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Dealer

This one is another older piece. My apologies to those of you who have read it before. I’m not trying to bore you. I’m working through some of my backlog of stuff that I’ve been meaning to post. It’s called Dealer.

I am a dealer of the most

Dangerous kind, spreading the thing

That they fear above all else.

I lurk around corners, keeping

Watchful eye on this secret stash.

I’m not particular about who comes

To me for it anyway. I’m not in it

For the money. You don’t even have

To pay. As far as I’m concerned,

Everybody needs this shit. Capital

N.E.E.D.S. They just don’t

Always know it yet. They’ll know soon

Enough, though. Eventually everybody

Comes to me. I could bring the

City to its knees. I could do that.

Or I could do one better. People

Always talk and joke about ruling

The world some day, but they

Can’t do it without what I’m pushing.

Damn, I’m good at what I do.

I can hook you up in person,

Over the telephone, man, I even

Do online orders. Just watch me

Work; I’m a wizard with this shit.

I can work wonders. Just watch me.

You know the best part? You wouldn’t

Believe how easy this is to move.

I carry everywhere I go. I

Can use anywhere and everywhere,

And boy, do I. You can too, once you

Get started. It’s easy to get addicted to,

And while it’s never a good thing to

Get hooked on what you’re pushing,

My supply is unlimited. It’ll never

Run out, and it doesn’t cost me a damn thing.

I love what I do. Life is dangerous, and I

Love to live dangerously. Call it an

Occupational hazard. People like me live

Fiercely and die quickly, but not before fulfilling

Our life’s purpose. So here I am, spreading, expanding

My customer base, as it were. That’s why you’re all

Here, right? Good. Word’s getting out. Someday you will

All be standing where I am tonight. Someday you will

Remind everyone around you of the danger of what you

Do, and the power that you wield. Someday, you will

Join me, as I paraphrase a man, a member of a group of seven

Similarly magnificent men when I say “Mister, I deal in words.”

To Submit or Not to Submit?

That shouldn’t be a question, when the submission being pondered is a short story for a sci-fi magazine. I’ve been debating what to do with my writing of late, and it seems to me that the most productive thing to do would be to get my name out there. How can this be done? Other than my latest social media addiction, and the upcoming event of the year, I decided that I need to get published.

I’ve already been published, sort of. My senior year at school, I wrote a piece (due to deviantart policies, this one’s tagged with a mature language filter, so non-da members may not be able to see it) in a winterim class that ended up being used in a local publication, Active for Justice. It was just a little mini-newspaper kind of thing, and it included several pieces by my classmates as well. All the same, I’d gotten my name out to more people who hadn’t seen/heard it before. It was a start. I crave more than this.

The question before me now is this: Do I write something completely from scratch, or do I see how they feel about one of my existing (and as cliché-free as possible) microfiction pieces? It’s still open for debate, but I’d definitely love to get something done in advance of the dawn of NaNoWriMo. I am, by the way, registered for this. Be prepared to keep me on my toes when I’ve got my #writing thing going. 😀

Meanwhile, I’m still on the hunt for an actual writing job. Hahahaha. It’s a good thing I’ve still got my sense of humor. I’m trying to get in touch with some local publishers, but I’m not so good at the cold-calling thing. Hell, it took me all day today to gear up to call the Toyota dealer and order parts for my car. I’ll have her back to normal within a week. Stupid parts that there are only one or two of remaining in the country.

Not Pictured: The then-nonexistent drunken handiwork of the idiot who crashed into my parked car.

I’m reading The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr. Normally, I’m not one for non-fiction, but occasionally, something will catch my eye. In this case, the book is part of the All Pikes Peak Reads list for this year. Seeing as I’d already read The Hunger Games, I thought I should attempt to tackle another one of the books on the list. I saw a copy available yesterday, so here I am. It’s intriguing, honestly. The internet has become such a critical part of most of our lives that we can’t go more than a day or two without it. It’s integrated itself into the infrastructure of our country. Information is constantly available to us, and it’s kind of overwhelming. I grew up in a town where we had to use physical card catalogs for a good portion of my early education. I fell deeply in love with physical media, something that remains unchanged. I want to be a librarian, after all. Still, we also had a computer in our preschool. We had at least one in every classroom, K-12. What started as an option for playing games at recess when it would rain quickly became an all-purpose utility. Now I find it hard to go anywhere without taking my laptop, just in case. Carr is attempting to get his readers to realize that, for all its benefits, the internet may be making us stupid. We skim everything, and as Randall Munroe was quick to point out, we fall into the habit of believing anything we read. I’d highly recommend the book to anyone who feels that maybe, just maybe, they’ve come a little disconnected, despite always being jacked in.

