My Advice

  • by Kentzooming off into the sky
  • “Dreadful — dreadful!” said Jingle, looking very grave.
  • and while they smell terrible
  • the third sign was unmistakable
  • apparent vigor of her husband’s sperm

Tune in next time part 676      Click Here for Earlier Installments

My advice to anyone hoping to escape a chain of islands would be to make sure the zeppelin isn’t stuffed with crying babies before zooming off into the sky, and also to verify where it is exactly that you’re escaping to. Fleur had disappeared into the chaos of the Toboggan Club’s members and those members’ many babies. My attempt to calm them by informing them about reptiles was meeting limited success.

Another unfamiliar face approached carrying an infant. I refused to believe that I would forget so many women with whom I’d had children.

“I hope this doesn’t offend you,” I said. “But, what’s your name?”

She smirked. “My name is Jingle,” she hollered over the din. “And don’t worry, we’ve never met. I’m a nanny.”

“Thank goodness,” I yelled back. “Can you point me to the bridge? I really need to get off this thing before it returns to Contraria.”

“Dreadful — dreadful!” said Jingle, looking very grave. “I myself wouldn’t be going there if I weren’t so devoted to the children. I’ve learned to pick up on the signs that they’re fond of me also. The first two signs are of course smiling and clapping, and while they smell terrible I found the third sign was unmistakable — why, it’s how they show their utter dependence on me.”

Sensing I’d get no help here, I turned to seek a passageway that might lead to the vessel’s controls. What I found instead was the last person I expected to see, saying the last thing I expected to hear, although I should have learned by now not to be surprised.

“Makes you wonder what kind of wife would compile such a tribute to the apparent vigor of her husband’s sperm.”

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The Airship was Traveling at a Furious Rate

  • by jenplease tell me why and how I’m wrong
  • tried to explain lizards
  • “Be cool my babies.”
  • using a demented baby voice
  • traveling at a furious rate

Tune in next time part 675      Click Here for Earlier Installments

The airship was traveling at a furious rate — furious for an airship anyway — taking me to the one place I most did not want to go. The children sensed my fear and all began to fuss. Acting quickly, before I was drowned out by a wave of caterwauling infants, I spoke loudly. Using a demented baby voice that never fails to get attention I said, “Be cool my babies.” And in the ensuing pause I tried to explain lizards to them. I don’t know why. It was just the first thing that popped into my head. When using the demented baby voice, tone matters much more than content. It might not be the best parenting technique in the world, and if you disagree with my methods please tell me why and how I’m wrong. But only if you have experience keeping a zeppelin full of infants happy and quiet.

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How Sexy is Too Sexy?

There’s a lot of sex in our books. (Whether that’s a disclaimer or shameless promotion is left as an exercise for the reader.) Each series has its own spiciness level, in terms of the number of sex scenes and also how graphically they’re described. It’s important to us to be consistent about things like that within a series.

Well now we’ve just started a brand-new series, and already we’re faced with choices about how far to turn the knobs. (Phrasing!) Sex is a strong theme in the ghost series. There’s probably going to be a lot of it, as per paragraph one. We don’t want to sell it short, but we also don’t want it to turn into porn. And with two of us writing, it’s more likely for the tone to come out a bit uneven in this regard, at least for the first draft.

Once we reach a certain threshold, we’ll be able to review it and make adjustments. We need to keep in mind that how we play things in Book One is going to establish expectations for the other three.

A writing partner is someone who’ll help you figure out just how porn-adjacent you want your story to be.

Being In That Room

  • by Kentwore better clothes than I
  • philandering with Vera
  • too late for lemonade, too early for whiskey
  • briny blue expanse
  • most terrifying place on Earth

Tune in next time part 674      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Being in that room with the Toboggan Club inspired many feelings. Conceited pride was in there, I must confess, but also a measure of chagrin at my own promiscuity. Also swirling in my heart were the emotions attached to each of the women themselves, which varied from wistfulness to affection to abject terror. And under all of it there was some anxiety about whether the vessel could remain aloft under the combined weight of all my baby-mamas. And all the babies!

Considering how many sources of pee, poop, and spit-up were present, the women wore better clothes than I would have chosen. Fancier ones, anyway. Someone I didn’t recognize cruised past, eyeing me malevolently over the curly hair of the toddler on her hip. Fleur caught my baffled look, and it made her laugh. “You don’t even remember philandering with Vera, do you?”

