Hauntingly Familiar

As soon as we put the finishing touches on the first draft, we started our read-through. That’s a bit of a lie, because we gave ourselves time to pop some champers first.

Reading what you’ve just finished writing is always an interesting experience. You have a set of hopes for how it will come across, and you’re a little nervous about whether it will match them.

In the case of As-Yet Untitled Ghost Novel #1, it’s holding up great! We find it enjoyable, and while we’ll admit that we’re biased about it we both agree that it really is flowing along well and that the characters and narrative are very strong. There have been moments that made us laugh out loud, and moments that made at least one of us tear up a little.

We are, of course, collecting a sizable list of stuff to fix, but almost all of it is minor continuity bobbles. The name of the made-up country seems to be in dispute, but it should be possible to resolve it without bloodshed or ceding of any lands.

A writing partner is someone who shares pleasure in the results of your combined labors.

Our Next Move

  • by Kentthe eerie exhibition
  • optimal number of dogs
  • never fun for someone else’s drama to splash on you
  • stroked the back of her hand over its rough surface
  • both became fairly competent rappers over the years

Tune in next time part 804      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Our next move was apparently to remain stationary for a while longer wondering what the hell was going on. In a way it was ironic that Lyudmila and Jason were enemies, because they both became fairly competent rappers over the years. Seemed that way to me anyway, not that I considered myself an expert. But I began to wonder if this was the common thread that would explain the coded message.

Tessa ordered another pickle, saying it would help her think. I said I didn’t think that was wise, but she ignored me and stroked the back of her hand over its rough surface, so intent on this action that brine was flung from her fingers and got all over me. It’s never fun for someone else’s drama to splash on you, especially not when that drama is in the form of Contrarian pickle brine.

A hazy recollection rose up, something I’d overheard at one of Fleur’s family functions. “The optimal number of dogs is one cat…” and then there was more that I didn’t quite catch. But why would John’s sister be referencing Contrarian idioms in messages to my twin?

I swiveled on my barstool just in time to observe the eerie exhibition of two polarizing couches simultaneously running out of juice.

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Choosing a Code Name

  • by jenyou rapacious bird of prey
  • ever seen an old lady with a secret
  • using a plain old corkscrew
  • room-quaking vocal performances
  • not even her children knew

Tune in next time part 803      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Choosing a code name is something you shouldn’t overthink. Everyone wants something badass, something that will inspire one’s enemy to gasp, “Night Talon, you rapacious bird of prey! I surrender!” But it rarely works out that way. Mostly they laugh because you tried too hard. For that reason I was leaning more toward the seahorse or spaghetti end of the spectrum. I opted for Seahorse because it seemed the most innocuous. I mean, have you ever seen an old lady with a secret pasta recipe? They are vicious! My own grandmother once pinned my Aunt Züg’s hand to the table using a plain old corkscrew when Züg tried to guess the secret ingredient in her infamous buttered noodles. Züg gave one of the most room-quaking vocal performances I’ve ever heard, screaming in pain and outrage. That was the thing about Granny. Not even her children knew what might set her off.

So anyway, code names chosen, Enzo and the Seahorse were finally ready to make their next move.

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Mic Drop

Late last night, Kent finished the final scene of As Yet Untitled Ghost Novel #1, bringing an end to our first draft. Sort of.

While we have technically reached the end of the prose portion of the program (after something like 15 months), there are some decorative flourishes we still need to add. Jen made a good start on the epigraphs we like to put at the beginning of each chapter, but we probably don’t have enough of those yet. We won’t know exactly how many we need until we actually smoosh the scenes together into chapters. So that’s something else we have to do. And as we wrote, we marked a few places that we know need attention, so now we also need to go back and attend to those. But that’s more of a second draft thing.

Let’s not lose sight of the important part: the first draft is complete! Celebratory beverages all around!

A writing partner is someone with whom to bask in your accomplishments (and savor your victory meal).

