Roger Joined the Crowd

  • by jena ceremony of solemnity and grandeur
  • caught her round the waist
  • fairly jigging with frustration
  • governmental-seeming buildings
  • device in the leather bindings

Roger joined the crowd approaching the governmental-seeming buildings to see what all the fuss was about. They were fairly jigging with frustration for the gates to open. Roger came to the slow understanding that the buildings were not governmental, but religious, but by then it was too late and he could not escape the throng’s gravity. He was swept inside on a surge of humanity and grudgingly took up a position near the middle.

Like all religious rites, Roger expected this to be a ceremony of solemnity and grandeur and was prepared to be very bored. His attitude changed when the curtains were drawn back, exposing a large aquarium which housed an enormous blue octopus. A young woman wearing a leafy headdress and a pink bikini was lowered over the tank and began to sing. Apparently there was a microphonic device in the leather bindings suspending her, because Roger could hear her quite well. Her voice was not very good.

Just then, the octopus reached one long cerulean tentacle out of the water and caught her round the waist.

Her amplified screams rang through the building, and her safety tether snapped.

Roger looked away as her leafy headdress slipped beneath the waves.

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Look Back in Wonder

r-avatar2013 was a great year for Rune Skelley. Our major accomplishment (apart from keeping this blog up to date) was completing the entire first draft of a novel. We took a look back through our Friday collaboration posts here on the Skelleyverse to get an idea of how long the process actually took.

The first mention of Novel #5 comes on September 14, 2012, when we bemoan the fact that we’re having trouble deciding on a story concept. Kent has a Big Idea, Jen has a character name. Turns out both will end up in the novel.

Then, less than a month later, we have a solution! All it took was a long bus ride and a Jack White concert. Thanks Jack! Next time, please play for more than 45 minutes, okay?

By late November we’re pleased to have roughed in about half the plot, and by the end of the month, we’re covering the floor of the family room with a color-coded plot diagram.

In early December we’re struggling with the ending. We seem to lick that problem pretty quickly, because the next week we’re talking about naming our fictional city, and the week after that we’re drawing maps.

Early January 2013 finds us scouring the internet for pictures to represent our characters. It’s starting to feel a bit like we’re stalling, doesn’t it? I mean, this idea has been kicking around since September!

Finally – January 25th we’ve begun writing Novel #5. Go team!

Through February we seem to struggle with distractions large and small.

March finds us 50,000 words in, and working to detangle a tricky timeline knot. We’re collaborating well, though.

We didn’t mention this project at all during April or May, and in June we tell you why. An outside project had our attention. And then it was the new season of Arrested Development that took the blame.

By the middle of July we were getting back into the swing of things, starting with a read-through of the work-in-progress.

In August we were hitting our stride again, and almost done with the first draft!

In September we finally finished!

Of course, that was just the really rough first draft. It needed a bit of work before we could feel good about showing it to our critique group.

In October we were working on some retcon based on a field trip, and getting on each others nerves a bit.

And by the end of November, we had written up all the supplementary materials the novel called for, and were already getting feedback from our critique group.

Whew! A marathon! An entire novel written in under a year! The first mention of the idea was in September 2012, and the rough first draft was completed in September 2013. The sharable first draft took a smidgen longer, if you want to get technical.

Soon it will be time to do it all over again. We’re deep into edits on Novel #4, sometimes called the Music Novel. It has an actual title, but we’re feeling protective at the moment so you’ll just have to wait. As we mentioned, this novel was kind of a mess, so we’re afraid the editing process will be lengthy. But as soon as we’re done with that, we plan to start developing Novel #6 in earnest.

It will be fun to track our progress here, so we can look back over it when we’re done and (hopefully) marvel at how quickly it all comes together.

Happy New Year!

2013 Holiday Prompt

In this special holiday edition, the stichomancy prompt phrases were all taken from Christmas carols. Jen and Kent both tackled the same set, with markedly different results. Whose do you prefer?

  • so lively and quick
  • dashing through the snow
  • he began to dance around
  • tis the season to be jolly
  • nine ladies dancing
  • when we finally kiss goodnight

k-avatarKent’s take:

“I forgot these things were so lively and quick,” Herb remarked, drawing a bead on one of the creatures dashing through the snow in the clearing.

“And I forgot they bite! Ow!” exclaimed Remmy as he began to dance around holding one boot up out of the deep drifts, a creature dangling from the toe.

Herb chuckled, prompting Remmy to ask him with some vehemence just what was so damn funny.

