Jim’s Bump and Grind Routine

  • by Kentnot a fan of hand-me-down underpants
  • That made him laugh.
  • in bridal garb
  • “DIY or die”
  • produce a child if they could

Tune in next time part 470      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Jim’s bump and grind routine was becoming undignified. To Oksana he said, “I’m not a fan of hand-me-down underpants, as a rule, but for you I’d make an exception.” I caught the contralto warble of her voice but couldn’t tell what she was saying in reply. Then she gave a little shimmy in her seat. That made him laugh. “At this rate you’ll have me in bridal garb by sundown,” Jim chided in his Southern-fried cadences.

Oksana’s painted nails snagged the waistband of Jim’s leather pants. The stitching held as she drew him nearer, which I found moderately surprising given his infamous “DIY or die” mentality and feeble sewing skills.

“Leave us,” Oksana said clearly in a husky voice, and the ninja-yeti dutifully donned their costume heads and trooped out the passageway, trudging right past me.

One of them muttered to his companion, “I knew those two would try to produce a child if they could get a few minutes alone.”

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I Held My Gloved Hands Out

  • by jenshe says, “Open up your mouth, man.”
  • congratulating myself on my lucky escape
  • “Where did all these ninjas come from?”
  • didn’t hate him enough to turn down the money
  • orgy of sadness

Tune in next time part 469      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I held my gloved hands out, palm up, to show that they were empty. From the darkness a rough voice said something in a language I didn’t understand. The yeti in front of me said, “It’s an order straight from Oksana. He said, ‘She says, “Open up your mouth, man.” So you better cooperate. Let me see what’s in there.” Enormous furry fingers reached for my mouth, but just then, in a rush of rebounding vowel sounds, my contingent of yodelers came pouring from the passageway behind me. The yeti was startled, and I took advantage of the confusion to disappear into the shadows, congratulating myself on my lucky escape from cryptozoological dentistry.

“Where did all these ninjas come from?” the yeti exclaimed, strong evidence that he wasn’t the brightest biped in the mountain.

I crept along the walls of the cavern, through a maze of tunnels, searching for Oksana and my brother. As the yeti howls and yodeler ululations died down behind me, I could hear Jim’s voice up ahead. I bellycrawled to the corner and used my climbing suit’s periscope to peer around the final corner. Jim was shirtless, posing for a rapt Oksana. They were surrounded by a dozen people in yeti costumes, with the heads removed to reveal their black hoods and masks.

“Where did all these ninjas come from?” I asked myself.

Jim was putting the moves on Oksana, even while he drawled on about who had hired him to bring Isolde to Enigma Fortress. “Arlo’s a dick of course. I’ve always hated him. But I didn’t hate him enough to turn down the money.” He swiveled his hips to keep Oksana’s attention. “When he and Harry approached me at the Annual Royal Contrarian Winter Solstice Carnival and Orgy of Sadness, I heard them out. Their plan made me feel bad for poor Isolde, so I took their money and brought her here where she’d be safe.” He flexed. “Relatively safe, anyway.”

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Pace Yourself

As we were finishing up the read through of Music Novel (Verdict: Awesome!), we suddenly realized that the second book in the series, Sibling of Music Novel, hadn’t been broken up into chapter-sized bites yet. It wouldn’t be strictly necessary, since it’s just the two of us reading it, but we wanted to take a crack at it to make it a little more like reading a real book.

It’s still a first draft, so it’s bloatier than it needs to be. It won’t read just like a real book, even with the chapter breaks, but it helps us assess the pacing.

Other writers that we talk to say they write their novels in chapter-long chunks. The concept seems foreign to us. We plan our novels scene by scene, and then later combine the scenes into chapters. Each scene could technically be its own chapter, but that would give us a crazy high number of chapters, and their lengths would vary wildly. We (especially Jen) don’t like that.

Jen took a stab at breaking this bad boy down into reasonable chunks. At this early stage she worked mainly by word count, with an eye toward ending each chapter with a hook. It mostly worked pretty smoothly. There were a few places where a two scenes in a row ended with particularly juicy, propulsive events, and she had a hard time choosing where the breaks would go.

That’s the point of the read through, though. We’ll see how the pacing feels. Where things are awkward, we’ll make a note of it. Perhaps on the second draft, certain scenes will need to be presented in a different order. Some might get cut altogether. Right now it seems impossible to think we’ll need to add anything, but never say never.

