A3Writer

F3 The Plans

2011-12-30T03:50:00.000-08:00

     Marc Flynn twisted the ring around his right thumb. In a world where quantum crystals and tesseract wafers were the norm for storing data, Marc secured his information with obsolete technology. Unfortunately, finding the right tech to retrieve that data proved to be more and more difficult. Finally, though, he found what he needed.
     Kelsy's black ponytail bobbed as the two waited for the airlock to cycle. Once finished, the two of them stepped through, and reboarded Calypso. The old ship felt comfortable, like home. I put enough of myself into her. Still, the old salvage vessel was nothing like his old home.
     "How long until you get the drive working?" Marc asked his engineer once they got to the bridge.
     "She's modular, Flynn. I just need to grab a power lead and plug her in, so right about . . . now."
     The old drive's lights flicked to life, waiting to receive the data. Marc twisted off his ring and set it on the hub. He closed the cover. Electron pulse lasers read the data on the ring as Marc turned on the holos on the projector table. Ship's blueprints appeared in layers from deck to her bottom in rapid succession. From the design alone she screamed Alliance.
     "What's this, Cap?"
     "Our next job. We're going to steal her."

Dragon in Distress

2011-12-22T18:52:00.000-08:00

     All I wanted was a quiet day on the lake with a cold one. Well, a semi-lake-chilled one, anyway. The fish didn't cooperate. They insisted on biting constantly, interrupting my nap. I did my best to ignore the clattering pole while I dozed under the shade of my hat when the wind gusted. I caught the hat, squinting up.
     A dragon, half as big as the Chrysler Building, but with red-bronze scales instead of deco steel, sank into the lake next to my boat. Those eyes stared at me, and I could see myself reflected in their black depths. "You are the one they call the detective." Its voice at a reasonable volume for its size. "The outsider."
     It wasn't a question. I nodded anyway.
     "I wish for you to help me."
     "You've got to be fucking kidding me."
     ***
     Which is how, a week later, I ended up riding my horse on the way to the dragon's lair. Never take a job for a dragon. Lousy hours, dangerous—to my patience—and negotiating a fee, well, is rather pointless. Just try saying no to a dragon.
     Prince Geoffrey, handsome, dashing, lithe, courageous, noble, and all around pain in the ass rode his silver stallion to the top of the pass. The sun gleamed off his sword as he gestured for me to catch up to him. "Come forward Sir Sam! We must rescue the fair princess Isabella from the clutches of the dragon! What ho!" He also had a tendency to speak in exclamations.
     If it had not been for the dragon's negotiating skills . . . I sighed, "Come on, Ranger." I patted the horse's neck. My giant Clydesdale-like horse with its shaggy hair and ponderous gait moved to a canter. I liked Ranger as much as I could like any horse, though I was a lot more comfortable with the dirty cars of the B line.
     Never work for a dragon.

     "A princess came to you, captured herself, and demanded to be rescued by a prince? News like this usually spreads like wildfire, and princes are lining up for the job. Why haven't I heard about this?"
     "I do not know. I have suffered through her singing and prattling for three days." The dragon growled. "I would simply be done with her, but some fairy parent enchanted her from harm."

     "Villains! Ha!" The prince jolted me back to the present. "None shall keep me from my fair princess!" Geoffrey spurred his horse into a gallop.
     "What the hell?" I had a bad feeling about this. I kicked Ranger into something faster to see what idiocy Geoffrey was getting into. As I crested the rise, I saw them: brigands. A half-dozen rough looking men with axes, swords, scars, and in various states of sobriety and shavedness. They also had an ogre. Being a prince, Geoffrey could likely handle the six men or the ogre, but both might be pushing it. I really didn't want him to get killed. I'd have to hunt out another prince to do the rescuing.
     "Ranger, body check." My horse, my training. Ranger lurched ahead, pouring on the speed as we charged down the slope. I didn't shout out a battlecry or otherwise give myself away. I drew my nightstick. I preferred my .38, but since I was marooned in the Fairy Tale Realms, I didn't have access to bullets.
     I guarded with my nightstick, ready to spin it around when needed. The Prince held his own in a circle of men, his horse dancing as he laughed and slashed at the men trying to get close. Unfortunately, he didn't make any headway in taking them out. It was only a matter of time until the knot of men broke to allow the ogre and his massive axe in to finish the prince off.
     Fortunately, Geoffrey drew their attention from Ranger's thundering hooves. Ranger slammed a massive shoulder into one man, which carried into a second. Both of them sprawled as I dismounted. "Ranger, penalty box."
     The brigands were disorganized and untrained with their weapons, likely used to terrorizing peasants. I parried a clumsy sword blow with my nightstick, then slammed the heel of my palm into a chin, following it up with a quick throat gouge by stiff fingers. Fairy Tale brigands didn't know police close-combat training.
     "Well met, Sir Sam!" I hadn't seen Geoffrey dismount. "Thanks to your timely arrival, I shall dispatch the ogre!" Geoffrey suited his words by parrying a sword swing, sending the brigand's weapon flying. With no more use for the man, Geoffrey turned to the ogre.
     I groaned. What the fuck is wrong with these 'heroes'? The bad guy does not go away just because his sword is gone. True enough, the man pulled out a dagger nearly as long as a short sword.
     "Hey, Smiley." I swung my nightstick, letting the handle spin in my hand. The gap-toothed brigand caught the nightstick with his dagger. I hated giving warning, but I needed to get his attention to stop him from planting the blade in the noble prince's red-caped back.
     Smiley drew a second dagger, holding this one in a standard knife-fighting grip, like a steak knife. He still gripped the first knife in his fist, good for slashing and overhand stabs, but useless for thrusting. It still meant I had to fend off two knives while Geoff taunted the ogre. I caught sight of him leaping up, somersaulting, then tumbling beneath the ogre's legs while its axe caught empty air.
     Smiley slashed at my chest. I caught it with the nightstick, but then he followed up with a thrust to my gut. I had to jump back to avoid my insides decorating the ground. "Right then." I twirled the nightstick once then thrust. It wasn't meant to connect, just meant to put him off balance as I dashed in. He slashed, but I caught his forearm in my hand. No one in the Realms had thought to try that from the shock on his face. I brought my right knee under his diaphragm. Sour-beer breath whooshed out of him as his knees gave way. I cracked him hard over the head.
     I spun away by intuition; an axe flashed in front of my eyes to catch me high on my left arm. I gritted my teeth and retreated. One of the men Ranger had knocked down had gotten back up, and joined his fellow with the axe. Ranger sat on another, keeping the man in the penalty box. Geoffrey's horse danced around, mane and silver-shod hooves flashing and striking at foes.
     We held our own, but I didn't want to fight two at once. I may be in a fairy tale world, but I wasn't the hero of this particular story.
     "All right, assholes, let's do this." The curse had no effect on them. They just didn't recognize profanity, which ruined it. Fuck 'em. I wasn't going down easy. I bared my teeth, ready.
     The ogre groaned behind me. A sound that loud could only have come from the ogre. The ground shook in protest from the impact. The remaining brigands looked horrified, but I didn't dare risk a glance back.
     "There, villains! You face the might of Prince Geoffrey and Sir Sam! Surrender or face our wrath!"
     The brigands attempted to break the record for the 100 meter. Fortunately, I still had someone to question.
     Geoffrey tended to his horse, congratulating him and stroking his mane. I approached Ranger, who continued to sit on the downed brigand. The man gasped for each breath underneath the massive animal. I took my time, examining my wound. My leather coat had sliced as easily as my arm underneath the axe. I'd have to stitch it up later. For now I pressed a clean cloth to the deep gash, the pain doing nothing to improve my mood.
     "Listen, I don't' like getting cut. Answer my questions and this doesn't get nasty. Who are you, and why did you attack us?"
     "They are brigands! What more excuse do they need?" Geoffrey put in. "Better to simply dispatch him or let him go. We must attend to our quest!" I fully expected a ray of sunshine to gleam off his teeth. Moron.
     "A minute, Highness." I squatted next to the brigand, pitching my voice low. "See, he's right. Let you go or dispatch you. Thing is, I'm not as nice as he is. I might take a slice out of your gut, something that takes hours, even days to die from." Bad cop took on a whole new meaning here. "But that's a lot of work for me. I'd rather just let you go. Nod if you understand."
     He gave a slow nod. He had a lot of fight left in him. I clapped a hand over his mouth and nose. Given Ranger on his chest, he didn't take too long to turn blue. "Who hired you?"
     I let go. He sputtered, coughed, and wheezed, but hadn't lost the defiant look. He spit on Ranger. Given how big Ranger's rump was, I don't think he felt it. I took offense to it, though. I pinned the man's right forearm. "Ranger, slapshot." The horse raised up a front forefoot, and came down hard on the man's hand. It crunched and squished as only bone and tissue could do. The brigand screamed for all the breath he had, which wasn't much.
     I clamped over his mouth just to shut him up. His nostrils flared as he forced breath in and out.
     "Who hired you?"
     He nodded vigorously, so I let my hand up. "The Witch! The Old Witch of the Forest."
     "Which forest?" Most of the Realms were covered in forest of one kind or another.
     "The Forest of Dark Despair." I hadn't been there, but it didn't surprise me.
     "How much?"
     "Cloth pouch."
     "Ranger," I patted the horse, who got up. When I saw the pouch, I yanked it off the brigand's belt. "Go. Next time you won't be walking away."
     The brigand scrambled away, cradling his hand to his chest.
     I felt coins inside the pouch. I opened it, carefully. It didn't explode, which I counted as a good sign. Never could tell with witches. I shook some of the coins into my palm. Gold. One side stamped with stacks of coins, the other a triangle with wavy lines coming out of the straight sides. Something was off, though. The weight was right, the color, everything. But they didn't clink. I tapped them; nothing. They weren't metal. I rubbed them with my fingers, and now I noticed they didn't feel like metal. More like ceramic. And just like that, the enchantment was gone. The gold color disappeared to reveal earthen coins. I chuckled, putting the coins back. Never trust a witch.
     "Sir Sam! The day wanes! We must be off. There are more perils ahead before we reach the abode of the dragon!" Geoffrey jumped to his horse.
     I cinched the bag.
     We traveled for three more days over rivers and craggy hills until we got to Dire Mountain. We didn't run into any more trouble as we ascended the glowing peak.
     The lair's open cave was smooth instead of the rough granite of the mountain. Carved from dragon's fire, and probably not too long ago. To one side of the lair rested a huge boulder with a woman chained to it, a cloth gag over her mouth. She hummed a tune through it. I suppressed a smile. The dragon had chained and gagged her, but he didn't get rid of her. He could have flown her anywhere and left her. It probably never occurred to him. The people here followed fairy tale rules. A captured princess must be rescued. Period.
     "There!" Geoffrey managed to shout a whisper as his red leather gauntlet pointed at the dragon. I wasn't blind, but I had already been suitably impressed by the bronze scaled, black-eyed beast.
     "I see, Highness. While I know it is in your nature to slay the beast, we must first think of the princess. She is there, helpless." I pushed his gauntlet in her direction.
     "Ah, yes! She manages to sing despite her terror! It looks as if we have prevented the beast from ravishing her. I shall charge forth and slay the beast before he rouses, then we shall away with the fair Isabella!"
     It could happen. He was a prince, after all.
     "But, Highness, you must rescue Isabella, or else the dragon could simply make off with her, forcing us to give chase. You tend to her; I will hold off the dragon. Put Isabella on your horse, and he will see to her safety while we slay the monster."
     "Yes! I see the wisdom in your plan." It was the dragon's plan, not mine. "We must rescue the maiden, first, but you, my friend, shall do so!" Shit. "Let us go, now!"
     He charged off before I could say anything, so I followed. The dragon, listening the whole time, drew back and gave a ferocious roar. "She is mine!" and blew an impressive stream of fire and smoke to the roof of the cave. All part of the plan. All part of the plan. Don't freak out.
     I angled for the woman. How do I fix this? Geoffrey wouldn't pull his punches, and the dragon may not, either. He'd be fine with me rescuing the woman. I wouldn't be. Probably end up as a prince of some kingdom. Definitely not what I wanted.
     I got to the rock, and only then realized I had to climb to get to her. About four feet up a shelf had been carved in the boulder that she stood on. Thick iron manacles and chains held her spread eagle to the rock like a flashback to Clash of the Titans.
     I scrambled to the shelf. I didn't bother with the gag. I was pressed for time. I looked at the chains and manacles on her wrists. She wore wide bracelets on each behind the manacles. They must be the enchanted bands the dragon talked about. The bracelets were different from one another in the quick glance I gave them, but I recognized a symbol. I didn't have time to waste.
     I yanked on both chains and manacles. They didn't budge. I had my nightstick, not a cutting torch. This might be a good excuse. "Highness! I cannot free her. Your sword! Bring your sword!"
     Geoffrey laughed as he back-flipped out of the way of a claw, beating out NBA players for the vertical he got. He ran towards us. "Fear not, I shall free the maiden, and then best the dragon!"
     "Be right back," I told the woman, and jumped down. I didn't get far before the prince shot past me. I brandished my nightstick at the dragon. In the history of bad ideas, this had to be the top one. I glanced at the dragon's head. It was hard to tell with the giant golden fangs, but I thought he might be smiling. It was not a reassuring sight. Five giant claws hammered the floor behind me. I nearly went headlong into the floor, but managed to keep my feet, arms windmilling as if that would help. Close, but then it was supposed to be close. The dragon tapped a spot on his breast with a claw. I looked to see a spot devoid of scales. Like out of stories. Sort of.
     "Ha! Evil beast! The maiden is free from your evil clutches, and now I shall—" The prince cut off as a jet of flame seared the air where he had been. The prince managed to get out of the way, but only just. His red cape was aflame. Unperturbed, Geoffrey loosed his cape, and ran at the dragon, dodging and slashing at a claw.
     "Prince Geoffrey! There, on his chest, a weakness!"
     "I see it, Sir Sam! Well done. Now I shall rid us of the beast!"
     I had no idea how he was going to get up the twenty feet. Geoffrey would—Oh. The hero climbed up the Dragon's foreleg. The dragon, in an attempt to get him off, lifted the leg up to swat the prince with the other claws. When close enough, Geoffrey leapt from the one leg brachiated like Tarzan off of the next claw as it came towards him, and planted his sword all the way to the hilt into the spot.
     "Holy shit," I whispered. I'd seen wire work in Kung Fu movies less impressive.
     The dragon bellowed in pain and rage, spewing more fire to the ceiling and thrashing about. Geoffrey used his feet to pull his sword free, and plummeted down. He should break his neck or legs, but he landed with cat-like grace, sword at the ready.
     "Run, Sir Sam! The beast is wild in its throes!" Geoffrey grabbed my arm, pushing me away. I liked the idea of running.
     We retreated to the rocky outcropping where we "planned" the assault. We had no sooner crouched down when a fierce wind hit us from the cave. The dragon's wings propelled it into the air. His body tumbled awkwardly, but it stayed in the air as he left the mountain.
     "There, my friend! We are triumphant! Even now it goes to die."
     I nodded, trying to find my pulse. I had my cardio for the day. Hell, for the month.
     Unaffected by my wheezing, Geoffrey retrieved his cape. His sable stallion rode up, as if on cue—I really hated the convenient coincidence of the Realms. Some things were too damn easy. Just how the hell does the horse know when to come without the Prince calling?
     Isabella dismounted, embracing Geoffrey. "Oh, thank you, Highness. Thank you for coming to my rescue. I knew a true hero would save me."
     "Fair maiden, when I heard of your plight, how could I do otherwise?" Wow, no exclamation points. I rendezvoused with Ranger, patting his neck because he was smart enough to stay out of the whole damn fight.
     Prince and Princess traded more romantic pleasantries. If my watch still worked, I'd have looked at it.
     "Highness," I interrupted at the worst possible moment, right before the kiss. That was a bit sadistic of me. "Even though the dragon is gone, this is an evil place. We should be away." Isabella looked rather cross with my interruption.
     "You speak truly, Sir Sam! We shall take Isabella to my home, where she may be treated as her station demands, until we can arrange return to her homeland."
     The journey to the dragon's lair was a rush hour subway while the trip back was an express. Six days out became three back. I expected ambush the whole way. Nothing. Geoffrey and Isabella spent the days and evenings talking with one another, evidently falling in love as fairy tales demanded. Geoffrey and I donated clothing to replace her torn dress, though the prince never looked anywhere but deep into her eyes.
     Every night used tricks to stop them from kissing. Kisses had power in the Realms, and something still wasn't right. So imagined brigands, Ranger stomping around, and oil in the fire all ruined the mood. Something still wasn't right, my detective instincts niggled. I wanted more information.
     Early on the fourth day Geoffrey's magnificent red and white stone castle rose into view. It stood on its own hill with the town surrounding.
     "There, Isabella! We have arrived! Now you shall forget the torment of the dragon, and gain respite! Welcome to my home!"
     "Oh, my Prince," Isabella fluttered. She stepped into his embrace, head upturned and eyes closed.
     Geoffrey played his role—sucker—as if born to it, holding her close and bending his head down.
     "I think that's about enough." Time to play the hand. "Isabella or whatever your name is, step away from the dashing hero."
     "Sir Sam?" she blinked, confused.
     "You step outside yourself, Sir Sam! She is a highborn lady, deserving of your respect. Apologize, now! I do not wish for ill between us after your service." Geoffrey put a hand to his sword hilt.
     "Highness, I'm not a knight. I'm a detective."
     "De-tek-tiv? What is that? Regardless, you have affronted the Princess. Apologize!"
     "I figure things out, like that she was being held by the dragon when no one else knew she was missing." A lie since the dragon had come to me, but Geoff didn't need to know that part. "Thing is, this is all wrong. She," I pointed, "is not a princess. She's a witch."
     "Sir Sam?!" Isabella shrunk away, cowering behind Geoffrey.
     "You dare!" Geoffrey drew his sword, storming towards me.
     Good. In a way. Them separated was good. Skewered on Geoffrey's sword, bad.
     "The brigands, Highness."
     "What of them?" He didn't slow.
     "They were sent to keep us from reaching the dragon's lair and the princess."
     "Aye, and we dispatched them."
     "They were sent by a witch. The brigand confessed to it."
     "Aye, and her vile plot failed." He kept coming, murder flashing in his eyes.
     I backpedaled. Explanations were unnatural here. "There's no reason to send brigands to stop us if the princess is held by a dragon. And on the way back, no one ever attacked us. Some of the brigands escaped. Why didn't they attack again?"
     Geoffrey slowed, the hamster wheel in his head moving to a jog.
     "Her bracelets." I pointed at her. Isabella turned away from the accusing finger, covering the bracelets. "You've seen the symbols on her bracelets."
     "I have." Geoffrey's brow wrinkled hard in thought.
     "They look like these," I tossed the pouch of clay coins to him.
     Geoffrey caught the bag with one hand. Planting his sword in the ground, he shook the coins into his gauntlet. Recognition. He looked at me, eyes wide.
     I nodded.
     He whirled, taking up his sword again, tossing the pouch to Isabella. Coins spill to the ground. "Explain this, Isabella."
     I expected her to try and weasel her way through. Instead she stood up straight and scowled. Her form shimmered, the illusion falling away. The woman before us was not a hideous hag, but a beautiful woman. I expected the long-nosed, wart-covered witch, not Snow White's stepmom. She was older, but to me seemed even more beautiful than the illusion.
     "I will not forget this Sam Faraday. You will pay for your interference." She threw her hands down. A small explosion of glitter, light, and smoke surrounded her.
     "Witch! I shall—" Geoffrey charged forward, but the witch. . . .
     "She's gone, Highness. Let's get you home."
     ***
     "A witch." Only the dragon's head remained above the lake.
     "Yeah. Since she wasn't a real princess and had no kingdom, the word never spread throughout the Realms."
     "That explains much. I must say I am impressed by you."
     "Back atcha. Geoff's sword, it didn't" I trailed off, gesturing at my own chest.
     "A small wound, nothing lasting. I thank you for your assistance."
     "Now, about my fee. . . ."
     "I regret that I do not know of how you may return home." Longshot at best. "Nor is there such a tree as you describe anywhere within the Realms that anyone has seen." God, I was really hoping he'd find that cherry tree coffee came from. "However, I have brought you this," he lifted claws from the lake, dangling a wooden box by a rope handle.
     Once inside the boat, I opened the box to see chunks of old snow packed nearly to the top. I smiled. I retrieved my stoppered bottles from the lake, and plunged them into the snow.
     Can't get home. Can't get coffee. But at least I can enjoy a nice cold beer on the lake.

F3 A Night Off

2011-11-17T23:01:00.000-08:00

     "So, what shall we do with the rest of our evening?"
     A chess game sounded good. A nice flick sounded better. Dinner was always an option, too. "Dinner and a movie," I pitched.
     "No doubt some black and white noir film festival."
     "You know me pretty well, but I was actually thinking a really bad B vampire movie we can make fun of."
     Nikki laughed so hard she snorted, and for the first time I thought she might actually be embarrassed as she clapped hands to her face. I laughed, nearly losing my ability to stay upright, but Nikki kept me pinned to the chair. Nikki, though, did lose control, and fell against me in a fit of laughter. We kept laughing, feeding off one another for another five minutes until the fits and giggles finally subsided.
     "I have not laughed in . . . too long. Thank you, Matthew. Yes, I think that is a very fine idea. We're a bit overdressed, however. We shall have to change again."
     I looked at her gown, then down at my suit. We would fit in at the opera or a black tie affair, but not at the movie theater. I shook my head. "Screw it. You look amazing, and I don't look half bad, so we go as is. We go like we are, and get hot dogs, and popcorn, and candy, and just be ourselves. And we heckle the crap out of a bad movie."
     She gave me a smile that would do for the Grinch after his heart swelled. I felt genuinely warmed by that smile. I was used to the seductive, wicked smiles she gave me, not something so sincere. I liked it.
     "Matthew, you do know how to show a gal a good time."