I looked at the woman again, and shook my head. “Are you sure all these ladies are on the level? Because I think I would recall Vera.”

The zeppelin began to move, and Fleur recited, “When it’s too late for lemonade, too early for whiskey, then it’s time to fly home.” She shrugged. “It rhymes in the original Contrarian dialect.”

I looked out the windows at the briny blue expanse beneath the airship. Had she just said “fly home”? If it was home to her, then to me it was the most terrifying place on Earth.

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Weaponized Humor is Nothing to Laugh At

  • by jenwhat they called “The Toboggan Club”
  • the yeti cost you your leg
  • even her closest friends didn’t know
  • by all the females congregated therein
  • noisy sucking

Tune in next time part 673      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Weaponized humor is nothing to laugh at. “Two Peanuts Walking Down the Straße” had been banned by the Helsinki Convention after Svenborgia used it to devastating effect in their skirmishes with the Pirate-Ninja Alliance. And now I was in charge of Contraria’s humor divisions. It was a heavy burden. I looked forward to my promised shower as a place to clear my mind, even though zeppelin plumbing is well-known for the noisy sucking sounds it makes.

On the way to our royal suite, Fleur took me to see our children. My excitement upon entering the nursery was dampened by the leering looks thrown at me by all the females congregated therein. They were all women who had borne me children, and it was quite alarming to see them all in one place. Isolde was there, surrounded by the squadron of babies she’d delivered at Enigma Fortress. Fleur told me that even her closest friends didn’t know for sure how many there were.

YoYo was there, too, the Yodeler from the Mountain Garrison who swore up and down she didn’t believe in twins. I wondered how she’d coped when she delivered the pair in her lap, but before I could ask I noticed that she now only had one leg. When the children were conceived she’d definitely had two.

She saw where I was looking and said, “Yeti attack.”

“The yeti cost you your leg?” That seemed highly unlikely since the “yetis” of the Paradoxica Region were just people in yeti costumes.

There were other women, too. Too many to take in. Fleur told me they were all members of what they called ‘The Toboggan Club”.

“Get it?” my wife asked. “Toboggan. Because they all took a ride.”

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Research Can Be Entertaining

Every writer learns quickly how perilously deep the research rabbit hole can be. Perhaps it was better when we had to go to a library, or at least to a bookshelf, instead of being able to summon virtually any fact (often dozens of contradictory versions of it!) with a few keystrokes. Nowadays you can easily lose track of whether you’re writing or researching. Not that research is bad, just that it’s got a way of turning into procrastination.

We do our share of web research, for sure. But we supplement it with other forms of information. Since we’ve been working on the Ghost Series, our movie selections have skewed much more to supernatural horror. This way we can have movie night and count it as a work session — it’s research!

Books are great, too. We have one from 1908 that we got at a flea market, which deals with spiritualism. We bought it mainly for the gorgeous purple cover, but it turns out to be filled with words. Jen’s already read it, and now it’s Kent’s turn. We’re also about halfway through a mammoth anthology of “classic” ghost stories, mostly from the 19th century.

Of course, cinematic portrayals must always be considered suspect. It’s risky to use movies (or novels) as sources of historical fact. What they can provide, besides inspiration, is a view of the day-to-day norms from another time period. Incidental descriptions of the streets, clothing, and customs are reliable precisely because they were meant to be a backdrop. Contemporary audiences would simply perceive the context of “the normal world” and focus on the story.

A writing partner is someone who’ll bring the popcorn to “research night.”

“I Have To Say”

  • by KentA lamp in the fashion of a silver dove
  • grunty, sweaty practice sessions in front of the mirror
  • gotten even bigger — bigger!
  • the color of duck l’orange
  • “Ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!”

Tune in next time part 672      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“I have to say,” said Fleur, “your antics of late have tried even my patience. Here, put this on.” She passed me a garment bag, inside which I found a Contrarian military uniform of some kind. It was much fancier than my previous one, though. It had spiked epaulets, and fringed boots. A lamp in the fashion of a silver dove dangled from a rod in the brim of the hat. As I found my way into it, Fleur explained that I had been nominated in absentia to lead the stand-up comedy branch of her country’s armed forces.

