

Mog stopped at the second floor landing, squatting on the railing.  Rowan stopped, too, just out of sight as she waited for the boom of the door knocker.  Within moments of hearing it, she saw Miss Emily cross the entry hall and disappear inside the foyer.  She heard the grate rattle, then the gears begin to roll.  Miss Emily was opening the great doors to admit young Carrick and his companions.  It was the stranger who would be a problem.  Rowan’s marrow told her so.  And, once inside, where strangers seldom were allowed, this one would prove trying.

Rowan waited until the great doors closed again.  Then she waited just a little longer before descending.  Her eyes were on the boy as she left Mog’s company.

As she descended, the boy looked up, his eyes locking to hers.  There, for just a moment, she saw the fires light.  They were gone just as fast, and his eyes dropped.  He knows to hide himself.  Good.  At least some practices were known.

The stranger was female.  Her arm hovered near young Carrick as if she were about to grab him back.  Her face stared upward into Rowan’s, wide-eyed and round-mouthed.  There was horror written there, not fear.

“Hello,” Rowan said, forcing warmth into her voice.  “Welcome to West Gate.”

Again, the boy cast his eyes up, lights dancing.  He smiled a quick, fleeting glimpse of dazzling teeth, then again dodged back to hiding.

“Are you…are…ah…Ms. Grove?” the woman stammered.

“My name is Rowan Grove, yes.  The Sixteenth.”  She descended the rest of the way and held her hand out, expecting civility.  The woman backed a step, her arms-both of them-now reaching to engulf Carrick’s shoulders.  He ducked away from her, slipping sideways toward Mark.

Rowan knew Mark, or at least knew of him, though this was the first time she’d actually seen him.  To the woman, who stood a good head and shoulders shorter than she, she inclined her head and smiled a generosity she did not feel.  “I hope you had a pleasant journey down from Portland.”

* * *

Abigail had run until she couldn’t run anymore, trying her best to stay up with the car.  But, despite her best efforts, the car disappeared into the darkness ahead.  The lights went with it.

Suddenly disoriented, Abigail tripped and fell, the jolt so stunning, so painful, that she heard herself cry out as if she were someone else, far away.  She felt her hands and knees, then face hit cold, hard, lumpy stone.  Then the darkness swept her gone.

It could have been hours later, though it was actually only minutes that Abigail’s eyes came open to a gentle light.  Globes above and all around twinkled, and she realized that they somehow sensed her need and presence.

Groaning, she rolled over on her side and tried to rise.  Her hands hurt.  Her head hurt worse.  And her knees.  It was her ankle, though, that made her cry out when she tried to stand.  Crawling over to the wall, she used it to help herself up.  Shaking with the effort, she felt her stomach lurch as the lights around her began spinning.

“No,” she begged.  “Don’t pass out.”

Her body betrayed her, though, and, again, darkness took her.

The next time she woke, she managed to get as far as the next curve, but there seemed no end of the tunnel.  Her head spinning and her stomach lurching with nausea, she sat down.

“You can’t stay here,” a voice said.

Panicked, Abigail looked around.  “Who said that?!”

A young girl, dressed all in white-white, flowing pants and a tunic that came halfway down her thighs-stepped into view, her movement causing more light globes to shine.  “This way,” she said.  “I’ll help you.”

The girl touched the wall and, with a grinding noise, a hole appeared beside her.  She waved her hand, and light came on within.  “This goes to the walk-through.  You shouldn’t use the causeway.  Someone could run over you.  Besides, cobblestones aren’t meant for feet.”

Scared, Abigail just stared.

The girl waited, her head tilted to one side, a gentle smile on her too white face.  Then she turned, and disappeared through the opening.

“Wait!”  Abigail struggled to get up.  “Please don’t leave me.”

“I’m waiting,” came the voice.

Hobbling over to the opening, Abigail peered in.  Low rising steps led upward.  Behind her, the lights went out in the big tunnel.  Abigail stepped through, and, immediately, the door behind her rolled shut with a grinding boom.

