I Tucked the Bundle of Wire Into My Pocket

  • by jenyour secret is safe with us
  • He did both.
  • her husband materialized
  • no explanations for the fresh cuts
  • took an Imperial Pint of vinegar

Tune in next time part 74                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

I tucked the bundle of wire into my pocket and thought about Svetlana. The surprise I felt came not from the fact of her escape from her bindings but from the knowledge that she could have escaped at any time. Why had she chosen to remain my bound captive for so long? Was she proving her cooperation, or attempting to lull me?

Beside the campfire sat a woman. On a spit in the flames was the roasting carcass of some medium-sized animal, maybe a goat. I watched as the woman took an Imperial Pint of vinegar from the ground beside her and basted the meat. Even so my mouth watered.

While the woman was occupied with recorking the vinegar bottle, Svetlana sprang from the darkness and cut two long strips of meat from the roasting animal and disappeared back into the shadows. Where had she gotten the knife?

The woman put the vinegar down and looked at her meal, confused. I could tell her dim imagination offered no explanations for the fresh cuts that now marred the cooking meat.

Just then her husband materialized from inside the weird blue van. I assume it was her husband, anyway. They acted married. I didn’t know whether to expect him to yell or laugh about the state of their dinner. He did both.

While the couple bickered, Svetlana appeared at my elbow and handed me a strip of hot, greasy meat. It burned my tongue and tasted strongly of vinegar, but I was too hungry to care. I ate it all in seconds and thought about daring Svetlana to get us more.

“I’ve had just about enough of your chauvinism, Harold!” the vinegar-woman cried as she shoved the man into the fire. I told you they acted married.

Harold screamed and stumbled around, his clothing and hair in flames. His wife watched, chuckling as he ran blindly off into the desert night.

“Serves you right you sonnovabitch!” she yelled after him.

Svetlana chose that moment to approach.

“We need transportation,” she said. “If you give us the keys to your van, your secret is safe with us. If you feel the need to argue, we’ll tell the authorities what we saw you do to poor Harold.”

 

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Sing Like No One’s Listening

r-avatarAn author needs a brand. (No, not social media or “platform.” That’s how you promote the brand; it’s not the brand itself.) This is about the work, about craft. And by brand, we mean more than genre + style, although that’s how a lot of your fans will sum it up — “Oh I love her stuff, it’s edgy scifi with this bleak sense of humor.” That’s not your brand. Neither are your characters, or your Big Ideas, or intricate plots, or deep themes. They’re elements of brand, but it’s more than the sum of those parts.

Your brand is your voice.

Cultivate your voice. Do it your way. Revision is a chance to make your voice more yours with every editing pass. Take out that stuff that doesn’t sound like you, and replace it with stuff that does. Own it.

Weigh all critique input against your voice. Your critiquers’ suggestions might be biased toward their own voices, unconsciously. They won’t set out to sabotage your voice; you need to keep an open mind. But, sometimes the “corrections” are actually mistakes. When you feel like someone really isn’t getting it, you’ll be tempted to try to appease them. Soon you’re trying to compromise with each reader, removing the impediments to their appreciation of your work. Don’t. When they don’t get what you’re doing, that’s a sign that you need to do it more, do it harder — do it so hard there’s no doubt you’re doing it on purpose. You’ll know you’re on track when instead of comments trying to “help” you with how you use language, you start getting comments about how your language makes them feel (good and bad).

Writing isn’t about serving up some mythical concoction that appeals to everybody. It’s about creating something meaningful for some, and that means it will be repellent to some. But it will find its audience and they will be passionate for it. That’s your tribe, and even if it’s small they’re your people. They’re the ones who are called by your voice.

When Svetlana Acquiesced

  • by Kentcome on, let’s get high
  • resembling a cerulean elephant with an aquiline nose
  • continued after night fell
  • isn’t mature enough to be my sex partner
  • I blame porn for this

Tune in next time part 73                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

When Svetlana acquiesced to walk under her own power and we started off along the side of the road, Jerry dropped his stick and called after us not to leave him. “I have some primo pharma in the way-back,” he implored. “Stick around guys, come on let’s get high.”

Even Svetlana could see that was a bad idea. We trudged for hours without seeing another vehicle. The hinterlands were so quiet that we could hear the rumble of a distant engine for several minutes before we spotted the machine behind us. It was some kind of van, resembling a cerulean elephant with an aquiline nose. In other words, not bearing much resemblance to an elephant at all. Svetlana waved her leg over her head in an effort to make the driver stop, but the weird van trundled past without slowing.

