In Addition to Rendering You Unconscious

  • by jencobra yoga
  • on her knees before me
  • cheap, orange dress
  • taped to a chair
  • too goddam stinky to be a hallucination

Tune in next time part 415      Click Here for Earlier Installments

In addition to rendering you unconscious, Contrarian knockout gas is a known hallucinogen. When I came to I wasn’t sure whether to believe my eyes. I was surrounded by mimes operating laboratory equipment. They were heating samples over bunsen burners while pretending to make notes, running centrifuges while checking imaginary watches, and mixing compounds while consulting imaginary instructions. As the stench of the chemicals reached me I concluded that it was too goddamn stinky to be a hallucination. Was this the lab where they were testing the substance in my semen?

I wanted to leave the room to escape the noxious fumes, but I was taped to a chair. I strained against my bonds. The mimes noticed that I was awake and sounded their silent alarm.

My sisters Jemma and Jemima hurried into the room wearing matching cheap, orange dresses that looked like uniforms from some greasy fast food restaurant. What the hell were they doing here on Disco Island? And where was Jim? Were these two still under his control?

“Why don’t you guys let me go,” I said, my tongue still rubbery from the gas. “I need to get back to Fleur.”

Jemma got down on her knees before me and looked up into my face. “Your speech is all fucked up, Jason,” she said with an exaggerated wink. “Keep your mouth shut until the gas wears off.” She tapped a quick message on my shinbone as she stood, telling me that she was hiding here to avoid her obligation to the Guild of Fire Eaters.

The mimes had all stopped their laboratory activities and were watching us intently. My sisters began a dance so fluid and sinuous it could only be performed by contortionists. It’s called cobra yoga, and its performance soon had the entire troop of mimes entranced.

But since when were Jem and Jem contortionists?

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Floor Plans! They’re Everywhere!

A couple of scenes that Kent recently finished writing take place in the same location. Halfway through the second of them, he started adding notes about furniture that should have been mentioned in the first. Soon it wasn’t just furniture, but major architectural elements. By the time both scenes were written, he’d become unsure that the locale’s form was consistent, or even coherent.

So, he drew a map of it. Two maps, actually, because the characters do some remodeling. Result: yes, the shape of the room works for the action as prescribed, without needing to factor in any extra dimensions where dwell the Old Ones.

It might have been better to have the drawing available before he started writing, but it will certainly come in handy for the second draft. It’s quite possible that he was actually better off not having a map to look at while writing. Referring to a map can trigger his dormant dungeon-master training, which can bleed through into the prose if no one is keeping an eye one him. Then the narrative starts to sound like, “The room is a rectangle, twenty feet by thirty. Seventeen feet from where you’re standing there’s a fireplace. Roll for perception.”

Speaking of incoherent locales, we’ve been browsing a lot of house plans online. For now it’s mostly for entertainment, but we will want to create our forever house within the nigh-foreseeable future. It needs a dedicated office writing cave, and we’d really like to have some kind of demarcation for that so we can “come home from work.” The house has got to be in a modern style, and it needs to have certain other specific features. The problem, of course, is not that this combination of traits is hard to find. The problem is that there are so many possibilities, but we only need one house. (Right?) (Yes.) A good percentage of the designs make us scratch our heads, but that still leaves way too many to make it an easy decision. We don’t really expect pity on this count.

A writing partner is someone who shares your ideas about the perfect writing cave.

Being Cooped Up In Such A Confined Space

  • by Kentwith a purposeful grimace
  • cool it on the hedgehog kissing
  • “It’s stuck on something.”
  • trimmed with black and red
  • tastes like mayonnaise

Tune in next time part 414      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Being cooped up in such a confined space with the Donuts made me nervous, but I wanted to conserve the rest of my knockout gas so there was nothing to be done about it except stare at them with a purposeful grimace to keep them from getting any ideas. The last solid information I had about them was really just a rumor. They allegedly wrote the same cryptic message in everyone’s yearbook upon graduating from the Academy: cool it on the hedgehog kissing. What that code might mean, I couldn’t guess.

Paternosters don’t move very fast, so the journey to the top of the mountain was taking a very long time. Suddenly there was a jolt and a loud squeal, and the machine stopped. There were no controls, no phone, no hatchway. None of the plot contrivances afforded by a conventional elevator.

Violet — or maybe Harriet, I still didn’t know which one was the mime — peered along the edge of the opening in our box. She squinted, and then her mouth moved. Slightly out of sync came her sister’s voice saying, “It’s stuck on something.”

I rolled my eyes. “Stuck on what?” I asked. The sister in the fancy bustier trimmed in black and red satin rolled her eyes right back at me and shrugged. I went over to the edge. “Let me take a look.”

While I squinted through the gap between our box and the rock shaft it traveled in, the mime Donut wriggled against my side. I tried to pretend I didn’t notice. The last thing I needed on a day like this was another seduction. Too late I learned what she was really reaching for, when the squirrel on my right epaulet hissed in my face. And I also learned that the knockout gas Aloysius gave me tastes like mayonnaise.