“Oh, nothing. Just, tis the season to be jolly, I suppose,” drawled Herb in reply.

Remmy shook the xenopod loose and stomped it, muttering about better times before the invasion. “I’ve had enough for one day. Let’s go get drunk at the Nine Ladies Dancing. I’ll buy.”

“Okay,” Herb said. “I’d like to see that sweet little barmaid again anyway.” Herb’s opinions on the invasion were slightly more mixed. “When we finally kiss goodnight, I’ll find out what those suckers on her tongue feel like.”

bonus points for using them in order!

 

by jenJen’s take:

My blind date with Bertram started out well enough. I found him to be so lively and quick-witted that I was able to overlook his unfortunate ears. I thought him quite galant when he offered to pay for dinner, but halfway through the meal he began to dance around in his seat like he had to pee. Then he grumbled at our waiter, “It’s winter, dude! Tis the season to be jolly well sozzled so you don’t notice the cold! Bring me a yard of Schnapps! And one for the lady.”

He finished his shots in record time, and most of mine, all the while telling the tale of a bachelor party he’d recently attended where there were no fewer than nine ladies dancing naked. I was unimpressed.

Bertram’s fate was sealed when he said to me, “Hey babe, when we finally kiss goodnight, I’m going to slip you the tongue.”

Horrified, I left him at the table and went dashing through the snow and wind all the way to the subway station so he couldn’t follow me home.

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Thelonious Tharp’s New Jazz Dance Spectacular

  • by jenso alike and yet so different
  • that question? Plum
  • commentators were criticizing
  • we packed our biological agent
  • both punk rock and rap

Thelonious Tharp’s new jazz dance spectacular, We Packed Our Biological Agent, is what the commentators were criticizing.

“Why did he incorporate both punk rock and rap?” asked Kent.

“They are so alike, and yet so different from the jazz music he should have used!” cried Jen. “What could he possibly have been thinking?”

“How can anyone answer that question? Plum, the professor, did it in the conservatory with the candlestick. That’s all I know,” said Reggie.

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Papercuts

r-avatarWe definitely have our work cut out for us on this revision pass. Many scenes will be moved around, and although that doesn’t really impact their substance it does raise concerns about their tone. If something that used to fall in the third act is now going to be very near the start of the novel, we might want to make adjustments for the fact that readers don’t already know all the background. And, vice versa; moving early scenes to a later stage means we’ll need to be careful that we don’t introduce a lot of review and repetition, as those scenes no longer need to introduce all the ideas.

Probably the most significant change is due to reassigning POV. We realized that one of our characters needs to be fleshed out a lot more, because of the role he must play in the ending, and developed a bunch of great ideas for him. Too much stuff to get across without going inside his thoughts. At the same time, we identified a weakness with another character’s thread. He had point-of-view in several scenes, but nothing essential would be lost if we showed those events from someone else.

Meanwhile, we have our whole manuscript’s Scrivener file marked up with critique comments (our own and our group’s), on matters large and small. Project management consultants would be saying to leave the little stuff and concentrate on the big tasks first. After all, that missing comma will be irrelevant if the whole sentence — or the whole scene — gets cut. But Rune Skelley likes to do things Rune Skelley’s way, and here that means checking off as many of the dinky little things as possible first. The main benefit of that is decluttering the comments column when the text is on the screen, which is invaluable for both Jen’s and Kent’s ability to focus. We don’t like bleeding from a million papercuts, and even if the block of text where we fixed that comma does eventually get chopped, well, fixing the comma only took a few seconds. Totally worth it to us for the peace of mind.

Fortunately, we were able to agree on this order of business. There are many different ways to divvy up the work, and the optimal strategy might be different in every situation. But, in a collaboration, if the partners disagree on how to proceed they’ll likely trip over each other’s changes and generate friction. Get on the same page about your revision workflow before either of you starts editing.

Edward Said, “We’ll Pick Up a Couple of Flashlights”

  • k-avatarlost in the dismal thoughts
  • Don’t rush me, Edward!
  • we’ll pick up a couple of flashlights
  • was killed by thieves
  • was a dinner guest once again
  • he likely plunged in deeper

Edward said, “We’ll pick up a couple of flashlights for the walk home, so we’ll be safe. Unlike Frank, who loved the dark and was killed by thieves. Ulrike also loved darkness, but had better luck. She knocked on a door and was a dinner guest once again. Xavier is harder to account for. He likely plunged in deeper, becoming a thief himself, but not killing Frank. That would never happen, but Xavier does get lost in the dismal thoughts of his varsity days. Mascot. Hideous. So, where do you buy your flashlights?”

