Hello from sunny Sebastopol!

Well, we successfully completed phase one of our move. It’s been a hectic few days followed by a few extremely relaxing ones. I am supremely blessed with the opportunity to work from home, both with the company Grass Roots Software and with our stroller business. I already feel infinitely more lazy than I ever have. I haven’t let myself wear pj’s to work yet–hopefully I’ll be able to hold off as long as possible.

I’ll hopefully be writing again soon. I tried to reach a logical stopping point in my story before I made the move, and now that I’m at that logical break, it’s hard to pick the ball up and start running again. But you know what I always say: Onward! Here’s a few pics in the meantime.

My New Digs:

My Lovely View:

Uncanny

Today’s Word Count: 522 words, 40.4k total

Excerpt:

“I’ll be out in a minute. We’ll need to move quickly once I come out, so get ready.”
“Wait…what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to hand in our key. And take something back.”
Jason’s heart leapt in his throat, like he’d had a sudden fright. “You’re going to take something? What?”
“I’m not going to write it up on the blackboard for you, kid.”
Starla glared at him. By the look of her eye, Timothy knew that she had realized what he was going to do. “He’s going to take money.”
Timothy returned her stony glare. “Look, a clear conscience won’t buy us a bus ticket to Missouri. We need money, don’t we? Well I’m going to handle that.”
“By stealing?” Jason asked.
“We’re saving the world, right? I’m sure the gods won’t mind if we steal a little to get us there.”
Starla put a hand on Timothy’s arm. Her touch was infuriatingly warm. “No.”
“No?”
“No,” Starla repeated.

Thoughts:

Now, that I have all my characters together, a few of them are evolving into something I hadn’t really planned. (I guess that’s the correct use of the word evolution, isn’t it? Turning into something that wasn’t really planned.)

One of my characters is getting kind of…smarmy. Is that a word? I guess so. I kind of like it–he’s older than his companions, and sees himself as a role model, and sees his companions as starry-eyed innocents. So I guess smarmy could work. Wow, I used smarmy twice in the space of a paragraph. Now that’s creative writing!

In other news, I’ve reached the 40,000 word plateau! A fact I had to highlight in bold, above. Whoda thunk it…

Well, thanks for listening! Until next time…

Uncanny

Today’s Word Count: 939 words, 39.8k total

Excerpt:

Torture. Though now that he was older—wiser—that word didn’t carry the same import that it used to. He had learned to see good between those letters, to look through that dangerous, barbed fence and see the fertile gardens beyond. But, to his surprise, Chris’ plea had pricked him–and that wound, long thought to have been scabbed over, began to bleed again.

“Yes,” he said finally. “They do seem to scream a bit.” He gently lifted Chris’ arm from his and sat down in his chair. It squeaked pleasingly—a warm and familiar greeting. “Okay, Chris. You talk to him.”

Thoughts:

Things are going well. Mashed up a lot of old scenes with new stuff, thus the inflated word count. Writing a story does get kind of fun from time to time, doesn’t it?

Onward!

Today’s Word Count: 392 words, 37.7k total

Excerpt:
Dr. Weiss sat without moving in his dimly lighted office. Actually, this was his secondary office; what he liked to call his “war room.” There was the office above ground, the one with the books and the expensive chairs and the impressive bay windows staring off into the plains. But he used it only rarely. Whenever he had to make an appearance, he would send the cleaning crew up first. That way, he wouldn’t have to blow the dust off his chair before he sat down.

Maybe I’ll switch to WordPress. This has been pretty cool so far. Lots of customizability. We Americans like that.

Onward!

Uncanny

Today’s Word Count: 559 words, 37.2k total

Excerpt:
Daniel stared at him, open-mouthed. What had he felt that day, that moment, when the blows were coming down as from the fists of the gods? Though everything else was a vague blur, like looking through a rain-streaked window, that day remained startlingly fresh and clear. The dust filling his nose as he lay on the ground; the glass from the scale’s shattered face falling like rain upon him.

Moving right along. Speaking of moving: March 10th is the date of our fateful departure from Grass Valley, our home for the last two years, to Sebastopol. Grass Valley saw fit to give us a nice sendoff: a few good days of snow. I enjoy snow very much–as long as it melts after a few days.
Onward!