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I Found a Paternoster

  • by jenhums constantly
  • spend our Christmas Eve murdering crustaceans
  • we’re just two gals cleaning in our underwear
  • Donuts are never morally sketchy
  • escorted Violet and Harriet

Tune in next time part 413      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I found a paternoster before I found the stairs, and was glad of it. It was a long, long way up to the laboratory in the mountain peak where Jim had tethered the zeppelin. A paternoster is a series of doorless compartments on an endless belt that hums constantly along, carrying people up and down through tall buildings. Or, in this case, through the heart of an evil, mime-and-ventriloquist-infested island lair. I watched the opening in the wall for a few seconds to make sure I had the timing right, and was about to step into the briskly rising cubicle when two women appeared from behind a curtain. They looked startled to see me.

One of them was dressed in a beret and a black and white striped bodysuit. Her face was painted a deathly white. Her companion wore a tuxedo-inspired bustier, complete with top hat and bowtie. Before the curtain fell closed I caught a glimpse of a video monitor showing the crystal throne and the Mingus puppet, and a complicated set of joysticks.

I said, “Does Myndilynn know it’s you two controlling her husband?”

“Who us?” said the frightened tuxedo girl. “We don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re just two girls who spend our Christmas Eve murdering crustaceans.”

Her mouth stopped moving, but her voice continued, seemingly coming from the flopping jaw of her mime friend. “We’re just two gals cleaning in our underwear! Our names are Violet and Harriet. We’re ever so innocent, General!”

I should have recognized the sisters immediately. Violet and Harriet Donut came through the Academy a few years behind me, but their reputations… Let’s just say the Donuts are never morally sketchy — they are full tilt amoral, nothing sketchy about it.

It would be foolish to let them go, so I escorted Violet and Harriet onto the paternoster, and we began our long ride to the summit.

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Lightly Carbonated Research

Oh, the things we will do for our art.

The main character in the Music Novel has numerous quirks and foibles, but part of his pre-show ritual ended up putting us in a bit of a spot.

He drinks Red Bull.

Spoiler alert: he doesn’t drink it for the taste.

Neither of us had ever had the stuff, but that never felt like a problem. The person we show consuming it is used to it, and, as mentioned, the taste isn’t the point for him. This makes it effortless to just not say anything about the qualities of Red Bull as a beverage.

Until.

The rest of the band consumes some of this iconic energy drink, for the first time. This event pushed us over the line, into a world where our ignorance of Red Bull’s particularities would become conspicuous. The cure for said ignorance? Why, Red Bull, of course.

We bought one can and split it. Everything about it was unexpected. Jen anticipated cola flavor, while Kent for some reason thought it would be like a frappuccino (it most certainly isn’t). Neither of us would have predicted the aroma. We toasted our protagonist, whose fault all this was after all, then stood in the kitchen sipping Red Bull and trading tasting notes like it was an expensive wine or an ancient cognac. (It most certainly isn’t.)

We don’t want to provide details here, because we apparently believe we can force you to read our books to find out what the stuff tastes like. As if millions of you don’t already know, and as if it’s not sold at every gas station in North America and beyond.

We will tell you this: it has a kick. Kent scoffed about that, being a champion coffee drinker of long standing, but half a can of Red Bull made him talk really really fast for the rest of the evening.

A writing partner is someone who’ll drink the rest of the Red Bull.

After All the Exertions

  • by Kentfelt in dire need of a beer
  • these California candy bars
  • something other than your face
  • “Tut, tut, child; tut, tut,”
  • I uncurl and rub the

Tune in next time part 412      Click Here for Earlier Installments

After all the exertions of reaching this island, plus those that happened here in the throne room, I felt in dire need of a beer. But I had no time to relax with a cold beverage, not with Jim on the loose. My need to be away from these “California candy bars” (as we used to say at the Academy) was even more dire.

But I acted calm, as if I had come over to their side. Not that I even knew what that meant. But when dealing with knockout gas, if it sprays in something other than your face it’s not very effective. So I needed to be able to get my epaulets close so the tiny squirrels could do their job.

Standing between John and Tatiana, I triggered both my shoulders’ nozzles. With a gentle hiss, the gas sent them tumbling into dreamland. I turned to catch Tatiana, acting surprised, and when Myndilynn leaned close to see what was wrong I gassed her, too.

That just left the Mingus puppet, which remained standing. Its eyes continued to follow my movements. Unnerved, I aimed a squirrel at Mingus and hit him full in the wooden kisser.

“Tut, tut, child; tut, tut,” he said.

“You have to let me go,” I stammered. “It might already be too late to stop my brother.”

“Forget about Jim,” Mingus boomed, and I wondered how he knew which of my brothers I was talking about. “His plans are doomed as soon as I uncurl and rub the sacred banana leaf.”

I ran from the throne room, the life-size puppet’s maniacal laughter echoing after me.

