Places, Everyone!

r-avatarOur first three novels are set in the same made-up town, which is strongly inspired by a real place. The music novel and (son-of) are set in New York City, which despite what you may have heard is an actual, real place. For the science novel and its successors we have once again invented cities, and the locations that inhabit them.

The science novel’s locale is practically part of the cast. We never considered setting the story in a known city. When it came time to plan its sequels, though, we worked very hard at tracking down a real place that could work. Neither of us can quite say why. Given the logistical constraints of the plot, as well as some crucial geographic and climate considerations, it was proving all but impossible to choose an existing location. Plus, we wanted it to have a cool name.

The desire to name the place was probably the signal that snapped us out of it. So, today we concocted a deliciously Russian appellation for the place where we’ll be making more characters’ lives miserable, and decided where to put its map pin. In this case, “we” means Jen of course, because names are her superpower. Now that we’ve chosen this route, it’s dawned on us how strange it would have been to have books in a series follow different theories of setting and world-building.

As an added bonus, creating a location from scratch allows Kent to stretch his D&D muscles to draw up maps.

Part 100!

r-avatarIt’s been just over a year since we started our chain story, creatively titled Tune In Next Time. To celebrate part 100, we’re going to write this one together! We’ll also use a longer list of prompt phrases, just to make it fun.

Jen will start things off and she’ll hand the keyboard over to Kent as soon as she incorporates the first prompt phrase. He’ll hand it back after he includes a prompt snippet. And so on.

This is not actually how we write our novels, at least not so far. But if it works well today, who knows?

  • punches a screwdriver into the paper
  • agreed that she could “take other lovers”
  • clutching his free hand
  • not managed to untie the convoluted ribbon
  • I can imitate any kind of a bird or beast
  • kind of a lingerie feeling
  • (who’s also probably looking at porn)
  • you wave the red flag
  • I just don’t have enough middle fingers
  • pressed her thumb against her lips

Tune in next time part 100                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

“How long do I need to keep this up?” I panted to Fleur, wiping my sore and sweaty hands on my embroidered trousers. John was even worse off than I was, confined as he was inside the furry and constrictive rabbit costume.

My wife waved vaguely at a large, colorful piñata hanging from one of the pillars. “You will stop when my father punches a screwdriver into the paper effigy of the hare. If candy spills out, it means that we succeeded and I am pregnant.”

As the pyroclastic yams accumulated in pots of water around the battleground, I wondered about my wife. We’d spent very little time together, going our separate ways immediately after the honeymoon when I agreed that she could “take other lovers,” mildly amused at her insistence that I make air quotes when I said it.

She never made air quotes when she said it about me, but she generally didn’t seem jealous. Would things change if she was indeed now pregnant? Would I be expected to stay in Contraria and play a part in the child’s life?

As I ran around the perimeter of the courtyard with a flaming tuber, I looked at Fleur, trying to imagine her with a baby. She stood beside her father who held a large screwdriver, Fleur was clutching his free hand which I saw now was wrapped up like a mummy’s in a bright blue ribbon.

The ribbon’s color seemed significant, but try as I might I couldn’t recall whether Contrarian custom associated blue with boys or girls. Did my warlord-in-law foster the stereotypical hopes for male issue, or was he hoping for the next generation to emulate his formidable daughter? John began another frenzied lap with his next yam, bunny mask askew and fluffy tail darkened by soot and dirt. How would all these exertions matter, if the piñata determined the outcome? Then I saw the second hare-shaped paper sculpture, discreetly poised for substitution. I poured on a burst of speed, realizing my victory relied on Fleur having not managed to untie the convoluted ribbon from her father’s hand.

Needing to gain an advantage over my cunicular foe, I let loose the shriek of the Himalayan Snowcock. John has had a deep-rooted terror of that bird ever since his childhood misadventures in the Tibetan monastery. John dropped his flaming yam and clapped his smoldering paws over his ears (the human ones, not those of his fanciful costume). Fleur looked at me agape as I snatched up John’s root vegetable from the dust and dunked both it and my own into the ceremonial pot, quenching them in a hiss of steam.

I smiled and said, “Something you may not know about me is that I can imitate any kind of a bird or beast.” And then, just to be a dick, I did the Snowcock cry again and watched John flounder on the ground. It took him several minutes to fully recuperate, time I used to extend my lead.

The blue ribbon now trailed almost to the ground between my wife and her father, the two of them smiling smugly at one another. If they were pleased, that was a good sign for me. I hoped.

I lapped John again, feeling regretful for exploiting his weakness when he was already encumbered. “Gotta be miserable in that suit,” I muttered as I passed.