Our lonely hike continued after night fell. “Shouldn’t we stop, get some rest?” Svetlana asked. “We could lay down, together, under the stars.” She batted her eyelashes. “I’m already tied up.”

“You keep trying to seduce me, but I know it’s only in hopes of making your escape. You’re only looking out for yourself, which is a major turn-off. I’m not interested in sleeping with someone who isn’t mature enough to be my sex partner.” My speech caused her to pout, whether in genuine petulance or as a come-hither indicator it was impossible to tell.

Topping a hill brought us voices, and the smell of wood smoke and roasting meat. Both our stomachs growled so loudly I was worried the people at the campsite up ahead might hear them. Parked just within the circle of light cast by the fire was the bizarre bluish van, its proboscis accentuated by shadows dancing in the firelight. It wasn’t a nose at all, but a different anatomical reference.

Svetlana chuckled and handed me a tidy bundle of electrical wiring. She started toward the campsite, wrists unbound. “I’m going to get something to eat, you coming?” she called back to me.

“Wait,” I hissed, but she kept going. She presumably meant to ply these strangers with sexual advances, or just attack them and steal their food. I was so hungry I hardly cared, trailing a few dozen yards behind her to see what would develop. I was eager to watch, slave to a deep voyeuristic impulse that often arises at inopportune times. I blame porn for this reflex toward surreptitious observation. Regardless, I hoped for a cut of that meat.

 

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Svetlana Used Her Nimble Toes

  • by jencarried the corpse away with them
  • with an energy peculiar to excited females
  • “faddish” and “exaggerated”
  • Russia at its most bizarre
  • could not be locked from the inside

Tune in next time part 72                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Svetlana used her nimble toes to try to prevent me from bringing her along, but fortunately for me Jerry’s car could not be locked from the inside. While she writhed around and tried to hold all the doors closed with her feet, flailing and contorting her limbs like an acrobat from Russia at its most bizarre, I reached in through the open window and grabbed her by the ankle.

Some might call her struggles “faddish” and “exaggerated” but I knew that in her mind she was fighting for her freedom, if not her life, and doing so with an energy peculiar to excited females. I also think she had a crush on Jerry who stood nearby, still beating the ground with his stick.

I hauled Svetlana through the window by her ankle, narrowly avoiding being caught up in a headlock with her other leg. While she dangled from my fist, I said, “You can either walk, or I can carry you. If I carry you it won’t be fun. It’ll be like when John and Lyudmila killed that feral ninja and carried the corpse away with them, and you’ll be the corpse.”

She glared at me.

I gave a hard smile. “You won’t be dead, but you might wish you were.”

 

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Play it Again, Rune

r-avatarWe mentioned that we would be revisiting the Music Novel to compile the critique comments. That has indeed begun, but before we did that we elected to do a complete read-through in order to start forming our own game plan for what needs to be done. And in saying, “we elected to do a complete read through,” what we mean is, “Jen made Kent read the entire manuscript to her.” (He didn’t mind, even though after a few nights his voice got very tired.)

Happily, our recent spring cleaning (it is, after all, a leap year ending in 6) meant we could get all the critique copies of the Music Novel organized so that the next phase will be as efficient as possible. Collating input from our group is one of the few stages of our process that we haven’t been able to optimize. It’s just inherently cumbersome. But we have some ideas for stuff to try this time, so it doesn’t take us a month to sift through it all.

It’s very interesting to return to this work after writing and outlining so much other stuff. It feels partly like a homecoming, seeing again all our familiar characters and getting into a groove with the story we know by heart. At the same time we now see things in it that were hidden to us before, which is exactly why we make a practice of laying things aside for a while. This way when we make edits, they’ll go deeper. The end result will be stronger.

Writing with a partner means there’s someone to share the note-taking as you mine the critique pile for gold, and if you’re lucky it means there’s someone who will read to you.

The Pathetic Noises

  • by Kentbut you grab it between finger and thumb
  • struck the ground emphatically with his stick
  • asked Jerry for a gun
  • sell you a chainsaw in the desert
  • is biological in nature

Tune in next time part 71                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

The pathetic noises came from a dilapidated station wagon limping along the dirt road, chuffing and squeaking and dragging several of its body panels along the ground. The man at the wheel wore a moldy top hat and sunglasses made of gummi worms.