And one for the nerds: D&D is going well. My necromancer is off to a great start. She’s already planning which big undead things she wants for minions in the near future. Most notably right now, is this guy.

"Hey guys! I found a puppy!"

That’s a charnel hound. It’s quite possibly my favorite D&D monster ever. It’s a dog. Made from corpses. That occasionally still move/yell for help. Yeah. And then there’s the fact that any time it kills something, it takes that body into itself, and heals damage by doing so. I love this game. I also found this today. I may have to share this list with anyone who has ever considered DMing/GMing a session of any tabletop role playing game. It could save some friendships.

Do you think I vary too much from topic to topic in each post? I dunno. Maybe, but if one 1,000 word post gets out there with everything I need to say, then it means that you’re saved from five separate 200 word posts. You should rejoice. You probably won’t, but you could at least consider it. My point being, that I had some other stuff I thought about saying here right now, but you’re getting off the hook at 800+ words.

Character Backstory #2: Jetsam

Jetsam:

Commissioned for duty on a ship in a Gnomish navy, Jetsam was designed for ship to ship battle and boarding parties. He quickly rose through the ranks of the other Warforged sailors and soldiers in a desire to prove his existence as worthwhile to his creators. His great dexterity, Mithral plating, and skill with a spiked chain made him feared by any foe who saw his vessel approaching. Within the first year of his “birth” in the foundries, Jetsam found himself promoted to the rank of first mate on board the flagship of his fleet.

Among the Warforged that comprised his fleet, Jetsam was fairly unique in his fondness for humanoid flair and style. He would frequently go to sea in a tricorne hat, long crimson coat, and oilskin boots. Jetsam enjoyed the expression on his opponent’s face when they realized for the first time that they were not in the presence of a human sailor. When the war ended, Jetsam learned that the world had little room for a living construct built for sea battles. Without a navy to serve in, Jetsam found himself metaphorically adrift.

After several months of wandering, providing odd services as a bodyguard or bouncer or enforcer or explorer, Jetsam encountered a band of pirates who were thrilled at the prospect of having a new hand that never needed food or sleep. Jetsam found new purpose in life, hunting around the world for treasure. Tragically, Jetsam’s captain and crew were lost following a great sea-battle. The lone survivor, Jetsam found himself adrift on an island far from his homeland, in a strange realm where none seemed to have heard his name or seen his fearsome sigil flying above the waves. Eventually, without an artificer for support and repair, Jetsam wandered into a cavern filled with towers of chests filled with gold and jewels. Stunned by this vast trove, Jetsam set himself as a watchman, in the hopes that someday another member of his loyal crew might stumble across his location. Perhaps he is there still…Rumors fly of a mysterious humanoid shape carrying an everburning torch staggering out of the ocean on moonless nights and slowly making its way back to the caves in the cliffs, though none have yet been bold enough to venture out to investigate it.

The Internet Vortex Has Me Now

Look down there at the very bottom of the page. It’s shiny/new. Click it.

Like it? Don’t like it? Either way, blame V.

Character Backstory #1

Seriously? Yet another awesome writing thing that I’ve never heard of before? This is getting ridiculous.

For those of you who have played D&D (or other roleplaying games), the concept of character creation is nothing new. You decide on a race, a class, and some equipment, and off you go on your first adventure. Sometimes you don’t have a lot of stuff planned for that character. You never know if she or he will even survive the first encounter with goblins in the woods, but you try anyway. Poor Jor. He never saw that hydra coming.

Anyway, I digress. Sometimes the character you create is something more than just a one-shot hero. Sometimes you want to feel like you know them better than your best friend. That’s when this kind of thing comes into play. About three years ago, my girlfriend’s brother decided he was going to create a D&D world where we could have multiple characters living in different areas. Then, regardless of where in the game world a session would be taking place, we’d have a character who would, theoretically, be close enough to the action to participate. As we would all be creating multiple characters, we decided one of the best things to do would be to establish a character backstory for everyone. Each player was tasked with crafting his or her characters and their individual histories. What was it that brought each one of them to this exact moment? That was our goal. I greatly enjoyed each of them, and I decided that it was high time that I share a little more of my nerdiness with you. Tonight, I present you with the story of Jack, a wandering scholar a la Indiana Jones.

Jack:

Forty years ago, there was a small group of adventurers who roamed the world of Taesos, combing dungeons and caverns and castles in far countries to gain the knowledge of ancient civilizations. A man named Dorn was one of their number, and upon his return to his home city of Arnes he married and founded a small private university in the large manor that he built with funds dicovered in his travels. It was here that he began to pore over the information that he and his friends had found. Dorn began to study alongside his students and found that with the right training, anyone could accomplish astounding deeds. His school quickly became known as a prestigious adventuring academy.