Writing with a partner, working in scenes rather than chapters makes more sense (at least to us). How do you approach things?

From Our Altitude

  • by Kentthe city would look like a shaved cat
  • “Now, there’s an exhibition of ball control,”
  • Lady Danger.
  • among the ruins
  • told me to open my palm

Tune in next time part 468      Click Here for Earlier Installments

From our altitude, if we could have seen down through the blizzard to the distant Contrarian capital, the city would look like a shaved cat sunning itself upon the marshy plains. And yet higher we had to climb. I swung my axe tirelessly at the head of the expedition, to the ongoing admiration of my men. “Now, there’s an exhibition of ball control,” I heard a yeoman yodeler remark.

The entrance to the supposed yeti cavern was supposedly not much farther, and though the treacherous conditions demanded my full attention still my mind was restless over the impending confrontation with Oksana. The yodelers behind me were nervous too. They had heard rumors about her, and they had their own name for her as well: Lady Danger.

Mountainfolk superstition held that this woman commanded a battalion of yeti, and that she dwelled with them deep in the myriad tunnels within the peak, among the ruins of a long-dead yeti civilization. And it seemed that only the most superstitious of the folk were accepted into the garrisons.

My next mighty axe-swing shattered a wall of ice and I tumbled into the gaping hole revealed in the rock face beneath. There was no way to control my descent as I rolled and bounced down what felt like miles of meandering passages, finally sprawling on a hard, flat surface.

I could see nothing at first, but slowly my eyes adapted to the gloom and I detected lumbering shapes all around me. One of the furry white bipeds came close, and in a guttural voice with a heavy Harmonian accent, told me to open my palm.

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I Led My Yodelers into the Teeth of the Blizzard

  • by jencreating different shadows
  • shoes I never want to walk a mile in
  • silver-haired former yacht builder
  • heavy gold watch chain
  • with a great deal of giggling and modesty

Tune in next time part 467      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I led my yodelers into the teeth of the blizzard. Their headlamps didn’t do much to light our way, creating different shadows every second as the shifting winds threw the snow around.

Contrarian mountaineering boots are made of wood and lined with fur. They are shoes I never want to walk a mile in on flat ground, but they are quite warm. I made a mental note to, upon my return to Enigma Fortress, dictate a letter of appreciation to the silver-haired former yacht builder who took up cobbling in his retirement at the behest of the Warlord, and now uses his boatbuilding skills to construct the cozy footwear of the Mountain Garrisons.

Soon our way was practically vertical. I made great use of the ice axe that dangled between my legs on a heavy gold watch chain. My yodelers complimented my climbing technique, which I’d learned from John, who learned it during his childhood at the Tibetan monastery. They kept praising me, really going overboard with it until, with a great deal of giggling and modesty, I taught them my secret axe-wielding maneuver.

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Braiding Them Ever More Intricately Together

We’re still working on our epic read-through of the entire Music Series, which will help prepare us to do edits on books two and three. But, even though Book One has already had a lot of editorial attention, we are also on the lookout for a certain breed of change that we might entertain there as well.

Now that all three of the books are written, we have the ability to enrich the foreshadowing for key events and strengthen the themes running through the whole series. So-and-so ended up being a more important character in the later books? We can tweak how the early appearances are handled. These crackpots hanging out in the margins are just a random rabble, except, hey, maybe… Wait, is that a granite countertop, or stainless steel? (Oops.)

We have no intention of doing anything drastic. We have enough work ahead of us as it is, thanks. But small changes can sometimes go a long way to unifying the members of a series. The big attraction for us is that it makes us look smarter, but there really is a payoff for the reader as well. The story world feels that much more real, that much easier to fall into. And on a reread, clues will jump out that you didn’t know were clues at all the first time through.

A writing partner is someone who helps you do sneaky, crafty things for your readers’ benefit.

I Needed a Very Enthusiastic Team

  • by Kentbitter cold assailed me.
  • who don’t sell goat-milk candy
  • vortex of mystery, heartbreak, and intrigue
  • the president in a weird jumpsuit
  • Real gung ho.

Tune in next time part 466      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I needed a very enthusiastic team for this mission. Real gung ho. Lucky for me, the yodeler brigade was stocked with just this kind of fanatical adrenaline junkie. Unfortunately, none of those Contrarian lunatics could have cared less about my brother, so to rile them up I showed them pictures of the president in a weird jumpsuit, neglecting to point out that he was also my brother.

