Deadlines Be Damned!
We’ve added another 5,000 words since last we spoke, dear reader, so we rewarded ourselves with tickets to The Last Jedi last night. Perhaps not the most productive use of our time, but come on!
Pew! Pew! Pew!
The Black Velvet Room
with a canine-skin collar- various scenarios with his colleagues
- it would be a shining white box
- –Don’t be modest
- finally agreed to wear it
Tune in next time part 240 Click Here for Earlier Installments
The black velvet room, with its distressing noises and aromas, was breaking down my concentration, cutting me off from all my Academy training. I couldn’t even find my way out anymore. Confusion and panic rose in my head; it was like a toilet backing up.
My mind retreated from the awfulness of the present moment, and I was swept back into a memory from childhood. I sat on the floor in Father’s office, playing with John and Jason. We had Matchbox cars. Father presented his current mistress with a canine-skin collar, then sent her out and discussed various scenarios with his colleagues, debating the best way to deliver the next quarter’s bribes. Someone said they’d get the most bang for their buck if it would be a shining white box filled with gold coins.
“No, I have a better idea,” Father said, staring at me. “Son,” he said, “I have an important job for you. Tell me you’re prepared — Don’t be modest — tell me you can do it.”
Father spoke to me like that for an hour, browbeating me about acting as his mule. The colleagues left, and the mistress returned with the collar. She distracted Father from me, at last, when she finally agreed to wear it.
bonus points for using them in order
I’d Heard Entirely Enough About the Viscount’s Ornamentation
appreciated Jim’s zeal- let’s play Master and Servant
- “When Ralph was at work sometimes
- Why should I care what happens now?
- I almost forgot to ask
Tune in next time part 239 Click Here for Earlier Installments
I’d heard entirely enough about the Viscount’s ornamentation, and I’d seen far more than enough of my father’s sexual escapades. What surprised me the most about the situation before me was Esmerelda’s seeming enthusiasm. From everything I’d ever heard she appreciated Jim’s zeal, in both the sack and in all other aspects of their marriage, and I was surprised she’d throw that all away for a roll in the hay with a wannabe despot.
As I fumbled my way around the black velvet draperies, searching for the exit, I heard my father say, “Hey ladies, let’s play Master and Servant.”
I hastened my search.
“When Ralph was at work sometimes,” my father continued (even though Mother’s name was ZsaZsa, he always called her Ralph), “she’d call me into the Oval Office and make me wear only a collar and hide under her desk.”
The girls Morse-coded at each other, “He’s about to spill state secrets!”
Why should I care what happens now? I wondered. Whatever political machinations my father was planning were unlikely to come to fruition when he was so easily distracted. But my training wouldn’t allow me to walk away from such a potentially disastrous espionage situation.
By now Darlene had bounded onto the bed with the amorous trio. I was so mortified by the raw animal lust displayed by my father that I almost forgot to ask myself the most important question an operative can ask: what is this meant to distract me from?
A Progress Report from the Writing Cave
We passed the 60k milestone this week on Grandson of Science Novel, which is great! Of course, that leaves us only three weeks to hit our target of 100k by year’s end. Which would take an average of 2000 words per day. That’s only 1000 words apiece (have we ever mentioned that having a writing partner offers many advantages?), but that’s every day, and it’s significantly more than the pace we’ve been on. Like, very significantly. Back when work started on this one, we ran some numbers and came up with a plan that felt perfectly reasonable. And now, here we are, with nearly half of the book remaining to write and less than a month to do it.
So we’re a little stressed about missing our deadline. Life keeps getting in the way. We have all kinds of excuses, and we think most of them are pretty good. Unfortunately, we haven’t come up with the excuse that’s so good it lets us hit our deadline after all.
Thing about this deadline is, we imposed it on ourselves. Rune Skelley sets Rune Skelley’s schedule. So the consequences for blowing it are rather abstract. Assuming we do end up blowing it, we’ll miss out on the satisfaction of attaining it. And, the longer it takes us to write a book, the longer the gaps between our releases.
Setting goals and deadlines for yourself is vital for being able to measure progress, and even without a mean boss glaring at your tardiness, you need to take these things seriously. You need discipline, and you need to protect your writing time. You just can’t let deadline stress ruin the joy of creation.
The Trouble With Spoken Codes
- it can be a little intimidating, a little scary
- fantastically gilded and filagreed
- he’d chubbed up quite a bit
- more than a billion dollars
- she claimed to have met several of them
Tune in next time part 238 Click Here for Earlier Installments
The trouble with spoken codes is that they have dialects. This made it difficult to be sure I was picking up the intended meanings of all the symbols. I was left hoping I had misconstrued some parts of the conversation. And at no point could I tell which sister was speaking.
“Seeing it for the first time, it can be a little intimidating, a little scary. Most of the others I’ve seen are rather plain, but his is fantastically gilded and filagreed.”
“Yes, it’s a bit overwhelming at first. I for one was pleasantly surprised, having been told that he’d chubbed up quite a bit over the past year.”
“She’s the one you have to thank there, for sparing no expense on his fitness coaches. We know it was more than a billion dollars. Contrarian dollars, sure. But that’s still a lotta chedda.”
“Fitness coaches? Do you really believe that? I mean, she claimed to have met several of them at her father’s private club, and we both know who has membership there.”
“Wait, are you telling me this is a coup?”
“That hadn’t occurred to me. My hunch is it’s something far more ordinary and wearisome.”
“Maybe it could use some filagree!”
This was, seemingly, a very funny thing to say in code. Their eroticized cackling will haunt me to my grave.
bonus points for using them in order
“Are You Getting Out of Here?”
- “Should I come with you?’
- “Rap rap-rap rap-rap rap-ra, ra, ra, ra, ra, rap!”