Heart of Intrigue: 1

2011-11-11T18:44:00.000-08:00

Chapter 1 Decadent Company

     Polished brass and art deco stylings made the Fairhaven Club seem like a piece of Rockefeller Center transported to Belport. The brass and Depression era art deco stylings served to elevate the neighborhood of Fairhaven. The doormen had classy black uniforms with polished brass buttons and braids of gold cord. It was a complete class act on the outside. The decadence came on the inside.
     I walked up, and swiped my card. In the olden days they would have asked for a password and membership number, but they had really gone hi tech. The golden card went through, and a reciprocating blue light flashed before the doors opened automatically. They parted with elegance, not like the grocery store doors. The brass bound doors swung open as if they had been opened by people on the inside, with no hint of a machine operating it.
     I didn't belong here. Even now I didn't dress to fit in. I had my black fedora and brown leather jacket, but a pair of dark wool pants was as fancy as I got. I stuck out like a sore thumb among the suits in here. The Fairhaven Club was an old school gentlemen's establishment. No women allowed, except for the help. On the arm of very nearly every guy in the place was a woman, usually in a skirt short enough to reveal a bit of thigh, and tight enough to hug curves usually reserved for the bedroom. The blouse, too, hugged curves, but also displayed them with a large keyhole opening barely covered by a black tie. Most often that tie found its way to either side of the keyhole to reveal slopes with no hint of a push-up bra, despite the often gravity-defying lift.
     As soon as I came to the foyer, the hostess, whose name was identified as Regina, welcomed me. "Good afternoon, Mr. Allen. Mr. Auron is already waiting for you in room sixteen. We'll open a bottle of scotch for you. Your usual Laphroaig?"
     I just gave a nod. They knew my scotch preferences, even. I was a sucker for Laphroaig ever since I had tasted it at Nikki's. They didn't have a thirty year old, or at least one I would order. I had a habit of not using my membership to the fullest. In fact, it had been over a month since I had been here, despite my high status membership.
     "Christine will see to your needs. Enjoy your stay, Mr. Allen."
     And before I could give thanks, a buxom blonde, completely natural, took my arm, and gave me a completely sincere smile with a look to hot eyes that said she would definitely see to my needs, as unspecified as those needs might be. She began to guide me, holding so close that her hip, on every other step, would bump mine. It was a little unsettling, and not nearly as seductive to me as the other patrons. I could appreciate the legs and tight curves, but the upstairs is where they generally fell short. Trying to engage them in significant conversation didn't go anywhere, least not the kind I enjoyed.
     And before I could reflect more on Christine's outward attributes, someone took up my other arm. From the height of her arm, I had a good idea who it was.
     "Hello, Nikki." I didn't even look at her.
     "Good evening, Matthew," her voice did what it always did, sing seductively straight down to my soul. It had a richness to it that just made me weak in the knees. She hadn't always had that. Some time in the last year it had happened, and it drove me nuts. Not the voice itself, but trying to figure it out. I never seemed to have enough time to really delve into it. And my dreams were something I didn't want to think about at all. The voice did drive me nuts, too.
     To Christine she said, "Thank you for corralling him for me, my dear. Do make sure my brandy has been ordered, would you?" Neatly as that, Nikki dismissed her. Christine disengaged from me with a pout to her lips, and her hip lost that sway as she moved away.
     "Thanks."
     "What's the matter, Matthew? You don't like gorgeous women ready to fulfill your every whim?"
     I took a long glance at Nikki. Gorgeous barely described her. Crystal blue eyes, pale, porcelain skin, and dark, very dark, auburn hair. Helen of Troy had nothing on Nikki. I bet she could launch a hundred thousand ships, and just on looks alone. Looks wasn't even half of what she had going for her.
     "Takes more than a pretty face, doll. Bishop takes knight, E7."
     She thought a moment, her mouth becoming a sultry flower as she considered the move. "An interesting move, Matthew. Very interesting. What do you have planned?"
     I said nothing, but I let a sideways smirk come on my face as we kept walking. We had started playing chess over a month ago, thanks to a chess set she had given me. We had done dozens of games, most of them where she thoroughly destroyed me, but I was slowly gaining ground on her. I wasn't a chess geek. I had never had more than a middling game, knowing the moves of the pieces, but rarely did I play a game. So I didn't know chess, but I knew people, and I was getting so I could really read Nikki's strategies, and what strategy she considered based on her mood at any given time. I had beaten her in the last three games, and it was beginning to get her that I seemed to have become unbeatable in just a few weeks.
     With peripheral vision, I could see her leaning forward to study my face. I didn't let the smirk slip a bit, nor did I let it grow. Her face, meanwhile, screwed into a pleasant puzzle. She was trying to figure it out, and happy at the idea. I picked up on that two weeks in. She liked to be challenged. She wanted some kind of victory, but a hard-fought one. I got the feeling that she almost never got that kind of challenge.
     "Do you keep the board memorized, Matthew?"
     "Why would I bother with that?"
     "And yet you have thoroughly analyzed this move?"
     I kept my smile exactly as it was.
     "What are you planning? In five moves, I can take your rook, and the move after that I get your bishop, all for the cost of a knight and a pawn."
     "Make your move, doll."
     I knew about the rook and the bishop. It was definitely an uneven trade, but I had something waiting for her. Three moves after that, I would begin to put her in check mercilessly. From there it got fuzzy. I either had a checkmate coming, or ended up with more of her pieces. It was a game of position, and not force. I didn't care as much about the pieces as much as I did the position they were in, and the access to the board. I didn't particularly need the rook she was getting, since it was still in the corner, and the bishop she would get was likewise back where I didn't need it. I had to take the pawn to keep her from getting another queen, otherwise I wouldn't bother with it. It was a good exchange for her, at least on the surface, but it left me with great position on the board to hound her king.
     She tapped a silver tipped finger against her lips in thought as we walked, silence reigning. Of course, that had been the point. All of Nikki's ample charms, even those not from being a vampire, especially those from not being a vampire, always put me off-balance. Now I got some payback. That and she was distracted from putting me even more off-balance. I could roll with things pretty well, but there were limits to what I could take. Besides, payback felt good.
     We kept walking through the halls, seeing more women dangling off the arms of men. A few of those men looked aghast at Nikki in her floor length ball gown, red with a sheer black stole that hung off her shoulders. Nikki well knew the effect her figure had on people, and had no problem taking advantage of it to the point encouraging people to ogle her. The ones who stared aghast did so only in part of her figure. The rest wore a slack-jawed expression Nikki was the only female member of the Fairhaven Club. I thought she held some sort of position, too. I didn't involve myself enough to find out. Other club members gave her a nod of recognition as well as a look of approval for the dress. The look slipped considerably when they looked at me. One guy we walked by, balding and in his sixties and using a cane as a third leg to move his considerable bulk down the hall, sneered at me and made a disgusted sound. I gave a two-finger salute from the brim of my hat, and a wink.
     I stopped us in front of room sixteen, and opened the door. I swept my hat off, and bowed to Nikki, to let her enter first. She nodded graciously, and took a step to the door, but also leaned close to me as I stood. "Do you know, Matthew, when you do things like that or challenge my mind that I have the strongest urge to tear the clothing off of you and engage in some decidedly unladylike behavior?"
     I blinked, but kept the rest of my face smooth. I fought the urge to tug a finger at my collar, feeling heat build up. Maybe I wasn't as good at distracting her as I thought. She saw my blink, and smirked at me before moving inside.
     I moved in, and was glad to see that two of the four overstuffed leather chairs were already occupied. I was especially glad to see that Nikki took up her own chair instead of wanting to use me for one, like she had the last time I had been in here.
     The other two occupants could not be more different from one another. The first I knew fairly well. Maximillian Auron, a collector of antiques and magical artifacts, particularly religious artifacts. He was heavyset, but not overly bulky, his suit merely stretched to a comfortable thickness that spoke of a comfortable lifestyle. He had sharp eyes in an otherwise unassuming face, and a thin crown of hair that had gone mostly grey with a few dark flecks remaining. In addition to being a collector, Max purported to be a wizard of considerable talent. I knew he had some kind of knack to things, but no actual proof of his actual power, or his claim to be over a hundred years old. I knew Nikki was old, somewhere in the range of four hundred, maybe older.
     Max's companion, as he had referred to her last time, was Angelica. Last name, unknown. Age, unknown, but physically I would put her in her late twenties. It was hard to tell because she had what some people would call an ageless beauty, like Nikki. Me, I qualified it as cheating. The woman looked too good to be natural. Curves and stature like hers were too rare, and her beauty had an unnatural flawlessness to it. She was dressed like the other women in the club, her pretense being that she worked at the club. I didn't know if she actually did or she was just Max's toy while here. She had long brown hair, and grey eyes so light they were disturbing. Her eyes were expressive, too, and I could read them. I had pushed her last time, had seen the different ranges of her thoughts and emotions. Now she was pretty much an open book to me. Right now she was feeling smug, and not just at her eyes, but her mouth was twisted into a contemptuous smirk.
     She had a power, too, that I had poked at, with Nikki's help, last time. I had no way to gauge these things, but it seemed considerable. She seemed more in control this time, and definitely smug. She rested delicate wrists on the arms of the chair, her hands lifted up slightly. She had her legs crossed, an impressive feat given the tightness of those skirts, but she leaned forward to show off that keyhole. And she had a red bow tie instead of black necktie, so the view was completely unobscured. She wanted me to look. I got the feeling that this was all for me for some reason. Maybe because those heated eyes regarded me. It was not a welcome heat, either. That was a fire to get burned in, and I wanted to stay away. And since she wanted my attention so badly, I ignored her.
     I sat lazily, and looked from Max to Nikki. Max was Max, and Nikki was elegance incarnate. She didn't sit so much as grace the chair with her presence, and she copied Angelica's pose precisely, but on her it was imperious. She was a queen holding court, while Angelica seemed more like a jumped up street girl. It was hard to tell why, exactly, Nikki had the advantage, but I think it was the attitude. I felt the urge to crack wise to her, to shatter the illusion and snatch her down a peg. I would have if it had been the two of us, but in front of Max and Angelica, it didn't feel right. I might be able to use Nikki's royal haughtiness to my advantage. I didn't know how, but I was always on the look out. I even kept Angelica in my periphery.
     "So, Max, you managed to wrangle us together; what's this thing you want done?"
     "Indeed sir, you put it so colloquially, as if this were the historic west, and I a law man arranging for his, posse is the correct term, I believe? But the agreement surely was a matter of adequate recompense, to which I believe you and the delightful Ms. Alexander," he inclined his head to Nikki, who gave the barest movement of her chin in response, "agree to my terms."
     "I wouldn't be here, otherwise." I hated to admit it, but he came through for me in a pinch. The antique bracelet had been exactly what I needed to contain the succubus back in March. Without that, I probably would have gone down swinging, but come up on the losing end. Now the bracelet was nicely tucked away in a sealed grave, where no one should go looking for it.
     "Quite so, sir, and Ms. Alexander will be paid promptly upon the rendition of her services, along with yours."
     I shrugged. I didn't care. I'd just as soon bow out of this, but I had given my word.
     Nikki darkened. Her chin came down, and eyes bored into Max. "Upon the rendition of Matthew's service, as well?"
     "Ahh. Forgive me, but it is the puzzle, you see. In order to solve the riddle, I need both of you to cooperate fully, and so I cannot give you your payment until I know that the service you give me is beneficial, and the only way to know that is upon completion of Mr. Allen's aid."
     I did the math on that one, and it was cockeyed, but I had seen some worse. Nikki stared at me hard, as if I had something to do with it. Just being under that gaze was a pressure, a desire to respond or make an apology, but I throttled it.
     Instead, I gave her a very unapologetic, "Sorry, doll."
     Angelica gave a harrumph of satisfaction, as if she had just won a great victory over Nikki. Nikki's hard gaze on me became commanding on Angelica, and the other woman didn't make a sound, then.
     "Nothing was said about the necessity of Matthew's service in our arrangement. Maximillian." She said the words while looking at Angelica, but then swivelled toward Max. The large man was unfazed, though, most likely because he could hide anything behind a barrage of words to obfuscate anything.
     "Indeed, so, Madam. Indeed. However, it is customary that an evaluation of goods and services be made before final payment rendered. However, I came not to quarrel on this matter, and so by way of consolation, I give you this, which you may retain." He produced a document from a leather folder down beside his chair, and passed it to Angelica. She rose gracefully, and passed the document over to Nikki. Of course, I noted how she came over to me before cutting over to Nikki, and insisted on brushing my knee with her thigh on both trips.
     I half-expected Nikki to snatch the document out of Angelica's hand, given her irritation, but she calmly accepted the document as if she really couldn't be bothered by it, and then she scanned it with the lazy ease of a cat.
     The silence stretched on as Nikki read. Max seemed to be enjoying a private joke, while Angelica divided fiery gazes between myself and Nikki. Perhaps a minute went by until Nikki's eyes widened, and her lips parted. Just as quickly, she closed her mouth, and leveled her gaze on Max. "Very well. We have an agreement."
     I didn't know what the paper was, and didn't much care. I was hoping to get this mess over with and get going. I hadn't exactly been rolling in cases, and money was tight. So tight, in fact, that I began to wonder if I could afford to keep my house in the suburbs. The last payment had been late, and this month didn't look much better. If I didn't round up a decent-paying case soon, I'd have to sell, and I had a lot racked into that place. Such were the perils of private investigator life. I still managed Jen's paycheck, but I was already looking to ask her if I could owe her. That after she already reduced her hours to accommodate going to school.

     "Now that everything has been established as satisfactory, may we proceed to the task which I have set aside for the two of you?"
     "No skin off my nose."
     "Very well. What is it that you wish of us?" Nikki gave a lazy lilt to her voice, the boredom of a noblewoman with far more important things to do.
     "It is upon you, Ms. Alexander, for whom we must turn to first. There is a period in your past, which you were located in Russia, is that correct?"
     "I have been all over the world."
     Max let the vague answer go. "Indeed. In Russia, Czarist Russia, I should say, the year was 1718. Do you recall being in the land of the Rus at that time?"
     "I was in the area, yes, but I do not keep a journal with every place I have been. Events are much easier to remember than dates."
     "Indeed! As you say. Events are the thing, but I am more concerned with an object which you might have encountered."
     Nikki waited. I divided my attention between the three people without moving my head, and only barely moving my eyes. Angela had something to do with this. She was attentive. Far too attentive for my comfort.
     "The object is as large as a woman's fist, perhaps a little more. It is an irregular shape, and made out of stone or crystal. Deep in its center it is red, but the rest of it is faintly translucent like quartz, or white. It is an unpolished stone, bearing a roughness to it."
     At first Nikki was unreadable, but by degrees recognition seemed to come over her. "I vaguely remember an object such as you describe."
     "What can you tell me of it?"
     "It was some kind of rough carving, I believe. The artist who made it died before he could finish polishing it up. As I understand it, it was more a natural find than a conscious effort at art. Supposedly the stone in the center is that of a ruby, yet somehow melded with quartz, as you said, so there are no lines that show one within the other. The colors graduate out from the deep red until the transparent of the quartz.
     "If it's the same object, then I know that one side of it is naturally weathered, while the rest of it has marks from where it was hewn out of other rock, and then later shaped by the artist. I cannot recall his name, exactly. Petravoski, perhaps. Dmitrivitch Petravoski."
     "It's a rock that he cut out of a bigger rock, and it's called art?" I interrupted.
     "Well, I suppose artist is the wrong word for it. It was at an exhibition of sorts for unusual things, but the best word I can think of is an art show for while other exhibitions showed off interesting devices, this had no function other than it's aesthetics."
     I shrugged as she continued.
     "Petra, unfortunately, was the object of desire for my friend Ilyena. She was absolutely besotted with him, and he with her, so when we left for a trip to Poland, he was invited along with us. Before trains and airplanes, we suffered through carriage rides, and this one was interminably long with nothing to truly entertain us, especially the boring story Petra told us about the Heart. I suppose that's what you wish to hear, though, yes?"
     Max nodded, as did Angelica. I shook my head. That drew a smile from Nikki, but I was outvoted. I knew the feeling of boredom. Going over a bit of Nikki's past could be fun, but a person's life was filled with so much that was mundane and didn't matter that it was hard to maintain interest. Nothing about this story stuck out to me. Art show, a rock, and an annoying guy who found the rock. The rock obviously was what Max was shooting for, and had some kind of magical powers, but it had no meaning to me, yet, if it ever would. I didn't know what my place was in all of this. I took a sip of water that had been left for us as I didn't want even a little bit of scotch to dull things yet. Max was slippery at best, and I needed to make sure I had every scrap of my wits with me.
     " . . . According to Petra, the stone is not actually a stone, but comes from some tradition in the Urals about a sorceress who lived there. She was powerful, and her ancestors had been responsible for some of the bloodiest battles against the Mongol invasions into the lands of the Rus.
     "She practiced powerful magics in preparation for a time when others would threaten her. She was quite powerful and very respected, a veritable queen over that land, though she did not set herself up in opposition to the Czars. As a sorceress she trained others, and sent them out to work their magic among the people. But there came a time when she grew old, and there were enemies coming for her, some of whom were her own apprentices. Others were greedy people after the power she held.
     "In the end, instead of trying to fight all of them, she completed a ritual which made her disappear. The legends all said that she turned herself into part of the mountains, robbing her enemies of her power, and that somewhere in the mountains was the Heart of Arkadina.
     "Petra insisted that he would use this story at exhibitions in Poland, but that he needed to change the name slightly because of the language and culture. He seemed quite clever with it, at least that he was impressed with his own cleverness, and proclaimed to us rather melodramatically, "Behold! The Heart of Irashadinah!"
     I couldn't stop my eyes from going wide and head turning to fix on Nikki. I knew I should keep it cool, but the shock was an ice water slap in the face. I knew that name.

F3 Sunrise

2011-10-28T00:59:00.000-07:00

     Dawn.
     Philosophers and scientists discuss its cosmic significance and place in the heavens.
     Poets and artists try and capture its beauty.
     Millions of people watch every morning as that first glimmer of light finally crests the horizon.
     I'm not usually one of those people that can muster out of bed to see the sunrise, but I do love it. On rare occasions I do see the sun rise. For me it's not simply a matter of its beauty or place in the cosmos. I look at it for something else entirely.
     When dawn comes, the dark things of the world lose power. Things that embrace the darkness do not tolerate dawn's light. Most people look to see dawn spread its light over the world. I see the creatures of night and shadow recoil away from te light. They flee its very touch, trying to find the dark corners that will keep them hidden
     When dawn comes, I see the things that make people afraid become afraid themselves.
     On this morning, the light scattered, sending out rosy pink, orange and red fingers along the sky while the ceiling of clouds glowed with golden light. As the light hit me, the weight of the night lifted from my bowed shoulders. I took a deep, cleansing breath of dawn's light, a smile spreading across my face.
     Dawn is hope.

F3 A Day Gone Wrong

2011-10-14T15:31:00.000-07:00

     The explosion still rang in my ears, and my vision wavered somewhere between double and infinite. I closed them, hoping the images would go away. It mostly worked. My vision wavered into double, but finally resolved into reality. A haze of dust and smoke hung in the air. The wall with the chalkboard held a hole the size of a truck. A . . . thing, stood silhouetted in the dust. Its proportions were all wrong for a regular human being. It was taller, and one arm was longer than the other. Not much, but enough. It hunched over and craned its head sniffing at the air.
     A hand went over my mouth, and I tried to shout and pull it away in a panic. "Shhhh!" a voice insisted in my ear. The voice seemed perfectly reasoned and calmed, and did not try to restrain me at all. Curiosity chased the initial panic away as I moved eyes to look at the hand's owner. He had dark hair and brown eyes, but what stood out most is the grey fedora.
     He withdrew his hand, put his finger to his lips, then pulled out a gun from his leather jacket with his right hand. My panic started to come back, but before I could pull in breath, he stood, and fired shots at the thing sniffing the air.
     The pistol's loud rapport had nothing on the explosion earlier, but still assaulted my ears. Even from where I lay, I could see the thing convulse as each shot went into it. The man kept firing until the thing fell to the ground, then he went over to it to shoot it three more times in the head.
     He came back to me, breathing hard. He exchanged the spent clip from the gun with a fresh one, then holstered the gun.
     "Here's the skinny," he announced. "Name's Matt Allen. I'm a PI. That thing was after you, Martin Saunders. There are more coming. Let's go."

F3 The Arcade

2011-10-07T00:17:00.000-07:00

     Ciro and I loved the arcade. Most of us kids did. We'd pick up pennies shining shoes for people or selling papers on the corner just so we could rush into the arcade to drop our pennies into the mutoscopes. I liked the ones that showed magic tricks, even though Ciro and Tommy thought they were fake.
     One day Mr. Arnold added in new machines. These were taller than the rest, and had names above like "The Exotic Dancer" and "The Dance of the Seven Veils". We didn't know for sure what that meant, but we saw more men in there. They'd line up to those machines, and each time we'd try and look atone ourselves, Mr. Arnold would shoo us away, saying it wasn't for kids.
     Like that would stop us.
     We'd distract him with some commotion outside, then two of us would slip in. One would get on the back of the other, and we'd look at pictures of ladies. That wasn't the important part, though.
     One day Ciro remarked, "Y'know, those guys are saps. Their old ladies could walk right up on them and they'd never know until the dames clouted them."
     We laughed, but it got me thinking, and Ciro noticed.
     "What is it, Bennie?"
     "Got me an idea. Maybe we don't need to shine as many shoes."
     "Huh? Why?"
     "Come on. Keep an eye out for Old Man Arnold. But zip it."
     They followed me in. I motioned to them to stay next to the third row of machines, while I went ahead. I crept up to a guy with his eyes in the machine, feet wide apart, and hand going at the crank, occasionally pausing before moving on.
     I went up to the guy, careful like, then slipped two fingers into his back pocket; I slid my fingers out again around his wallet.
     He didn't notice.
     I tucked it into my waist underneath my shirt, and ran to rejoin the guys. They stood in wide-eyed, open-mouthed amazement, and we took out of the arcade faster than if the cops had been after us.
     Around the corner, we eyed our prize laid out on the alley trash can: twelve dollars and thirty eight cents.
     "How did you do that, Bennie?" Tommy asked while Ciro clapped me on the back over and over.
     "I don't know; I just slid it out."

F3 Lightning Relay

2011-09-30T06:49:00.001-07:00

     "We're here," Jake had undisguised joy on his face as we floated down from the high cirrus clouds down to the fluffy grey cumulus.
     "Where?" I looked down in disgust at a dusty town. It looked like those old Westerns where a tumbleweed would roll across the main street, proclaiming it a ghost town. Not quite so deserted as that, I saw a few cars going up and down the street. We were too high up to really see people.
     "Welcome to the most awesome place on Earth," he spread his arms in proclamation. "Welcome to Tornado Alley."
     The Midwest. The Great Plains. Every year tornadoes rampaged through this region from Oklahoma almost to the border of Canada in a swath as wide as Texas. I shrugged at him.
     He shook his head in disgust at me.
     "Not only can we cyclone surf here, but we are afforded the rare opportunity that all these close storms provide."
     "Which is what?"
     "We're going to ride a lightning relay."
     "Who says what now?"
     "Pay attention, newbie. See that storm over there?" He pointed to the storm some miles away.
     "Yeah, obviously."
     "And you see that one over there?" He swung his arm left to another one a little farther away. It already had the tell-tale swirl of a beginning tornado.
     I nodded.
     "Watch close."
     I watched as Jake took up a relay runner's stance, one arm stretched behind, the other in front. It was the same stance he taught me to ride the lightning. I already knew this, why was he—the hairs jumped all over my body an instant before the blue-white bolt flashed, zipping him away with it. The thunder washed over me; I was used to it. I watched the bolt arc away with him grasping it, the electric equivalent of riding a bull. The bolt reached the other storm, and I expected him to land, then repeat the ride to the next bank. He didn't land on the cloud. Instead, another bolt arced away. An instant later he reached the third storm, and a third bolt shot straight towards the cloud I stood on!
     It shot a dozen feet above the cloud I stood on, but Jake released the bolt as he flew over. He dug his feet into the cloud, and it molded itself to the impact as he made a small landing trench, dissipating his speed.
     I felt a smile creep over my face.

F3 The Stash

2011-09-23T06:55:00.000-07:00

     The room felt like that warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark. This room was nowhere near as big, perhaps eight feet by six feet, and instead of wooden crates stacked upon one another, metal shelves stacked to the ceiling. The shelves weren't even close to full, either. Yet there were quite a number of items on those shelves, covered in a layer of dust that could only come from a decade of neglect. Dozens of them. I swallowed hard, and rolled the floppy composition book into a tube. The faded red cover bore Max's scrawl in black magic marker: "Inventory of Artifacts". Not archaeological artifacts, though I knew many of the items would be old. Magic. Sorcery. Enchantments. Every item in this room except the notebook I found held some kind of mystic mojo.
     I had been in the practice of disposing of such artifacts whenever I came across them. My experience was they were a lot of trouble, usually downright dangerous. I glanced over the objects, trying to find some kind of pattern. There wasn't one. Boxes, jars, sculptures, bags, and items that didn't even fit into a category littered the shelves, all made of a variety of materials: wood, clay, glass, crystal, bone, cloth, leather, metal, and unknown composition.
     I felt like I stood in a nuclear missile silo, staring at enough firepower to crack open the planet. I just might be, too.. I hoped that Max had a really good reason for stockpiling all this stuff. I hoped that reason wasn't the supernatural version of the arms race. I hoped that this was to keep the items safe because he didn't know how to destroy them, or just keep them off the streets.
     "God I hope that's why."

F3 Thunderer

2011-09-16T02:17:00.000-07:00

     Breathing. Breathing came first. Heavy breaths that went all the way down to the stomach, pushing it out as far as it could go. Each breath in gathered strength into me. Not physical strength, the strength of the storm, the strength of the cloud around me. I was going to do this.
     My fist opened and closed in time with the breathing. Each lungful became deeper, but not longer. I took in more air than I thought I could. I took in more air than any person should be able to, but I was a Storm Rider. Each exhale emptied me out, taking almost no time before the next breath filled me back up. I couldn't explain how I could breathe so much, I just did.
     Jack watched from his perch, a cloud that looked like a cresting wave. He looked bored, going so far as to yawn, a not-so-subtle reminder that I took too long to get this right.
     I made my fist, sucked in the air, feeling the pressure in my lungs build until it became painful, then I shoved that pressure into my arm as I pivoted and punched the cloud at my feet. The pressure shot out of my fist like a cannon. I expected it to lance through the cloud, but instead my fist never reached it. An inch above the cloud, the pressure erupted from my fist, expending in a spherical wave that I felt more than saw. Simultaneously, the air reverberated with the crack of thunder.
     My thunder.