He rolled down his window as the car crept alongside us. “Name’s Jerry. Can I give you folks a ride?” Svetlana coyly allowed him to see that her wrists were bound with electrical wire. Jerry didn’t seem to mind.

“Sure,” I said. I put Svetlana in the back seat and went around to the front passenger door. Jerry didn’t ask us any more questions. As he drove he told us about his thrilling career as a race car driver, and how he spends his time in retirement inventing edible eyewear. “The design inspiration is biological in nature, i.e., worms. It’s just like normal glasses, but you grab it between finger and thumb and off comes a snack!” He demonstrated. He boasted about the many high-class boutiques that bought his designs, saying, “I’m the kind of guy who could sell you a chainsaw in the desert.” Like that was a thing. At one point Svetlana interrupted and asked Jerry for a gun. I thought I might need to take the pistol out of my pocket, but he ignored her.

Predictably, the station wagon wheezed to a halt and wouldn’t move despite all of Jerry’s swearing, even when he got out and kicked dust on it and threatened it with a stout tree limb that he brandished like a club. Even when he struck the ground emphatically with his stick.

“Thanks for the lift,” I said. “We’ll leave you to it.”

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Svetlana Had

  • by jencontrived to commit various high crimes and misdemeanors
  • consider looking deeper
  • the reunions didn’t go well
  • kill everyone and live happily ever after
  • the saddest and most pitiful sounds

Tune in next time part 70                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Svetlana had, in her storied past, contrived to commit various high crimes and misdemeanors, but none of her earlier schemes were as ill-conceived as her current actions. She leaned back on her stool, balancing expertly on her tailbone, and, using her nimble toes, threw her drink in the hissing bartender’s face, glass and all. It smacked him right between the eyes, sending a trickle of blood down his nose. I knew that her parents had looked into having her committed to a private home for the violently insane, and I thought maybe they should consider looking deeper.

The drunks at the table all leapt to their feet, their chairs clattering. Svetlana backflipped from her barstool to the center of their table, then spun in a quick circle, kicking them each in the face so that they wobbled and collapsed. Their asses smacked back into their chairs and the reunions didn’t go well. Several seats splintered.

“This place is crawling with spies!” Svetlana cried, staring at me with wide blue eyes. “We should kill everyone and live happily ever after in a cottage by the sea!”

I knew she didn’t really mean it. Happy endings weren’t her style. But for once we were on the same side.

The trench-coated individual leapt up and shrugged out of the coat, revealing himself to be a man. He came at me wielding a jagged hunting knife. I used a ninja maneuver I learned from Tessa to turn his momentum against him, and he lodged the blade in his own groin.

Svetlana and I ran out the door, leaving behind a bar full of men making the saddest and most pitiful sounds I’d ever heard.

It wasn’t long, though, until I heard sounds even sadder and more piteous.

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Archeology

r-avatarThe spring cleaning bug bit Jen this year. We’ve both known for a long time that the writing cave was way overdue (yes, it was way overdue a long time ago; we were verging on eligibility for a depressing reality show appearance). The excavation is well underway and has led to some very interesting finds.

In addition to the kids’ old school papers and mementos, manuals for appliances we junked years ago, and other miscellany, Jen uncovered some primitive forms of writing from many eons ago when Rune Skelley first formed. Deciphering these ancient inscriptions taught us much about the way of life as it was practiced back then.

We used to do our first drafts longhand, on lined paper. We’d use the process of typing them up as a chance to do minor edits.

We used to print out each draft and do all our revisions on paper. Any lengthy new or altered passages, we wrote out longhand, just like with a first draft.

We used to dive in and make up the story as we went. There would be a premise, and some notion of the inciting incident, and a shadowy impression of where it should all lead. Then we’d just go for it, and when it wasn’t quite right we redid it. Then we redid it again. (And again.)

As we moved away from so much handwritten output, we had a stage where we would write scenes, dozens of scenes, and then print them out and fan them on the floor to decide what order to put them in to form a story. Then we’d write whatever new material was needed to spackle over the seams.

We found a binder that Jen created for the Music Novel, containing notes about the whole cast and the band’s discography. Several characters’ names are out of date, as is the whole plot, but the inspiration is still there, still resonating.

We’ve come a long way, from such primordial techniques to our current state of rainbows and wrenches. It’s good to be reminded of how things once were, if only to be glad you don’t operate under such conditions anymore.