“Eh, it’s not so bad,” he panted. “Has a nice lining, silky, kind of a lingerie feeling.” I sped up so I couldn’t hear the rest of his explanation.

Fleur’s father waved his now benuded hand in the air and shot a look at the scorekeeper, the rotund man who wore a flowing silken caftan, the man who held my future in his hands, the man who was keeping tally of our yams on his ipad (who’s also probably looking at porn). The rotund man nodded slightly.

By now the water in all the pots was boiling from the residual heat of the incendiary root vegetables piling up in them. I watched the rotund man, barely paying any attention to where I was running. I stared at him, willing him to end this before all the blisters on my hands burst open. You’re my favorite person right now, I thought, because when you wave the red flag I can stop doing this.

But there was no red flag. Instead, my father-in-law strode across the temple courtyard and stabbed his enormous screwdriver straight into the heart of the rabbit piñata. He awkwardly worked his middle fingers into the resulting hole, enlarging it.

“Who made this damn thing?” he bellowed. “I just don’t have enough middle fingers to make the hole big enough!”

Fleur scampered over to him and plunged her own impudent digits into the paper maché rodent, and suddenly the ground was covered with brightly colored gummy babies, the only Contrarian export.

A blare of trumpets rang out from all around the walls, in honor of the good news. Fleur scooped up handfuls of the sticky candy and skipped over to where I had slumped in the dirt. I spotted John hopping away. My father-in-law raised his arms in triumph. I smiled up at Fleur.

I began to speak, but she leaned down and put one of the dusty gummy babies in my mouth. She pressed her pinky against my lips, and pressed her thumb against her lips, and made puckery little noises at me. I was too tired to ask what it meant, and too grateful that the ordeal was over to even care.

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Cave of Rainbows

r-avatarAs much as we tout the benefits of our rainbow-based approach to story development, we must also admit that the system has its drawbacks. Laying the whole thing out takes up a hallway, or most of a room. Laying out multiple rainbows concurrently (backstory + sequel + another sequel) takes up our entire auxiliary writing cave.

Studying the whole thing is a bit laborious, too. It can involve some stooping, and playing a sort of anti-Twister to keep from ruining the layout with one’s feet. (The other night, Kent had to sneeze while standing astride the whole construct. That could have been disastrous!)

Maybe we kid ourselves, but we feel like the inconveniences are all offset by the system’s merits. In fact, the strengths and weaknesses are all due to the same thing — the physical nature of the cards, which allows them to be shifted around and makes their representation of the story more tangible and spatial. There are software tools that do similar things, some of which we also make use of. Scrivener’s cork board is nice, and Jen is an expert with Aeon Timeline.

But sometimes you need to crawl around in your dusty auxiliary writing cave, and sneeze a few times, to really internalize a project.

As Soon As the Airship Docked

  • by KentI spit it out.
  • “When the Stars Weep Blood”
  • out of touch (at best) and disgusting (at worst)
  • until it actually grows too hot to bear it
  • in her uncle’s yam garden

Tune in next time part 99                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

As soon as the airship docked we proceeded among hanging gardens and colonnades to what looked like a temple. At the entrance we were served ceremonial wine, and in keeping with tradition I spit it out. My research into Contrarian customs hadn’t included any of their medical practices, however, so I was interested to see how a pregnancy test would be conducted.

I should not have been surprised that it consisted of trial by combat. My opponent’s rabbit costume was something I felt I could legitimately find surprising. Another surprise was the music, death metal blaring over hidden loudspeakers, a song titled “When the Stars Weep Blood” by a band called Not Particularly who had been exiled from Contraria the previous year.

“Now we will find out if the rabbit dies!” bellowed Fleur’s father.

“Symbolically,” came John’s voice from behind the rabbit mask. “If you win the fight, that’s good enough.”

I grimmaced. Even knowing that the beliefs in Fleur’s homeland were out of touch (at best) and disgusting (at worst) I couldn’t convince myself this was something I’d really have to go through with.

My father-in-law handed me a large axe, and a net and trident were presented to John. The weapons looked real.

“Ready, set, DIG!” declaimed Fleur. I raised my axe in anticipation of a charge from John, unsure I’d heard correctly. But he attacked not me, but the ground. I chopped at the soil around my feet, trying to figure out the objective.

John scooped up a lump of something and ran with it around the edge of the temple courtyard. I kept hacking at the ground as I watched his progress. Before making it halfway around, he began tossing the lump up and catching it again, bouncing it from hand to hand.

“You must race with the yam until it grows too hot to actually bear it,” Fleur coached. “It’s like that game from your country, ‘hot yam.’ Of course you need to find one first!”