F3 One Too Many

2011-09-08T23:13:00.000-07:00

One too many

     Shots of pixie nectar tasted like honeyed rose water, and had absolutely no kick. No burn, no taste whatsoever of alcohol because, well, there wasn't any. It intoxicated worse than absinthe. Most people were off to lala land after two shots. Hardcore could go as high as four. I wasn't hardcore. I was six shots in.
     "Y'know what's wrong with this place?" I told a dwarf who wanted to sip his beer. He didn't look happy that I was still talking to him. Why was that? "It's the damn forests. They're everywhere. And there's two kinds, y'know?" I held up a shot in my left hand. "The good kind, and the bad kind." I lifted another shot in my right. I slugged them both.
     My vision swam, and I could swear I saw actual pixies fluttering around for a moment. They wanted to braid the dwarf's hair. I was fine with that. Maybe it would improve his mood.
     "But, see, it's not just good forest and bad forest. They gotta go and call 'em separate names. Y'know, the Forbidden Forest, Darken Wood, Forest of Despair, Nightmare Wood, Forest of Shadows, Murky Woods, and too many to fucking count. 'S not like the good is any better with the Golden Wood, The Sunshine flying out of my ass Forest, and the Fucking Elven Glade!
     I slammed a hand on the bar. "Another round. The shock went up my arm and through my entire body. My ears rang, tongue suddenly tasted cherries, and ears heard pipes and chittering laughter.
     The pixies rimmed the dwarf's beer, one of them actually dove in, swimming around and spraying beer out of her mouth. The dwarf brought the beer up for another drink. He was going to swallow one of the pixies!
     "Buddy, wait! There are pixies!" I grabbed for the beer, but somehow missed. Instead the mug upended, spilling the beer. Sorry, bud—"
     Dwarves have small fists, but they still hit hard.
     The world faded into black as I stared at the ceiling.
     Pixies flew everywhere.

F3 Gone Fishing

2011-09-02T08:44:00.000-07:00

     In the Catskills there's a small lake at the head of a stream. The lake didn't have a name as far as I knew. It was perfect for fishing. It didn't have many fish, which made it all the better for drinking a nice, cold beer.
     Fishing in the Fairy Tale Realms wasn't as peaceful. The fish insisted on biting entirely too much. Why couldn't they understand I wanted a nice nap along with my cold beer. If I actually had a cold beer. Igloo coolers didn't exist in the Realms, so I took my beer coolish after sinking bottles into the water around my little rowboat.
     I had just reached that blissful stage of dozing off when the pole clacked against the railing. I ignored it even when the boat began to turn. Fishing in the Realms was too easy. The fished loved to bite, and could be as big as some game fish in the Atlantic.
     The wind gusted, threatening to flip my straw hat up. I caught it before the sun hit more than my cheek. A violent tug on the pole, and then it went slack. That was odd. Must have cost the fish to tear free of the hook like that.
     Another gust, and the hat flew off, but the sun didn't hit my face. I opened my eyes to see what had eclipsed the sun. Red-bronze scales covered every inch, including the bat-like wings. Four legs, each tipped in claws the size of a Harley, a long tail that trailed behind with some sort of spikes on the tip. At the other end, a serpentine neck ended in a head far bigger than my boat. Fangs, the same color as the scales extended past the lower jaw while sharp horns jutted straight up from its skull. The eyes, each bigger than me and glistening like black bubbling tar pits, regarded me.
     A dragon.
     Fear kicked in, but there was no escape, not this close. If I had my 38, I'd have wasted the last two shots in a panic, but it rested in a box underneath my bed.
     The dragon slowed its descent, beating its wings more quickly, then sank into the water. The waves rocked my boat. The entire beast sank below the water save for its monstrous head, which came right up to the side of my boat.
     Those eyes stared at me, and I could see myself reflected in their black depths. "You are the outsider; the one," its voice at a reasonable volume for its size, "they call the detective."
     It wasn't a question, but I nodded anyway.
     "I wish for you to help me."
     "You've got to be fucking kidding me."

F3 Nimble Fingers

2011-08-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

     "So, you want into the racket, eh. Live life out here on the streets, huh?" I put a fresh toothpick between my teeth.
     The kid in front of me nodded vigorously. "Yeah. I'm tough. I can do this. I get right in people's faces. I got no problem staring a guy down with a gun or a knife."
     "What the?" I pulled the toothpick out, and flicked it at him. "S'matter with you? We ain't mugging people. We don't hold 'em up on the street. You start doing that, it's only a matter of time before the cops get you, someone pull's a piece, or you end up with mace or taser in the face. Not to mention all the jerks what know Kung Fu and what. You wanna play that game, you go on. I'll be sure to send ya a toothbrush when you make it to the pen." I jerked my thumb for him to leave.
     "N-no. I just thought—"
     "But you wasn't thinking, kid. That's what this game takes, is brains. Brains and nimble fingers." I hopped off my seat, and threw an arm around the guy steering him to the bar. "Let's have a drink, and I'll show you the ropes. Take you under my wing." I shook his shoulders.
     At the bar, I signaled for two beers, and pulled bills from the kid's wallet to pay for them.
     "Wait, how did you?" He picked the wallet up.
     "Like I said, nimble fingers." I waggled them in front of his face.

F3 Part of The Plan

2011-08-12T03:11:00.000-07:00

     Dying was always part of the plan. Not the smartest part, mind, but necessary. It was one of those things that I would leave out of the plan if I could. Unfortunately I just couldn't make the math work out without dying. I didn't get to go out easy, either. No clever drugs to simulate death. No magic spells that eased my passage. No gently falling asleep and then waking up in the everafter. No, this was going to hurt.
     I raised my staff in challenge to the demon. The jagged, broken end fitfully spit sparks of blue and yellow. The monstrosity, twenty feet tall, laughed. I gathered what little power I had left, using my free hand to wipe the blood from my eyes, and hurled bolts of lightning at the demon. The demon's claws blackened and burned under the attack, but it did not flinch.
     Then the rock came hurtling towards me, as big as VW bug, but not as friendly.
     Pain such as I would not dare imagine hit me. Bones shattered and flesh tore all over my body.
     The pain did not subside as I died. I felt a separation from my body, but the memory of pain remained with me. That was important, otherwise I might move on to final rest. I needed the pain as a focus, as an anchor. There would be a way back once I found what I needed. Richard better damn well make this right. I urged my limping spirit into the swirling grey limbo. This job was just beginning.

F3 Touch of Magic

2011-08-05T01:12:00.000-07:00

     Card tricks. Illusions. Sleight of hand. Daring escapes. Misdirection. Trapdoors. Custom-engineered rigs. All tools of the trade for a magician. So as I made the ball disappear up a sleeve, coins appear out of ears, swap places with an assistant through a door, and even more elaborate, spectacular tricks, I did nothing that a well-practiced magician on Vegas couldn't do. This was not real magic, though many claimed to have that ability.
     Magic was real, though. I never used much, and almost always on a trick most thought they could explain, or at least one that was so ordinary as to not be worth real magic. But the most ordinary circumstances required real magic.
     Today I selected a girl, perhaps five years old. My assistant Regina guided the girl and her father up on the stage. Age was important. The father would likely believe it a trick, but the girl would know better. The young could still believe in magic.
     "Hello there," I offered my hand to the father, "I'm Will."
     "Jeff."
     "Pleased to meet you, Jeff. And who are you?" I knelt down to the girl's level, who clung to her dad's hand looking as if she wanted to duck behind his leg.
     "This is Carrie." Jeff responded.
     "Hi, Carrie. I'm Will. Carrie, do you like flowers?"
     A sheepish nod.
     "I thought you might. Let me see if I can find some flowers for you somewhere." I checked my sleeves, my shoe, and then behind Jeff's ear. "Here's something. Your dad was hiding them. But wait, these aren't flowers, these are seeds," I showed the packet of rose seeds to her. "What would your dad be doing with rose seeds in his ear?
     She giggled. "I don't know."
     "Me neither. Well, I promised you flowers, didn't I?"
     She nodded.
     "And seeds aren't flowers, are they?"
     She shook her head.
     "Well, maybe you can help me make them grow. Then they'll be flowers. Can you hold out your hands for me like this?" I cupped my hands together in a little bowl. She let go of Jeff's hand to do so, some of her shyness melting away.
     "That's good. Okay, here we go." I ripped open the packet and poured a dozen seeds into her hands. Jeff had the look of a practiced skeptic, watching my hands, ready to see how the trick was done. "Now, Carrie, I want you to look at the seeds and start wishing them to grow into flowers. I directed my voice back to the audience. "You good people, too. I'll say wish three times, and you say it with me, and on the third wish we'll have our flowers."
     Now was the time. I cleared my thoughts. I took the shifts one at a time, layering the on top of one another.
     "Wish." I counted with upraised fingers. First, Earth with its grounded, heavy thoughts and perception of the world soaring by speedily.
     "Wish." Next came Water with its flowing ideals and easy nature.
     "Wish." Finally, Light, brilliant with energy and life. I poured the power of all three into the seeds, shaped it, and the magic happened. Instead of a quick switch for full grown flowers, instead of the light dimming and darkness covering illusion, I let the magic flow. A pin prick of light, like a tiny golden sun, hung over Carrie's hands for an instant, then the seeds began to grow. They burst from their seedcoats and grew into stems bearing flowers the burst into full blossom: reds, pinks, whites, and striations of each. Each rose perfumed the entire stage, and morning dew clung to each petal.
     The theater erupted in applause, including Jeff's, but my eyes were on Carrie as her wide eyes took in the real magic.

F3 Riding the Lightning

2011-07-22T00:58:00.000-07:00

     "You never forget your first time," Jack shouted above the wind.
     Rain soaked and plastered clothing against skin. Trees bowed in obeisance to the storm's fury. The two of us stood waiting at the edge of clouds.
     "There. Aim for that bank." He pointed to another set of grey-black clouds limned with pulses of lightning.
     I poised, ready, feeling the cloud beneath my feet become electric. I reached a hand back, like a runner prepared to receive a baton. Fingers tingled as I flexed them, the energy gathering. I stretched out my other hand aimed directly at the bank Jack had pointed at, creating a channel with my arms. I glanced out the corner of my eye to see Jack doing the same, but he looked more practiced.
     "Ready?" He grinned.
     I swallowed. "Ready."
     "Now!"
     Time slowed.
     There was no sound that I could remember, but I felt a tiny pop in the air as lightning coursed up my backward-extended arm. The electric python coiled around one arm, then the next before it arced away. Before it completely left, my pointing hand clamped down on the bolt.
     I no longer tried to channel the bolt, but seized it, tried to become part of it. The bolt dragged me along, zigging and zagging as only lightning could traveling miles in mere seconds. Eight seconds on a bull had nothing on riding the lightning.
     The bolt connected with the other clouds, and I sprawled in the clouds after rolling several times, landing upside down. I laughed. It was all I could do.
     You think that's something," Jack leaned over, turning his head sideways, "wait till you try riding one down to the ground."

F3 Famous Face

2011-07-15T07:18:00.000-07:00

     "I like it not!" The prince shouted.
     There was a surprise. The plain, brown cloak I held out to him might as well have been plague and lice-riddled rags for the way he looked at it.
     "Listen," the patience in my voice was thin after four times of explaining this, "you want to rescue Princess . . ." my mind fuzzed on the name. There were too many royals in the Realms. "Cleo."
     "The Fair Princess Chloe." The perturbed handsome prince tossed his head back in the way that made his golden hair fly up, but curl back down exactly where it had started.
     "Right. My mistake. The thing is, we don't know where she is."
     "She was taken by a vile—"
     "Villain. Yes, I know, but which one?"
     His eyes narrowed on me, like I was speaking Swahili, but cleverly so."
     "We need to go into the Wandering Ferret," I jerked my thumb to the sign indicating the tavern's direction down the road, "and talk to some people to find out exactly who has her."
     "Nay!" Oh, God. "I shall announce myself, and challenge them all to combat. Once defeated—"
     "They'll be dead or unconscious, and in no condition to tell us what we need to know. We need to talk first, then you can challenge them to honored combat."
     He eyed me, then the cloak, then back to me.
     "If you don't put the cloak on, everyone will recognize you." I produced a thick, silver coin with the Prince's face stamped on one side. "Not to mention your clothing is much too fine to wear to the Ferret."
     "I do not like—"
     "I know, but you asked me for help because you couldn't find her."
     "Very well, Shamus. We will try it your way." Even with leather gloves on, he treated the plain cloak like a poisonous snake, but he put it on.
     I needed a drink.

F3 In the Shade

2011-07-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

     The shade of the pear tree felt wonderful to Arcus. The time for the blossoms perfuming the autumn breeze had long passed, but fruit plump from the ample rain and sun bowed the smaller branches down. Arcus had li berated some of those pears, two cores lay on his right while half a dozen fruit nestled in an open burlap bag on his left. I might just stay here tonight. I can unroll my blanket, and enjoy the pears for breakfast, too.
     "Are you Arcus of Thallory?" Stewards protect me. Not again.
     Arcus pushed up the brim of his wide hat, and regarded the man, who had seen as many as thirty summers, and a score of battles from the mismatched armor and the scar on his forehead and cheek. He had a determined set to his jaw, and the sword hilt he caressed was ready to be drawn at a moment's notice.
     "I'm just a traveler enjoying the shade. Pear?"
     "I'm not interested in your fruit."
     "Are you sure? They're quite tasty." Arcus picked up a fruit from the sack, and offered it.
     "I have come to challenge you. By defeating you, I will become the greatest swordsman in the land." Just one day. That's all I wanted, one day of peace.
     "I concede."
     The man, clearly unprepared for this, lost his dour gaze. "What?"
     "I concede. You challenged me. I forfeit. You win. You are now the greatest sword in the land. Tell me your name, and I'll spread the word, myself."
     "What kind of man are you? You are the greatest swordsman in a hundred years, and you will not fight?"
     "No. I'm comfortable here."
     "If you will not fight, I will slaughter you where you sit, and take your sword as a trophy."
     "Now, I like my sword." It did not look like much, a simple steel hilt wrapped with deer leather in a scabbard splotched and stained so as to earn sneers of disgust. The blade, though, shone a stream in the sun. Arcus had Made the blade, and no jumped up soldier would take it from him.
     Arcus brought the pear up, and took a bite. The man smiled and chuckled.
     "So now you will fight. Yes, I will take your precious sword and—"
     Arcus hurled the pear at him, then rolled to his right, sliding his sword out of the scabbard where it had been behind his blanketroll. Arcus came to his feet before the man had managed to draw his sword more than half-way. Using his left hand, Arcus caught the man's wrist and slammed the blade back home into the scabbard. Arcus brought the shining blade of Solace to press against the man's neck. "You should spend more time in the shade of a pear tree."

The Horror of Revision

2011-07-06T04:25:00.000-07:00

     I love writing. I love the creative process, and how satisfying it is to look back and say "I wrote that." I feel productive after having done it. It's something measurable and achievable. I can set a goal to write X number of words per day, session, week, whatever. It all adds up in the long run, too.
     Revision is not so fun. It takes a different part of the brain, and is a different skill altogether. I have to somehow merge the creative and analytical parts of my brain at the level of language. It takes time, and after awhile my brain feels like mush from staring at the words. I also can't measure it. Inevitably words are cut, words are changed, words are added, and if I tried to keep track of all that, I'd be an accountant. So when I get done revising a section, chapter, whatever, I don't feel as if I've accomplished much. What did I just spend all that time doing? Did I actually change it for the better? It's a frustratingly tedious task to revise my own writing.
     I do know it's necessary, so I crack my knuckles and set to scanning the pages/screen/kindle/hologram (I wish) for ways to improve the writing. I just wish the process itself was more akin to writing.
     So, if anyone is out there (chirping crickets included) how do you handle going about revising?

F3 Discord

2011-07-01T00:20:00.000-07:00

     Chaos. Dissent. Anarchy. Discord. The goddess Eris would sow discord purely for her own pleasure. However, discord is a far more potent weapon to be wasted purely on entertainment. The wise conqueror did not use strength of arms to force his foes into submission. Hitler, Napoleon, Stalin, Khan, and Alexander were inelegant bludgeons. For all their efforts, they have become nothing more than names in a book of history.
     True conquest begins with discord, with deception. To strike from the unexpected place at a weakness. Sun Tzu taught well. Armies represented the perfect image of strength, focused outward toward enemies. Within, though, weakness prevailed. I had no interest in facing disciplined armies. No when the corrupt politicians presented furthered their own interests. Not when people saw their neighbors as rivals. Not when, with a judicious push, the nation itself would become a cancer, at war with itself.
     So like Rome. I placed the black stone on the board. "Let the chaos begin."

F3 The Road

2011-06-16T22:55:00.000-07:00

     One more mile.
     One more mile behind, one more mile to go.
     The images still flashed. Vibrant, visceral images that would not be pushed aside no matter how hard I tried. The monotony of the speeding interstate. The barren plain offered no releif, and the flashing white line that divided the road bled together until it became solid, a a line back to the beginning, back to the images.
     A face painted in terror. Flash. A man pleading with hands up. Flash. A woman's face gone slack and bloodless. Flash.
     I wrenched the car back as it drifted over the line.
     Focus. Drive. Must get away.
     God! How far do I have to go for the images to fade?
     One more mile.

Writing Tools: OED

2011-06-15T00:52:00.000-07:00

     A post on Query Shark by Janet Reid (with an update on her other blog here) got me thinking. She's talking about vocabulary and voice. People have different vocabularies. There's all the words we know, and then there's our working vocabulary, which is all the words we use regularly. Obviously the working vocabulary is smaller than all of the ones our noggins can hold.
     The post made me think of just how much we rely on certain vocabularies to establish voice. Characters have their own way of saying things. Speech patterns and words establish character and narrative voice, so the usage of words is absolutely essential.
     As writers, we need to know words. Lots of words. Huge Mack truckloads of words, but that's not all. We need to know the permutations and histories. The meanings of words changes over time. Yes, a simple online dictionary can give a list of current definitions, maybe even suggest slang usage, but most of those won't tell the etymology of the word. There are a couple of online etymology sources, but none of those compare to the definitive source for the English language: the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
     There is only one OED. Oxford University Press puts out many dictionaries, but only one of which is the OED. Nothing compares to how thorough the OED is in chronicling the language. In print form it is over 20 volumes, and it does much much more than simply give definitions. This is a resource which peels back the layers of the language to show off its roots. It is now available online, so writers need not devote shelf space (or backpack space) to the 20+ volume set. It is accessible anywhere in the world.
     Now, it's not free. In fact, its cost is prohibitive for most writers to purchase on their own. However, most university and public libraries purchase access to the OED, so it may be freely available via library web portal. Go forth and explore the wonderful language. Bonus points for those who knew the picture was of a noggin.

F3 Unrestrained Power

2011-06-10T00:17:00.000-07:00

     Power. Unyielding, wild power crackled the air around him. Through gritted teeth and clench fists he tried to wrestle the power to his will. The effort appeared to shrink the crackling aura some, but tendrils still flailed about. Like an oiled eel the power writhed and slipped away from his will. Tendrils lashed about. One tried to wrap about a woman, but she jumped away. Instead it encircled a small tree. The tree warped, branches sprouting in every direction, some of which ended in beautiful flowers, others sprouted glittering gemstones, and the remainder oozed an orange and black pus.
     More power lashed about transforming paving stones to wheat flour, a squirrel to a puppet of a squirrel, a child's doll to an eight foot tall badger that began to dance around to the music played from a red and blue pulsing orb that had materialized from nothingness.
     As suddenly as it began, the power ebbed and withdrew into him. He collapsed to hands and knees to the flour beneath him, panting. People looked on, some angry, many more afraid. When will I be rid of this power?

Standing Out

2011-06-08T07:38:00.000-07:00

     Agents get a lot of queries, on the order of Douglas Adams's description of how big space is. Agents report on inboxes stuffed with hundreds of emails every week, and often get over ten thousand queries a year.
     Agent Jessica Faust recently posted about her conference swag. Before going to my first writers' conference, I did some preliminary research, and came to similar conclusions. There are too many bookmarks, postcards, fliers, and business cards overstuffed with information. The glossy, graphic-laden, quote-filled, testimonial-by-friend-filled swag is simply too much. They're everywhere. They're all the same. I remember the amount of swag I got just in the bag at registration, and immediately had to winnow it out. I dumped most of the cards and bookmarks right away, barely sparing them a glance.
     With all the various queries, with all the bookmarks, cards, pens, etc. out there, how does a writer stand out of the background? I'm not entirely sure, (as I'm still pounding the pavement) but it's an opportunity for creativity. It needs to be outside the box, though (the trash can, I suppose) in order to get the requisite attention. My gut tells me that less is more. To do something simply will yield more results than filling every nook and cranny with graphics and information. Something o think about, at least.

F3 Forest of Dread

2011-06-03T00:24:00.000-07:00

     On most days, I didn't go anywhere near the Forbidden Forest, but a Good witch wanted a special mushroom from the forest. Knights thought the task beneath them, and peasants were scared of the forest's reputation. I didn't mind. It was something to do, and gave me a change of scenery.
     I came to a clearing, the one that separated the Forbidden Forest from the Golden Wood. I stopped, weighing my options. The Forbidden Forest was home to wolves, orcs, goblins, ogres, and kobolds all eager to cause trouble. The Golden wood was filled with singing birds, chipmunks, squirrels, deer, sprites, fairies, and alll manner of helpful, pleasant forest creatures.
     Once I set foot in the Wood, I would be safe from all harm, and find all manner of help and aid. I could turn and keep in the Forbidden Forest, following it until I reached the King's road several hours later. The paths in the Wood had taken only an hour. I sighed, walking into the Golden Wood, where the sun's light penetrated more than it had in the clearing, and the whole forest seemed alive with music and life. New Yorkers were not well suited to the too cheerful Golden Wood. I missed Brooklyn.

Writing Tools: Em dashes and Quotation marks

2011-06-01T03:32:00.001-07:00

      After last week's writing tools, I played around with em dashes a little more, and one of the odd behaviors I've noticed with word processors is they have a block when it comes to making the dash play along nicely with smart quotation marks.
      The smartquotes feature of Word changes the straight marks into the curled quotes we all know and love (although I had heard that copyeditors preferred the straight quotes, I don't know if that is still the case). However, Word has a bit of a mental block when it comes to getting the marks to behave correctly with the em dash. Word just doesn't know what to make of the dash, and any quotations marks following the dash are treated as you are beginning a new quote.
      This means that you (or a copyeditor) would have to go through and replace all instances (not many, I'm sure) where a dash is followed by quotation marks in order to get the marks to curl in the write direction. Or there's this macro I whipped together. This can be copied straight into the normal.dot module and assigned a toolbar button or keyboard command.

Sub dashquote()
'
' dashquote Macro
' Macro recorded 6/1/2011
'
      Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
      Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
      With Selection.Find
           .Text = "—" & ChrW(8220)
           .Replacement.Text = "—" & ChrW(8221)
           .Forward = True
           .Wrap = wdFindContinue
           .Format = False
           .MatchCase = False
           .MatchWholeWord = False
           .MatchWildcards = False
           .MatchSoundsLike = False
           .MatchAllWordForms = False
      End With
      Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End Sub

F3 Divine Instruction

2011-05-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

     "So, class, in the Iliad, we see the hero Diomedes, with Athena's help, is able to actually injure Ares. What conclusions can we draw from this passage?"
     Clearly, Ares is less of a man than he thinks himself to be. Athena said from off to my right, her Aegis shining too brightly in the fluorescent lighting of the classroom.
     Woman! You dare insult me? I will crush you! Ares boomed from the other side of the classroom, his armor and weapons imposing.
     "Is it that this demonstrates the importance of heroes within the context of the story?"
     "Well, Greg, that's one way to put it, yes. Are there any other interpretations we can apply?" I said. Stepping between the two deities before they tried to obliterate each other.
     Perhaps that the glorious Athena needs men to fight her battles. How many heroes do you use, unwilling to fight for yourself, woman? Ares growled, a wicked smile underneath his thick beard.
     Unlike you, Athena drew herself up, still far short of her uncle's stature. I am a leader. I don't need to swing a sword when others will do as I command.
     "What about the nature of the fight itself?" Ray began. "The gods almost always fight it out through mortals, anyway. Maybe because they're fighting on Earth mortal weapons are more potent. Sure, Diomedes doesn't have the strength to hurt Ares by himself, but Athena does. If the battle were to take place on Olympus, would Diomedes be able to hurt Ares, even with Athena's help?"
     "That's a good analysis. It's hard to say for sure as we don't have many myths where full-out battles happen between the gods. Usually Zeus steps in to prevent that kind of chaos."
     If I did not, all of Olympus would destroy itself. Kingly Zeus sat in an empty seat, looking remarkably like Laurence Olivier from Clash of the Titans. He also ogled one of my students in a low-cut top.
     "Are there any other comments on what we read?"
     Clearly wisdom trumps wars. Athena couldn't let it rest. Ares bristled with anger, sneaking a glance at Zeus.
     The class went silent, recognizing a wrap-up when they heard it.
     "All right. On Monday we'll be doing Aphrodite—"
     I'm so looking forward to that. Aphrodite said in my ear as her hand trailed down my back. I had to suppress a shiver.
     "—so make sure you do the reading. Remember next week we begin our section on the Norse gods."
     Truly we were growing impatient while the Greeks have monopolized the time. Odin tapped his spear to the ground while Thor and Freya looked on.
     You know, Thor, I think that fellow Ares shares a certain oafishness with you. Loki said.
     At least someone else out there can be clever, Athena smiled.
     "Have a good weekend, everyone."