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I Didn’t Have Time to Stand Around While These Weirdos Laughed About Slug Eggs

  • by jenan unfamiliar accent
  • What a soft voice!
  • superfluous mouthsounds
  • endless chain of consequences
  • only had 10 doses

Tune in next time part 411      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I didn’t have time to stand around while these weirdos laughed about slug eggs. My nefarious brother Jim had surely docked his stolen zeppelin by now, and must already be making his way into this lair. Not knowing whether the Mints were expecting him gave my trepidation an unfamiliar accent. The voice in my head — What a soft voice! — told me to play along with the puppet and those he puppeted, to gather what information I could before Jim’s imminent arrival upset the balance of power one way or the other.

John and Tatiana were still talking about the slug eggs, gulping and smacking their lips and making other superfluous mouthsounds as they predicted what it would be like to watch me eat them.

If I had known, back in the water beneath the pier when John attacked me with a harpoon, that my escape would lead to an endless chain of consequences that would bring me here to Disco Island to watch a giant ventriloquist puppet and his wife plot with John and my latest baby-mama-to be, I might have made slightly different choices.

I put on my General underpants and trousers, and remembered something Aloysius had told me as he stitched my uniform. “All Contrarian military uniforms include capsules of knockout gas,” he’d said. He was running low and only had 10 doses to give me, but he showed me where the hidden trigger was, and how the gas would spray out of the mouths of the epaulet-squirrels.

I shrugged into my General jacket. Perhaps I was not at such a disadvantage after all.

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Summer Update

For what seems like an age, Jen has been writing new stubs while Kent continued with prose composition. (That’s one huge advantage to having a writing partner, the two-pronged attack.) In reality it’s only been a couple of weeks, and she got about 24 of them done. They normally go faster, but this part of the outline was a bit scattered and she had to find ways to consolidate, so that we didn’t end up with twice that many scenes. Now we’re set up nicely for our next big push.

With both of us working (and with Stranger Things 3, Veronica Mars, and Archer all used up, leaving only Legion, What We Do in the Shadows, and Harvey Birdman in our current rotation) we ought to be able to advance well into enemy territory this month.

Kent’s solo efforts recently pushed the manuscript total over 80,000 words, and if we’re dedicated we ought to be able to top 100,00 by September. Stop laughing, it could happen.

Having a writing partner means having someone to share the load, someone to binge quality TV with, and, in our case, someone to help when it’s time to move your kid for grad school.

Maybe We Should Explain

  • by Kentkiss today goodbye
  • I am already jaded
  • glut of slug eggs
  • Life’s too short for uncomfortable underwear.
  • you get the so-called “munchies.”

Tune in next time part 410      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Maybe we should explain it to him,” Myndilynn said. “There is a lot to accomplish in a short amount of time, and we can kiss today goodbye. If he understands, maybe he’ll get on board with the plan.”

John shook his head. “I have known this asshole so long that I am already jaded about the possibility of ever getting him to cooperate. We just need to do things the old-fashioned way. Good thing you have that glut of slug eggs. That really is good timing.”

“Hang on,” I said, but Tatiana’s laughter cut me off.

“I like the old-fashioned way!” she crowed. “The persuasion is so elemental. Universal. Visceral. Life’s too short for uncomfortable underwear. And that, oohhh ho ho, that is really uncomfortable.”

“Let’s go back,” I said. “Myndilynn’s suggestion seemed like a good idea.”

Now it was Mingus’s turn to laugh, his wooden head lolling back and jaw swinging loosely. He composed himself, all the cords that controlled his facial movements coming taut again as he fixed me uncannily with his glass eyes. “Those eggs might also come in handy if you get the so-called ‘munchies.’” His puppet gaze wandered knowingly to John, Myndilynn, and Tatiana, and soon they were all chortling and trying to avoid eye contact with me.

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This Life I’ve Been Living

    • by jenno good for my health
    • unexpected circus
    • wearing lipstick and satin pants
    • “You’re drunk.”
    • glitter in your vagina

    Tune in next time part 409      Click Here for Earlier Installments

    This life I’ve been living is no good for my health, or my sanity. As soon as whoever was ventriloquizing Mingus made him utter the words “Frozen Yogurt Robot” I knew that things were about to take an unexpected circusward lurch, and if I wasn’t careful I’d soon be wearing lipstick and satin pants and all the rest of it, performing at a child’s birthday party.

    “If you think I’m going to dress up like a clown on Wednesday, or any other day, you’re drunk.” I pointed at the trio and their unsettling puppet. “You’re drunk.”

    “Are all the men in your family assholes?” Tatiana said. She went on in a mocking imitation of my deep voice, “Now that you’ve got my magnificent magical baby glitter in your vagina, babe, I’ll be on my merry way. I’ve got lots of asshole business I gotta do.”

    “None of this was my idea!”

    Mingus’s wooden head swiveled to look at me, and his stiff eyelids clicked in a blink.

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