Not long after, Dorn and his wife welcomed the birth of twin sons, Jack and Alexi. In an unpleasant turn of events of which not even Dorn know’s the truth, Dorn’s wife fled Arnes with Dorn’s best friend, Georg, and with Alexi, the elder twin. Dorn was left to raise Jack alone.

Jack’s childhood was far from dull, however. Living in an academy that was made to train adventurers was an intense experience. Jack inherited his father’s brilliance and trained every day to increase his knowledge and his skills in all fields. When he reached the age of eighteen, he set forth with a group of friends to seek out his long-lost brother, Alexi. After searching for many months, Jack finally stumbled upon his brother’s trail, deep in the mountains on Nyord’Wrend. Georg, it seemed, was a powerful illusionist who had sensed a dormant power inside Alexi’s mind and convinced the boy’s mother to leave her husband and younger son and join him in a quest for power.

Georg and Alexi slaughtered all of Jack’s companions and in what may have been a brief moment of compassion for his brother, Alexi teleported Jack out of Georg’s hands and back to Nirruna, wiping his memories of Alexi’s hiding place in the process.

Jack returned home distraught that he has failed to rescue his twin. He set about studying furiously that he might find some way of overcoming Georg and freeing his brother, and someday reunite his broken family. Now he is ready. He has set forth from Arnes once more to right the wrongs and dispose of all in his way, regardless of the cost.

An Idea

I’ve had the opening line for a new short story pop into my head. I’m not sure where it will be going, but it starts like this.

“They’re crawling up the walls again.”

If…

If you were guaranteed an honest response to one question, whom would you question, and what would you ask them?

This is probably the most thought-provoking hypothetical question ever. Maybe it’s my love of philosophy, but I can’t help understanding the quest for truth. I’ve always had a curious, analytical mind, and so pursuing knowledge for knowledge’s sake is right up there with reading Tolkien on my list of favorite things. I can think of a few possible people that I’d like to pose questions to, especially with a guaranteed honest answer. However, I don’t think that I could ever limit myself to one such question, even if I could narrow things down to a single person. There’s far too much wonder in my mind. Most of that started in the building you see below.

Heginbotham Library, Holyoke, CO

My Hometown Library

This is home. Or rather, this was my childhood home away from home. This is a picture of the exterior of the library in my hometown. Now granted, I had two other libraries to access back then, the library in my elementary school, and the library in my jr. high/high school. This one will always hold a special place in my heart. Despite the potential controversy surrounding the man who once lived in this building, he provided the town of Holyoke with a massive trust fund that has been utilized to build/maintain a great number of facilities. Our hospital, high school, movie theatre, and more would not exist if it weren’t for him. The point is that this library, and my many explorations of the building and its grounds, provided me with part of my intense love for books. I still make an effort to return to this library at least twice a year.

 

Reading List Update

A Clash of Kings is done. What a way to follow the first volume, Mr. Martin. Well played. However, I’m taking a brief vacation from Westeros right now. That’s right. A Storm of Swords is on hold. If I’m not careful, I’ll be done with A Song of Ice and Fire before Halloween even gets here. Besides, my copies of A Storm of Swords and A Feast for Crows are in storage. I have friends I can borrow them from, but ideally I’ll be unpacking all of my stuff somewhere by the end of the week. In the meantime, volumes 2 & 3 of Read Or Die, Matthew Pearl’s The Poe Shadow, and the two most recent Artemis Fowl books are in the queue right now. Hopefully by the time I’m ready to get back into A Storm of Swords, I will be settled in my next home, and I’ll be ready to do some heavy-duty writing. In the meanwhile, I’ve been doing some tweaking to the arrangement of pages around here. Hopefully any broken links will be repaired ASAP. Peace!

September Writing Challenge: A Fairy Tale

For Sonia M.’s latest challenge, we were asked to write a fairy tale. In the spirit of building up the world in which some of my other microfiction pieces occur, I’ve crafted for your enjoyment a library fairy tale. Here’s “The Library.”

Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Ilyana, who loved to read more than anything else in the world. She’d heard stories about the library, but she’d never seen it in person until today. She’d expected something grand, and she was not disappointed. Towers soared upward, fingers reaching for the sky above. Tethered to one was a large airship, and she could barely make out the letters on its tailfin designating it “Bookmobile.”