Writing Tools: Making em dashes

2011-05-25T02:10:00.000-07:00

     I love the em dash. It's one of my favorite punctuation marks. It's also not the easiest one to break out at a moment's notice, and the usage is a little non-standard. I'll leave the usage up to you as googling it and finding out the various arguments for its use as dictated by the Chicago Manual of Style is out there in bulk. And it's on Wikipedia.
     For this post, I'll just go over how various word processors make the durned thing. I have no illusions about Word's dominance, so it's up first.
     In Word, there are a couple of ways to form the em dash. First, assuming that the autoformating is enabled (which, by default, it is), type a word followed by two hyphens (--) followed by the second word. As soon as you hit the space bar after the second word, the word processor will automatically replace it with an em dash. An alternate method is to press CTRL + ALT + Num -. This is the minus sign on the number pad, which is different from the hyphen and underscore key. Laptop users without a number pad will have to first turn on their num lock key, then find the minus sign on their regular keyboard (on my Thinkpad, it's the ; key). Obviously, having the autoformat is a much quicker way to form this punctuation. You can also go the insert symbol route, where it appears at the top of the special characters list (you can also specify a new shortcut here).
     WordPerfect has something similar to Word, but instead of two hyphens, it's three (---), and it replaces themas soon as the first letter after the hyphens is typed. I find this more useful as it allows me to put a dash at the end of a line of dialogue followed by a closing quotation mark to indicate a speaker has been cut off or interrupted.
     For the GoogleDocs users, there's no easy shortcut. You need to go into it from the menus: Insert > Special Characters. Left drop down select Punctuation. Right drop down select Dash/Connector. Em Dash is dead center (not the Horizontal Bar as they're typographically different).
     Last there are the ASCII, Unicode, and html methods, which are summarized in Wikipedia's Common Dashes
     Remember that the em dash is your friend. Use it wisely; use it correctly; it will never let you down.

F3 New Officers

2011-05-20T19:30:00.000-07:00

     "A ship," Captain Avery began, "is alive."
     "Sir? Do you mean the A.I.s?" the fresh ensign pushed the round glasses to the top of his nose.
     "No. I don't mean an A.I. Though, obviously those ships are alive, too, and in a much more tangible way. Even without artificial intelligence, a ship is alife. Each one has her own quirks, her own preferences, and her own personality. There are some things you can ask her to do, and she'll balk you. If you try to force her, it won't turn out well. If you abuse her, she'll leave you." Avery walked over, and caressed a bulkhad.
     "But if you treat her like the lady she is. If you make her a lover, and are faithful, she'll never let you down. You'll fly her into danger. You'll go into battle. Fend off a comet. Circle a black hole. You'll ask her to sacrifice herself, and she'll do it without hesitation. She'll give you more she was meant to. Ever circuit, every bolt, every piece of thermoplast and entarian steel will go beyond her specs. She's alive with the spirit of her crew.
     "This is your first posting. One of many you'll have over your years in the fleet. You'll see many ships, and you might be tempted to think of them as 'just another ship', one of the many you've seen and lived on. The ships respond to what you do. Treat her well, and she'll treat you well. I expect all of you to treat her like the lady she is. Dismissed."
     The thirty Ensigns dispersed.
     "A fine speech, sir. Do you think it will work?" The XO said beside Avery.
     Avery watched the ensigns file out, but one of them paused, and stroked one of the bulkheads. "There. Keep an eye on that one. He'll make captain in a few years."

Writing Tools: Disable Autocorrect

2011-05-18T01:26:00.000-07:00

     An urgent twitter went out from an author one night about Word's proclivities for crashing. She went to the web. She got suggestions from Twitter, and I even tossed a couple of ideas her way. Fortunately, she resolved the problem. For now. It's a problem I have seen and heard complaints about for far too long. MS Word, despite being an industry standard, is not the most reliable performer.
     I'm not out to blame Microsoft or its programmers; however, I'm sure everyone out there has had headaches when it has come to trying to get Word to behave, and as per Murphy, it generally chooses the worst possible time to act up.
     I've talked about automatic file backup here, but there are other things to look at. Word has autocorrect and automatic spell and grammar check options that tend to slow things down. Honestly, I had forgotten about these features because I disable them as soon as I install the software. I have found that there are too many rules in both spelling and grammar that Word just doesn't know, so I don't want the program to break my writing flow by alerting me to a misspelled word.
     But I do recall, in the distant past of my memory and youth, that these features can cause problems for Word. They slow the software down, increasing its CPU and memory footprint. This can be compounded if you are in spell-check or track changes mode as the computer must redraw the entire screen every time you move on to another error. Re-drawn complete with all the arrows, comments, highlights, and red and green squigglies.
     Why does it bog down? Well, mostly my theory is that Word was not designed for writers. Word was designed for business writing, by and large, and while it can handle business and school reports just fine, it doesn't do so well at 100,000+ word novels. Spell and grammar checking all of those words just causes a memory drain on the system. So at least experiment with disabling these autocorrect features to see if it works for you. For those with Word 2007 and newer, go to:

Office button (file in 2010) > Word Options > Proofing. Uncheck "Check spelling as you type" and "Mark grammar errors as you type"

     Older than 2007, go to:

Tools > Options > Autocorrect.

     I hope to, in future posts, tackle some of the other common difficulties writers have with Word, and how to correct them.

F3 Justice

2011-05-13T13:41:00.000-07:00

     Jennings smiled.
     No one else did. It was not the type of occasion where people smiled. The small group of people in the "theater" really had nothing to be happy about. Today was not fun, happy, or celebratory. This was a day of justice, a day of closer. Yet Jennings sat there, happy about the crimes that he had committed. Happy about the ones we didn't know about.
     I tried to shut out the sobs of a grieving family Jennings had killed. It had been his last crime, one had had broadcast the public. The image of a little girl in cute pigtails with a confused expression on her face as blood fountained out of her body flashed in my mind.
     I shook it free, and looked back at Jennings. He was laughing, now, and speaking, but the intercom was off on his side, so I couldn't hear it. The warden, though, yelled something at Jennings, and the killer laughed even harder.
     "It's time," The governor said. A guard flicked on the intercom. "Robert Jennings, you have been found guilty of seven counts of first degree murder. Your sentence will be carried out today. You are sentenced to five years of Isolation, after which you will undergo re-education."
     I sighed as the telepaths walked up to Jennings. Isolation and re-education. Mankind had given up death penalties, but some thought Isolation was far more cruel, but it had been effective at rehabilitating people.
     There was nothing to see after the telepaths put their hands on Jennings's head. A few minutes of waiting. They finished, leaving Robert Jennings slack-jawed, vacant-eyed, and still. They cut his mind off from his body. Jennings was locked in, left only with his thoughts and some of his senses. He could see, he could hear, he could smell. Nothing else. He would spend the next five years with no way to interact with the world around him. He might even go insane.
     Good. Justice has been served.

Writing Tools: Write then Research

2011-05-11T10:32:00.000-07:00

     Butt in chair, hands on keyboard is hard to pull off as every writer knows. If we complicate that with the added temptation of social media, internet, and everything else, it becomes nigh impossible.
     I've never been overly tempted by the allure of social media, so I don't know how to address that one, but I do know that the internet's siren lure of reference material calls to me whenever I write. I've lost myself in hours of research when all I intended to do was look up a quick geographic fact to insert into my WIP. I was led on a merry romp through various cultural and historical facts about the location that, while enlightening, distracted me.
     Writers obviously need to do research (my students could stand to do a little more), but it's important not to let the research overtake the writing itself. I've learned to incorporate a little journalistic shortcut into my writing by inserting TK (short for "To Come" [don't ask me about the spelling etymology]) as a placeholder for whatever fact I need to insert. Sometimes I'll add in parentheses the specific bit of information I need to look up.
     This works not only for odd bits of reference, but for odd things about the story line or characters I may have forgotten. Yes, I should have a series bible (we all should) but that may not take into account what a character said three chapters ago, or was wearing the day before yesterday. I find TK a quick and dirty way to both remind me and to keep me writing instead of breaking up the creative flow with a trip searching through the internet or the book so far.

F3 The Rider

2011-05-06T00:11:00.000-07:00

     The Rider, as villagers whispered his name, slumped in his saddle as his horse plodded along the dirt road. Both man and horse bore the signs of heavy travel. The horse's hair, once a pristine white, lay matted with caked mud, his eyes and walk a reflection of the man he bore. The rider wore a tattered cloak, and patch-work armor that a blacksmith might have said had been fine work if not for the years of mis-care represented by rust, dents, and gouges. Shield and sword hung from his saddle, the shield matching the armor, but the sword seemed cared for with its fine leather wrapping and shining silver pommel.
     Instead of a helmet, the rider bore a wide-brimmed leather hat to keep the weather from his face. His face bore lines, aged before its time by too many battles. His eyes had the same look, but something more. Despair sucked those eyes deeper into his skull, giving him a haunting, otherworldly look.
     He let his horse carry him while he wondered if he would finally be free. Free from recognition. Free of their expectations. Free from the name hero. Free of their pleas. Free of the betrayal he had suffered. Free of the pain.

Writing Tools: Grammar Handbooks

2011-05-04T07:19:00.000-07:00

     I suppose I'm on something of a grammar kick with the end of the teaching semester here. Grammar is one of those subjects that writers at almost every level hates or dreads. Whether your particular bane is the apostrophe, the 14 (or is 15 now?) comma rules, when to capitalize certain titles, or any of the other seemingly endless arbitrary rules, it's the author's job to get good at grammar.
     It's not just for the sake of your agent or editor, either. Yes, they will certainly feel like executing you if you continue to make the same error throughout your manuscript, but more importantly you need to know how to craft sentences in an effective way. The very structure of a sentence can convey as much as the words in a sentence.
     To that end, every author should invest in a solid writing or grammar handbook. There's plenty of them on the market, many with tabs for ease of reference. Browse them on Amazon or pop over to a local college bookstore where you'll find many of them. They can run anywhere between $20-$65, and are worth every penny. Well, there is one catch. It doesn't do anything if it sits on your shelf or desk collecting dust. Get in the habit of using it when you revise and edit. Yes, it'll slow you down as you edit, but there is a trade-off. 1. Agents and editors will love you for it. 2. Your writing will improve at the composition stage so you will make fewer initial mistakes.
     Now if only I can get my students to do this.

F3 Tough Guy

2011-04-29T00:46:00.000-07:00

     Any moron can get himself a gat. Toting about a gun doesn't make someone tough. It certainly doesn't make someone smart. More often than not, people who get their hands on guns start thinking with their fingers instead of their noggins.
     Sometimes that's trouble.
     Sometimes it's what I want.
     Guys with guns like to think they're in charge.
     The goon standing in the rain next to the black sedan was no exception.
     I put on a pair of wire reading glasses, and rolled the brim of my hat up, looking like quite the mousy bookworm, enhanced by my thin frame. I did my best to edge obviously toward the alley that ran next to the building the mook parked in front of.
     Sure enough, the guy eventually noticed my amateur sneaking technique.
     "Hey, you!"
     I gave a squeak, trembled, and tried to quick-walk away.
     He caught me up in just a few steps, and seized me by the jacket, close enough that I got a noseful of the catch of the day.
     "You're the guy we're looking for."
     "No," I said nasally, "you're quite mistaken, sir. I'm the proprietor of the Ace Bookstore, and I was merely on my way home up the block." I pointed past the building.
     "Naw, you're the guy. Elsewise you wouldn't be sneaking about. Mr. Vendetti's gonna be happy with me. C'mon, genius. You're gonna wait in the car until he comes to talk to ya."
     I held in my smile as he shoved me into the backseat of the sedan. I was exactly where I wanted to be, and the guy hadn't even frisked me.

Writing Tools: Macros--replace periods

2011-04-27T06:59:00.000-07:00

One of the pet peeves of copyeditors is the dreaded double space after a period, or other sentence ending punctuation. And for authors preparing a manuscript, it becomes tedious to find and replace all these instances, even using the word processors feature. So here is a quick little macro for Word that does just that. Assign the macro to a button, and when it's time for the tediousness, simply click it.
This macro can also be modified to accommodate exclamation points and question marks by replacing the period in the find and replace lines, then the whole thing could be run at once to replace all the spaces after end punctuation.

Here's the macro in its entirety:

Sub periodspace()
'
' periodspace Macro
'
'
Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
With Selection.Find
.Text = ". "
.Replacement.Text = ". "
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindContinue
.Format = False
.MatchCase = False
.MatchWholeWord = False
.MatchWildcards = False
.MatchSoundsLike = False
.MatchAllWordForms = False
End With
Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End Sub

F3 Hired by a Squirrel

2011-04-22T00:44:00.000-07:00

     "You're the Shamus," a voice two registers above my normal headache threshold piped. Seeing as I had once again taken in too much pixie nectar, my headache threshold had already been shattered. The voice drilled in through my ear, stabbed into my brain, and caused unfocused eyes to pop open in pain, which redoubled upon seeing the too cheerful sunlight.
     "Are you all right?" the voice pitched higher as it asked the question, and I saw a squirrel perched on my desk, its head cocked to the side.
     "Did you talk, or am I hearing voices again?" I slurred. I knew I slurred. My lips and tongue felt slack, but it sounded right in my head.
     "It was me!" the squirrel was much too excited over that fact. I still had trouble wrapping my brain around the idea that some animals could speak. Not all, just some, and there didn't appear to be any rhyme or reason. Both wolves from Red Riding Hood and the Three Pigs, and the Bears from Goldilocks, but not the wolf from Peter and the Wolf, which I didn't even think qualified as a fairy tale, but they were here.
     "Okay, I'm going to need you to talk much lower and softer. And I need some coffee."
     "Some what?" The squirrel tried to lower its voice, but failed not quite spectacularly.
     "Nevermind." I knew better than to stand, so I pulled a flask of the Juice from a desk drawer—It had taken months to get the carpenter to understand what I wanted in a desk—and took a swig. The blend of fruits, some of which I had been told were magical, washed through me, and my headache lessened to the point where a Tylenol would take care of it. Too bad there was no Tylenol here.
     "Okay, so, what's your name, and why are you here?"
     "My name is Chip." A squirrel named Chip. I had to resist the urge to say that was a name for a chipmunk. "I need some help. Dawn has been captured!"
     "I'm guessing Dawn is the beautiful young maiden who lived in the forest you were friends with?"
     "Yes! She's been captured!"
     "Yeah. See, rescues really aren't my thing. For that you need to go to the castle and find the Prince. Or a knight. Both of them are perfect for the job."
     "I did! They rushed out, but couldn't find her. No one knows where she is!"
     "Please, not so excited. So, she's just gone? The royal huntsmen, the court wizard, all nothing?"
     "Yes!"
     That was unusual, and meant some kind of serious mojo was going down for all of them to turn up empty.
     Slowly, I stood, and grabbed my hat, a poor, leather version of a fedora, but it was better than what they wore around here. "All right, Chip, I'm on the case."

Writing Tools: Normal.dot continued

2011-04-20T00:10:00.000-07:00

     A few weeks back I talked about the infamous normal.dot in general terms, and what can be done with it. Now I've got a couple of websites that go into a little more information.
     The first is a guide on how to change the normal.dot found here: Change normal.dot. Now, a simple way to create a backup of the file is to simply save as, and then use a file name you'll remember (normal.bak is popular). If you ever need to restore the template, delete the old file, then rename your backup file.normal.dot.
     The second is a bigger explanation of how the normal template functions in Word. Even if you're not a computer nerd like moi, it's a very worthwhile read. Understanding how Word works can help when it comes to writing a manuscript, and prevent taking an axe to the computer (I've been there, but with various power tools) when the program refuses to do what you want it to (possibly for legitimate reasons).
     Next week I will begin posting some Macro scripts I've found useful.

F3 A Different Title

2011-04-15T00:49:00.000-07:00

     "Samuel Flynn," the King intoned. I'd never heard someone intone before, but the way his voice lingered in the Great Hall, well, that was intoning. "For your services to the Crown, you shall be made a Knight—"
     "Um!" I began "begging your pardon, Majesty?"
     The King, completely unused to being interrupted, paused, and looked around at the others, who were aghast and even more confused.
     "You wish to speak?"
     "Yes. I just have a little something to say. See, being a knight really isn't my thing. It's not what I do."
     "Are you saying that you would refuse the title?"
     "That particular title, yes. See, if I'm a knight, then I would have to go questing, rescuing maidens, and slaying monsters. I'm just not built for it. I would collapse if I had to wear all that armor and swing a sword. Not to mention people would challenge me to a duel, and then I'd be dead."
     "What is it that you are saying?"
     "Well, I guess that if the only way to thank me is to make me a knight, then thanks, but not thanks. I'm fine like I am."
     "I cannot fail to reward your service. I could grant you a different title of nobility, complete with lands."
     "I wouldn't know what to do with them. I'm not a lord, or anything. I'm a detective, a gumshoe, a shamus."
     "Gum . . . shoe? You wish the title of Gum-shoe?"
     "Um, I guess not. That would take too much explaining."
     "Then Shamus. It has a more proper, noble bearing to its sound than the others."
     I was about to protest again, but nodded, "That'll be fine."
     "Then kneel, Sam Flynn. I dub thee Shamus of the Realm."
     Better than gumshoe.

Writing Tools: Emergency computer plan

2011-04-13T00:28:00.000-07:00

     Not long ago, agent extraordinaire and shark Janet Reid experienced some computer difficulties. While she was able to resolve the dilemma (without much expense or cost in time), it got me thinking about the tech dilemma.
     I guess I don't think about it that much since I'm pretty tech savvy, and have myself fairly well equipped. The reality, though, is that technology, especially computers, are integral to our lives, especially those on the publishing path. We simply cannot do without them. More than that, they're always there, "as constant as the northern star" (Julius Caesar III:i:60).
     The thing is, they're not.
     Technology will fail. That wonderful computer in front of you will be relegated to a worthless pile of parts, and it can happen very, very quickly.
     Everyone has heard the nightmare stories of data disappearing (my condolences to those who have suffered the loss of Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations), but the fact is that we need to plan for this.
     There are a lot of options out there, ranging from those for the tech-phobic, to those who can build a server farm with MacGyver-like skill. The best thing to do is a little research into what fits your lifestyle best. There are some tidbits to consider:
     The plan has to be simple to implement, and get you back up and running as quickly as possible. I feel time is more important than expense as frustration levels build quickly over not being able to use the tech.
     The plan really should not primarily rely on warranty services or repair plans. Yes, they will get you back up and running, but maybe not as quickly, and there's no guarantee your data will come back to you. The repair place can simply say "sorry" and move on.
     With those in mind, there are some options.
     External hard drives with backup. These can be nice as they can be set on a schedule, and have a button to do it manually. The systems vary, and you'll want to get the one that fits your tech ability and needs. There are also external drives you can customize with your own backup software.
     The Cloud. Dropbox is part of this as it's able to sync files to internet storage servers and across systems. Amazon recently rolled out its Cloud Drive, and there are numerous other systems that offer the same. They range from free to a monthly subscription service.
     A second computer. The price of netbooks makes this increasingly appealing. While they're not as robust as a full computer, if you are looking for something that will keep you writing, emailing, browsing, and tweeting, a netbook can do it. They're costs are such that they can provide a solution as cheaply as those external drives with a backup, and a year's worth of cloud subscription. The real upside to this is that if your computer fails catastrophically, you will immediately have another to use in its stead. This option actually does work well with repair services and warranties. The loss of your computer for a few days while it's "in the shop" won't be an inconvenience at all.
     Obviously, the uber-tech inclined will advocate all of the above, with redundancies, but I think that so long as there is one good plan that will keep you from suffering through a computer absence, you'll be fine. Plan and choose the option that's right for you, and hopefully when your computer fails, you'll just be able to carry on as usual because of your plan.

Character File: Ben Slater

2011-04-11T00:56:00.000-07:00

F3 Dealing with Damsels

2011-04-08T02:24:00.000-07:00

     "Oh, cripes. You're a D.I.D."
     "A what?"
     "Damsel in Distress. You need rescuing or something, don't you?"
     "A wicked troll captured me. I fled from the forest, and came here. Please help me."
     Yep. Definitely a D.I.D. Unfortunately, that meant a troll would be coming this way right quick. I wasn't equipped to fight a troll.
     "Okay, sister, I'll help you out."
     "Oh, thank you, my lord."
     "I'm not a lord."
     "It's most kind of you to render aid unto me. I would be lost without—"
     "Yeah. I got it. Listen, where did you come from? Do you live in the woods or something? Animals come when you call to help out?"
     "No. I am the miller's daughter. I don't live in the forest."
     "Great. Okay, here's the deal. I need you to go down stairs into my basement."
     "To where?"
     "The cellar." After two years here you'd think I'd get the language quirks down. "Go into the cellar, and use the broom down there to kind of tidy up. I'll stay up here and take care of the troll."
     "Oh, you're so brave to fight him on your own. Truly, my lord, you are a great—mmph!" I put a hand over her mouth. If she had finished that sentence, I'd have a real fight on my hands.
     "Thank you. Just, please, go into the cellar. I don't want you to have to watch what I do to the troll." Every word, true.
     She nodded, and I showed her to the cellar, closing the door behind her.
     I went outside, sat down on my chair on the porch, and rolled up a cigarette. I was lucky that some dwarves way out in Dwarven Mountain smoked pipes. I had been able to get my own tobacco plant.
     I still hadn't found any coffee.
     From the cellar I heard the muted sounds of an angelic voice in song.
     The big troll lumbered out of the woods, sharp tusks staring out of a fully deformed face that not even a mother could love. He went straight for me.
     "I come for girl!" he bellowed, and a disgusting amount of spittle sailed out of his mouth.
     "Sure you do. See, the thing is, she's my prisoner."
     "No! You are a hero, and you're protecting her. We must do battle!"
     "Sorry, buddy. Listen, that's her singing in my dungeon. You know how these maidens are. They're always singing."
     The troll paused, but if his expression changed, I couldn't detect it in the thick grey skin.
     "That's her!"
     "Right. That's her. In my dungeon. She's my prisoner now, so you can't eat her. I'm going to use her in my own wicked scheme, so off with you."
     "That's not fair!"
     "Hey, you lost her. But, I'll tell you what, let me know where I can get a hold of you, and I might use you in one of my evil plots. All right?"
     "Okay," the troll had become sullen, which was more pathetic than it sounded.
     He gave me his name, then lumbered away to the woods, kicking at the ground and cursing, as much as anyone could curse in this world.

F3 Missing: Prince Charming

2011-04-01T01:15:00.000-07:00

     The knock on my door eventually cut through the haze of my pixie nectar hangover. No one ever mentions the after kick that stuff packs. I staggered to the source of the knock, a response less conscious than necessary response to the pain the knocking caused.
     I pulled the rough wooden door open, and squinted at the too cheerful sunlight, wanting to recoil back into the darkness of my bed.
     "Master Flynn." A blobby silhouette said.
     "Andurias?"
     "Yes, Master Flynn."
     "I told you, call me Sam," I replied to the Captain of the Guard.
     "There are proprieties to observer, master Flynn."
     "Uh huh. What do you need? I finally got all the evidence on that Goldilocks broad. She should be going away for a long time."
     "No. That's all in order. We have another situation."
     "What is it this time?"
     "We have a, what did you call it? A Snow White."
     "So? What's the problem? It ain't my department. Prince Charming will come along and wake her up, defeat the evil whatever that put her under, married, happily ever after, the end."
     "That's just it. Prince Charming has gone missing."
     "Which one?"
     "All of them."
     "All of them?"
     "Well, all of the unmarried ones eligible to rescue a princess."
     "God, I need some coffee."
     "Some what?"
     "Nevermind. Okay. I'll look into it."
     I shut the door on him, and resisted the urge to crawl back into bed.
     Kidnaped Prince Charming. All of 'em. That was new. And that was why I was here. Even the Realms of Fairy Tale had mean streets. Time to go to work. I really wished they had coffee here.

