Small Dennis Slapped My Hand Away From the Zipper

  • by Kentcut off into shorts
  • clothing choice that I would be comfortable with
  • very soggy newspapers
  • a matching, facing toilet for when you can’t get off the john but have to lean over one at the same time
  • Three words… Nose Hair Trimmer.

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Small Dennis slapped my hand away from the zipper. “You’re jeopardizing the missions!” he hissed.

I ground my molars. The horse costume might have been tolerable if it had been cut off into shorts, but that still wouldn’t be a clothing choice that I would be comfortable with under the circumstances.

The best I could do was keep backpedaling and drag Small Dennis along with me. He put up a bit of a fight about that, but his resistance was comparable to a curtain of very soggy newspapers. I managed to bump open a door with my hip, and dragged us through it into what turned out to be a bathroom. But its setup was unconventional to say the least. There were two toilets and no partitions, meaning (possibly) that your conversational partner would have someplace to sit, or (more likely) you’d have available a matching, facing toilet for when you can’t get off the john but have to lean over one at the same time.

I hurried to explore the rest of the space before Small Dennis felt inspired.

On a shelf under the mirror, at last I spotted something truly useful in my current predicament. Three words… Nose Hair Trimmer.

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I Needed Two Things

  • by jennot *that* devoted to the future of air travel
  • and wiggling it, just a little?
  • not happy gargoyles
  • multiple kinds of puppets, all operated by
  • it would be a shining white box

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I needed two things: fresh air, and time to think. If I could get out of this blasted horse costume I’d have both, so that became my priority. Without Big Dennis across my back, I stood a better chance of eluding Titania. I stepped backwards as fast as I could toward the corner, dragging Small Dennis along for the moment.

“She was about to say where the ninja-clowns keep their blimp plans!” Small Dennis whined.

“Well my dude, it turns out I’m not *that* devoted to the future of air travel espionage.” I tried to stand up, but the horse costume didn’t release and I was still attached to Small Dennis.

“It’s not all about you, you know.”

I was getting really frustrated at still being tethered in close proximity to Small Dennis’s sweaty naked bum. “I need to get out of here. Can you try grabbing the zipper and wiggling it, just a little?”

“No.”

“No? Don’t you want–”

“What I want doesn’t matter. I’m on a mission. Something I thought you would understand. But I guess everyone was right at the Academy. They always said your family was a bunch of gargoyles, and not happy gargoyles either!”

This was news to me. I didn’t remember ever being called a gargoyle. The closest insult I could recall was when we were compared to multiple kinds of puppets, all operated by feral chimps. Which, you may note, is nothing whatsoever like a bunch of gargoyles.

“I’m on a mission of my own, Small Dennis.” That wasn’t exactly true, but if he believed me it would get me out of this humid tube of corduroy and give me a chance to decide whether the bigger threat lay in the clown-ninjas and their hot tub parties, or in their plans to abscond with all the airship’s bananas. I didn’t know where I would go to do my thinking, but wherever it was, it would be a shining white box of clean fresh air compared to my current surroundings.

I tried to get a hand free to jiggle the zipper before Titania rounded the corner and found us.

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System Is Working As Intended

For the Ghost Series, we made a very deliberate choice to get all four books figured out before writing any prose for the first one. Our approach is to consider the project as one big story. Ideas that arise later on in the process might necessitate laying some groundwork in earlier books, and we aimed to give ourselves the most flexibility to do that without getting stuck in an infinite loop of rewrites.

Without an over-arching plan, without making lots of decisions up front, what would happen is we’d wrap up Book 1 and send it out for feedback, and then meanwhile we’d be working on Book 2 and discover a bunch of shiny new ideas that don’t match what we’ve written already. Meaning when our beta readers send us their comments, half of them have been obviated upon arrival. And once we started in on Book 3, the same situation would replay — only twice as bad, because now we’re trying to retroactively account for stuff in two prior books.

Ask us how we know. (Never mind; we’re about to tell you anyway.)

