Thought-Drive

The third draft of the children's story was completed on Christmas Eve eve. It was mostly done on that Saturday. I decided to section it into parts. Chapters felt too... official, officious. Stodgy. In my mind's eye, I imagined the story being read to a child by a parent. I wrote it considering how such a guardian would parse the words and then take that short second to decide how they would deliver it to the child. I don't have any children of my own, nor have I read to any, but I am at that point in my life where most friends are wrestling with the notion of negotiating bed time with small people in colorful pajamas. Big eyes and open ears and parroting mouths. The whole story ended up being around 7000 words. If a person wanted to, they could easily read it all in one sitting, but I could only imagine the 15 some minutes before bed being too brief especially stopping for questions and breaking to puzzle through concepts. All of that is to say that without even struggl

Lektra was taking her turn driving the freedom bus when Noni broke the monotony of the old diesel engine cranking down I-55. They called it the freedom bus because calling it what it so obviously was, a gray, barricaded, retrofit county prison bus, ‘generated negative feedback’ from the people they were saving with it. They had just left Tupelo with a number of dirty but relieved types and were headed down 55 when the other woman’s voice pierced the static on their radios. She was really talking to the leader of their little operation, but it was an open channel.                “S.O.S. from Shreveport,” was the message.                Lektra set her elbows just inside the enormous wheel and leaned forward to look at the sky. The sun was trying to set early behind a bank of dense clouds and shadows were hanging heavy from dense woods waiting just off the interstate route. The freedom bus was in the center of the formation, with two vehicles following the trailer the bus was towing

Monday afternoon saw my finishing the edits on the latest novel. About a thousand words shy of 90k. I had been keeping a guesstimation of about how many words it would be and was happy to have undershot it. The first novel I ever completed was 55k, and every other book in the series after was 60k. At the time, I thought that was my average, or rather, my limit. I had seen submission guidelines asking for numbers as high as 120k and thought to myself back then that I would be unlikely to reach that. I had other curious thoughts, too, that somehow the word count also determined worthiness, substance, pedigree. This wasn't the first time I've written that many words in one piece, but I'm not hoping for anything. I'm just hoping that it all makes sense, that it's compelling, that at the end of each the reader feels fed, but also wants another helping. Despite the difference in word count, the pace feels about the same. When I write 3rd person, it's 3rd person lim

Friday was the deadline I gave to myself to finish the novel. Friday was the deadline because I wanted to give myself a month to thoroughly edit the draft into something I could feel confident about, before submitting again. In late fall, a friend pointed out that the open submission might not be a yearly thing. I chose not to verify that, because I didn't want to sap any energy from the process. I didn't finish on Friday, but Saturday was a decently productive day. I think over the course of the whole week I turned in around 12,000 words. That makes me feel pretty good, but it also makes me feel like I planned it all fairly poorly that I had to crank out so much there at the end. I had a year. And as one might expect, there is no open house at the publisher in question. There are other places, of course, but the reason I was attracted to that publisher, and others, was because of their seeming willingness to accept writing that was a bit non-standard. They seemed that much

Part of me thinks I'm close to understanding the flow of a timely blog. The other part of me feels like I couldn't be further away. I know one particular artist that works visually, and just about every day her social media is peppered with her current project progress or future progress aspirations and notifications. I think it's a really excellent system. I wish I could adapt it for myself. But things don't clarify in the same way for a writer. An image can become crisper, as the darker lines bring confidence and by juxtaposition the hesitant strokes become grayer and grayer until they're almost the color of the paper. Paragraphs only work that way with very close inspection, and even then, it remains subjective. When a non-abstract visual artist moves forward, the representative image becomes more and more of what it's supposed to look like, as if it's slowly transitioning from solely within the artist's mind to a place where everyone can see it. To

The Spectacle of Freedom It had been almost a week since the “last time.” That’s what he had shouted at Eduardo after they had returned the boat, after they had watched that mother walk free onto the mainland, childless. The authorities had caught up with them unusually quickly, flashed their sirens and lights, and asked their questions. Gabriel told his story, well-rehearsed like he had lied to other coast guard soldiers, not just practiced relentlessly in mirrors. The men in their uniforms had stomped above and below decks anyway, unbeknownst to Gabriel and Eduardo that a woman was struggling in a closet to keep her baby silent. Gabriel understood; he remembered when he would have done almost anything, as well. But smothering the child had been a mistake. In the short trip towards Miami, all of them had imagined the baby boy growing up, not born a free child, but growing up a free child. Since the last time, he had been driving the speed limit, walking between the lines at

A Ballad of Beginning                Darkness gave way to dream. The environment was very familiar, an enormous library filled with books containing the mysteries of magic. From the arcane architecture of evocation to the crystalline construction of abjuration, it was all there. It loomed, but it also snickered at the continuous failures of would-be wizards. The dream was even more familiar than its setting, but the longer it went on, the more things seemed different. Like nightmare was waiting under ever desk and inside every closet. It would not be escaped though, the dream. Perhaps that was its nature.                A figure striding through the dark halls broke the familiarity like thin glass. The stranger seemed on fire, the way power flowed about it, created a wake where the person walked like a flaming cloak. When it turned, as if seeing something, feeling something, darkness rushed in to smother the dream. There was nothing, and no one. Then, a pin prick of fiery ligh