* * *

Scars and skeleton was Nancy’s first impression.  The woman has both feet already in the grave, she thought.  Carrick can’t stay here.  Not with this walking corpse.

That’s what Rowan Grove seemed to Nancy-a cadaver.  Tall, skinny beyond emaciated, with skin so pale that Nancy swore she could see straight through it right to bone and sinew, the woman had to be somewhere in her nineties.  She might be Carrick’s aunt-great aunt?  Great-great aunt?-but this was a terrible mistake.  Kin or not, this was not a woman who was fit to raise a healthy, growing boy.  And the house-mausoleum, actually-no.  There was nothing normal here, nothing wholesome.  Nancy wouldn’t…couldn’t leave this fragile child to waste away here.

“We had a good trip down from Portland, yes,” Nancy said after what she knew was far too long a pause.

She had to broach it.  Best to do it now, before social niceties clouded out practical necessity.  “I’m afraid, Ms. Grove, that there’s been some mistake.  Not to seem rude, but you’re just too old to raise this child.”

Nancy expected either acquiescence or an emotional storm.  She was prepared for that-ready.  What she wasn’t prepared for was laughter.  But that’s what the cadaverous woman did-laughed.  Outright.

“I-I don’t see what’s so funny,” Nancy said.

“Of course you don’t,” the woman answered, still chuckling.  “Please.  This way.”

Again, the woman indicated to her right.  “No.  You don’t seem to understand, Ms. Grove.  You’re too old.  The State of Oregon-”

“Ms. Rutherford, is it?” the woman barked, her voice suddenly and precipitously thunderous.

All around, lights blinked and glass chattered.  Somewhere off to the left, something crashed.  Nancy gulped.  Her ears were ringing.

“Follow Deputy Mark Sutter,” the woman commanded.

Nancy tried to object, but Mark and Carrick were both smartly marching off toward a line of pillared arches.

“Now, please,” the woman said.  Then, haughtily, she nodded, like a queen commanding some servant.  Reluctantly, against her will, Nancy followed Mark and little Carrick through the most central of a set of seven archways set within a wall of wood and stone.

* * *

Mog watched them go from his perch atop the banister.  An agonist had come to West Gate, but it was the only way to get young Carrick freed from the clutches of the interlopers.  He agreed with Rowan that to abandon the youngster was profane.  That the West Gate should be jeopardized to right the error of Pyridian arrogance was, however, unacceptable.  Better that the Pyridians themselves should have chanced the consequences.

The neuman’s coming proved less troubling, though it, too, brought gamble.  That the two events should coincide in simultaneous breach seemed too convenient to be happenstance.  Mog sincerely hoped that Rowan wisdom proved itself, but, should it fail, he had the means and liege, and he would not shy from using them.  This Rowan knew.  She was forewarned.

Behind him, rustling, and, without looking, he nodded once, a burst of wind battering him.

* * *

Carrick had always wondered about what his mother called the outkin.  Meeting one, he decided that he liked them, and he really liked this house.  If all outkin houses were like this one, he’d like to meet them all.

Running down the length of corridor, lights blinking on as he went by, he felt like he could breathe for the first time since Mom and Dad-.

He stopped, suddenly and completely.  Why had they left him?  Why hadn’t they stopped those men?  They could have.  He was sure they could have.

A glimmer above caught his attention, and he cast his head back, his eyes searching for the ceiling.  There didn’t seem to be a ceiling, though.  But there were sparkles, like stars. What was really neat was that the big rounded pillars that rose upward like tree trunks didn’t seem to end.  They just disappeared up and up into  where darkness met the sparkles.

“Carrick, come here.”

He glanced back.  It was the woman.  He took off again, running faster and faster toward the light at the end of the long hall, feeling freer and freer the farther he got from her.  He felt safe and maybe even happy for the first time since Mom and Dad had gone away.  He never, ever wanted to feel sad, scared, and smothered again.  Especially smothered.  Here, he could breathe.  Here, he was sure that he could be free forever.  If he could just lose the blinky woman.

“Carrick!”