Our previous series grew organically. We’d write a book, and then discover that there was more story to tell using that world and those characters. So we’d write another book, and then another. So far, that progression has always led to trilogies. In one case, we did actually plan out books 2 & 3 in tandem rather than separately. We were starting to get the message even then. With the Ghost Series being a tetralogy, the benefits of advance planning are multiplied because so are the impacts of doing it inadequately.

So, we did a lot of planning. Lots of writing sessions that produced no writing per se.

At this point, we are working on Book 2. And so far? No major revisions have come up for Book 1. Several minor changes, and we’ll surely have more tinkering to deal with. But it’s likely to all be small-scale stuff like which tarot card gets drawn, rather than anything huge like swapping which characters are living and which are ghosts.

A writing partner is someone who helps with all the pre-writing as much as with generating pages of manuscript.

I Had To Stop Worrying

  • by Kenttaking a dip in the chocolate fountain
  • make the standard criss-cross pattern
  • have to walk past the planetarium
  • it’s my least favorite part
  • topped with garbage bubbles.

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I had to stop worrying about how close I’d come to taking a dip in the chocolate fountain and deal with Big Dennis. One well placed twerk was sufficient to send him sliding head-first onto the floor. The impact appeared to knock him out again, unless it killed him. I couldn’t get a good angle to see him, and anyway he wasn’t a cartoon, so I doubted his eyes would make the standard criss-cross pattern to signify his demise.

There was one place on this vessel where clowns like Titania and BimBam could hold a hot-tub party, but to reach it I would have to walk past the planetarium. Most Contrarian travelers enjoy visiting it during their voyage, but it’s my least favorite part of the airship. There is a long, sorrowful tale to explain my dislike of the amenity, but for now just understand that to me, it’s like a sewage sundae topped with garbage bubbles.

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My Encounter with Small Dennis’s Naked Rump

  • by jeneyes stinging
  • I don’t like this woman for a variety of reasons
  • no choir boy
  • gymnastically arranging their bodies
  • in a relatively sanitary fashion

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My encounter with Small Dennis’s naked rump left my eyes stinging and my ears ringing. I stepped backwards as quickly as I could and strongly considered just taking my half of the horse suit and bolting. But I couldn’t do that. It was my job to collect intelligence and figure out what Titania was up to. I don’t like this woman for a variety of reasons, but chief among them at this moment was that her presence kept me trapped inside a corduroy tube with my face mere inches from another dude’s ass. I’m no choir boy, and I don’t care about other people gymnastically arranging their bodies in whatever configurations please them (as long as it’s done in a relatively sanitary fashion), but Small Dennis was very much not my type.

On my back, Big Dennis stirred.

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Sometimes We Can Have Nice Things

There is no shortage of story in As-Yet Untitled Ghost Novel #2, and no shortage of cast members either. That doesn’t stop us from coming up with more. We just need to keep it from getting out of hand.

One good way to control proliferation is by giving characters multiple jobs. Recently, we had a chance to apply this to our work-in-progress. We’ve known since pretty early on that one of our characters was going to need an accomplice. The plot doesn’t really work otherwise. Much more recently, we came up with some very colorful individuals that we wanted to put on the page because they’re a lot of fun. There’s no contradiction implied; we absolutely could have taken the “more is more” approach. As noted at the top, though, we already had probably more than we needed, so we had to be mindful about throwing in stuff that we just wanted.

Our way to have it all is that one of the colorful new people becomes the accomplice. It’s an elegant way to combine something that we need with something that we want.

A writing partner is someone who looks for ways to make the fun stuff work as an integral part of the story.

I Was Now Firmly Convinced

  • by Kentstarted following me
  • propensity for licking was common knowledge
  • elaborate performance art project?
  • and not feel bad about it
  • Can we talk about the terrifying clown

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I was now firmly convinced that Titania knew I was inside the horse costume, and in light of what she’d just told me I wanted to simply ask aloud, “Can we talk about the terrifying clown-ninja hybrids and their hideous anatomical enhancements?” But I couldn’t risk it. Titania had spoken to me, true, but in a way that continued to indulge the ruse. She was letting me stay concealed and not feel bad about it, although I did, a little. Then again, I was basing all this on intel I’d gleaned from a greatly disadvantaged position. Maybe I was behaving like as much of a horse’s ass as I was disguised as. Maybe BimBam Tickles wasn’t even really unconscious. Could I be certain this wasn’t all an elaborate performance art project? A sadistically clownish trap? I could not.