The girl’s eyes were wide in amazement. Magic. It had to be. Electricity surged up and down her spine as she stepped timidly through the archway. Ilyana looked closely at one of the walls nearest to her and gasped in shock as she was struck by the realization that the entire building was made, not of brick, nor marble, nor wood, but paper. Millions upon millions of tomes, countless numbers of volumes of books, were housed here, within a structure made of their own kind. Spider-thin writing crackled across the parchment surfaces of the floors, columns, and ceiling, the words of long-forgotten authors lending strength to the library, binding the pages together with ink.

Nervously eyeing the guards who stood near the reference desk, she approached the wizened man and woman who co-occupied it.

“And what can we do for you today,” they asked her in stereo.

“I…I came to get a library card,” she whispered, barely audible.

“Ah, a new mind to fill,” the librarians replied. “We’ve been waiting for you, Ilyana.”

She gasped. “How did you know my name?”

“We are librarians, dearie, we know everything. We knew that you would be coming to us today, and we knew that you would be seeking this.” In unison, the two elderly librarians reached out, holding a small gilded piece of parchment between them. It had Ilyana’s name on it in a curved script, more beautiful than she’d ever seen it written. “You’ll want to go that way,” they added, gesturing to a long spiral stair.

“Thank you!” Ilyana grinned, taking the card and dashing off for the stairway. It seemed to go on forever, but the books and pages that composed it lent a spring to her every step. Finally, Ilyana reached the top of the stairs and found a single door, her name carved in the lintel. A small slot stood in the door, just at her eye level, the golden words above it reading “Library Card Here, Please.”

Placing her new card in the opening, Ilyana watched as the door slowly swung open to admit her. A voice from the books whispered “Welcome, Ilyana…” She knew then that this room was hers, and hers alone. She took in the walls and the books that covered the shelves. It was just for her. One book beckoned to her, and she opened the book to those first magical words. “Once upon a time,” it read, “there was a young girl named Ilyana, who loved to read more than anything else in the world…”

Winter is Coming

Ah, George R.R. Martin, how the words of House Stark express my joy for the coming season. Granted, winters in Colorado don’t last for decades, like they can in Westeros, but that doesn’t mean that they’re anything to be feared. Rather, I embrace the cold and snow. Winter has always been my favorite season. I think that, as a writer, I thrive in the gloom and the chill that descends upon the state. I think it’s beautiful and poetic to see frost coating everything. It provides the perfect excuse to sit down with a nice drink (I hope to be stocking up on supplies for White Russians, personally), and curl up to read or write. I plan for great progress in the months to come. Colorado will be seeing real winter weather soon, as the snow already coating the top of Pikes Peak pointed out to me yesterday.

Winter brings with it my favorite holiday: Halloween. Honestly, any excuse to get dressed up in crazy costumes and eat a lot of candy works for me. I suppose that you could say that Halloween is a fall holiday, but it’s close enough for me. It will also, hopefully bring new employment. I could readily find myself seasonal employment in the retail world, though I dread that part of things too. I’ve worked one Christmas in retail, and I assure you, it was less than pleasant. When you have to work until 4 on Christmas Eve before beginning your four hour drive to see your family, and you have to be back to work on Boxing Day, it makes for a mildly stressful holiday experience.

Every so often, I come across something that is so useful, I have to share it with my friends. In this particular case, I’ve got the following chart. This was photocopied from a mouse pad my father used to own, and I still use it today, some five or six years later.

London Review of Books Alternate Key Chart

Stupidly Useful Thing #239

I can’t count how many times I’ve referred to this chart since I began my college career. There’s something absurdly refreshing about knowing how to type ß in the middle of a conversation in German, or to toss a little © at the end of some product description. Fantasy writers rejoice at being able to type all of those crazy spellings you’ve loved since you first sat down to read The Hobbit. Don’t know how to pronounce Ÿnwœ? Who cares. Make it up as you go along. Enjoy it.

I’m writing a fairy tale right now, for the next entry in Sonia M’s monthly writing challenges. It’s very likely, in its present state, to continue to build on the literary world that I’ve begun to craft in several of my previous entries. If all goes well, it will be up tomorrow, or even later tonight. Until then, I’ve still got a lot to do. I’m trying to find a place to call home still, even if it’s just short term. I don’t like having to rely on everyone else to shelter me. It’s already been nearly 3 weeks. I’m going a little crazier than usual. Oh well! Whatever gets those creative juices going, right? Anyway, winter will be here soon. More reason to revisit Ryuk, one of many characters I created for D&D games who would utilize cold-based weaponry and tactics. My necromancer I’m crafting now is his daughter, and she’s got a bit of a legend to go on, but other than that, she doesn’t realize who her father is/was. “Then a champion came from a frozen land, with ice in his breath and a scythe in his hand.”