“Don’t rush me, Edward!”

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David Attended the Auction at Christie’s

  • by jenfrom faraway Ethiopia or India
  • nearly a hundred
  • squeezed between so many
  • dazzlingly clear and exquisitely polished
  • I saw this scarecrow
  • Well, David, there you have it

David attended the auction at Christie’s hoping to find an unusual anniversary present for his wife, Cherí. He was despairing of finding something suitable until he overheard a man in the crowd say, “I saw this scarecrow over by the medieval stuff.”

Cherí had grown up in Paris, but had always harbored dreams of a more pastoral existence. A scarecrow could be just the thing. David scurried to the far corner of the auction house and there, squeezed between so many suits of armor, he saw the most stunning of all scarecrows. Its eyes were blue, dazzlingly clear and exquisitely polished, like jewels from faraway Ethiopia or India.

“Well, David, there you have it,” he murmured. “The perfect gift for Cherí.”

He knew he could afford to spend nearly a hundred thousand dollars on it, and hoped the bidding wouldn’t run wild.

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Retro-Rainbow Rocketeers

r-avatarWe’re tackling the revisions on our music novel, which we completed last year. Coming back to it has been a bit eye-opening, leading us to wonder aloud how we got ourselves into certain messes.

Our process evolves with each book we work on, and at the time of this first draft we hadn’t yet implemented our rainbow plot diagramming technique. The read-through showed us that we have some significant structural concerns, and the plot’s complexity was making it hard to verbally analyze all the possible changes. So, we decided to do the rainbow trick after-the-fact.

It’s been eye-opening as well, helping us get all right-brainstormy about our plot structure. In the course of an hour or so the other evening, we re-envisioned the whole book as a set of parallel threads, seeing ways to sync up the revelations of backstory info to help inform the main story thread. The current draft is exposition-heavy, and a lot of that is in flashbacks (messes and wonderment, as previously mentioned), but we never felt that there was actually too much background info. The story world is complex, as are the characters, and we want to portray it all with richness and texture.

The upshot is, by writing the characters’ arcs on color-coded notepaper and spreading the whole thing out on the floor, we were able to see the “jobs” that the backstory exposition is supposed to do, and figure out a way to reposition the pieces so they can get their jobs done. If it sounds like we’re just rationalizing not cutting out the flashbacks, well, we hope that’s not true. Having a picture in our heads of how it’s supposed to interlock should give us the clarity to know which pieces are in fact pulling their weight.

The Nipple was Caught Between his Teeth

  • k-avatarthe nipple was caught between his teeth
  • when I first let Nathaniel move in
  • just because you never pass up a piece of tail
  • as if you’d licked a piece of candy
  • the vanilla scent of it was enough
  • accidentally blow themselves to hell

The nipple was caught between his teeth, held captive and threatened with laceration. When I first let Nathaniel move in, I thought I knew how kinky he was. I’ve since learned that I hadn’t even known *what* kinky was.

His teeth shifted back and forth, rolling the nipple. I moved the merest bit, as much as I dared without risk of disconnecting one of the electrodes. Nathaniel moaned and matched my rhythms, all the while caressing the bundle of dynamite beside my head. Jealousy tainted the moment and I spoke before my resolve failed.

“We’re only together at all just because you never pass up a piece of tail.”

Releasing my nipple, he replied, “Arguments in the sack are probably how a lot of nitrophiliacs accidentally blow themselves to hell.”

He knew all of my buttons, and the best ways to push them. Pressing the safety switch, he disconnected one wire from my thigh and placed it on my tongue. When he released the safety, current flowed. The effect is the same as if you’d licked a piece of candy.

He uses a special blend of explosives. The vanilla scent of it was enough to blot out all my doubts about his fidelity.

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Maxine Stared Longingly

  • by jenbe a hard bargainer!
  • that’s where all the Greek gods live
  • like a spinning mouse
  • began to pick the dust and rocks off them
  • on her knees before me
  • but also a pathological walking delusion

Maxine stared longingly at the fraternity house and said, “That’s where all the Greek gods live.” She was on her knees before me, so I told her to stand. Her pants were covered with road dirt and she began to pick the dust and rocks off them, her hands darting about like a spinning mouse.

Maxine had a neatness obsession, but also a pathological walking delusion which made it impossible for her to go anywhere alone. I am her paid companion. I earn a good salary and even have health insurance. My advice to anyone negotiating an employment contract is be a hard bargainer!

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