Writing Tools: Macros

2011-03-30T03:08:00.000-07:00

     Ah, Macros, one of my favorite little tricks to use in word processing and in Excel. Macros are little bits of computer code in an office program that do something. They're usually used to automate some kind of process that is usually repetitive such as preparing a document in manuscript format or making an editor's life easier.
     There are two main levels of Macro implementation. The first, is that of the purist, the techno-nerd who states that it must be hard coded line by line, which is a tedious process involving learning a completely different language.
     For the everyday user there is the blessed record function (found in the Developer tab of recent Word versions and the Tools menu of older versions), which allows a user to click a button, go through a sequence of actions, hit the stop button, and magically create a script which will do those exact series of actions on command. Macros can be put on toolbars as buttons or assigned as hotkeys for convenient use.
     Now, you will likely have heard of Macro viruses, and how macros lead to insecurity of your office programs. This is true. there are macro viruses out there, and they can be nasty such as the one that infected some of my college essays because a group partner failed to properly scan his computer. Most of the time, though, macros are perfectly safe, especially if you record them yourself. However, there are many great websites out there devoted to putting out safe macros, and they post the actual code of the macro for people to copy, which is safer than downloading.
     In future posts I will post up some of my own greatest hits when it comes to Macros, both for my beloved WordPerfect, and for the more mainstream Word users. Those who use something else, I'm sure there are resources out there, or you can record your own; however, you can still get ideas of what to use macros for in your own writing.

F3 Watching the Master

2011-03-25T01:23:00.000-07:00

     I had moved to Frisco to start over, to leave the crimes of my past behind me. The only problem was I didn't have much idea what to do. I was just plain good at what I had been doing, and it was hard to find something else. My money had been easy back home, and working the docks in Frisco was back-breaking work. Honest, sure, but not a day went by that I didn't collapse in the shabby bed I rented.
     Then he came to town. Since I was a kid I always looked up to this guy. I had stashed a copy of his book under my mattress and read it all the time. He's the reason I had gotten good at what I did, and what I had gotten into trouble. And he was coming to Frisco. I couldn't pass up an opportunity to see Harry Houdini in person.
     I got the best tickets, giving up meals and working longer shifts to afford them. I wanted to be right there with him. I had learned many of his tricks from his books, and even figured a few other things out on my own. It's what gave me my fast hands.
     I watched him that day in the Orpheum, coming out of the Chinese water torture box. I felt like a kid again, but that was nothing to how he shrugged out of the strait-jacket. I wanted to know how he did it. I had ideas, but I didn't know, and it drove me nuts. I wasn't the only one.
     "I tell you Rourke, I've been a detective for a long time, and I've figured out lots of guys, but I'll be damned if I can figure him out." a man next to me commented to his friend.
     "Who the hell cares? All just damn tricks. Not like it's good for anything."
     "That what you think?"
     "Yeah."
     "And I think it's damn useful. I've even picked up a few of my tricks, and it helps me on the job. I can catch those grifters in the act, but that's nothing to beatin' 'em at their own con."
     I smiled at the detective. Maybe there was a job I could do, and hold on to my old skills. I couldn't be Houdini, and I didn't want to be a performer, anyway. But a detective? maybe doing something right with what I got . . . it could work.

Writing Tools: Text Editors

2011-03-23T00:05:00.000-07:00

     I'm a nerd, and proud of it. Yep, I said it. I've been tinkering and toiling away since high school with my 286 with its whopping 256kb ram and a 40mb hard drive. I had a vga monitor (there is a large difference between the vga of then and the super vga often delineated as simply vga today). I even added in a sound card, and managed to get it to work by finagling the IRQs. I started out with DOS 5, in the era before Windows.
     Back in the day the word processor wars waged a bitter battle. I won't discuss the outcome of the war, as it's largely immaterial. Today I want to talk about a new, emerging trend of softwares: the stripped down novelty text editor.
     It seems hardly a week goes by where some new plain text editor is hawked as the thing in writing, now. The idea behind them is to distill the writing environment down to its most fundamental: a screen, and a cursor. By ridding the real estate of everything else, it's believed to eliminate distractions. I can't say I've ever been distracted by the various menus and toolbar buttons of my word processor, so I don't get the appeal.
     Others add in gimmicks to ease the burden of writing such as a concept that if the writer doesn't keep writing, the word processor will slowly begin to sound an annoying tone or even erase what was written. Another seeks to transform writing into a zen-like experience with pleasant sounds, soft backgrounds, and customizable clacking sounds of the keyboard. Some take the other route, and while providing a simple editor, offer extensive organizational tools that cross link, allow for pictures, sound files, notecards, and the like.
     I've played around with them, and can't say that I prefer any of them over my word processor, and I've got reasons for them.
     1. Text editors, while some of them support file formats other than plain text, do not allow for formatting inputs. If I need to add in italics, underlines or any other non-standard formatting, the text editors can't handle it. Yes, I could come back later and put them in, but what's the point? It makes more sense to add it right away instead of making a notation to do it later. Text editors also cannot handle headers, page numbers, indentations, or page breaks. The WYSIWYG interface of a word processor is also very nice to have.
     2. Automatic backup and save options are limited. With my word processor I can tell it where I want to save backups, and how often, minimizing the chance of something going wrong.
     3. A word processor is highly customizable. If you really want a stripped down appearance, you can do it! Take down all the toolbars, rulers, buttons, and what have you for a clean, no frills appearance. My beloved WordPerfect even allows for a fully retro appearance with a blue screen and a cursor (ahhh, memories).
     4. Writers are required to know how to perform some more advanced functions on word processors. Aside from knowing how to properly format a manuscript (and that means not inserting headers and page numbers manually or hitting enter several times to get to a new page. More on manuscript formatting here) there are the tools of editing, such as Track Changes, which Rachelle Gardner posted about some time back found here.
     5. Distractions come in many shapes and sizes. I don't believe that a plain text editor really is a solution. The various menus of word processors really aren't the distraction. Internet, TV, other people, and cats are distractions (even now my cat has decided that my keyboard is an excellent place for her tail to rest). And, let's face it, distractions happen no matter where you're at or what program you're running.
     I think it's far less complicated to eliminate extra software. The time it takes to learn these new text editors (despite having minimal features) could be better spent writing, or even getting to know your word processor under the hood. Make it fit your needs instead of going for gimmicks.

Showdown at Club 42: Part V

2011-03-20T23:58:00.000-07:00

<< Go back to Part IV   [Stories Home]
Showdown at Club 42
V Propositions
I noticed the card when I pulled out the keys to my car. It was the same business card I had slipped to Laura in the pack of cigarettes. It had a slight smell of tobacco on it, but also bore "Liberty and 8th the alley, 3am" in a fluid, feminine hand. Which is why I ended up at the entrance to an alley on the south side of Meridian.
     "You always follow instructions this well?" Laura stepped out of the darkness into the scant moonlight.
     "Only the ones from nice looking dames. Something I can do for you?"
     "Perhaps. But there's something I can do for you."
     "Oh?"
     "Let me ask you something. Why did you play against me tonight?"
     I could've gone with the usual, the dodge. I had to in order to save Danny, but I knew she wanted more than that. "The challenge. If I was going to go down, it was going to be to someone that deserved to take me down, not Joey and his pathetic crew. So, your turn. Why'd you let me win?"
     "I didn't let you win. Ciro pays me to run a straight game."
     I fixed her with flat stare.
     "Fine. I was going to take everything you had, just as Joey wanted."
     "So why didn't you?"
     "I wanted to find out how good you were."
     "That's not all of it."
     "Joey has a habit of putting his hands where they don't belong, and he's been angling after Ciro's job."
     I nodded. I could believe Joey let his hands wander.
     "I stuck around a little after Ciro asked me to leave. Are you really Bennie Slider?"
     "Another life."
     "You're good. I knew I wasn't showing any tells. I could've clobbered Joey."
     "I had to use the tools at hand."
     "It was more than that. I never saw you change out the cards, and I watched you." I didn't say anything. She cocked her head to one side. "I haven't been here long, but a few people still talk about you like a legend. I've been compared to you. I didn't think you were real. Makes me feel better I can beat you at poker."
     "I never claimed to be the best, and it's long done."
     "Why? What happened? You just disappeared, they say."
     "Long story, and not one I'm too keen on sharing. You can take up the racket just fine from what I saw."
     "Are you sure you're done? I've got a proposition for you."
     "I don't want in on your job, but I'll give you some friendly advice: Don't go after Ciro. He's not too shabby himself, and he won't tolerate people trying to steal from him. Just ask Joey Silver."
     "D-did you see what Ciro did to him?"
     "No need. I know Ciro. No one will be hearing from Joey."
     "I can handle myself."
     "I saw, but you shouldn't go after him. It doesn't matter what the score is, not to you."
     Her eyes narrowed on me.
     "You like the game. You want to be the best. Hustling on the street isn't enough of a challenge. You could make enough pulling short jobs, but you got a job as a dealer for Ciro Rosetti. You want the long con. By yourself, no less. You want the challenge, the thrill of it. You want to know if you can pull it off, and do what no one else can."
     "Is this where you try and talk me out of it?"
     I shrugged. "There comes a time when it's not enough. I'm not going to lecture you. You made me an offer, now let me make you one. Work with me."
     "Tsk. I thought you were better than that. I expect this kind of thing from Joey Silver, but I thought you were better. I'm not going to work for you. Get someone else to fetch your damn coffee or write a letter!"
     She began to stalk off, into the depths of the alley.
     "I said with, not for. Partners."
     She stopped, and called back over her shoulder. "You must be joking. A woman . . . dick?"
     "I got no problem with it. I know you're capable though you may want to hold off on pulling knives. Besides, haven't you heard? women got the vote. You can do anything."
     "You're actually serious about this?" She turned towards me. "Full partners. And we would, what, take cases and investigate things?"
     I pulled out a cigarette, and the weather chose that moment to turn the imperceptible shower to a full drizzle. I tucked it back into its pack, and stepped closer.
     "Yep."
     "It would never work. People would never hire a woman PI. We may have the vote, but that doesn't mean people have changed their way of thinking."
     "I'm betting there are people willing to give it a shot."
     "A bet? How much?" she smirked at me.
     I smiled. "Tell you what, come with me tomorrow. If Kincaid's mom balks at you being my partner, you get to keep every dime of my fee."
     "And how much is that?"
     "Twenty a day plus expenses. But she promised me a bonus of five C if I got it done tonight with him unharmed."
     "And if you win I become your partner?"
     "Nope. You still have a choice about it, but I do get something."
     "What?"
     "Your name."
     Her smile came back. "Okay."

     The next morning, she was with me, dressed as proper as you please in skirt, blouse, and jacket as we paid a visit on the Kincaid estate. Arabella Kincaid was a frail woman, old before her time, but her eyes and mind were still bright with the mind behind them. She wore an elaborate house robe in dark green with pearl buttons, and the outfit looked understated in this house.
     "Mrs. Kincaid. How's Danny?"
     "Sulking, Mr. Slater. He did not take it kindly that I restricted him to the estate and suspended his allowance."
     "I'm sure it's for the best.
     "It's not fair!" Danny yelled from across the hall.
     "Daniel, I'll not tolerate such outbursts. If you cannot be civil to Mr. Slater and his companion, you shall remove yourself to your room."
     "Yes, Mummy." The contrition made him seem much younger.
     "Mrs. Kincaid, I'd like to introduce you to my partner. She's also a private investigator."
     "What?!" Danny burst out before I could continue. If he had more than a baby face, I would've said he was livid. "She's your partner? But she was the one you played against at the end!"
     Arabella looked from Danny to me to Laura, and fixed a long, hard gaze on Laura. "A woman detective?" She walked closer and scrutinized Laura. "Hmm. How extraordinary. It is certainly unconventional, but good for you, dear. And very progressive of you, Mr. Slater. There are many who would think a woman incapable of such a profession."
     "Mummy, don't you see? He deceived you. He arranged the whole thing."
     "Daniel! He did no such thing. It was you who got yourself into trouble, and Mr. Slater extracted you from your own folly, causing all of us a good deal of trouble. However he solved your indiscretion, I say good for him."
     I had to keep my face smooth. I liked Mrs. Kincaid. Laura had a smug expression on her face, but she quickly schooled it back to that porcelain mask.
     "But Mummy!"
     "Not. Another. Word." Each word came out hard as steel. "Leave us. I shall be up later."
     Danny made as if he was about to start in again, but Mrs. Kincaid tapped her foot impatiently. Danny turned and scurried up the staircase, disappearing from sight.
     "Well, now. I apologize for the interruption. I didn't catch your name, dear?" She held out her hand to Laura.
     "Eva. Eva Tomas."
     I smiled.
     After that, Mrs. Kincaid settled up, apologized for being unable to speak with us longer, and excused herself to go deal with Danny.
     "We're square, now." Eva said once outside. "Doesn't mean I'm going to join up with you."
     "I know."
     I watched her as she walked to her car.
     "You know, Slater," she called once she reached her car, some thirty feet away. "You're out of practice. You got my name, but I still got the five C. And more!" She waggled my bill fold at me.
     I shrugged then dangled a set of car keys from two fingers.
     She searched into her purse, came up with nothing, and smiled at me.
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Showdown at Club 42: Part IV

2011-03-20T23:56:00.000-07:00

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Showdown at Club 42
IV Old Times
     "Ciro! I—" Joey stammered.
     Ciro Rosetti sauntered in without a care in the world. He looked good. He topped me by an inch or so, and had the extra weight to prove it, only some of it muscle. Most had likely come from too many home-cooked meals. He had a trusting kind of face with soft lines and no hard edges. The hardness came from within. Dark eyes and dark hair, going a little grey at his temples, peeked out from under his white fedora. A bright red feather peeked out of the black ribbon around it. It looked exotic and expensive. Ciro had done well for himself.
     "Mr. Kincaid," his voice carried a weight with it, like each word decided a person's fate. Very likely it did. "It looks as if you've come out even tonight. Good for you. Please accept my apologies for anything untoward that might have been said to you. I have nothing but the highest respects for you and your family. I hope this won't damage our relationship in the future."
     Danny struggled to say something, and glanced around at everyone else in the room. I gave a subtle shake of my head for him to not rock the boat, but I didn't think he caught it.
     "Um, yes, well, I shall have to see, Mr. Rosetti. Thank you." It was the best I could expect from the kid.
     Ciro gave a slow nod. "Joey, if you would wait for me upstairs, I think we should discuss what happened here tonight."
     Joey swallowed hard, but then walked out. As soon as Joey had passed by Ciro, Ciro said, "I wouldn't think like that, Joey." Joey stopped, then resumed walking in slow, measured steps.
     Ciro stepped closer, and began twisting a ring on his right hand. The gesture seemed unconscious. "Miss Martin, thank you for your services tonight. Without your actions, things could have gone decidedly wrong. I'll see you get a bonus for tonight."
     I had played poker with her for long enough that I had gotten to know something of her reactions, subtle though they were. She gave a small smile, but a tightness around her eyes told me she was angry. I had an idea of why, too.
     "Now, if you would excuse us, I'd like to have a few words with this . . . detective?"
     She brushed past me and Ciro.
     He gestured to one of the chairs, so I sat, while he reversed Laura's chair.
     "Benjamin Slater," he said solemnly, still twisting the ring on his finger. "Or should I say Bennie Slider?" he smiled then.
     "Not so much any more, Ciro, or do I still get to call you Rosie?"
     He chuckled at that. "Of all the people to see, I didn't expect you. I thought you got sent to the pen or had to skip town because you pinched from the wrong pocket. I remember going to see you dad, and he was tight-lipped. What happened to you?"
     Too much. The explanation was long, and I didn't feel like sharing all the details.
     "I had to make a change."
     "Private detective?"
     "I'm not so bad at it."
     "Not half as good as you are at picking pockets. No one, and I mean no one was as good as you were. I swear you could've taken the keys to the pearly gates off of St. Peter. Tommy Two Fingers used to brag about he was better than you, but he got pinched half a dozen times. He's got a year left at Braginoff. You never got caught. The cops all knew you lifted, but they could never hold you on anything. You were a Goddamn magician!"
     I held up my hands, gave a quick flourish, and had the last two cards I had pocketed out. I tossed them to the table with the chips and the deck.
     "Ha! That's what I'm talking about. Man I've missed you. What the hell is this private detective thing? Tell me you've got an angle."
     "No angle, Ciro. I'm out of that."
     "Come on, Bennie, don't give me that. You don't just walk away like that. You're too good for this racket. A PI for Crissake? If you hit hard times, come work for me. It'll be like old times. It'll be better since you won't be down at the bottom."
     This was what I was afraid of. Ciro and I went way back. We had our own little racket going. I'd pick pockets or run the scam, and he'd back me up. He even broke into places. He got into the organization and began running bigger jobs. He brought me in as part of his crew to open up locks and the like. Those were good times, but hey were gone, and I didn't want to get back into that. I couldn't. I promised.
     "Ciro, you and I—"
     "No. Don't say we go way back and then turn me down. I can see you got something going on, and you don't want to tell me all about it, but I can guess. It's your mom, ain't it." It wasn't a question.
     A painful memory. "More complicated than that."
     "Tell you what, then. It's an open offer. When you get tired of tripping for biscuits, you come talk to me. You just come right in here, and it'll be like old times."
     We lapsed into silence, then. Neither of us knowing just what to do. Ciro had been my best friend while growing up, but things had to be different now.
     "You still got the ring?" He kept twisting the ring on his right pinkie.
     I smiled. "Thing kept turning my finger green, so I had to take it off." I reached to my belt where I had clipped my watch chain. I pulled it off, revealing the brass ring dangling from a few links.
     He held up his pudgy right hand to show off the brass ring on his pinky.
     "At least mine still fits," I demonstrated by sliding the ring onto my finger.
     "Ha! What can I say? Life's been good to me. I don't have to hustle on the streets any more. You remember the day?"
     "Course I remember the day. You bet me I couldn't reach the rings."
     "I didn't expect you to stand up on the horse like some kind of circus walker."
     "It worked. Got enough for the whole crew."
     "Until the guy running the carousel kicked us out."
     "What do you hear from everyone else?"
     His smile receded. "Alex got pinched. He's got another three years. Billy ran into trouble with the Chinks. He killed one of 'em two years ago, and had to vanish. Sophie and I were a thing for awhile, even thought about getting married, but we decided it wouldn't have worked." He began twisting the ring on his finger again. "Josh and Jimmy," the twins who had loved pulling their own brand of scams, "were gunned down two years ago. The cops didn't even give 'em a chance. Hauling hooch in this town has gotten dangerous. They were just hauling a couple of kegs onto a truck."
     "Jesus. I'm sorry, Ciro. I didn't know."
     "I would've thought the same thing happened to you after you disappeared, but your dad said you were alive. You could've sent word, ya know?"
     "I'm sorry, Ciro. I had to get out. Before Josh and Jim it was Tonio and Rick. I just . . . I made a promise, and I aim to stick to it."
     "Sure. I hear ya. Man's gotta stick to that. Listen, the offer's still good. If it doesn't work out . . . well, you know."
     "Yeah, I know. Ciro," I said as he stood up to leave. "I'm a detective, and that means you and I—"
     "We might come to cross purposes. I know you won't rat me out to the cops, Bennie. I know that, but I can already see you'll come sticking your nose in my business."
     "Only for my clients."
     "If that's the way it's gotta be, then that's what is. Just remember, it's business. It's always about the business. As far back as we go, I can't have you disrupting too much business. You understand."
     "Yeah, I understand." I stood up, and came around to offer him my hand. He barked a laugh then gave me a big hug.
     "You ain't gotta worry about Joey. Take care of yourself, Bennie."
     "Didn't occur to me I'd have to. You take care too, Rosie." The encounter with Ciro went considerably better than I had imagined, but it still meant consequences. I had to watch my step, especially around his operations, or I might end up like Joey.
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Showdown at Club 42: Part III