Uncanny

Today’s Word Count: 387 words, 36.5k total

Excerpt:
Daniel closed his eyes tightly and focused on something else, anything else. The carnival came quickly to his mind, and why wouldn’t it? It had been his home. He concentrated on the lights and the noises; they washed over him, as familiar and comforting as a lullaby. The high-pitched screams of delight, the childish laughter. Bells and whistles, sirens and dancing lights flashing, seizure-inducing excess. The warm smell of popcorn, sailing to him across oceans of grease and dripping caramel. There, someone was spooling cotton candy around their finger. Here, two lovers were locked in a sugary kiss.

The beat goes on. Had to cut some of an old sequence, but made up for it with a new one. Trying to move the story forward. New threads are slowly forming.
Onward!

Uncanny

Today’s Word Count: 972 words, 36.1k total

Excerpt:
“There anything I can do to help?”
The man looked past him and inclined his head. “Your car. What model is that?”
“It’s a Toyota. But I’ve forgotten the model name. Some cloud formation. Cumulus, Nimbus.” The man leered at him. Timothy felt like he had failed a small yet important test of his own manhood. “It’s a rental,” he finished sheepishly.
“That right,” the man remarked. He looked at Timothy from the soles of his feet on up, like he was sizing him. Timothy shifted on his feet. This man could certainly do him no harm—but his heart thumped in his chest just the same.

Things are going okay. Finished my past scene, a character building one, and pasted it on in. It looks good in there–it was much too short to begin with. *Sigh* I suppose at some point I should get back to advancing the story…

Uncanny

Today’s Word Count: 639 Words

Excerpt:
The man watched him approach, a cold look on his face. The woman had retreated back inside the car and shut the door. He glanced in as he passed by. She was looking steadily ahead, her fingers crawling in her lap like spiders. He looked ahead and fixed a smile to his lips.
“Car trouble?”
Blue jeans man scratched under his chin and batted his eyes, as if to say, you figured that one out, eh genius? Timothy felt the slightest tinge of anger slip into his heart like a thin, poisoned dagger. His smile fell a few notches. Blue jeans man said nothing. He was wringing the rag (which was actually just his shirt, Timothy could see now) like he was trying to rid it of water.

I’m filling out a character, and thus filling out an old scene that was originally about a page long. Hopefully, it will be larger and more revealing by the time I’m done with it. I like visiting the past. Sometimes, it gives me direction for the future.
Over and Out!

Uncanny

Today’s Word Count: 617 words, 34.5k total

Excerpt:
“Daniel…do you know how you got here?”
He shook his head in reply. No, he hadn’t thought of how he had come here. Daniel had been fighting to figure out where “here” was. But then it came to him, sharp and clear, like a ray of sun piercing the clouds. He wasn’t sure he could do it, but after a brief struggle, he lifted his arms up and out. They shook violently with the effort, like he was holding invisible paint cans. He flapped them in the air, once, twice, and then he let them fall to the ground.
“You flew here?”
An old joke, planted in some dark, hidden field of his mind, came plowing its way to the surface. “And boy, are my arms tired.”

Well, things are going okay. I’m still in my Stephen King induced inspirational mode, so hopefully that continues for a while. I’ve found another trap that I’ll have to dodge: overusing metaphors. Today, it seemed I wanted to end every sentence with “like this” or “just like that” or “as if”.
I enjoy metaphors, I really do, like a wino enjoys wine. They are a good thing, I just don’t want to overuse them; like a woman might wear too much makeup.
Anyway…
Onward!

Uncanny

Today’s Word Count: 500 words, 33.9k total

Excerpt:
The man stretched back to his feet, and Daniel caught a flash of light, a daggered reflection, from the man’s coat pocket. Glasses. Like before. A doctor.
Dr. Weiss.
The name came to him like a whisper on the air. A voice, just to his left. He whipped his head to the side but his chin fell helplessly to his chest. A new wave of dizziness swept over him. The man, Dr. Weiss, leaned into his colleague. They conversed quietly. Daniel strained to listen; his ears itched madly, as if someone was tickling them with a feather.

Stayed up too late last night. A friend from Oregon is in town. I’m actually surprised I was able to write anything today. Feeling good about my voice now–though I’m afraid I’m quickly becoming a Stephen King clone.
Onward!