The tubers we unearthed reacted to air exposure, quickly bursting into flames if they weren’t quenched in a pot of water. Such pots were positioned around the courtyard, and our score was calculated by how many yams we deposited and how far we ran with them.

Fleur continued my education, telling the story of the young unwed princess who blamed her pregnancy on the hares in her uncle’s yam garden. My hands blistered from the heat of the yams as well as the inefficient digging tool I had to use. I had no idea who was winning, or what would signal the end of the contest.

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The Sewer Martyr Laughed

  • by jen“Always, Daddy.”
  • entering its treacherous swamps
  • I could tell by his eyes
  • she didn’t give you a lot of horse manure
  • and delude your visitors

Tune in next time part 98                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

The sewer martyr laughed at the expression on my face, and the spell was broken. This was not Ploot Funk, merely John dressed up in a very convincing costume.

My warlord father-in-law strode up to the railing beside me and I gestured at John. “Is it Contrarian tradition to try and delude your visitors into thinking they are seeing ghosts?”

“Not ghosts,” the stern man said. “Holy visions. We need the populace to accept the new sewer taxes if we are to ever get the pumping station operational. Funkistan is a beautiful city, but she does not attract many tourists. We did a survey and learned that foreigners would like our fair metropolis better if she didn’t give you a lot of horse manure to the nostrils” He shook his head with amusement. “Of course it’s not horse manure that they are smelling, or at least not only horse manure, but we didn’t bother to correct them.”

I could tell by his eyes that this was a man who was deeply concerned about the future of his realm, and I knew that I and my yet-to-be-born children played a large role in that future. I felt like I was no longer in control of my destiny. I had my life mapped out before me, but now it felt like Fleur and her father had destroyed that map. I was navigating my future blind, and now entering its treacherous swamps. Would I ever find my way back to the life I had planned for myself?

Fleur appeared at my elbow, resplendent in her Contrarian royal garb. Her father looked at us and said, “You will do your duty?”

“Always, Daddy.” Fleur glared at me until I nodded. “My husband and I are ready for the pregnancy test ceremony.”

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Spinning Plates

r-avatarRune Skelley likes to focus on just one novel at a time. Having to keep track of multiple story worlds simultaneously makes it harder to do any of them justice. Harder, but hopefully not impossible, because we’re bending our own rule right now.

Novel #1 (Miss Brandymoon’s Device) is getting a final round of line edits, while we’re also doing a read-through on the Science Novel in preparation for outlining the sequels. We’ve already rainbowed them, and now we need to really get that world under our nails to expand those rainbows into full-fledged outlines. The line editing is happening mostly by day, with evenings available for the read-through. It seems to be working pretty well, so far.

In addition to all of that, we’re getting feedback from our beta readers on Son of Music Novel. That means we have to keep all three of our story worlds in our heads, to some extent.

Oh, and we’re doing cover mockups for our first trilogy. Shifting from verbal creative mode to pictorial creative mode is refreshing now and then, although there’s a lot of creative verbiage flying around the writing cave while we converge on a common vision for these covers.

Sometimes, practical demands force you to spread yourself a little thin. Having a writing partner means you can keep more plates spinning.

Looking Down at the Tangled Streets

  • by Kentto protest the city’s substandard sanitation
  • uphill would be difficult
  • the engine of the pumping plant
  • — it cannot be — no, for he is dead
  • made him look exactly like a Japanese pug dog

Tune in next time part 97                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Looking down at the tangled streets and overcrowded market squares of the capital city, I recalled some of the Contrarian history I’d studied for my wedding. It wasn’t so much the sights as the smells that brought my lessons flooding back.

Funkistan takes its name from Ploot Funk, who martyred himself with fire to protest the city’s substandard sanitation. This despite it being among the first major population centers with a sewage system. In grand Contrarian fashion, the planners had placed the main treatment plant on a mountainside several miles away. Knowing that conveying so much waste uphill would be difficult, they designed the engine of the pumping plant to be extra powerful. They did not, however, connect the pumping plant to the treatment plant in any discernible way. The sewers are perpetually backed up. Implying anything ironic or humorous about the country’s capital being literally full of shit is punishable by death.

I glanced to my left where someone had joined me at the railing. It was Ploot Funk, unmistakably — it cannot be — no, for he is dead two centuries. He smiled, reading my recognition and puzzlement, and the resemblance grew even more uncanny. All the history texts say that when Ploot Funk smiled, it made him look exactly like a Japanese pug dog.

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John Laughed at the Expression

  • by jenI’m not going to go to the bathroom
  • “But where are the huts?”
  • forbidden within city limits
  • haven’t spoken Romanian in decades
  • People are disgusting.