Another idea occurred to me. Perhaps the Crystal Clown wanted to get me alone. Only Small Dennis stood between us at this point. Was he her next target? Should I try to protect him? It seemed like the right thing to do, but not the smart thing. After all, I didn’t owe either of the Dennises anything, and being all alone with Titania wouldn’t have to be mortally perilous. It could even be fun; her propensity for licking was common knowledge.

But Small Dennis, in the front half of the costume, knew only that a dangerous mastermind was inches away from his face, telling him sinister things he couldn’t understand. Belatedly, he started following me in my attempted retreat. I hadn’t expected that, so suddenly the only thought that filled the entirety of my mind was, “He’s still not wearing pants.”

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“There Were Coded Messages”

  • by jenlearning that the hard way
  • like an army of idiosyncratic ninjas
  • enjoy international fame
  • strange suction-cup-shaped marks
  • amidst the gratified shouts

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“There were coded messages amidst the gratified shouts from the hot tub,” Titania whispered. That wasn’t the confusing part. The confusing part was what she said next. “We all emerged with strange suction-cup-shaped marks covering our bodies, and yet there were no squids at this particular party.”

The first confusing thing was the idea of a clown hot tub party with no squids. Clowns enjoy international fame (or perhaps infamy) for their cephalopod predilections for a reason! The second source of confusion was trying to imagine the source of the suction-cup marks, if not a betentacled sea creature.

And then it came to me. I finally understood why Titania was whispering all this lore to her steed. It was indeed intended for my ears, not those of the Dennis brothers. She was telling me that there existed in the world something like an army of idiosyncratic ninjas crossbred with clowns, and armed with suction cups, just as I had always feared and suspected. By telling me she spared me the danger of learning that the hard way.

Now I merely faced the danger of passing along that intel to someone who could do something about it. And the danger of the clown-ninjas themselves.

Which was scarier — clown-ninjas, or ninja-clowns? I shuddered in my horse costume.

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It Happens to The Best of Us

Chalk it up to staying holed up in the Writing Cave all the time… It took Covid about four years to track Rune Skelley down, but it found us right after New Year’s. We both had very minor cases (and we’re both better now!) but even so it was far from pleasant.

We did our best to keep working through it, but we were so tired. Productivity was very low. Guess we have to admit we’re human after all.

As of Monday we both tested negative. Kent even did a “disappointing” workout. So, it’s back to the grindstone for us.

A writing partner is someone whose major symptoms don’t come on until yours have started to fade, so you can take care of each other.

More Sultry, Spine-Chilling Whispers

  • by Kentthis time nobody smelled the crocodile
  • see where the bubbles form
  • one of the downsides would be the pooping
  • camping out on beanbag chairs
  • moving in slow, sensuous circles

Tune in next time part 870      Click Here for Earlier Installments

More sultry, spine-chilling whispers reached me. I’d been too wrapped up in ninja speculations to keep up, and thus missed some of Titania’s lurid monologue.

“… this time nobody smelled the crocodile, which was disappointing. I had to make do with a masturbator alligator and see where the bubbles formed … ”

My mind reeled. I knew about the party she was describing. The infamous “Clown-Car Hot-Tub Convergence” of Minneapolis. Her sibilant narration continued.

“… is the main upside, while of course one of the downsides would be the pooping …”

She had to be baiting me. I hadn’t been at the CCHTC, not really, but several Academy classmates crashed it, camping out on beanbag chairs around the tub and taking notes like crazy. It was generally visualized as frothing, particolored chaos, like a birthday cake tossed into a tank of voracious piranhas, but those who were there reported a far different vibe. There was indeed some colorful foam on that hot tub, but it was moving in slow, sensuous circles on gentle, though kinky, currents of lust.

What I heard next was the most confusing thing so far.

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