Weapons-grade wisecracks called for extreme conditioning, and I groaned at the thought of endless grunty, sweaty practice sessions in front of the mirror. Soon darkness bathed the limo, and I thought we had entered a tunnel. But it was just the shadow of the royal zeppelin, which somehow had gotten even bigger — bigger! The tail section was painted the color of duck l’orange, with the Contrarian coat of arms plastered over it.

Fleur spoke into a walkie talkie. “Ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!” At this code phrase, a platform was lowered from the belly of the zeppelin. The limo drove onto it, and it reeled us in.

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The Car with the Offensive Stereo

  • by jenquintuple elbows
  • if I may be so bold
  • against her palms
  • they take their shoes off
  • still shrieking at her husband

Tune in next time part 671      Click Here for Earlier Installments

The car with the offensive stereo pulled up at the curb, bass notes so ferocious they shattered all the chalet’s windows. In the ensuing chaos, I worked to free myself from the straps holding me to the gurney. You know how some people are double-jointed? Well, I have quintuple elbows.

As soon as my feet hit the snow, I dashed toward the street. Who cared if I was naked apart from the pantyhose on my head? I had to get away.

The limo, for that’s what was making all the noise, had speakers mounted all over the exterior. I zigged to the right to go behind it, hands clamped over my ears. The chauffeur stepped out wearing enormous noise-canceling headphones, and snagged me by the hosiery. With his other hand he opened the back door, then he tossed me inside and slammed it closed.

Inside the limo was blessedly quiet, although I could still feel Jason’s throbbing music in my bones. A female voice said, “If I may be so bold,” and suddenly the nylon sheath was removed from my head. I could see clearly! And what I saw was my wife, Fleur. She held my face in her hands to stare at me, my cheeks hot and clammy against her palms.

“Fleur!” I didn’t know what to say. So much had happened in the past few days that would infuriate any wife. Any normal wife, anyway.

“You know what most civilized people do when getting into a limousine?” Fleur huffed. “They take their shoes off.”

My feet, along with the rest of me, were bare. Fleur pinched her nostrils closed. “You reek of butterscotch pudding and icicle slugs. The first thing we’ll do once we board the zeppelin is toss you in the shower.”

She pushed a button and told the chauffeur to drive, and just like that I made my escape from the reality TV ghouls, the creepy Alchemist, and Valentina — still shrieking at her husband in the ceiling about whatever odd thing she smelled.

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Off To A Flying Start!

We have more progress to report on the Ghost Novel. Jen completed the first wave of stubs, and has now hefted a pickaxe and joined Kent in the prose mines. (We’d belabor that metaphor, but we need to save the true gems for the manuscript.)

Naturally, there was an immediate obstacle. Much as with the questions about the setting that we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Jen’s scene revealed that our specs for a certain “machine” were incomplete. We’ve known about this contraption ever since the early stages of planning and plotting the series, but now it needed to actually be described. Which means decisions must be made that will affect many scenes down the line.

We’re still trying to get back up to full speed with the whole actual-writing-the-book part of writing a book, so needing to pause and hash out details was frustrating. But having a writing partner means having someone to hash such things out with.

The Alchemist Threw Valentina

  • by Kenthis itty bitty mustache
  • about as plush and inviting as a youth hostel
  • buy my ovum for $50,000
  • you’ll start hearing it in your sleep
  • what you might call “granola,”

Tune in next time part 670      Click Here for Earlier Installments

The Alchemist threw Valentina a nervous look, then met my glance and held one finger up to his itty bitty mustache, which was about as plush and inviting as a youth hostel‘s bath mat. The pantyhose interfered with my nasal functions too much for me to smell anything at all, but I started to suspect that my would-be rescuer might be giving off some kind of funk, and it was making Valentina suspicious.

“Oh, this is my jam!” someone yelled out in the street. An unseen car’s stereo system suddenly pummeled the chalet with horribly distorted bass notes. Then a familiar voice joined the noise — my twin brother belting out the only wedding rap that he’d ever charted with.

She said let’s get hitched up by some dude with priestly collars,
“Less you wanna buy my ovum for $50,000!”

“Ugh,” cried Valentina. “Make them turn it down!”

That’s the thing about any of Jason’s ditties. Let it play for ten seconds, and you’ll start hearing it in your sleep. The song kept blaring.

The cake is all made out of what you might call “granola,”
cause you didn’t bribe the baker $50 like I told ya!

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