Tessa And I Had Failed

  • by KentThis should not be surprising
  • my father enrolled me in boarding school
  • including an ax murder over a chess game
  • keeping Enzo from whispering sweet nothings
  • skulls, seahorses or spaghetti

Tune in next time part 802      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Tessa and I had failed to guess what Jason and Lyudmila were concocting. This should not be surprising considering the pickle-stupor we had inflicted on ourselves. But it should be surprising considering that my father enrolled me in boarding school where the curriculum specialized in nefarious dealings and where the penalties for poor performance were quite dire, including an ax murder over a chess game (although admittedly in that case the teacher had been the victim, not the perpetrator). All we had figured out was that we wanted to use code names, even though the gents riding the polarizing couches obviously knew who we were (except they mistook me for my twin). Tessa wanted to be known as ‘Enzo.’ We were reluctant to move away from the bar, because over here we were spared harsh criticism aimed at keeping Enzo from whispering sweet nothings of speculation into my ear. The code name I wanted was Jason, which I thought would be hilarious but ‘Enzo’ worried would give us away. “The real Jason wouldn’t use his own name as a code name,” she whispered. I wasn’t so sure. He had made a lot of spectacularly bad decisions in his time. Still, I didn’t want to waste the couches’ battery life arguing about it. So I asked her to help me come up with a name that related to one of the headings I had seen in my brother’s dream journal, and we quickly narrowed that down to skulls, seahorses or spaghetti.

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“Whatever Jason and Lyudmila are Up To”

  • by jenNot Machiavellian, but
  • a highly unusual practice
  • I’m beginning to think
  • Two coffees and four lagers later
  • illicit parrot-smuggling operation

Tune in next time part 801      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Whatever Jason and Lyudmila are up to can’t be good,” Tessa whispered in my ear. “Not Machiavellian, but probably close.”

“Whispering in front of your hostages is a highly unusual practice,” Tallman complained. “I’m beginning to think you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Tessa and I nodded at each other and turned the polarization controls up halfway. While our guests dealt with that, we sat at the bar to make plans over pickle beverages. Two coffees and four lagers later we were both queasy and had come to the conclusion that my twin and John’s sister were probably not involved in an illicit parrot-smuggling operation.

That left a lot of other options. We had to sober up and figure this out before the polarizing sofas’ batteries ran out.

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Side-Hustling By the Seat of My Pants

In the great “debate” about pantsing it versus plotting things out, Rune Skelley is solidly in the plotters’ camp. That doesn’t mean we never do anything spontaneous, though. In fact, sometimes we (or, Kent at least) even write stuff without plotting it out first at all.

Only on side projects, of course. His current extracurricular fiction exercise is a short story called Pearl, which he’s very much making up from scratch. The premise and the main character popped into his head, and he just started writing. And he is very much enjoying getting to see where it’s going.

The problem is, it doesn’t know yet where it’s going. Not really. It’s going to meander a bit before it reaches the destination. Maybe that shouldn’t be called a problem. It’s just a different process. And for a short story, Kent is willing to roll with it. He might end up needing to write a novella’s worth to get that short story out of it, but journeys are said to be what life is all about. And if the seat of his pants gets a little threadbare by the time he’s done, he’ll just learn to appreciate the breeze.

With larger-scale projects, that attitude would threaten our ability to finish what we start. It’s work enough to tell the story well when you already know how it goes. Needing to invent it on the fly, keep it on track, and make the sentences sparkle is too many plates to keep spinning, especially when there are multiple POV characters and a detailed world that needs building. Add to that the need (in our case) to coordinate the efforts of two co-authors, and it’s clear that an assiduous planning regime is the only survivable option.

A writing partner is someone who always has your back, even if sometimes their own butt might not be covered.

“I’ve Never Even Met Uranus”

It’s our chain story’s octocentennial! In keeping with tradition, Jen and Kent will write this entry together. Also traditional is our use of a unique source for our prompt phrases. This time we pulled them from the Wikipedia entry for Runic Magic, in honor of our pen name. Jen goes first, writing until she incorporates the first prompt phrase. Then it’s Kent’s turn. Lather, rinse, repeat.

  • shaken and thrown down like dice
  • including nine symbols
  • cut off a branch from a nut-bearing tree
  • The same curse
  • his own original method
  • ale served by the host’s wife
  • apparently meaningless utterances
  • This act of singing
  • marked on one’s fingernails
  • has a certain sound to it

Tune in next time part 799 & 800      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“I’ve never even met Uranus Pamplemousse,” I said. “He has no influence over me, evil or otherwise.”