2011-03-20T23:48:00.000-07:00

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Showdown at Club 42
III Card Sharks
     Laura let the cards sail. She didn't bother to deal Danny in. Joey frowned momentarily at that, but then shrugged. Everyone knew that the game rode on my performance, not Danny's. Danny took a nervous drink at some whiskey, his hand jangling the ice in the glass. The stakes had made themselves known to him, but he didn't know that the hardest was yet to come. I'd much rather face off against Toothpick and the Quiet Man again. Maybe.
     The first hands showed nothing special. I didn't expect her to deal me winners or flat out losers right away. Like I had done with the boys before, we had to get to know each other. All the metaphors meant nothing. We didn't dance, we didn't fence, we didn't spar back and forth, and we certainly didn't feel each other out. We shook hands. I'd known people who liked to clamp down on a hand with everything they got. Others went for the finger crush, squeezing on tender digits before the palms met. Some were timid and tentative, while others didn't seem to care. Laura and I shook hands with the cards, trying to figure out how the other played the game.
     She dealt straight for the first dozen hands, neither one of us betting more than a couple of hundred at a hand. She let me win a few of them, trying to learn my game. For my part I let a couple of decent hands go despite a shot at taking the pot. I wanted to pocket cards instead. She had quick eyes, so I couldn't tell if she saw me slide the cards. I did catch hints of surprise at the corners of her eyes on those times when I folded, especially when I had a pair of Ladies and Cowboys.
     She dealt the next hand, but I didn't look at it yet. I just held it in my hand while I took a small swig of Scotch.
     She knew the cards she dealt me.
     It was only a matter of time before she figured out I pocketed cards, and then things would get really interesting. I had no overt signs of her dirty dealing, but stacking a deck wasn't difficult. I could keep an eye on the deck, but something told me she was good enough that I wouldn't see a thing, likely why Joey brought her in.
     I looked at my cards. Four through eight stared back at me. She had dealt me a straight.
     "One hundred," I opened.
     "Raise two-fifty."
     I hadn't been able to see any tells in her this whole time. She was a pro at keeping her cool. That was okay. I thought I had another way to tell what she had. Curiosity got the better of me, even though that was a decent chunk of cash and would take me below two and half Gs.
     "Call."
     She flashed a smile, a lop-sided smile with a hint of bright, white teeth that reminded me of some kind of predator toying with its food.
     "Flush," she turned over the five diamonds.
     I tossed my straight onto the table, showing my straight, then gestured to the chips.
     She gathered them up, and dealt new hands. I hadn't been able to get a handle on how she played, but Joey wasn't nearly as good a player as she. While she made a porcelain doll seem expressive, I got a line on all of Joey's tells. He liked to play with his watch chain when nervous, and he had slight curl to his upper lip when Laura had a good hand.
     I began a winning streak for every hand that mattered. I called her every bluff, and folded at every good hand she had. I noticed that the curl to Joey's lip was proportional to the strength of the hand. Laura frowned after the fifth straight bluff I had nailed her on, and took extra time shuffling the cards. I had won the last round with a pair of nines to her deuces.
     Laura dealt it out again, and I looked at my hand. Two pair, aces and eights stared back at me, all black. Dead Man's Hand as it was known in the old west, what Hickock held when he was gunned down. The kicker was the eight of hearts. She gave me a full house with based on Dead Man's Hand. This was not a good sign despite the strength of the hand. Still, it was a hard hand to beat.
     I considered her carefully, tapping ash from my Lucky, then, deciding it wasn't worth smoking it all the way down, I tamped it out in the tray. She didn't so much as bat an eye at me. No curve to her lips, no tilt to her head, no tapping fingers, nothing. She held her cards in one hand, long nails reflecting a glossy shine, but no color to them. She didn't go out of her way to make the meaning of the message clear. Lucky for me, Joey's smile and popped eyes told me everything I needed to know.
     She could have a better full house, but the pop to Joey's eyes said she held something higher. I shook my head to her, and tossed my cards down, revealing the full house. "Take it."
     Her eyes narrowed on me, the suspicion sparking in those dark eyes. She knew the quality of her poker face, and she likely knew my tells by now, though I had no idea what they were. There was no earthly reason I should be folding on a full house.
     "Dead Man's Hand with an extra eight. Are you superstitious?" she asked, no trace of the empty-headed girl remained in her voice.
     "Hickock's last hand. Didn't think it was wise to bet on it. Didn't serve Bill well."
     "Who?" Danny asked?
     I shot a quick glare at him, and he went quiet. If it weren't for Danny's bad habit I could have collected my fee and enjoyed a nice radio drama before calling it quits for the night.
     I shook a cigarette out, and lit it taking a puff.
     "I wouldn't have taken you for one to believe in omens." The corners of her mouth curled up in a small smile.
     "I'm a strange case. I know Lady Luck can turn fickle fast." I shook another cig out of the pack, and offered it to her. She tilted her head slightly, considering me, then nodded. I rose, stretching across the table. She plucked the cigarette, then leaned forward for me to light it.
     "Night's a' wasting, gent." Joey observed. He was right. Many of the patrons had left. A few would stay until Ciro kicked them out. I didn't want to be here that long; neither did Joey. I couldn't let Joey be right, either.
     "Nothing wrong with taking a moment to talk to the lady, Joey."
     That got me a smirk from Laura, and I could see in her eyes she knew I wanted to tweak Joey. She slouched, took a long drag, and let out a long stream through a rosebud mouth. "You know your cards to know about Hickcock, Mr. Slater." She tapped ash into the bowl.
     "A misspent youth."
     "You ever plan to grow up?" Her smirk became sarcastic.
     "This is me all growed up."
     "I think I would have liked the younger you a lot more. Someone I would have liked to get to know."
     I popped out a smoke ring that came out more lopsided, misshapen oval than circle, and blew a stream after it. She had to know I had slipped cards by now. I couldn't assume she missed that. Something in what she said pulled at me. My misspent youth and someone she would have liked to get to know. Five years ago I would probably have been her. Pulling pockets, running mild scams, and even picking locks had been my thing. Like any good street rat, I had run with a crew. I could easily see myself working alongside Laura to pull jobs.
     I started wondering why she was here. It would be a waste of her talents simply to be a card shark for Ciro. She wouldn't rake in enough to satisfy her. More than that was the boredom. Flipping cards got old quick, which is why I had stopped running my games of monty. This dame had fire, and wouldn't be tamed even by the likes of Ciro. Especially not by Joey Silver.
     So why was she here? The options got narrowed down to one: she was scamming Ciro. Dangerous, that. If done wrong she'd likely end up dead. Even if done right she might have to run. She'd have to finesse her way through so that Ciro didn't know he'd been conned, or blamed it on someone else. Joey, maybe?
     "I think," I rested the cigarette on the edge of the tray, "I would have liked to get to know you, too. Nothing stopping us from striking up, now, is there?"
     Joey scowled, and checked the watch hanging from his vest. It was an amateur gesture to try and get us to speed things along."
     "Except I'm working for the house."
     "Are you now? Seems I forgot. Ain't that a shame."
     Joey clicked the watch shut with a loud clack. Laura picked up the cards and dealt again, cigarette hanging expertly from her lips.
     The hands rolled out in much the same was as they had before, Laura manipulating the hands to try and figure out how I could read her tell. She changed up her behaviors, holding the cards with a different hand, glancing down at the cards instead of raising them up, shuffling the hand's order several times, and squinting at me hard whenever I read her right. I still couldn't read her, but Joey was an open book. I managed to get us up to three Gs that way. I wanted to pull a big hand. I held some decent cards back, but Laura didn't let me raise the pot to more than a few hundred. It would take a while to get up to five Gs at this rate.
     My streak didn't last, though. Joey, on seeing her hand, let out a little cough and his eyes bugged. The sound was enough attract Laura's attention, and she looked at him. On seeing his face, she stared hard at me. I gave a slight shrug, and an arrogant smirk. The way her eyes shifted to the left, where Joey stood behind her shoulder, told me her scowl was for him. I simply used the tools available to me. From that point on, she only lifted up the corners of her cards, and didn't show them to Joey.
     The game got much harder from that point on, and her scowl soon became a delighted smirk of triumph. She whittled me back down to two and a half, which was when I started sliding my own cards into play. The hands became quick, deliberately so. I couldn't get a decent read on her, and she already knew my tells. The betting didn't get much bigger, but it did grow. We pushed a full G on one hand; fortunately I won, taking us up to over three and a half. She smiled at the win, too. She was having fun. After learning how I had been beating her, it became a game again, a chance to have fun with someone who could at least provide a challenge. I got the feeling the people she usually played were of Danny's caliber.
     Now and again I managed to sneak her dealing a card from the bottom or a few from the top. I didn't know whether it was because she wanted me to see or I had gotten used to her style of dealing. I did know she had a habit of tucking her pinky nail into certain spots of the deck to mark her place, likely why she didn't color the nails. If the faintest hint of colored polish ever came off, people would know. Bright, colored nails also attracted attention, they drew the eye, and she didn't want eyes anywhere near her hands.
     "Well, Mr. Slater? Call or fold."
     It was a good question. I had a jackpot, but that didn't mean a whole lot in this game. I couldn't sit around waiting any longer. Too bad the sevens were the wrong suit, or I would lift one. I already held back the nine, ten, and jack of diamonds. A seven would be ideal to building a straight flush.
     No sense wishing for what wasn't. "Call."
     She laid out a low straight with what I came to think of as her smirk.
     I showed off my three sevens, and let her take the chips. That knocked me to just under three Gs. If it were just me and the doll, I'd go all night just for the fun of it, even though I knew she'd take me for everything I had. It wasn't the two of us; I had Danny to get home in one piece.
     I felt at the pocket inside my jacket, noting only a few of the cigarettes remained. I'd do without. I took a swig from the scotch-coated melted ice in my glass. I had stopped drinking when we had taken our little smoke break.
     She dealt the next hand, which didn't amount to anything, except the two cards on the end: the seven and eight of diamonds. I kept my face smooth, and went through my regular shuffling of the order, pulling two of the cards up my sleeve into the hand, and sliding one back up. I carefully kept two cards overlapped. I could pass them off as a single card when I asked for replacements.
     "Two-fifty," I opened strong. This was my chance, my only chance. I had a bad feeling she knew what I had held, but the night was getting too late. Soon the place would empty out, and Ciro would wonder what was going on back here. That would get Danny out just fine, but I didn't want to spoil my evening any further.
     "Must be something good," Laura gave a slow smile.
     "Gotta stay in to find out."
     She plunked down the chips, then moved another stack in, bringing it up eight hundred. "Your turn, shamus."
     I had a straight flush, a decent one at that. I had to take this as far as I could, even if it meant she broke me. This time of night, I might be able to run out of here before Joey could get his goons on me.
     I made a show of looking at my cards, like I was no longer as confident in them, which I wasn't. She could pull out a higher hand on me pretty easily, and not a thing I could do about it. I pushed in chips to call.
     I asked for one card, placing my two out there, careful not to show there was more than one card there. She dealt me one from the bottom of the deck. The king of spades.
     I moved back into the betting, going in for "Five hundred."
     "A thousand."
     It was close. With that pot, we almost had enough to pay the debt, but I had to push it further.
     "Fourteen."
     She leaned back, tapping a finger on her face down cards as if considering, but her eyes stayed glued to me. She was toying with me, and thoroughly enjoying it. I think she wanted to see me squirm. I kept my eyes on her, and felt my lips curve slightly. No, that wasn't it at all. She wanted to see if I would squirm, wanted to see if I had what it took. This was a professional evaluation. I had been out of the game for awhile, forgotten how it went to meet another confidence artist. There was always competition as to who was better, and I think she knew she had me at cards, but so much of a grifter's job was in faking your way through things, of making yourself look cool when the whole scheme melted around you.
     "You have any cigarettes left?"
     I reached inside my jacket, feeling around. I took the opportunity to slide one of my business cards into the pack of cigarettes.
     "Hey, what are you doing there, stealing cards?" Joey glared hard at me.
     "Yeah, Joey, I'm stealing cards, my own cards." I slipped out an extra card for him to see, and tossed it onto the table in front of him. Laura chuckled at that, while Joey's scowl became more suspicious.
     I pulled out the back of Lucky's, shook the pack, then tossed them over. "Take 'em. I don't think luck can take me any further tonight. All the cards are on the table."
     She made a sideways glance at my card on the table. "Yes, I suppose they are."
     She pulled out one of the cigarettes, quirking one eyebrow at the card she found. Joey didn't see it since his eyes locked on me like a bear trap.
     I pulled my lighter out from the outside jacket pocket, and slid it over to Laura. She lit the cigarette, slid the lighter back, and blew a long streamer straight in front of Joey's face. He waved an irritated hand through the cloud, but didn't take his eyes off me.
     "Call," her voice as languid as her body in the chair.
     I turned my cards one by one, showing my straight flush, jack high.
     "Fer Crissakes!" Joey fumed. "You better be able to beat it."
     Laura overturned her cards one by one: eight, nine, and ten of hearts. My heart sank. I didn't give any indication above the table, but I tensed my legs preparing to spring and run. Jack of hearts followed the ten. Laura tapped the last card, then flipped it over with a great flair, tossing it into the pot. The Queen of spades.
     "God dammit!"
     "Just over five Gs. Cash us out, and clear the debt. Angel, the rest goes to you. We should do it again some time."
     Laura nodded solemnly, all trace of mirth gone, and that serious, porcelain mask back.
     "You, bitch!" Joey hauled her up by her shoulders, spinning her around. "You were supposed to make him lose." He hauled a hand back for a slap. I was about to get to my feet and intervene when I saw the glint of steel. "You were supposed to—" Joey paused, feeling the point of the blade at his gut.
     "I don't work for you. I work for Mr. Rosetti, and he pays me to keep an honest game. Now get your mitts off me before I spill your guts to the floor."
     "This ain't over, broad. You don't threaten Joey Silver and get away with it." But he did back away from her. "You, kid." He shifted his malice to Danny, who was wide-eyed at the knife. "You got lucky tonight. Next time you won't have your nurse here to come and save you. I see you again, we're going to have words. You too, dick."
     "And what words would those be?" said a gruff, industrial voice.
     Aw hell. So much for a simple job. I was definitely collecting the bonus from Mrs. Kincaid, now.
<< Go back to Part II   [Stories Home]   Read on to Part IV >>

Showdown at Club 42: Part II

2011-03-20T23:44:00.000-07:00

<< Go back to Part I   [Stories Home]   Read on to Part III >>
Showdown at Club 42
II High Stakes
     I approached the gatekeeper again, but this time with my best insolent grin along with the preferred invitation. He gave it a once over, glared at me hard and with the puzzled expression of trying to do an incredibly difficult arithmetic problem in his head, which meant two plus two for him. He growled once, evidently coming up with three for the answer, and let me pass.
     The table was in a recessed alcove, and pretty well shielded from prying eyes and the sounds of the club. Five people sat at the table, including the dealer, a wiry man with a visor. A man stood near the dealer. He had an average face with brown hair and brown eyes. He had a neat suit, grey hat, and a red carnation in his button hole. I could tell from his jacket he had a gat under his arm. That made him the pit boss. Anything went wrong, he straightened out the trouble.
     "Call." Danny said after a hard moment of concentration, pushing some of his chips to the center of the table. The pile of chips in front of Danny didn't inspire confidence in his ability to play cards. The other players easily had twice as much in chips, if not more, and the wiry dealer had a large tray of chips in neat columns. Danny didn't come with a natural poker face, despite his efforts to stay cool. After just a minute of watching him, I knew his tell: he tapped his cards with his index finger. It could have been worse. He had the face of a teenager, and attempted to grow a Clark Gable moustache with his sparse, blond peach fuzz.
     One by one, the other players chimed in.
     "I'm out," said Big Nose, tossing his cards in with a beefy hand.
     "Show 'em to me," that was Toothpick, constantly twirling the toothpick in his mouth without touching it, who looked and sounded a lot like a weasel.
     The Quiet Man stacked his cards in front of him, and waved a hand over them. The man's poker face was granite. He could've had seven aces under those five cards, and I would never know it.
     Danny laid down his cards, a measly two pair, Jacks over Deuces. The kid must just liked to throw his money away.
     Toothpick showed his hand, a nice, neat straight, three through seven. Danny cursed, and slugged back his drink. Toothpick picked up his winnings with a little cackle, "Them's the breaks, Danny. Better luck next time."
     Now seemed like an ideal time before I watched the kid toss away all his money. "Mr. Kincaid, can I have a word with you?"
     "Who the hell are you?" he scrubbed the back of a hand against his mouth.
     "Name's Ben Slater."
     "What do you want?"
     "Like I said, just a word with you, in private."
     "Blow, will ya. I'm trying to play a game."
     I had just about reached the end of my patience, but a job was a job. I bent down close to him, so the others couldn't overhear, "Listen, kid," I inflated the irritation in my voice to downright malevolence, "I'm here to take you back to your mother. You can either come under your own power, or I drag you out. You might not be conscious for it."
     Danny's eyes went wide, and it looked like he was mouthing the word "Mother" then "Conscious".
     "Um, I think, I think I should be going," He announced to the table.
     "Smart move," I smiled, and patted him on the shoulder.
     "That's unfortunate, Mr. Kincaid. We so enjoy your patronage," Carnation's words felt slick and oily, like he had just gone in for some fresh grease on is tongue. "However, we will need you to pay back the credit you have used this evening."
     "Credit?" Danny stammered.
     Christ. The guy sunk himself into the hole.
     "How much?" I asked.
     "It seems," Carnation consulted a pad of paper from his jacket, "that Mr. Kincaid borrowed five thousand clams tonight."
     "Five Gs?" I couldn't keep the surprise out of my voice.
     "Seeing as Mr. Kincaid only has three fifty left in chips, he still owes the house four—"
     "I can add," I cut Carnation off, which soured his expression.
     I could get the money from his mother. She'd pay it, then they'd let the kid go. Simple as that. It shouldn't take me more than a couple hours to drive up there, explain the situation, and come back with the cash.
     "We'll get the money. It'll take a little time, but we could be back tonight."
     "That would be fine. However, we'd prefer to have Mr. Kincaid as our . . . guest . . . while you seek restitution."
     Something about how Carnation said that caught me. They knew Danny here, which meant he was a regular, and probably a regular at throwing away money, too. This was about more than the money. Ciro was a business man, and as long as he knew Danny would be back to pay him off, he shouldn't care about when he got the money. This was something else, maybe personal between Carnation and Danny.
     "Ben Slater," I held out my hand to Carnation.
     "Joey Silver." He shook my hand like he spoke, making me feel like I needed to wash the oil from my hand. Once I heard the name, the silver accents on his suit popped out at me: coat buttons, stick pin—unusual to show off in a speakeasy—belt buckle, and watch chain. I even saw a couple of silver finger rings with some sparkling, light colored stones I couldn't quite make out from a glance.
     "For your silver tongue, right?"
     He nodded, tugging the brim of his hat down slightly. From what I could tell, Joey wanted to do something to Danny. I didn't know what happened, and didn't care. If I left to get the money, I might come back to find that Danny had sunk further in debt, or had attempted to skip away without paying, probably to the tune of some bruises, a black eye, and maybe even broken limbs. Or they could just kill him outright, so I didn't dare leave him.
     If we explained the situation to Ciro, he might back off. Roughing up regulars wasn't called for. But that would mean I'd have to talk to Ciro, and I didn't want to do that. That left one option.
     "Fine. We'll win it back. Deal me in."
     Joey gave me an oily smile, and nodded his approval. The skinny dealer gathered up the cards, and shuffled them. Big Nose had enough, and cashed out, leaving me with Toothpick, the Quiet Man, and Danny. I had to put a hand on the kid as he was about to ante in.
     "You're out this hand, and every other until this is done."
     "Begging your pardon, Ben, but the kid's sitting at the table, so he's gotta play or make room for another player." Joey flashed a slick grin.
     I glanced about. "No one's waiting to get in, and there's still another seat open," I gestured next to Toothpick.
     "House rules."
     I could argue, but why? I turned back to Danny. This would just make it take a little longer. I leaned in close so only he could hear me, pitching the right kind of threat into my voice. "You ante, and fold. You don't even look at those cards, or I walk, and your legs get broken, if you're lucky. You might end up with cement shoes in the bay."
     Danny goggled at me, and gave a jerky nod.
     Joey didn't like the exchange, but signaled the dealer to start.
     Danny Kincaid was a rich kid, a beginner who might have thought he knew something about the game, but I had his tell quick. Toothpick and Quiet Man knew the game. Of the two, Quiet Man was better.
     I lost quite a few of the first hands, taking the stack in front of Danny down to just under two bills before I figured out Toothpick. His toothpick was the key. With winning hands he had a tendency to flip the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. An actual flip, too, not just move it over. Moving it over generally meant he wasn't sure, or he was bluffing. If he ever touched that toothpick with his hand, he was likely going to fold. Toothpick liked to ramble on, too, but it had no bearing on his game, just a quirk of the man.
     Quiet Man I just couldn't get a read on. I wasn't that good at reading card players, and Quiet Man was good, better than anyone I'd ever played against. I lost another fifty before finally giving up trying to get a read on him. It was time to start winning. Of course, during the whole time I lost, I had been working on my own strategy. Picking pockets for a career had given me the fast fingers and hands for cards, too. Having run Three-card Monty back in the day made it even easier. I had been neatly slipping cards away that I could use later. I couldn't take more than a hand's worth, one at a time from discards. I'd need to make sure I didn't reintroduce them too soon.
     I started winning back, slowly, taking more from Toothpick than from Quiet Man. I reduced Toothpick down to under a grand, while I had half again that in front of me. It was late, really late, but speakeasies catered to that, so the place still bustled, the phonograph in the main room piping away Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, and Hoagy Carmichael. Joey tried plying us all with drinks. Danny obliged; I had one in front of me, but didn't take from it. Toothpick started off fine, but as he began to lose, he drank more and more. Quiet Man didn't have anything.
     As we wore on, and the stacks in front got a little higher for me and Danny, I noticed something. Quiet Man wasn't going in for the kill on Toothpick. Neither did Toothpick stay in long when it was just the two of them. There were no games of trying to lure the other into bidding higher. With the three of us, sure, but not when I folded. I began looking for other tells, but didn't see any. They didn't tag team me. But they were working together.
     I shook out one of my Lucky's, and lit it with a match from the cigarette girl. I took my ease puffing away as I looked about the table; I included Joey in that look.
     He looked fine. Oily, but fine. He wasn't perturbed in the slightest that my stacks were climbing up to almost two grand. He knew something I didn't. He had his own ace in the hole. As part of the house, he shouldn't care one way or another who one this game unless there was more to this. Toothpick and Quiet Man didn't play against one another any more, just against me. They were working for Joey. It wasn't unusual to have someone in a card game working for the house, but more than one meant set up. The two guys didn't have to be able to telegraph their moves, either. It was enough that they pressed the other guy at every opportunity. It was sloppy and inefficient. If Quiet Man and Toothpick had practice they could be really effective at destroying another man's game.
     Ciro wouldn't make the mistake of being inefficient. He had the habit of doing a thing perfectly. He wouldn't a couple of greens run a scam like this, which meant Ciro wasn't doing it. This was all Joey Silver's play. It wasn't uncommon for people to run things on the side, but this didn't have the feel of something Ciro would approve of. Danny Kincaid was a little high profile, and if he wanted Danny for something, he wouldn't want Joey Silver running other jobs on him.
     "Slater, your bet." Toothpick tapped two chips in a fast staccato.
     I took a few more puffs, blowing a stream out above the table as if I hadn't heard.
     "Slater!" Toothpick dropped the chip and picked up his drink.
     Quiet Man grunted. Even he was getting impatient.
     I let a grin slip to my face. "Call," I kept my eyes on Joey.
     "Straight, four through eight." Toothpick smirked.
     Quiet Man turned over his cards, another straight, but for lack of a single suit it was a royal flush.
     "God damn it!" Toothpick swore, and took a swig, draining it to the rocks.
     I turned over my pair of nines and three threes.
     "Son of a—How'd you do that?" Toothpick glared at me.
     "It's all in the cards,"I gathered up the winnings, but kept my eyes on the people.
     There. If I hadn't been watching, I wouldn't have caught it. Quiet Man's eyes had gone a little wide before narrowing down on me with anger. I was getting to him.
     "I'm out," Toothpick spat. "Shoulda quit when Danny stopped betting." He gathered up his winnings in a pile.
     Quiet Man didn't look ready to give up out of sheer stubbornness, but he regarded his pile of chips. Without Toothpick, it would just be on him, and in a straight game he'd no doubt take me apart, but I could keep sliding cards in and out without him knowing. In fact, the last time I had thrown away cards, I had dumped more than I said, getting rid of all but the King of Clubs from my stash. Even now I considered sliding it out under cover of chips, but there were too many careful eyes right now.
     Quiet Man grunted, then gathered up his chips. He was tired of losing.
     "Seems you're out of players. Time to clear the debt."
     "We're still game to play." If he bowed out I'd have to talk to Ciro about ditching us on a game, or we'd just have to make a break for it. I thought I might be able to get us running enough to surprise the mooks, but didn't want to chance it unless necessary. "How about we just play against the house?" I pointed my cig at the dealer before tapping ash into the glass tray.
     "A fine idea," Joey began, and I got that twinge just behind my ear that something bad was about to happen. I had learned to trust that twinge. It told me when the pocket was that of a cop, it told me when a guy would feel me, and it told me that I had missed something. I had missed something.
     "Instead of Jake dealing, since he doesn't know how to play, " a bald-faced lie if ever I heard one, "someone else will take over for him and represent the house." Joey put a hand on Jake's shoulder, who nodded, and slipped away.
     No discussion. I didn't have an answer for that. The house could change dealers if they wanted, but I knew what was really going on. He was bringing in a shark. That made the game tougher. I could keep slipping cards, but whoever came in could stack the deck for some impossible to beat hands.
     I went through the math on bailing out of here, but I couldn't get the figures to come out right. Bullets would end up flying, and I had already tossed a gun away. I'd have to get Joey's gun to even stand a chance. Sticking up a guy in the middle of Ciro Rosetti's speakeasy was a career-ender. I'd find out first-hand about cement shoes in the bay.
     "Ah, here we are. May I introduce Laura Martin, your new dealer." The gal walked in with a skirt longer than that of the cigarette girl, and a blouse not as tight. It hinted at some curves, though, and she had the top buttons undone more than the cigarette girl had. She had a confident walk, and extended her hand. I rose, and received her hand, catching the scent of vanilla and some flower as I did. Then I kicked Danny in the shin for him to show some manners. "Ben Slater. Nice to meet you."
     I took her in as she shook Danny's hand, seeing sharp eyes a shade lighter than her hair take everything in. The almost black hair was done in big curls, but pinned up to the back of her head like some kind of mane that left her neck bare and revealed dangling, silver earrings, but the hair still flowed down. She was pretty young, but the set of her chin and those eyes told me she had been around a bit, and I had to believe that or Joey wouldn't have brought her in to shark me.
     "Shall we play?" she smiled as if she didn't have a thought in her head, but I knew better. The gal was dangerous. Joey brought her in thinking I'd be taken by her pretty face and think that a woman couldn't do me in. I knew better, but the play still had every chance of working.
     I pulled out another Lucky, offering her one, which she declined. I took a pull and blew the smoke out the corner of my mouth. I might lose and have to run Danny out of here quick, but I had the feeling that this game would at least be fun.
     "Deal."
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Showdown at Club 42: Part I