* * *

Mark Sutter watched the boy’s exuberance and smiled.  He remembered feeling just that way-like he’d finally found home and safety.  Sheriff Kinney was right, though.  Social Services was bound to find these folks just a little too much to swallow.  Rutherford was going to be a problem.  He hoped she’d surrender gracefully, but, just like Kinney, he felt it doubtful.

~ ~ ~

To the Book Store

To the book store that wanted to order copies via the form on this website, the form is fixed, now. It seems that new security patches disabled the captcha, but that’s fixed now with a more user-friendly, supposedly unbreakable version in place.

New Novel Amid Chaos

With all that’s going on in our family with Mom suffering continuing medical crises, one would think that my brain would be too preoccupied to conceive and organize a new novel. It seems, however, that novel writing is my brain’s way of coping. So, even with Deborah’s continuing nightmare with William cooking away in the sequels to To Inherit a Murderer, here’s the beginning of yet another novel about an orphan boy with special “gifts,” a single-parent teen with special “needs,” and the “family” who takes them in, and, yes, it’s another “weird” one.

Chapter One

Nobody in town much liked West Gate or the Groves who owned it.  Encompassing all of Gate Creek from its source to something the locals called The Plunge, its northern and eastern boundaries were the high water mark of the opposite bank of the North Gate River; its western boundary was the ocean.  The southern perimeter was Highway 138, the only place where you could drive along the estate’s intimidating boundary, your car dwarfed by steep basalt cliffs.

Abigail Nelson lived directly across the highway from the estate’s only known entrance, but, in the two years that she’d lived there with her dad, she’d never once seen the massive metal barricade come open.  Today, that changed.

It was 9:00 A.M. on a bright, cheery June 15th when what sounded like thunder and felt like an earthquake tremor made her, a native Californian, dash to the window.  Her heart pounding in her ears, she was startled to see a white police car parked before West Gate’s entrance.  Within moments, the tremors stopped, even as the rolling sound of thunder got louder.  Amazed, she watched the huge, black, metal barrier began to split in two and was out the door, bounding across the highway with not so much as a glance to check for traffic.

*     *     *

It’s a prisonWe’re taking him to a prison, thought Nancy Rutherford as, wide-eyed, she watched small explosions of dust and pebbles break loose from where black, banded metal seemed welded into stone.  Then the huge metal arch before them began to form a center seam with a deafening crack and rumble.  Her right hand tightened its grip on the passenger door armrest; her left now grabbed the center console.  Next to her, Deputy Mark Sutter’s hands rested lightly on the steering wheel.  He seemed unconcerned.

She took a breath, trying to calm her pounding heart before looking back at her silent charge.  “You okay?” she asked the black-haired boy strapped in the back seat.

The boy’s eyes, as black as his hair, were riveted on the gate.  He ignored her except to nod just slightly.

“We’re almost there,” she said, her voice encouraging.  She hoped he’d finally speak.  He hadn’t said a word-not that she had ever heard in the three months she’d known him, except for the most hesitant ‘yes’ or ‘no.’  He’d read for hours, though, curled up in a chair in her office during his monthly visit for reevaluation.  And he’d write.  But he never wanted her to see what he was writing, so she had to sneak looks when he left to use the bathroom.

Carrick Ainsley wasn’t slow.  In fact, for a mere eight years old, he seemed to far out-flank his age group’s literacy level.  He was also very good at math, testing four full grades above his third grade peers.  What he wouldn’t do was talk.  Not a single sentence had ever passed his lips in all the time he’d been in foster care or public school, a new experience for him.

The thunder abruptly stopped, and Nancy turned back to see the gates now set at almost perpendicular angles.  Before them, the road surface turned from pavement to something akin to a very broad, heavy livestock grate.  Dark water swirled and rippled just beneath it, sparkling where the morning sun touched it’s surface.  Directly in front of that was what appeared to be another wall of stone. That wall curved left, the grate meeting what looked like translucent, rounded black brick.

Mark eased the car forward, the tires rumbling on the grate.  Something squeaked.

“Is it safe?” Nancy whispered.