“Bravery alone will not help you in the mountains,” Doctor Nanna said. “The storm raging right now over Hughshel Knot Pass is a vortex of mystery, heartbreak, and intrigue. Your soldiers–”

“They’re yodelers,” I corrected.

She blinked once, slowly. “Your yodelers do not understand the alpine wilderness. Make use of the locals. But hire only guides who don’t sell goat-milk candy as a side hustle. They need to be focused on getting you to the yeti caverns.”

“We are re-uh-haa-dy!” chorused my expeditionary force. I gestured for the doors to be opened, and a howling wind and bitter cold assailed me.

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My Blue-Gray Mountaineering Uniform

  • by jenforced to meet with the King of Swaziland to seek clemency
  • scandalous exhibits
  • his mad rush
  • I’m taking a ride with my best friend
  • dangle from the undercarriage like a bat

Tune in next time part 465      Click Here for Earlier Installments

My blue-gray mountaineering uniform bore a strong resemblance to the official groveling suit John wore when he was forced to meet with the King of Swaziland to seek clemency for the series of scandalous exhibits he’d staged across southern Africa in his mad rush to become an infamous performance artist.

“By wearing this outfit it’s almost like I’m taking a ride with my best friend,” I said into the mirror. “Back when life was simpler. Back before he betrayed me.”

It took me a while to do up all the silvery buttons on the vest, and I was confounded by this weird chain harness that went on like a pair of clanky speedos over the pants, and had a holster for my ice axe, that for some reason let it dangle from the undercarriage like a bat. Or, given that it was between my legs, like something else altogether.

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The Rereadening Commenceth

Now that the draft of Sibling of Music Novel is complete, we have begun our read-through of the entire Music Series, starting of course with Book One. We wrote and revised that one first, then Book Three, and then did a bunch of stuff for the Science Series, and then wrote Book Two (aka Sibling). We didn’t really do it all in that order on purpose, but the upshot is that it’s been a good long while since we really delved into that first book.

And you know what? It’s good!

Okay, we are a bit biased about that. But seriously, it feels so good to be reading that one again. As mentioned above, this book has already been through some pretty heavy editing, so it’s in a nice polished state. And the story is just a lot of fun! (Although, the point where last night’s reading session left off was decidedly tense. Our characters would not say there was anything fun going on at that particular moment. We tell them “Just doing our job,” but they still hate us.)

We’re really looking forward to the day when all of you can read this book, too. That day gets closer all the time!

“Let’s Pretend”

  • by KentOlga’s younger and more receptive sister
  • “brain fingerprinting”
  • treats her guests exactly as an auctioneer treats his goods
  • blue-gray vest with silvery buttons
  • even slightly out of the ordinary

Tune in next time part 464      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Let’s pretend you do need to tell me how dangerous it is,” I grumbled. “I’m tired of riddles, and I’m tired of Jim’s bullshit. I don’t think I actually want him to be devoured by yetis, but maybe if I just don’t have to know one way or the other…”

“So now they’re real yeti?” Doctor Nanna pursed her lips into a duckbilled sneer.

“Cannibal furries, then. I don’t even care anymore. Are they the source of the danger? They only seemed interested in Jim.”

“They are the foot soldiers of Oksana, who is Olga’s younger and more receptive sister.”

I shook my head. “Olga’s the youngest.” And, from personal experience I was sure she set the bar impossibly high for receptivity.

Doctor Nanna shook her head too, mockingly. “Not that Olga. The one who pushed the cart in the room with all the books back at the Academy.”

A chill ran down my spine. There was a reason no one from the Academy ever utters the word “librarian” aloud, and that reason is Olga. She could tell which parts of a book a student had skipped over or misunderstood because, she claimed, our minds left smudgy traces among the words, and this “brain fingerprinting” told her what everyone was reading about, and by extension what everyone was plotting.

“What does Oksana want?” I asked.

“We think she’s throwing a party, and Jim has been forcibly invited. But you must remember that Oksana treats her guests exactly as an auctioneer treats his goods, and that sooner or later the gavel falls for all of them. Jim knows things. We can’t let him be transferred to the highest bidder.” She gave me a warmer look, but only for a moment. “We’ve already lost too much time. Now, go put on your mountaineering uniform, the one with the blue-gray vest with silvery buttons, and recruit your team without alerting them that this is anything even slightly out of the ordinary.”

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