2011-03-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

[Stories Home]   Read on to Part II >>
Showdown at Club 42
I Getting a Seat at the Table
     It was a funny thing about speakeasies. Everyone dressed up, men and women alike, but there was more in the way of under attire than was appropriate for decent company. More than a few of the gals toted roscoes in their purses or tucked into a garter, though I preferred when the lump was a flask. Men were the same, with the gat tucked into the waistband or a holster under the coat. I could spot the people who had managed to slip through the ham-fisted frisking at the door with their guns, and they were all friendly with Rosetti.
     Fortunately, I didn't spot him, as he would probably finger wag me over there, or send his goons to do the job for him. I wasn't here for Ciro. I spied out my target at a corner table, sipping on some kind of hooch. He had a handful of cards, too. Danny Kincaid looked exactly like he was supposed to, a snobbish rich kid going too far with money. If I could bring him back to his mother tonight, I'd earn myself my fee plus the bonus she promised. If it went smooth, she could keep the bonus.
     I moved to the table, but a thick guy with a chisel nose and flat jaw intercepted me with a palm on my chest. I took immediate offense to that, and slapped the mitt away. I wasn't gentle, as I knocked his arm aside, and followed through to step close and shove his shoulder. Under cover of being belligerent, I slipped my free hand inside his jacket, and relieved him of the suspicious lump under there, tucking it into my own waistband.
     "Mind the hands, buddy. I'm just walking here." I explained.
     "This is a private table. Invitation only." He had the heavy voice of a man not to be messed with as he ran through most of his vocabulary.
     "That right?"
     "Yeah, that's right."
     "That because their's brandy here or because there's gambling."
     "You best keep your eyes where they belong, before something unfortunate happens."
     "Fine, fine. No need to muss up your tie." I reached out, and straightened his tie, and pulled the jacket closed, too, slipping his wallet out with a three-fingered lift and dropping it on the floor. "Is it possible to get one of these invites?"
     "You'd have to ask Mr. Rosetti. Otherwise, buzz off."
     "Right. Maybe I'll do that." There was no way I was going to go talk to Ciro. I had other ways to get one, though. I just needed to know what one looked like.
     "By the way," I turned, adjusting my hat, "I think that's your wallet on the floor."
     He glanced down with a puzzled look on his face, while I went back into the club at large, pausing to dump the .45 I lifted into the trash. With the goon there, I couldn't get to Danny boy. I'd either have to wait until he busted out, or get into the game myself.
     I took up a spot at a table, nursing a soda, but not the scotch in a separate glass. The bartender had looked at me queer when I did, but I patted my pocket, making like I had reason for them to be separate. He touched the side of his nose, understanding. Lots of people liked to fill up their flasks at joints like this. I watched people walking around, but finally spotted one with a purpose for the back table. He produced a folded piece of paper. Thick, the kind they used for calligraphy and might even stamp with wax or gold leaf. He showed it to the mook that pawed me, and was allowed back.
     I finished my soda, and began looking for my mark. The entrance was my best bet, as some might show the thing off before going to the back, but just about anyone making a bee line for the back would do. There. The guy with the flapper on his arm. His all white suit was a sign he liked to stand out, and the way they laughed at everything spoke of lots of money, money he was itching to lose in spectacular fashion.
     I had to make my play. Trips were convenient, and often easy to explain on clumsiness, but they also attracted a lot of attention, and it made fingering me for the job easy.
     I didn't have anyone here I could convincingly get to run a play with me, so I decided to go with drunk and cheerful. I folded up the brim of my hat, tilted it rakishly, loosened and pulled the knot of my tie to one side, and ordered a double whiskey from the bartender.
     When in front of me, I took a swig, and began stumbling towards the couple, drink in hand.
     "Yer lookin' good, buddy!" I clapped the man enthusiastically on the shoulder. "Tha's a nishe shoot." I pointed and gestured with the drink, purposely sloshing it over onto the jacket. "Oh no! I'm sorry buddy!"
     "You clumsy buffoon!"
     "Don' worry. I'll fix it. Hol' this." I pushed the glass into his hand, and began to wipe at his jacket with my handkerchief. I leaned into him, and made a show of clumsiness so that he never felt me lift his invite out of the jacket.
     "You idiot!" he pushed me away, forcing me to take the drink back. "You may have just ruined my jacket. Come along, Margaret," he took hot steps away from me, straight towards the restroom. The flapper, though, couldn't hide her amusement at the spill, and wobbled after him in her high heels.
     I shook the invite out of where I had tucked it up my sleeve, and smiled. I opened it up, glad that it was a generic invitation. Fancy on the outside, but not delivered to anyone specific. I had my way into the game. Danny Boy was as good as mine.
     I dropped my drink on the tray of a passing girl, and left a quarter with it for a pack of Lucky's. I was about to complete an easy case, so I deserved the smokes. My last pack had run out two days ago. The girl gave me a wink as I took the pack.
     "Matches, sir?" she proffered a pack with a "Meridian 5-3428" written on it. She looked okay in my book, and I really liked that wink, so I might give her a ring later on. Better yet, I could use someone inside Club 42.
     "Thanks, Doll. I'll be seeing you." I returned the wink, and gave her a long look as she walked away, admiring the stocking seam that ran up the back of her calves.
     Time for that later, after I got paid. Now I had to collect Danny Boy from the back room.
[Stories Home]   Read on to Part II >>

F3 Irish Heritage

2011-03-18T02:31:00.000-07:00

     "I thought that you had agreed to leave me alone." I closed the door to my office, and scowled at the little man sitting in front of my desk. His legs dangled far from the floor, and he had pulled the coffee table from in front of the couch and spread various tools and implements on it. He hammered away at a shoe.
     "Don't be like that, Matt'ew. An' I never agreed to an'thing like that."
     "Michaleen--"
     "Not me name."
     "Until you give me some name to call you by, real or not, you're Michaleen. Maybe even after you tell me a name. Now, what will it take to get rid of you?"
     "Is that any way to be greetin' a friend?"
     "You know," I faced away from him, removing my jacket and hat, "according to legend, if I take my eyes off you, you disappear. So, go on, get out."
     "That only works for those after Faerie riches, an' you proved yer not."
     "Fine, I take it back. Give me your pot of gold." I turned back around, and he still sat there, smiling.
     I flounced in my desk chair, and scowled at the little man. "Why are you here?"
     "Why, t'is St. Patty's Day!"
     I waited.
     "Ye need to be celebratin' yer Irish heritage, lad."
     "Have you noticed your accent fades in and out?"
     "I brought you something."
     "No thanks."
     "If'n you don't accept the gift, I'll be sticking around."
     My scowl became a definite glower. "Fine."
     The leprechaun dismounted from the chair, and trundled his way over with something cupped in his hand. He wasn't diminutive, just short about the height of a ten-year old, but his features were that of a much older man.
     He tossed the prize onto the desk, a green four leaf clover made of what looked like shoe leather.
     "Thanks."
     "Wear it today, and have a Guinness."
     I stared him down. "Fine." I blinked. "You're still here."
     He grinned.
     "Michaleen," I stared at the ceiling, pleading for some kind of divine sign, "what else do you . . . . I really hate you." He had disappeared, taking all of his shoemaking with him.
     "Jen!" I called into the other office, "Let's go have a beer. And we're going to make a new policy about letting short men into my office."

Character File: Matt Allen

2011-03-16T15:19:00.000-07:00

F3 Choosing out the Mark

2011-03-11T11:35:00.000-08:00

They always says to me to go after the weak guy. The nervous guy who doesn't belong. You know the type, the real fish out of water. And there he is sittin' off by his lonesome. It's clear he don't really belong. He's sittin' straight, dressed nice, glasses. Looks like a real poindexter. Chances are I could lift him nice and easy, probably get a good bit, too, for my trouble.
But it ain't my style, see? I like to go after the overconfident guys. You know the type. The ones that show off how much they got. Like that guy over there at the bar. I got a look at the label when he opened the jacket. It's Armani. More than that, he paid cash for the drinks he's having with his buddies. The guy's loaded, in more ways than one. With a ruckus like that, they ain't ever gonna notice me. So it's time get paid. Hmm, keys in the front pocket, huh? Wonder what kind of car he's got.

F3 Last Resort

2011-03-04T06:10:00.000-08:00

     The slow, steady hiss of the respirator made for percussion to accompany the steady beeps of the heat monitor. I continued to look at his face, hoping for something beyond the rise and fall of his chest. He lay there with tubes and wires sticking out of him, so reminiscent of the process used to create Frankenstein's monster. It was atrocious, an abomination to dignity to keep him trapped thus.
     Doctors said it unlikely he would emerge from the coma, but they went through the motions of care as was their due. They were useless, but then so was I. I had power at my disposal, real power, but such power was not universal. I could not bend it to the task of mending the man in front of me.
     I said a small prayer for him, an effort I wasn't sure meant anything as the Almighty and I have never truly had a relationship, even when I was mortal, and now that things holy were anathema to me, I tended to avoid all things religious with a fervor. But I knew nothing else to try, and so I simply asked for God to help him, a man who had done much for Him.
     No miracles.
     No burning bush.
     No angels sent from heaven.
     No miraculous healing and waking.
     Only the steady beep of the heart monitor and the slight hiss of the respirator.

F3 A Bit of Magic

2011-02-25T06:24:00.000-08:00

     "Left palm," I said to the guy next to me.
     The magician had made the ball disappear, and flourished an open hand to the audience, then the other.
     "Slipped it inside the waist just behind the jacket while flourishing with the right."
     "How do you see all this?" My client asked.
     "I don't, but that's the point. You have to keep your eyes away from where they want them. Next there will be a little fire. Fire is a great little distraction. It's bright, there's a noise, and smoke. Plenty of distraction there."
     Sure enough, there were twin flashes of light and smoke from the magician's hands, and he made knives appear. He flourished again, and threw the knives, one to each side of him. They thunked into little targets on each side of the stage.
     The assistants came up, and removed the magician's coat, then shirt, revealing him to be completely bare chested. He was lean and muscular with his shirt off, and freshly manscaped. There were no places to ditch items with his sleight of hand, now.
     "Please do not be alarmed. This is part of the show," the magician intoned. He stretched out hands, and threads of electricity stretched from each palm out to the dagger. It seemed slow even though it crackled and hissed in the air.
     Next to me, my client gasped, but I was only slightly more objective. I knew the tricks when it came to complex illusions. He shouldn't be able to do this, unless . . . "That's real magic."

Max's Musings: Knowledge

2011-02-18T06:09:00.000-08:00

Some of the many musings of Max Stein, Matt Allen's former mentor and partner.

Listen, rookie, you need to know certain things about what's out there. No denying that. 'Cause if you don't know, you die. Period. Like you need to know bargaining with one of the Fae is a bad idea. They take things real literal, you understand me. If you only imply something, that ain't good enough. The Fae will wriggle out of it, and set a hook in your mouth. That you need to know.
Now, there's the flip side. There's the stuff you don't need to know. I don't mean that it's okay if you know it, but it's not that useful. I mean there's stuff you need to not know anything about. There's things out there, really dark things that can do awful things to a soul, and if you start looking in their direction, they look back. Once you've been seen, that's it. They start knowing about you.

The Cycle anew

2011-02-10T09:38:00.000-08:00

This is the way it always happens. Once the semester gets into swing, the first to suffer is the blog, then my writing tapers down. Well not this time! At least I'm going to make more of an effort to keep the blog more updated, and to keep my writing at full strength. I've been furiously rewriting the opening chapters to Blood and Stones since gaining a great beta reader to point out how much I suck. It's working as the opening chapters are much stronger, now. I hope to be ready for another round of queries, soon.
I plan on bringing F³ back, but probably without the pictures. I may even venture into the microfiction format as an experiment. Well, back to it, but I'll be back like a bad penny.

F3 The Way It Should Work

2011-01-07T05:50:00.000-08:00

     The bell rang, and Will Stevens sat down at his desk. All the other students did the same, but Will watched Sally Jenkins especially closely. She looked at him, and he quickly turned his head back to his desk, staring at the doodle he had penciled onto the desk.
     "Class," Mrs. Thompson said from the front of the class, and everyone looked up at her, "we're going to be reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for the next two weeks, but before that, I need to talk to you about some very important things. This book is more than just a story. This book is about our history, about who we were as a people in this country. It shows some very bad things about who we were, but also gives a little bit of hope about who we might become. Even though all this happened in the past, we need to know about it. We need to know about the bad things we've done and said, in order to not do them again. I want you all to ask questions about this book. It's important that you understand, and there are a lot of things you may not understand. We're going to begin today with two words."
     She turned around and began writing on the board, and Will pulled out his copy of the book, looking at the cover, a rough drawing of two people on a raft.
     "Now, class, I'm sure in history class you learned a little bit about The Civil War and slavery, "she pointed her chalk at the word 'slave' on the board, "and you know how horrible that was; however, I'm sure you didn't learn about this word over here." She sidestepped and pointed her chalk at the word 'nigger' that had been previously hidden. "We're going to talk about this word, what it means, and why it's a truly awful thing to say, even today. . . ."

Writing Tools: Accents

2011-01-05T05:33:00.000-08:00

     Accent marks are cool looking, give an exotic feel to writing, and are downright necessary for certain words and sounds, but they're also a royal pain to try and use with a word processor. There are some bizarre shortcut keys you can attempt to memorize, or you can use the character mapper or the insert symbol menu to scroll through and find the exact mark in the exact font, but that is very time consuming.
     Fortunately, there is a nice easy solution
by way of Autohotkey and a gentleman by the name of Skrommel. With a little piece of software, all you need to do is press a key 3+ times to insert the accent you need. Multiple presses cycles the letter through the various accents that you might use, and then it's done. It only takes a few keystrokes to insert the accent you need.
     Skrommel has made an .exe file out of the script as well as the regular .ahk file. You can find both here: http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Skrommel/index.html#Accents. For the more paranoid among you about viruses and the like, you can see the .ahk file completely written out here: http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Skrommel/Accents/Accents.ahk

F3 New Year

2010-12-31T10:28:00.000-08:00

     She watched as they all scurried about in their preparations. The anniversary of the planet swinging around the star meant nothing to her, and it baffled her as to why they insisted that the event was noteworthy. A picture of an old magazine cover served as the inspiration for the festivities showing a baby in a top hat of all things. Pure foolishness.
     They all began chanting as the seconds ticked down, and more than one man tried to sidle up to her and get her attention, but she gave them a look the deflected their enthusiasm to a more willing target. When the countdown stopped, people shouted, tossed confetti into the air, embraced one another, and even kissed.
     But nothing changed.
     From one moment to the next there was no change in feeling, no change in thought process, no shift in the powers of the cosmos.
     She gave a harrumph, and left these tiny creatures to their tiny celebrations of their own mortality, it was of no concern to immortals.

Writing Tools: Make Capslock Useful

2010-12-29T06:38:00.000-08:00

     There is one key that has been a perpetual bane on the modern keyboard. It's usefulness is so limited as to be laughable, and it's usefulness is really only a momentary convenience. In all of the writing I've done, and all the reading I've done, I've never really found a use for the Capslock key. It just sits there on the edge of the keyboard taking up useful space. I'm more likely to hold onto the shift key to type out capitals. Finally, though, there is a solution.
     I introduce you to Autohotkey a wonderful little scripting tool which can, among many things, remap keys on the keyboard. No, it does not take a degree in programming to use this program. In fact, I'm going to just give you the script I use to remap capslock to something useful.
     My script remaps capslock to become CTRL+I, which turns on italics in all major word processing programs, a typeface I find infinitely more useful in writing than all capital letters. Change the I to a U or a B, and it becomes underline or bold, respectively. More than that, I still have a way to enable the Capslock mode by holding down the shift key, then hitting Capslock. to turn Capslock off again, I repeat with shift and Capslock.
     To use the script, simply download the program from the link above, open up notepad, and copy the following two lines into it, and save the file as filename.ahk (the extension is important).

+Capslock::Capslock
Capslock::^i

     And that's all there is to it. The possibilities are endless with Autohotkey, and several sites post up their own scripts for users to download and use. I've got another one that lets me put in the nice little indents to my blog paragraphs, but that's next week.
     For more information on Autohotkey, here is a nice little write up about it on Lifehacker (a favorite site of mine).

F3 Christmas Miracle

2010-12-25T05:49:00.000-08:00

     The bitterly cold night was calm. Down in the trench someone tried to get a small fire going in a rusted tin in an effort to keep frostbite at bay. The only good thing about the cold tonight was that the mud had frozen solid, and our boots no longer soaked. The threat of frostbitten toes replaced trench foot, but it was a welcome trade.
     A few more curses sounded behind as they worked matches with numb fingers to try and catch the frozen tinder to flame. Saunders continued to peer out through the darkness as he was the man on watch. He saw nothing, heard nothing. All was quiet tonight. He hoped it would last. It was bad enough to even be out here the rest of the year, but on Christmas Eve he didn't want to fight. The talks of a cease fire had fallen through, and both sides had to be on guard against an attack tonight.
     "We got it! We got it. Hand me some more fuel." Chauncey said as yellow and white light blossomed from the tinder.
     Ericson supplied more tinder, which flared to life quickly. Using crude tongs Chauncey moved the fire down to the trench floor, and the two began to pile on more.
     "Keep it coming. Hand me that branch." Chauncey pointed.
     "Not that one. That's our tree." Ericson protested.
     "Come on, what's more important, the tree or the fire."
     "The tree." Ericson and Saunders said at the same time.
     "Bollocks. I want to stay warm tonight."
     I don't care if he freezes, he's not taking our tree! "Here," Saunders reached out and grabbed a couple of old posts used to string up wire.
     "For God's sake, these have been sitting in the mud! It'll take forever for them to catch."
     "What else have you got to do?" Saunders smiled.
     Chauncey fell to mumbling, then, but he set to work carefully building his fire up.
     Something, hard to say what, drifted over No Man's Land. Saunders snapped his attention back, and gripped his rifle. Looking at the firelight had ruined night vision, so he squeezed his eyes shut for a five count, looked, then repeated twice more until some semblance of night vision returned. There. The sound came again, louder this time, and a light radiated out of the opposing trench.
     "What's that?" Ericson asked, and climbed up.
     "It's . . . singing" Saunders replied.
     "You're daft. Fritz is up to something," Ericson griped, and didn't join them.
     "O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum . . ." the tune carried over stronger now, as if more voices joined in.
     "They're singing carols. God, I miss that." Chauncey said.
     Me too.
     "Who's stopping you. We can show Fritz that the only proper words are English!" Ericson crowed.
     "O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree . . ." Saunders began, and the others joined in. It wasn't a competition, though. The men just sang, rousing their buddies until all chorused the song. On the far side, they had gone quiet, pausing until the English troops had finished.
     All was silent for a time, and then Ericson, all trace of bitterness gone, began singing "Silent night, holy night . . ." and the others joined in. They paused after the first verse, then heard back the same tune, the words in German.
     After several songs, and trading wishes of a Merry Christmas, Saunders took the first step, of climbing out of the trench with a lantern held high, and a bottle of rum his family had sent him for Christmas. He walked out without his rifle, and tread carefully on the ground, seeing someone on the other side do the same. Behind him, Saunders heard Ericson and Chauncey cautiously follow him.
     All was tense as they slowly made their way to one another, but finally Saunders and his German counterpart came forward and shook hands. "Merry Christmas," they said to one another.

     On this day, nearly 100 years ago, the power and belief in Christmas halted a war in several places along the Western front. The Christmas Truce of 1914 truly was a Christmas miracle. Anyone who wishes to know more can click on the picture, or search out the Christmas Truce; the stories behind it are truly amazing.
     I wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and a hope of peace for those men and women in the armed services.

Writing Tools: Dropbox

2010-12-22T01:55:00.000-08:00

     There's nothing quite so terrifying to a writer (at least to me) as the following phrase: Hard disk failure. Data death is not something that a book can realistically recover from. That 100,000 word manuscript can disappear in an instant, and even if you perform a back up, when was the last time you did that? A month, two, six? It's imperative for writers to have a fast, simple way to regularly back up their writing, else they will be wont to commit Hari Kari after ritualistically bludgeoning the remains of their computer with an aluminum baseball bat.
     For all the paranoid writers out there, I give you dropbox. Dropbox is a simple, fast, and free (up to 2gb, more than enough for even prolific writers) online file synchronization tool. What this means for writers is that, as long as you are connected online, your documents will automatically update themselves to dropbox's servers as soon as you're done working on it. Even if you're not connected, dropbox will wait until you are, and then synchronize them, without you needing to remember to tell it to do so.
     This means there's always a copy available to you online, securely backed up on Dropbox's servers. The site is secure, using encryption that rivals that of banks. Of course, the feature I like most is that I can use multiple computers and have it sync the files between all of them without eany effort. I can take my netbook out to the coffee shop, write something, bring it back, and the files were automatically updated over wi-fi on my home computer. I can open it and resume writing where I left off.
     Now, there are other services such as this, but some of them are overly technical, are not free, or simply a pain to use. A simple search for online file sync should turn up many different services you could try, but I throw my weight behind dropbox for its ease of use. I've been using it for 3 years, and it's really saved my bacon a number of times, and I have never lost a hard drive in that time.
     So, writers, I encourage you to go check out dropbox and see if it's for you. If you use the link below, you'll get an extra 250mb for free. One more tip: Complete their online tutorial and get another 250mb for free.
     One last thing. Those file folder locations from last week with the autosave? You want to make sure that those save folders point somewhere in your dropbox folder. Get out of the habit of saving everything in just the 'my documents' folder, and pipe it into some place useful, such as a documents folder inside of your dropbox folder.
     Dropbox sign-up link: https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTQ4NzE4OQ?src=global0
     Dropbox information: http://www.dropbox.com/

F3 Last Dance

2010-12-17T09:49:00.000-08:00

     Oh, God! Carol! She lay there just out of his reach. He couldn't see her face, but the position she fell in did not seem natural, did not seem as if a body could lay that way without injury.
     I'm coming, Carol. Isaac tried. He really did try, but his body did not respond, He lay on the floor as well, and willed his body to motion, but he made no real progress. His hand stretched out, grasping at carpet fibers but he lacked the strength to even pull himself along the floor.
     What happened? We were talking, and then I was on the floor. Isaac opened his mouth, to yell at her, to find out if she were okay, but only a strained gurgle came out of his mouth. Fingers that had grasped the carpet began to feel numb, and the rest of his body felt detached and . . . cold.
     What's . . . my hand. Why am I . . . ? No answer came, but he ran numb fingers over his body. They felt like sausage, thick and clumsy, but only vague sensation registered in his chest, too. Wait. Wet. He felt something wet. He wanted to panic, but instead he just felt tired, so very tired.
     He brought his hand up to see fingers slick and dripping red. He remembered the sharp report of a gun just before he fell. His body was going cold. He stretched out his hand again to the fallen woman, hoping that he might at least reach her legs.
     Dancing. Carol always loved to dance. I should've taken her dancing more. Always had so much fun dancing, and she seemed so alive. Carol? We should go dancing tomorrow night. Just the two of us . . . cold . . . no, what? Dancing. Should . . . go . . . Carol.

Writing Tools: Autosave

2010-12-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

     Writers fear losing their work. It's a given. Having a word processor freeze up or a computer crash while in the middle of a hot writing streak is a knife to the heart. We simply can't recreate what was written before. However, all is not lost as one of the best tools for writers is under their very noses.
     All word processors these days are equipped with an autosave or autorecover option (at least ones worth their salt). As I am a more mainstream word processor instead of the new options such as Scrivener or Liquid Story Binder, I'm stinking to only platforms I use: WordPerfect and Word.
     By default, the time limit on an autosave or autorecover is listed at 10 minutes. However, ten minutes, on a really good day, could mean pages of a novel between saves. Fortunately, that ten minute time limit can be brought down to 1 minute (the absolute minimum as I've tried decimals and the program pitches a fit).
     For you Word users out there---despite the awesome superiority of WordPerfect! (end soapbox)---finding the actual location of the autosave depends on which version of the program. In the more recent 2007 or 2010, it's buried in Word's options Office Button > Word Options (2007) or File tab > Word Options, and the screen looks something like this:

     Simply change the time from the default 10 minutes to the much less scary 1 minute time. And that's it. All work is automatically saved every minute.
     For the people who have older versions of Word the autosave is buried under Tools > Options.
     For my WordPerfect peeps (Represent!) it's under Tools > Settings > Files, and basically is the same process.
     Now, lastly, you'll notice in the picture that there are file locations which I've blanked out. These are important to keep in mind for next week's tip. We'll be doing something special with them.

F3 Winter Finery

2010-12-10T10:01:00.000-08:00

     My breath came out in crystalline clouds that soon ghosted into nothingness, the only sign of movement in these trees. The only sounds belonged to me as a boot scrunched the snow down. This brought back memories.
     My dad, brother, and I would come out to a forest similar to this one, always a couple of weeks out from Christmas, and pick out a tree. Each swing of the axe brought a fresh pine smell, and shook loose a dusting of snow with each reverberation.
     I didn't have an axe with me, today. Instead I just enjoyed the sight of the trees covered in their winter finery despite my nose and ears burning with the cold.
     These were not the pines of Christmas trees. The tall Ponderosas started their branches too high up, but they still looked beautiful. More than that, they left a space down below. I settled in, putting my back to the tree's trunk, sitting on frozen ground covered in brown pine needles, but shielded from the snow by the branches above.
     The trees were still silent, making it all the easier to think back of outings to find a Christmas tree with dad. Memories of singing songs about Rudolph, jingling bells, Batman smells, and still more. Snowball fights where we shielded ourselves behind trees and the car, my brother and I straddling the trunk of the tree we felled like cowboys as dad towed the tree to the car with the snowmobile, the car ride home where we drank loads of hot chocolate with mini marshmallows from dad's Thermos.

Writing Tools

2010-12-08T09:22:00.000-08:00

Writing tools will be a new feature I put up here, and I'm going to do my best to make it a weekly feature, either every Monday or Wednesday. I'm something of a nerd (okay, more than something) and I realize that I have talents in areas that I have re-purposed towards writing, and I should share them with web o'sphere. So I'll post up blurbs about software, word processor configurations, lines of code, and other bits that have helped me in my writing. Hopefully some people will find this helpful to their writing.