- you can’t do it in less than six hours
- had (merely in playfulness) drawn his bayonet
- I don’t remember what day of the week it was
Tune in next time part 237 Click Here for Earlier Installments
“Are you getting out of here?” Darlene asked, still rocking her hips. “Should I come with you?” She gazed at the trio on the bed. “Or..?”
“Well I’m certainly not sticking around to watch,” I replied.
From the tangle of nude limbs I heard a female voice repeating, “Rap rap-rap rap-rap rap-ra, ra, ra, ra, ra, rap!” It sounded like someone trying to speak morse code, which is something they teach at the Academy. You can learn it, but you can’t do it in less than six hours, so the course usually takes two days. But I did it in one. While my brain tried to catch all the nuances and decode the message, my eyes had the unenviable task of tracing out all the ways the three lovers were intertwined in order to see which woman’s mouth was free to speak unencumbered.
I tried to tell myself that I wasn’t witnessing sex. That my father, a famous general, had (merely in playfulness) drawn his bayonet. But I wasn’t buying it.
I don’t remember what day of the week it was when I learned spoken morse code, but I was glad my advisor had insisted. What I was hearing today was not merely one Svenborgian sister speaking, but the two of them alternating to pass along a most astounding message about my wife and Viscount Arlo.
bonus points for using them in order
Shining A Light
We went to a lighting design center this week, and the main thing that we learned is that a lighting design center is a dangerous place for us to be left unsupervised. In addition to all the stuff in the showroom, they also have big, thick catalogs of amazing and weird stuff that you can hang from the walls and ceilings of your actual house and connect to the wiring therein.
There was a not insignificant chance that we would have decided to remodel our entire house (again) so we could have excuses to buy all the fun things. Perhaps it’s a good thing these items are so expensive, as that might be what brought us to our senses.
We knew what we were shopping for when we went in there: something modern and sleek for above the dinner table. We knew what the dining room looked like, and we knew we weren’t really going to redo it. Yet, all the pretty lights in other styles (craftsman, deco, neo-Victorian, space-age retro, regular retro, and vintage industrial {which, let’s be honest: that’s steampunk}) tempted us sorely. In the end, we stuck to our program if not our budget, and ordered a minor masterpiece of modern elegance that will harmonize with our home’s style.
The experience reminded Kent of something he’s heard said about font design. “Not a bunch of pretty letters; a pretty bunch of letters.” The same applies to the words those letters create.
Writing fiction is a lot like decorating a room. It’s less about how cool, or how gorgeous, any individual element might be. It’s certainly not about how many nifty things you can festoon the page with. It’s about the overall effect. You have to know when a humorous beat is needed, and when to lay off the rimshots and allow the moment to breathe. When you’re choosing a strong verb, you must choose the one that matches the flavor of the scene and the personality of the character doing it.
It’s hard to take out the stuff that doesn’t belong. When it’s good stuff, just not the right stuff to bring the room together, the killing of the darlings can feel literal. But you don’t really have to kill them. Just send them out of the room.
Despite The Total Unclothedness
- approximately one-third of one nipple
- like in some fairytale
- removed the latex gloves
- bearded, hairy face
- the seductive influence
Tune in next time part 236 Click Here for Earlier Installments
Despite the total unclothedness of the three people in front of me, which meant there were six nipples exposed, the angle of view afforded me only a glimpse of approximately one-third of one nipple, and it wasn’t one I would have picked. Their choreography of modesty was as impressive as it was uncharacteristic, like in some fairytale, the film version of which received a hard R rating for the scene where the wicked stepmother removed the latex gloves from her hands after wearing them to caress the bearded, hairy face of her prisoner. Darlene whimpered, rocking her hips. I expected a professional like herself to be immune to the seductive influence of a potbellied deposed former first husband and his sibling covert operatives.
Given that the potbelly belonged to my father, I certainly was.
bonus points for using them in order
So Darlene Really was a Prostitute
- it’s never been dull
- “Tut, tut, child; tut, tut,”
- Let’s not forget the legendary Nile Rodgers
- was a dinner guest once again
- endless red tape
Tune in next time part 235 Click Here for Earlier Installments
So Darlene really was a prostitute, making her earlier defense of my father a lie just like everything else I’d been told in recent memory. I was surrounded, as usual, by liars and spies. Say what you will about my life, at least, like my knife, it’s never been dull.
I pulled my little blade from its hidden sheath, the location of which it’s better not to mention in polite company.
“Tut, tut, child; tut, tut,” I said, laying my hand on Darlene’s shoulder to prevent her escape. “I need some answers.”
Her eyes were fixed on my knife, but she shook her head. “I will tell you nothing.”
Something about her bearing reminded me of the celebrities who made command appearances at the White House when Mother was president: Bootsy Collins, George Clinton, Les Claypool. Let’s not forget the legendary Nile Rodgers and his stoicism when he was a dinner guest once again against his better judgment. It was clear that all of these men had deeply held opinions about Mother and her policies that they worked hard to keep off their faces. To this day I don’t know how she compelled all of them to visit, but I’m sure it involved credible threats and endless red tape. She could make them be there, but she couldn’t make them enjoy it. That’s how Darlene looked now.
I steered her back into the black velvet room where Dad was now sitting on the bed, with Esmerelda and Cleopatra on either side. He had his arms around them, pulling them up tight against him. All of them were nude.
I sighed.
bonus points for using them in order
The Divided Man Series Is On Sale: 25% Off
Attention, Black Friday shoppers!
The ebook editions of Tenpenny Zen and Elsewhere’s Twin are marked down to $2.99 each this week, while Miss Brandymoon’s Device remains a free download. That means you can snag the whole series for just $5.98.
This discount is only in effect through Friday, December 1, so don’t miss out.