“Seems to be fine,” he said, glancing over at her.

The road-a tunnel, actually-curved left and upward.  Small light globes anchored to either side winked on as Mark followed the narrow track upward through the pitched darkness.  “This is scary,” Nancy whispered.  “This tunnels right through the cliff?”

“I’d say so,” Mark replied, his voice nonchalant.  “Relax.  This place has been here since before Grant Haven was a town.  The Groves are well-known around these parts, if not particularly well-liked by some.  They’ve never, ever been a problem to local law enforcement.  More the opposite.”

It was an odd statement, Nancy thought, but, when he didn’t say more, she didn’t pursue it.  Turning her attention back to the boy she was assigned to protect, her eye caught the barest glimpse of shadow dart past the backend of the car.  “Mark!  What’s that?”

“What?” he asked.

But it was gone now.  “There was a shadow.”

She heard him chuckle.

“Yeah.  It’s pretty dark in here.”

The boy was watching her, his eyes glinting, almost predatory, and, though unnerved, she smiled.  “Are you okay about this, Carrick?”

His eyes, suddenly neutral once again, moved to the windshield, but, this time, he didn’t nod or shake his head.  This time he spoke-”West Gate.  I remember.”

Nonplussed, Nancy stared at him.  He’d spoken.   Gathering her wits, she asked, “You’ve been here?”

“Not this side.  The other.”

He’s talking.  Finally. “What other?”

“The other side“-anger.

“The river?” Sutter asked.”

“Uh-huh.  Across it is the place where Mom and Dad went when those men attacked them.  That’s where I come from.”

Beside her, Deputy Sutter gave a short, strangled chuckle.  Despite the boy’s fantasy concerning his parents’ murder, Nancy was thrilled that Carrick had finally found his voice.  Maybe the damage wasn’t as bad as the psychologists originally thought.

*     *     *

Rowan watched them from her balcony, her green eyes steady on the car as it emerged from the entrance tunnel.  She heard the ravens call alert and saw a great horned owl take flight.  Within moments, tires screeched, and the car come to an abrupt halt as both the ravens and the owl swooped down to challenge the intruders.  “They’re here,” she said, though no one stood near.  “So is the newsome.”

A breeze shifted the delicate, white voile curtains behind her.  Leaves rustled, scent rising from the wild honeysuckle that grew on the railing and around the double eyebrow balcony doors, new tendrils reaching upward toward the roof.  With a sigh, Rowan retreated backwards through the curtains, her eyes never leaving the car.  Moments later, the balcony doors closed.

*     *     *

The woman screamed and ducked; the car swerved and stopped.  Awestruck, Carrick just stared in wonder at the huge birds that dove down and seemed to stare in at him for longer than it took to blink.   The woman was still screaming when the birds angled off to disappear into the big trees.  Carrick wished she’d stop.  Moments later, she did, but it wasn’t soon enough.

Carrick Ainsley didn’t like the woman called Nancy.  She asked too many questions.  He liked the policeman okay.  But not her.  She was fluttery, not solid.  She was blinky.  She wasn’t really real, and Carrick had decided that the only things he wanted near him were the things that lasted, not the things that didn’t.  If he couldn’t treasure them forever, he didn’t want to see or know them.  That included Mom and Dad.

The car started up again, and he watched out the window now that there was something interesting to see-big trees and boulders, moss and giant ferns.  He really liked the places in between where he could peek through to see that the big trees went on and on.  Just like home.

“Oh, no!”-the woman again.

Carrick looked up to see what she was upset about now.  Ahead was another tunnel, only this one you could see through to the other side.  Even bigger rocks and huge, gnarled tree roots made the opening.  He grinned.  Neat.

“It’s all right,” the cop said.  “This one is short and level.”

The car slowed down, and, just for a second, they were inside a really old archway whose insides were covered with dripping moss and shiny, sparkling things.  Then they came out the other side into a rock-paved oval that had a fountain with a dragon in the middle.  He couldn’t help himself.  “Cool!”  He didn’t notice the house until the woman said something, and, again, he couldn’t help himself.  “It’s a tree house!”