“That’s not what Rosenkrantz said,” Tallboy said, nodding at the dude on the other sofa, who, due to his ongoing polarization, looked like he’d been shaken and thrown down like dice. “He knows all about your ‘secret’ clubhouse, and he saw the note on the whiteboard. You know, the one including nine symbols, as in nine planets! He saw how you and Uranus were connected.”

Was Jason somehow in league with Uranus Pamplemousse? Or had this guy’s ancestors neglected to “cut off a branch from a nut-bearing tree” as my Uncle Jinx used to say. Maybe his family was afflicted by hereditary stupidity. The same curse was said to have hung over my father’s line, until it was replaced by a different curse when he met Mother. It would certainly take a monumental amount of stupidity to align oneself with Uranus, but if any of my brothers would do it, it was Jason. He always had his own original method for making things worse. Like the time he performed at a mansion and threw up in the pool after drinking far too much of the ale served by the host’s wife (aka, the bride).

Rosenkrantz tried to say something, but the polarization made whatever it was into a series of apparently meaningless utterances. We all waited quietly while he tried again, and then again, but still none of it made any sense. On his next attempt, Rosenkrantz varied the pitch of his voice. This act of singing seemed to allow his meaning to come through.

The gist of it was, “Help!”

“Can’t you stop that crazy contraption now?” Talldude said. “I told you the message.”

I shrugged. Tessa pouted a little, but turned the polarization down to the lowest level. Rosenkrantz slowly took on his usual shape, all except for his fingertips. Once one has been severely polarized, it is marked on one’s fingernails forever.

“Now what?” Rosenkrantz warbled. Another side-effect of polarization is that one’s voice has a certain sound to it. Tessa and I were both trying not to laugh, and even his tall friend was smirking at him.

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Dropping Like Flies

Kent has been on a roll, knocking out at least one scene each work session. We knew this section would go fairly quickly (it’s an exciting high-stakes action sequence), but we’re a little stunned by the blinding speed we’re achieving. A lot of the credit goes to Kent, but Jen’s been pulling her weight, too. She jumped ahead and picked up a weighty scene after all the whiz-bang pyrotechnics were played out, and now she’s taking another hop forward.

This approach, with Kent chasing behind Jen and filling in the gaps, is much more efficient than playing leapfrog would have been. If we’d tried to alternate our way through, we would have spent as much time talking about exactly how the pieces lined up as we would doing the writing. This way any continuity errors can be blamed on Kent alone, saving us tons of time ;)

All that to say, we have fewer than a dozen scenes to go. (Eight. We have eight scenes left. At least until Kent’s fingers hit the keyboard for an hour.) Those remaining scenes will mostly be longer, and our pace will slow, but the end is nigh! We’re excited to see the light at the end of this tunnel, and all those clichés. It had been a long time since we wrote a novel, and it’s very gratifying to know we’re still capable of doing it. With any luck, the next one will go a little quicker.

A writing partner is someone who plunges your smoking fingers into a bowl of ice when you’ve been typing too fast.

“Bingo”

  • by KentTranslation: feed me or I eat the cat.
  • which contains the key-hole
  • Why are rich people like this?
  • they wanted a dead body
  • evil influence of Uranus

Tune in next time part 798      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Bingo,” the tall, lightly polarized man said. “Here’s the message: trapezoidal zoology ferments pawprint neckerchiefs.”

To an ordinary person, that sounded like a password generator having a stroke. But I recognized it as an example of the Anarchy Code. Translation: feed me or I eat the cat. Which was, hopefully, another code. It had to be one that Jason and Lyudmila cooked up together, and I had no idea how, in this case, her twisted brain — which contains the key — would try to communicate with my twin’s twisted brain — which contains the key-hole.

“So, now you’ll let us go, right?” asked the tall man.

I winced.

“I knew it!” he said. “I knew you’d screw us over. Why are rich people like this?”

What made him think Jason was rich? His #1 ranking might sound impressive, but most wedding-goers wanted a rapper in the ceremony as much as they wanted a dead body in place of a cake.

“I know why, actually,” Tallness went on. “It’s the evil influence of Uranus. You think us normals don’t know about that, but we see it!”

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