Tune in next time part 96                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

John laughed at the expression of fury on my wife’s face. “I think you have better things to worry about than Tessa, buddy.”

I swallowed, but my throat was dry.

Fleur tied the laces of John’s roller skates together and hung them around his neck. She unzipped the door at the front of our buoyant boudoir, grabbed John, and in one quick motion hooked the zip-line to his skating harness and shoved him out into open air. He fell only a few feet before his tether stopped his descent with a jolt. Fleur pointed at the zeppelin ahead of us. “Haul yourself back and beg my father’s forgiveness for both your ineptitude at aerial roller derby and for interrupting my fertility ceremony.”

As John pulled himself along with shaking hands I heard him repeating, “I’m not going to go to the bathroom in my shorts,” over and over again.

Fleur rezipped the door and said to me, “Tessa is the least of your concerns right now. We are already in Contrarian air space. In a mere 24 hours we will land in the capital. I better be pregnant by then.”

I wanted to remind her that conception wasn’t an instantaneous process, that it might take several days, but I was distracted by the view out the window.

“But where are the huts?”

“The entire populace of Contraria awaits us in the capital. They took their huts along to camp in the streets. Usually that is forbidden within city limits, but this is the Year of the Monkey, so special rules apply.”

And then she told me to shut up again, and the next 24 hours passed in a sweaty blur.

When the airship arrived at the Contrarian capital, it went into a holding pattern. Fleur and I were reeled in and given the opportunity to clean up before all the pomp and circumstance. I was assigned a manservant named Nicolae. I haven’t spoken Romanian in decades, but we were able to communicate well enough to get the job done.

When I exited the spa, refreshed and clad in Contrarian ethnic garb, I passed by a laundress who was carrying the linens from the bed Fleur and I had just spent the better part of a week befouling.

I heard her mutter as she passed, “People are disgusting.”

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Scouting the Locations

r-avatarWe have a habit we’re trying to break, wherein we do online research to discover exciting locations in which to set our novels, write a rough draft of said novel, and only then visit the location. This leads to edits to punch up the atmospheric details, and occasionally reblock scenes.

Last year we were a little smarter and took our field trip before we finished the first draft. We didn’t need to make any changes, and were able incorporate some fun details to give the work more verisimilitude.

This year we were brilliant! We made our pilgrimage before we set pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard.

Son of Music Novel is in the hands of beta readers, and we’re revving up the engines to start composing both Son and Grandson of Science Novel. The location we visited last week is one we’ve been to before — it was our inspiration for the main setting of Science Novel — and we wanted to refresh our memories, get the feel for it again so we can do it justice in the sequels.

Sadly we won’t be able to visit all of our inspiration sites. One no longer exists in the real world, and some of the others are in Russia. We have, in fact, been to Russia, but it’s been a few years, and we stuck to the touristy stuff when we were there. No secret labs or long-forgotten cold war bunkers on our itinerary, alas. But if we ever decide to set a novel in St Petersburg’s Hermitage or the Peterhof Palace, we have a ton of pictures to use for reference.

Airship Design Au Contraire

  • by Kentbut there’s a hitch
  • and its lingering afterburn
  • you and I have nothing more to say
  • said in a stern voice, “Take his skates off.”
  • minor aristocratic Prussian military family

Tune in next time part 95                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Airship design au Contraire is similar in most respects to that of the rest of the world, but there’s a hitch for towing lighter-than-air campers. In this case it was a floating boudoir wherein Fleur and I would experience fiery passion, and its lingering afterburn.

Three days into the voyage, I lay dehydrated and sticky on the helium-filled mattress in our airborne conjugal trailer. We hadn’t said a word since the first hour. Fleur announced, “You and I have nothing more to say,” and from that point all was coitus. When a soft thud sounded from the roof and our chamber listed slightly, my first delirious idea was that Tessa had used her ninja skills to mount a rescue. My rising hopes were dashed when Fleur opened the top hatch and dragged John down through it to bounce beside me on the bed. She said in a stern voice, “Take his skates off.”

John blanched, eyes darting nervously from the nude woman standing over him to my own unclothed form sprawled next to him. I groggily pawed at the laces of his roller skates, barely able to form any curiosity about them. The knots were stubborn.

“Thanks for bringing me in, you saved my life,” John stammered. “The roller rink on top of the zeppelin should probably have steeper banking in the turns, or your father will lose the whole team before we even get to the tournament. He surely doesn’t want another forfeit to that minor aristocratic Prussian military family. Their team is just a goat.”

My punch-drunk neurons got their act together for a few seconds, long enough to remember that John was likely to have information about Tessa, but not long enough to keep me from blurting out, “Where’s Tessa?” right in front of my wife.

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