The cop turned around to grin at him.  “Sure looks like one, doesn’t it?”

Carrick grinned back.  He liked Mark.  A lot.  He would remember him.  Not Nancy, though.

Raw Gore, Explicit Cruelty, Debased Sex in Novels

redblkHaving mostly ignored Twitter, though I signed up months ago, I happened over to the place to block a hussy who was advertising her “wares” from following me…not that there’s much to follow, mind you. In the process, I happened upon some old, unread messages from authors directed at me and checked out a couple of their novels. Lo, many were quite good. Others were well-written, but too obviously a very visceral kind of horror.

I do not understand people who enjoy reading gore, explicitly violent, and visceral novels–graphic cruelty, gore, sex, or perverse violence. I mean, okay, graphic scenes are part of a book when needed, as is the intimate sex scene…when the story calls for it. But this stuff was uncalled for, in my opinion, because the violence wasn’t an integral part of the plot and story, but rather added for titillating the reader’s senses…if one can call gore and cruelty titillating (which I can’t).

If something happens in the violent scene that is key to the story climax or subsequent crises, then the scene belongs. But does the scene–any scene–belong when nothing happens in it other than graphic incidents, incidents that don’t have any pertinence to anything later in the story?

I don’t think so.

So, when applying the rule of “Cut everything that doesn’t forward plot and story” in writing and editing fiction, why are these scenes populating so many books? Are readers that hungry for blood, gore, and perversion?

I really don’t think so. Those who do aren’t the fiction reading majority, else these sorts of books would top the best sellers lists, and they don’t.

(…And, no, Liz, I’m not talking about Under the Bridge, which is very tame by comparison to some of this stuff.)

Refusing to Play Blind Man’s Bluff Any Longer

Well, much as I don’t particularly care for the title “independent author,” I’m tired of playing blind man’s bluff with literary agents.  A look at publishers accepting unagented manuscript submissions and queries shows that I would be spending about 2 years waiting around for an answer for them, too.  After a couple of high end agents read the book and said, “clean, excellent plot, excellent characters, but I just don’t know how to market this,” I’m done.  If it’s that good, and it’s a break-out book, what’s the problem?  I’ll tell you the problem. It isn’t something that would appeal to Twilight-swooning teens.  

So I’m done.  I’ve quit the game.  No more Blind Man’s Bluff with literary agents anymore.  Now I’ll simply write and publish, write and publish. 

I’m also pretty much done with magazine submissions of short stories, as well.  The only reason I write a short story is when one “pops” into existence on its own, so to speak — the creative Muse dictates, in other words.  Submitting them, though, is always a pain…because it requires I steal time away from other things…like novel writing.

I’m tired of all of it. I’m just not interested in literary blind man’s bluff with me the blinded and them twittering as they evade me finding “the right niche:, be that an agent or publishing venture.  You want to read me, come and get it.  My stories and novels will be availabe through The Deepening, from me here, or from various other websites around the Net.  

If you want it from the library or a book store, ask at the desk.  If you want it from Amazon.com, you’ll have to wait till the hard copy releases.

To Inherit a Murderer

To Inherit a Murderer by E. J. Ruek, book 1, The Ward

To Inherit a Murderer by E. J. Ruek

…Is out in electronic formats suitable for Sony Reader, Kindle, Mobi-pocket, iPhone, epub and other electronic formats which you can get HERE

If you want to read and review it, contact me and I’ll give you a coupon for a free copy.

What’s it about?

Willed custody of her best friend’s son, Deborah Rheinhart suspects the twelve-year-old is a murderer…and he is.

At seven, William killed his mother’s dog. At ten, he stabbed his father with a letter opener.  There’s the murder of the family maid.

Deborah finds that she’s brought home a boy who is driven by hatred and rage. Injured by him the very first day, William threatens Deborah’s carefully secured life. Finding a knife stuck in her bedroom door, waking to William standing over her when he’s supposed to be locked in his room, she’s is pushed to the brink of hysteria as both she and the boy’s hired chaperones suffer increasingly disturbing incidents.