Buckskin Man’s Cryptic Semen Comments

  • by Kentbalanced himself dismally on one leg in a corner
  • about a bottle and a half ahead of any of his companions
  • without any flattery at all
  • the eerie rustling of my robes
  • a little liar, a boy-liar, a sweet, white boy-liar

Tune in next time part 69                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Buckskin Man’s cryptic semen comments remained mysterious, because Svetlana declined to offer any explanations. Wanting to find out what happened to John drove my decision to show up at the coordinates anyway, assuming I could decode them from the soggy paper scraps in my pocket. Leading the treacherous contortionist by one elbow, I struck off in search of a temporary base of operations.

It was nearing dark when we reached a bar where I felt safe. It was a corrugated metal shack in the hinterlands with a row of motorcycles out front. But the bikes were more rust than chrome. Entering the shabby building, I sized up the occupants. A table with four men hunched over it, someone drinking alone at the bar in a long tan trench coat, and someone I took to be the bartender, a reedy mustachioed man who balanced himself dismally on one leg in a corner behind the bar.

One of the four men at the table erupted in noisy laughter, leaning back and showing me that he was about a bottle and a half ahead of any of his companions. I can say without any flattery at all that the elaborate pyramid they’d built from their empties was the most sophisticated example of such architecture I had ever seen.

I stationed us at the opposite end of the bar, away from the enigmatic person in the trench coat, and got to work on the coded messages while Svetlana tried to summon the bartender to get a drink. The skinny, nervous man glanced in her direction but otherwise did not respond.

“You’ll need to help yourself, if you’re thirsty,” said the trench-coated person. The voice was dry and droll, reminding me of the eerie rustling of my robes when I graduated from the Hopscotch Academy with a degree in advanced duplicity. I couldn’t determine its owner’s gender.

Svetlana took the advice and sprang nimbly over the bar despite her wrists being bound. She used her toes to mix herself a sidecar while the bartender trembled behind her. Back at her stool, she again employed her toes to raise the glass to her lips.

The code concealing the coordinates looked tricky, but knowing that the message was intended for John was a big clue that it would be simpler than it appeared. He always sucked at ciphers. I stuffed the solved cryptograms back into my pocket and told Svetlana to finish her drink.

The bartender moved at last. He lunged up against his side of the bar, still on one foot, and hissed at Svetlana, “You know he’s a little liar, a boy-liar, a sweet, white boy-liar!” Everyone in the place heard him, even the suddenly quiet group over at their table.

“We’re leaving,” I said.

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Once He Was Barefoot

  • by jenand then await instructions
  • crowned by telephone wires
  • “Sure you gonna go home, Johnny! I know you are.”
  • doctors weren’t able to analyze the semen samples
  • and tell them to be punctual

Tune in next time part 68                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Once he was barefoot, the enigmatic stranger fished a sheet of paper out of his right moccasin and handed it to me. It was damp with foot-sweat. From the left he fished another note, which he tucked between Svetlana’s lips, making her wrinkle her nose.

“Go to these coordinates once you’ve decoded them, and then await instructions,” the man said as he slipped his feet back into their buckskin sheaths. While he was doubled over I noticed that his head was crowned by telephone wires and the feathers I spotted earlier were actually live birds tethered there.

“I’d rather go home than to your mysterious coordinates, dude,” I said.

“Sure you gonna go home, Johnny! I know you are.” His tone was mocking.

Why did he think I was John? Was it because I was in the company of Svetlana? She was trying to spit the notepaper out of her mouth, presumably to tell this man I was not her brother, but the paper stuck to her lips and tongue, and everything she said was muffled into indistinguishability.

“Things are heating up,” the man said, straightening, and ignoring Svetlana’s sputterings. “Our doctors weren’t able to analyze the semen samples because they were all contaminated with monkey semen.” He smiled briefly. “The samples were contaminated, not the doctors. Anyway, we need to collect fresh samples from everyone, so go to those coordinates, call your team, and tell them to be punctual. We can’t afford another screw-up.” He shook my hand, gave Svetlana a nod, and sprinted down the alley to a waiting limousine.

Svetlana finally spat her paper gag onto the ground and yelled, “This isn’t John!” at the receding black car.

I scooped up her soggy note and stuck it in my pocket along with my own.

“Now, what’s all this about semen?” I asked.

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