Straddling North Idaho ranch life and the prestigious world of Grand Prix show jumping, To Inherit a Murderer by E. J. Ruek is the story of a woman who must learn to love and listen, regardless how evil-seeming the child within her care.  It is a story about earning respect and admiration by actions, which Deborah achieves, despite herself.  William believes in her as he has never believed in anyone.  But when Deborah lets her guard down and begins to believe in William, death answers.


To Inherit a Murderer will also soon be released in audio, too. Keep an eye out both here and on The Deepening.

Self-Publishing vs Traditional Arguments

There are several discussions (and fights) going on across various writer’s venues around the Net concerning self-publishing verses traditional publishing. I’m afraid, I’m one of those who desires the traditional publisher, mainly because I cannot see where self-publishing isn’t just a way to keep me busy doing everything except writing.

Now, it is true that traditional publishing requires a lot of marketing effort from the author. Compared to the work a self-publishing author has to do, though, it is relatively painless.

It seems to me that self-publishing requires way, way too much effort and time devoted. A self-published author not only has to write the book, but s/he also has to:
1) create the book (typesetting, cover art and design, etc.)
2) create or contract for creation of the promotional materials,
3) place the promotional materials,
4) negotiate openings for marketing the book.

Only then can the author take advantage of those marketing opportunities, doing the interviews and appearances that will hopefully sell the books.

Then we come to the distribution and bean counting, all basically on the author’s shoulders, as well. It takes effort to even get your book listed in Amazon, or on B&N, never mind onto the shelves of chain and independent bookstores.

The established big publisher already has a means to create the book package and promo materials, has a good reputation among the media that matters, owns all the gateways to getting the book into distribution chains as well as coordinating marketing opportunities with the book’s release. All the author has to do is help, and then show up and do a good job presenting themselves in a charismatic way to the audience.

The very thought of having to write letters or make phone calls, much less do walk-in sales pitches designed to convince a radio station, a book store, or even local television to feature a self-published author and their book is summarily unattractive to me. This is the work of a publicist.

So the author who self-publishes wears all the hats normally worn by a team of people, normally paid experts in their fields who are very good at their jobs. I can’t possibly do the same kind of justice to those jobs, and the time required is at least as much it took to write the book in the first place.

Then there’s the income problem. If all I’m going to sell is a couple thousand copies of this book as a self-published author, the time and money laid out to publish and market, then distribute the book just isn’t going to give me a return worth sneezing at. In fact, it is probably going to cost me money.

So, nope. I don’t think self-publishing fiction is a good investment, unless I’ve already got an audience and a production and promotion team at hand.

That said, I can say that what I will do is allow The Deepening to record the audio of any book I write that doesn’t net me an agent and, ultimately, a publisher after submitting it for a year or two. If I can develop an audience for that book, then, I’ve got more ammunition to convince someone to take a hard look at that book as well as my other work — someone who counts in the real world of literature, that is, agents, editors, and big publishing.

North Idaho Diary, Entry 1-14-2009

I thought I’d share a bit of the kind of thing which inspires novel scenes.  Here, with full permission of the original email author, is an entry in what I’m going to call North Idaho Diary.  This post comes with a warning, warning. There IS a bit of “off-color” language, but, MORE IMPORTANTLY, hang onto your tummy because this is going to have you laughing yourself silly.

Please note that this all but raw and unedited.

North Idaho Diary, Entry 1-14-2009

Yesterday my five-year-old and I went to Johnson’s to cut firewood and remove the snow off the Quonset hut. Simple task, noooo!! The firewood part required digging a tunnel through the snow to the buried pile of logs. Then shoveling the snow off the pile, making enough room for me and a chainsaw (Chainsaw is small, luckily.), then dislodging a log to cut.

Sure!

Frozen logs come apart like grape juice comes off your white shirt. Pry pry pry kick kick kick curse curse curse, and, when all else fails, chainsaw in place, then repeat process–pry pry pry kick kick kick curse louder curse louder curse even louder…pop.  That is for just one piece!!!  Who needs wood heat when I get hot and sweaty getting one measly log.

So I decide it’s time for a break. I’ll work on the Quonset hut with the glacier embedded in the sagging top.

Smart man that I am, I hook up the propane heater inside and close the front flap. Theory; snow will melt and slide off the top, end of problem. If only…  

I go back and cut two more pieces of firewood repeating process as described earlier, with the exception of being more tired and using more abusive vernacular. (Maybe I can scare the ice off of the logs.)

I return to hut to see the progress.  …Yeah progress!  It’s a humid, dripping mess inside with the snow stuck on top, still. …Except now it’s getting heavier as the roof sags inward even more.

Okay.  I grab a 10 foot piece of 4×4 and begin smacking the snow from underneath.

Hooray! It’s coming off.  …Oh.  And I’m getting soaked by the waterfall leaking through the roof as it melts. Another problem is that, after about ten smacks with the 4×4, my muscles go “nooo, we’re tired. Please stop.” I respond, letting my muscles know that this must get done, and they have to help. I swear they whisper, “You’ll be ‘sorey’.”  So now I’m smacking snow–smack smack smack–and getting drenched–drip drip kawoosh–and, of course, cursing–curse curse curse.

Hours pass, and I’ve gotten almost all the snow off the hut except one spot.  But I’m hungry, tired, and feel like I could swim in my clothes. So I shut the heater off and figure I’ll get it with next load of firewood.

Oh firewood!  Shit!!!

Back to cutting firewood. Repeat process only now it’s in slow motion. But I manage to fill the truck, and we leave for home. 5-year-old, luckily, played with the dog the whole time and hopefully won’t be repeating Daddy’s words of encouragement to others…like Mom!

Lunch, water (to drink), and a change of clothes, and it’s back to work: Unload firewood. But now I have the kids to help so it goes twice as fast, the bonus of the day.

Back in the truck and off for more wood and the dreaded hut of hell!! I start with the firewood, and I’ve cleared enough that it actually is going smooth. Fill the truck, and now it’s time for the last piece of the glacier on the quanset.

Smack smack smack.

Won’t budge.  In fact, it’s sagging towards me even more!! So I climb on top of an off balance barrel and put one foot on a stack of boxes.

Push push push,  drip drip drip curse curse curse.

A little piece rolls off.  Yeah!  …But the bulk is still there, and now I’m soaked, again.

I push-smack-curse all at ounce and, boom, it slides off…at the same time the barrel falls over and the boxes sway–oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttttttt!!!!!!!!

…I survived without injury, and no damage to anything.  (Amazing, I thought.)

That was yesterday.  Needless to say I’m tired and sore today, and now I am going to unload the firewood left from yesterday, but Ithought you’d get a kick out of my Tuesday adventure.

Have a great day,

Max

 

Night Life of a Novelist’s Brain

dreamsA novelist’s brain has a will completely independent of the body within which it resides.  It is also resentful of the person to whom it belongs.  Take sleep, for instance.  The novelist’s brain waits in gleeful anticipation of bedtime.  Why?  So that it can take over, of course, without anything or anyone demanding it spend time on more “useless” pursuits…like “the routines of daily life.”

Most people dream about things which either they desire or they fear, which relieves their subconscious of unwanted worry, frets, and stress. Some dream symbols, but never much in the way of “making any sense”…or that’s the general gist, anyway.  Novelist’s brains, though, are creatures of a different sort altogether.  Free of the onus of having to battle the conscious will of its host person and resident body’s demands, the novelist’s brain takes sleep’s opportunity to…WRITE, PLOT, PLAN, OUTLINE, LIVE, REINVENT, MANUFACTURE, and EXPLORE the stories it insists on spawning into tangible reality whenever it can coerce and induce the person it owns and the body which owns it to sit down and type.

I tell you, it’s an exhausting thing to go to bed tired only to wind up having to gallop around all night in fictional scene-scapes.  But that’s what we novelists do, all night, every night. And you wonder why we’ve got bags under our eyes? Why we seem perpetually grumpy? Sleep is our nightmare!