Agents Rule

2010-12-06T09:12:00.000-08:00

     I recently delivered a workshop to a bunch of creative writing students at the college I work for about how to get published---I still feel odd about it seeing as I have not yet been published. Yet. Yet. In this workshop I I somewhat surprised myself by devoting ~90% of it to the priority and importance of obtaining an agent.*
     Now, I don't know anyone personally who has an agent. My personal contacts in the publishing world would not impress anyone (I do hope to change this). I do, however, know people in a local writing group who are all about the self-publishing. They sit there and encourage me to do it, too. "Release your novel online via your blog. Put it up through Amazon. You'll get numbers and eventually you'll attract an agent and a publisher. Meanwhile you'll get your writing out there. Record your own audiobooks and distribute them." For some it's a siren lure. It's not for me.
     I think I know just enough about the publishing world to know I don't know nearly enough, but that's fine. Agents do. I'm a writer, and while some people think they can and should do it all, I don't. I know where my strengths and my talents lie, and I will play to those. I will work on honing my craft, coming up with new stories, characters, and worlds instead of split my efforts. I know that I'll obtain an agent some day, and get to see my books on the shelves of the Big Box Bookstores.

*I received no money by agents for this post, and no agents were harmed in the making of this blog post.

F3 Calligraphy

2010-12-03T01:51:00.000-08:00

     Calligraphy had always been his passion. The smell of old parchment, the way it crinkled and curled. The thick feel of vellum between fingertips, but most of all was the elegant curves of the perfect fountain pen. Sharp nibs that left a fine line on the page and a skritching sound that recalled ancient writers, how writing should be done. Each stroke of the pen deliberate, quick, and irrevocable. The stroke could not be recalled, undone. The mark left on the page was indelible. The pen did more than leave ink, but dug into the page etching it permanently with the author's words and passions.
     Today he had a new pen, one that left more permanent marks, one that he had grown even more fond of as time went by. No ink was necessary. With each stroke he made, the letters would fill themselves in. The knife's point was far sharper than a fountain pen's nibs, as sharp as a surgeon's scalpel. He took up his pen, and set point to the special paper.
     A muffled scream, the rag gag did not do it's job completely, and the man wriggled in protest at the sharp point. The young stock broker did not look nearly as impressive without his European suit.
     "You mustn't wriggle. I have a very important message to leave. If you move, the message will be ruined, and I will have to begin again."
     Tears welled up in the young man's eyes, but he did not move this time. That was good. The last man had sobbed horrendously, marring the wonderful calligraphy. He began to carve, taking the sharp, thin strokes of his message, and he smiled. Perhaps next time he would leave a haiku. Yes, that would fit the calligraphy perfectly.

F3 Fury of the Storm

2010-11-26T12:01:00.000-08:00

     Something about storms always called out to me. The windswept plain stood open, small, insignificant underneath the towering grey clouds that covered the entire sky. Sparse sunlight ricocheted throughout the openings in the clouds, but no hint of open sky revealed itself. At any time those clouds would burst, showering the grasslands.
     A rumble rolled through the distant clouds and headed toward me, but no sign of lightning preceded it. The lightning came next, striking not far from the distant farmhouse. The wind picked up, and I wondered if one of the famous funnel clouds would form.
     Another bolt of lightning, this time close enough that the crash of thunder slammed into me. The rain came next, but not a nice, pleasant rain. The drops hit with the force of hail with the same sting of cold with it. I exulted in the feeling, throwing arms wide and head back to laugh with the storm. The storm's fury increased with rain coming down like icy pins, hitting so hard I swore they should have drawn blood. Thunder buffeted me from every direction as lightning scorched the plain. Through the orchestrated chaos I continued to laugh, for I knew. I reached out with some part of me to the storm, feeling the energy, the power, the life of the storm, how the clouds throbbed in a heartbeat, how the wind ebbed and gusted like breath. I reached into it all, and asked the storm for what I wanted.
     A bolt of lightning struck only a few feet from me, the hairs on my body lifted and my skin felt the tingle of electric song an instant before the force of thunder nearly pushed off my feet.
     I closed my eyes, the smile stretching across my face. Life didn't get better than this for a Storm Rider.

F3 A Star to Guide by

2010-11-19T12:06:00.000-08:00

     "Give me a tall ship, and a star to guide her by". I wanted that for a long time. No one ever talks about just how hard it is to pick a star. When you wake up and the Carrini star field the view outside your window in the morning—relative morning—it's all too tempting to randomly point one out and decide to see what's there.
     I held up my thumb, obscuring a few of the stars,
but for some reason, the bright one down on the right, not quite outside of the nebula field, caught my eye. A quick tap on the enhanced window, and the computer displayed the name of the star.
     I pushed down on the radio button on my wrist. "Navigation."
     "Navigation, aye."
     "Is the Wavedrive primed?"
     "Wavedrive is primed and standing by."
     "I want a course Carrini 117A."
     "Calculating course. We will have to make three wave jumps."
     "Execute."
     "Aye, Captain. Executing course."
     The ship began to bank, there was no sense of motion as the artificial gravity kept us centered, but the starfield shifted so that the system I wanted lay in front of the ship. A different set of stars greeted me from this vantage. Someday, I would choose one of those.
     "Attention hands, this is the bridge. We have Wave creation in 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1."
     "I love my job," I smiled.

F3 Foggy City

2010-11-12T12:15:00.000-08:00

     There was something about the fog. The way it hid, but still gave off light made for one of those paradoxes, and there's nothing quite like something that just can't be to bring people out. The weird ones, anyway. It was like a full moon in a month with an R in it. They came out and did their thing in the fog when the light of day revealed too much of them, and the night was too scary.
     Now the bank was right in the middle, floating above the streets, like it was afraid to touch down. And I knew why. Somewhere, down there, something had scared off the fog. One of the weirdos had gone too far. The fog reflected the flash of red and blue lights from a squad car somewhere down below.
     I blew out a streamer, adding to the fog as grey cloud captured the smoke. I tamped out the cigarette on the brick sill before flicking it down below. It was time to go to work.

Writer's Log NaNoWriMo.0700

2010-11-07T23:44:00.000-08:00

Well, I've finished the first week of NaNo, and I'm sitting at 20,000 words, which is far far above where I had hoped to be. Checking over my records for last year, I'm about 2,000 ahead of my past self. I'm not entirely sure if I can keep the pace up, but I'm going to give it a shot. Projections have me ending this at just after halfway through the month, but I'll be happy if I'm done before Thanksgiving. If all goes well, I'll be crossing the 25k mark this week, which will be cause for celebration. So, hopefully by Wednesday, I will throw a little party for myself. I'll get a cupcake.
I hope NaNo is going well for others participating, and remember to keep with it. You'll make it. Just don't think about the editing that needs to be done.

F3 The Feast

2010-11-05T12:03:00.000-07:00

A magnificent thing to behold, that sandwich. So wonderfully constructed, and ready to fulfill the wants of tastebuds. It was a sandwich that caused vegetarians to cringe, and the health-conscious to flee outright. Those luscious slabs of paper-thin rib-eye perfectly grilled with ribbons of onions, all slathered with a sauce whose orangish-yellow color appeared in no naturally prepared product, so it earned the moniker of cheez instead of that of its haughty brethren. The cheez spread across the beef and onions, all their juices co-mingling into a sauce that made my taste buds water. It should be a sin to consume such a sandwich. Hell, it probably was a sin, but for the classic Philly Cheese steak, I was a full-blown sinner.

Writer's Log NaNoWriMo.106

2010-11-01T06:43:00.000-07:00

Writer's log NaNoWriMo.106: Did overnight writing sprint up to 2288. Would have continued, but had to face work in 4 hours. I still have to face work, but have ideas, so I plan to get more writing done. I just checked last year's results for day one, and I was at an impressive 5494. Of course, that was a weekend day, and the sprint lasted until almost 3am. So, for less than 1 1/2 hours of writing, I will take what I got, and be glad for it.

Mental Exhaustion

2010-10-29T23:58:00.000-07:00

     Sadly, there will be (or rather was not) an F³ today due to mental exhaustion. It struck me somewhere in the middle of the week, and I knew it for what it was as I had trouble finding basic words in my brain, and putting together sentences. So, for today, and tomorrow, I have (and will) be letting my brain get as much rest as possible, which means only the bare minimum grading and lots and lots of fun, mindless entertainment and physical activities in order to mentally prepare for NaNo.
     Also as preparation, a spy movie marathon (see above, mindless entertainment). It will get me thinking spy thoughts at least, and secret organizations bent on world domination and getting women to wear bathing suits and high heels as much as possible. And go-go boots. I don't have a thing for go-go boots, but it seems part of the shtick.
     I will endeavor to revive F³ throughout NaNo by taking bizarre pictures with my camera phone, and throwing something together in that way. And, as is my habit, I will post up the first chapters of the new novel.

Purpose of The Story

2010-10-26T08:32:00.000-07:00

     Way back in my days of (semi) innocence, I was a creative writing major, and took creative writing fiction classes to advance towards that degree. I remember vividly sitting in the class near the end of the semester, a rough semester at that where I felt a certain disposition towards my classmates and my TA (but that's another story).
     During one day, the TA asked a question which I thought there was an obvious answer, and really the only answer that had any merit. Just for reference, I maintain my stance. The question was simply, this: "Why do we write?"
     My answer, as simple as could be: "To tell stories."
     I was given a very tiny amount of lip service, but it was clear that she wanted something more. I really couldn't think of what that might be. The TA moved on, and fished for something more, to which another student answered, "To send a message," which the TA and several others echoed their approval.
     It didn't really occur to me to do that, and I really didn't think that I wanted to read a bunch of heavy handed stories where I was being lectured at by the author. I just didn't think that it would be very enjoyable. Mostly I thought that my TA and class were a bunch of crackpots who were far too concerned with conceptions of high art than storytelling, and kind of disregarded that.
     That changed when I came to begin the road to querying. I read over famous blogs and query attempts, mostly from The Janet Reid where she states more than once on the Query Shark again and again that stories that are all about the message (that is just one example out of many on the blog. Go ahead, read them all. I'll wait.) are generally not the ones agents and editors are looking for. More than that, it kind of nailed home an idea that a lot of these writers focus on is the message where they report about what themes they deal with in the book, and what messages they want to convey instead of the events of the plot, and the choices that characters face.
     Whenever I conceive of a story, I start with the characters, and then come up with some events which set the stage for the story. I don't think about any type of message in the story whatsoever. It's not my purpose. My purpose has always been to tell a story that I thought was interesting.
     Now, that is not to say that I don't think I deal with some issues and convey some kind of message, but it's far down on the list of things I do. I'm not even fully sure of what messages I'm articulating as I write these stories. I'm more about presenting issues and questions, and have my characters deal with them. I try not to be prescriptive with how the characters deal with these questions. I just show how the characters have done it. The reader is able to take away whatever they wish from it. Of course, that leads to something else, which I'll cover in another post.

F3 Sundown

2010-10-22T10:14:00.000-07:00

Sundown. A lot of people watch the setting sun for the glory of those last rays of light. How they seem more intense than the sun at midday, and reflect off of clouds and buildings in brilliant reds, golds, and oranges. But as the sun descends, shadows lengthen, and night wraps the city in her long cloak. With those last, fading glimmers of light, those that inhabit the darkness stretch into the world, ready to cause what mischief they may, ready to revel in their newfound freedom, ready to prey upon unsuspecting mankind.

Burnout

2010-10-18T09:36:00.000-07:00

"It's better to burn out than fade away." Going out with a bang may appeal to homicidal immortals via Highlander, but it's not so good for me. All weekend I'd been feeling lethargic, unable to focus on what I should be doing, and I finally realized, yes, I'm burned out. Burned out on teaching, on grading, on side projects, on query revisions, and even a bit on writing. It's a really bad time, too, as I cannot afford to burn out, but I'm stuck wondering how to stave it off. So I'll open it up to any who might glance this direction. How do you stave off burning out?

Back in the Saddle

2010-10-11T20:34:00.000-07:00

Well, the huge hump of grading is ended (for now), and I am once again dedicating myself to writing. At first it was difficult, but I'm getting back up to speed. I'm also beginning my NaNoWriMo training regimen again, upping my totals slowly over the course of the month. I should be able to handle the NaNo load even though I have some mega grading to do in November, and some other projects that have come up. I'm still making preparations for my new series in November, and hope to have enough of a plot mapped out and characters defined to zip through the first 50k.

F3 The Smile

2010-10-08T10:08:00.000-07:00

Tough guys have a reputation, and for good reason. We've seen and done it all. It tends to make for hearts of stone. Every joe and jane that crosses my path has done something, and it's usually not pleasant. I know enough to cut through what the false fronts of the grifters, and I can take or leave the hot-eyed looks of the dames. There's one person that cuts through me, though, and with nothing more than a smile. When I see my niece smile, I can't help but give one of my own. Guess I am just a sap.

F3 Problem Solvers

2010-10-01T11:25:00.000-07:00

     The ME was still giving the once over as I stared down at that hand. It had rained last night, but no more than usual. It made the ground into a muddy muck in Raleigh Park, though. It was hard to tell where the mud ended and the blood began.
     The piece had almost fallen out of her hand. Everyone tried to fill in the story of what happened, but it came up fuzzy. The best tall one that went about was she was a spy, and it was a deal that had gone wrong. Who knows? It could be true. The only thing we knew for sure was that someone else had been here from the prints in the mud, and the bullet that got her wasn't from the gun she had.
     Whatever kind of meeting had gone down here, both sides thought that the guns would solve their problems. That's never been my experience.

Time Management

2010-09-27T10:48:00.000-07:00

When the semester begins, there's always a marked difference in my writing progress. Getting bogged down with lesson plans and especially grading really take its toll on me time-wise. I need to find a better way to get everything done.
I've got a couple of ideas I'm going to try, and hopefully as the semester wears on I'll be able to reduce my grading load, as I want to keep writing the focus, and then there's NaNoWriMo in November again. I need to start bulking up for that.

F3 Chalk Art

2010-09-24T14:36:00.000-07:00

     He walked through the streets with a grin of amusement. He always enjoyed seeing what contrivances mortal could come up with. Their machines were of particular interest as they had created some truly remarkable contraptions. Today, though, he strolled through looking at displays of art. Many were the canvases and paints he was familiar with, though others used charcoal and pens to do their work.
     They had evolved their style since he had last observed their art, some hundreds of years ago during the period they called the Renaissance. What truly piqued his interest today were the pieces of what they called "street art". Artists used colored chalks to make designs on the pavement. They were quite well done, worthy of the canvas. But why do they only use chalk, to let the work be washed away by the rain?
     He kept wandering through the streets until he came to one spot where a crowd gathered along one side of a drawing. He looked down at it, and saw that it looked stretched out, and that the art was not very good. Yet why would these people be captivated with it? And why did they use the same vantage? He moved about to where the crowd was, and looked again to see that simply moving his position rendered the art understandable. He looked upon a river and waterfall drawn with chalks, he stood amazed. The detail and scope of the work amazed him, but most people had wandered away to look at other works. With no one looking, he reached down to touch the chalk, and unleashed his power upon it. Chalk and pavement transformed into a real flowing river and waterfall over a cliff. He smiled to himself, nodded at his achievement, and walked on to see what other wonders mortals had achieved.

D-Day Approaches.

2010-09-20T00:20:00.000-07:00

D-Day approaches. By this I mean I think I've reworked my query sufficiently to send out among the sharks, er, agents. I've been working on this thing for awhile, and I think I've got it. It's much shorter than my original query, which is a plus. Hopefully I'll get some bites on this one. And I need to get this out because the semester is going to start moving into high gear, and I don't want to end up in December without having sent queries out.
D-Day approaches, and I'm excited and terrified.

F3 Keys

2010-09-17T11:02:00.000-07:00

     There it was. The one in the middle, below the one with the harp on the end. It blended in well with all the others under the display case, but this key was different. Antique keys were ornate, showing off the skill of the craftsman, and this was no different, but the key's purpose was not just to unlock some door or cabinet.
     This key could unlock other things. I had searched for it for a long time, and, finally, here it was. It did not resonate power, or give off any indication of what it could do, except to the trained eye, but I recognized the pattern in the ornamentation. This key could open up the way between worlds, and that awesome potential rested under a glass case in a pawn shop.
     "I'll take that one," I pointed, and smiled to the clerk.

F3 The Couple

2010-09-10T14:06:00.000-07:00

They couldn't stand any closer to one another. His hand on her shoulder, her hand gently on his arm. They could not see each others' faces, but they pressed their heads together. Her hair shadowed her face, so it was impossible to see her expression, but their posture said they clung to one another. This could be a tender moment of profound love, or the couple had just endured unspeakable tragedy; there was no way to tell which. But one thing remained clear, they experienced it together. They leaned on one another, standing together where one would fall.

That Thing

2010-09-08T10:08:00.000-07:00

     I remember watching the agent and editor panel at Desert Dreams 2010. A lot of very respected agents and editors sat up there. It was intimidating, and also very exciting. Hearing them field questions, and what their answers were seemed to plug a lot of the gaps for me as a prospective client. I remember one idea in particular.
     I don't remember the exact question, something about cross over genres. Specifically it had to do with urban fantasy (which really made me pay attention). And I remember The Janet Reid and Miriam Kriss answered this one by talking about protagonists that do some sort of investigation (cop, PI, reporter, etc.) but also has a thing. A paranormal thing that puts a twist on the rest of it. It makes sense. Anita Blake is an animator, Rachel Morgan is a witch, Harry Dresden is a wizard, Chris Knight was a vampire, and the list goes on. The thing is important, too. It's pretty much the hook for the whole book. It's what sets the character apart from others of this type. If the thing is fresh and original, it can really take off.
     I've got a thing. Rather, Matt Allen has a thing, as my scant few readers know. I think it's a pretty fantastic thing, too. But the problem is that the full impact of the thing takes a little thought. It's not immediately apparent. It's easy to get a rudimentary understanding, but the full impact is a little more subtle, and can even provoke a "that's it?" or a "so what?" response before the full weight sets in. So I'm struggling to come up with that hook which both conveys the fundamental understanding, and the full impact, all while making it interesting.

Goldilocks

2010-09-07T05:59:00.000-07:00

This weekend brought a lot of query revisions, and it got me thinking about a classic fairy tail. I know that a lot of getting an agent to jump at a query is a measure of being "just right", which is more a question of knowing it when you see it, but what about on the writing side of queries? As the writer, it's up to me to try and figure out that fit from my end. I got a lot of questions from various forum people regarding my query, usually questions asking for more and more detail, yet that seems to fly in the face of what queries are supposed to be. This leaves me with several questions.
How much detail is necessary? How much is the right amount to know, and how much is too much? An even better question, though is the detail being asked for still necessary if the answer is uninteresting? Is it better to have that bit of mystery in a query, that unanswered question, than to give the answer that falls flat? Lastly, at what level do I write at for an agent. It's my understanding that agents representing certain works are more or less experts in their genres. Should I expect them to get certain conventions of the genre? If I spell out every last thing am I insulting their intelligence? Do I ignore what many other writers (most not in my genre) have said about my query and go with my gut?

The Pioneers

2010-09-04T09:46:00.000-07:00

     A lot of agents pass along the advice for writers to read the genre that they write. Go out to bookstore and libraries, see what's on the shelves, and read them. Very sound advice, and there's no earthly reason not take that advice. I will, however, add to it.
     Go read the pioneers of the genre. Read the authors who wrote and made that genre viable. By and large, everything on the shelves today is derived from those original pioneers. You can't look at a mystery, the classic whodunit, without looking at Sherlock Holmes. Science fiction? Shelley, Verne, Wells. Too old fashioned, not enough "real" science? Asimov, Bradbury, and Heinlein. Vampires? Bram Stoker. Fantasy? Look at the sci fi guys. They did a lot of both. Epic fantasy? Tolkien. Romance? Austen. Hard-boiled detectives? Hammett and Chandler.
     I think it's important to read these more original works to see what they did that was so different. What did they do that started off a craze, even launched an entirely new genre in some cases? Take them, analyze them, compare them to today. Compare them to what you write, and look ahead to what might be the next turn.
     For my money, don't stop there. Need to know how to write funny? Tragic? Shakespeare. The Greek playwrights. Epic? Homer, Milton, Virgil. Fantastic? Ovid. Sexy or bawdy? Shakespeare, Ovid.
     Okay, I'll be honest. Shakespeare is the man for nearly all of this. There's not much he didn't do, and he managed to pull it off brilliantly, even the legal comedy (Merchant of Venice, anyone?). The point is, a lot can be learned from the people who were there first. I'm not downplaying authors today, but don't limit yourself to what's just what's been published in the last few years. Go explore, and find the ones who came first.

F3 The Lighthouse Cat

2010-09-03T10:12:00.000-07:00

     I didn't like this corner. That old wall along Lighthouse gave me the creeps. It had that cat up on the corner. Not like a house cat. It was bigger, scarier. Most people never even looked at it, even though it was ready to pounce.
     I usually tried to ignore it as I went by, and made sure I was on the other side of the street. But today I found myself at the corner before realizing. Stupid text message distracted me.
     I'm waiting for the light to let me cross the street, and I hear this low growl. No one else seems to hear it but me. I look back at the cat, and see its tail slowly curl.

August 2010 Wrap-up

2010-09-02T20:27:00.000-07:00

August was a peculiar month. With the main project out of the way, I puttered around on others. One project which I've been toying with, only dubbed Supervillain for now, seems to go in erratic spurts. I'm not sure if it will ever amount to a full-fledged novel, or if it would even be marketable if it did. So I worked bits on it, and on other, weirder things. Dusted a few things off, and saw that blowing away the dust meant a lot of work with cutting and re-writing. I had days where I couldn't write for the start up of the new semester interfered, as well as my own bizarre sleep schedule (a constant problem, I know). By month's end, though, I had come up with a concept and an outline for the next Matt Allen, and it was so insidious I had to start writing right away. Which explains the recent new first chapter.
I also let my record-keeping go somewhat astray. I did the writing and editing, but I also didn't record those numbers until much later, and there are . . . gaps. So I'm going to make an effort to do better at that.

July 2010 Wrap-up

2010-09-01T18:08:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm late with this. It's been hanging around waiting to be done, but I've put it off. I need to make sure I remember to do these more regularly, like immediately. July was a good month, where I finished off the rough draft for The Missing Succubus which is a cracking good read if I say so myself.

f3 Coffee Seduction

2010-08-27T10:57:00.000-07:00

     I didn't have the usual vices. Smoking wasn't my ting, I could put the bottle away easy enough, and the only drink I had an on-and-off fling with was Scotch, preferably one older than me. I appreciated a nice pair of legs, a set of curves, and luscious lips, but knew how fickle the whole thing was. I'd seen joes go for a tumble, then give up the bank account. Saps, the lot of them. Dames made things . . . complicated, especially when it came to the job, and they didn't like it when I put the job first.
     I could turn all of those away without a second thought. The only vice I couldn't say no to was coffee. I wouldn't give up breathing before coffee, but only because the smell of coffee was almost as good as drinking it. I'd turn a dame down for a good cup of coffee. Even for a cup not-so-good.
     But then I see her. She knows me down to my core. And she makes it a big production from across the cafe after she caught my eye. That glossy, wet lipstick doesn't do a thing for me. Then she lowers her head to the table, like she's delivering a kiss. Sure, the ladies kiss a napkin to leave the lipstick on it. Seen it before. Nice touch, but I can take it or leave. Then she comes back up, and I see there's something stuck to those lips. It doesn't take much of a detective to figure it out. Dark, dark brown covered most of the pink of her lips, and she snaked her tongue out to lick an errant granule.
     Something jumped inside me, and it did a repeat when she winked at me. I got up, and took numb steps towards her, knowing full well that she hooked me. I was going to be the sap, and I didn't care. Even from here I could smell and taste the coffee on her lips.

Fight scenes

2010-08-25T19:04:00.000-07:00

     As Cary Elwes said in Robin Hood: Men in Tights, "Prepare for the fight scene." I think something is missing in fight scenes nowadays, at least in movies. The endlessly choreographed 30+ minute fight scenes just get tired. And gimmicky. There's always an outrageous condition behind the fighting, such as fighting in a water wheel.
     Not only that, but nearly everyone seems to know advanced martial arts. Now, don't get me wrong. I love a good martial arts sequence. I love classic Kung Fu movies (Bruce Lee!) and I love a great Jackie Chan flick. I don't have a problem with them as they match the type of story it's trying to tell, but other films seem to just keep going endlessly as a way to show off the choreography and advanced special effects, and that just grates at me because while I'm often looking for an escape and can accept the fantastic, I draw the line at the ridiculous.
     But there's hope. After watching The Hunted again, I see the type of fight scene that is perfect to alleviate the monotony. I won't spoil it, but it involves more desperate moves by a hero imminently unqualified to vanquish the villain, but the villain has already been weakened by another, so the unlikely hero does have a chance. It's a very raw, visceral scene where the nature of fighting changes a few times, and by the end, both hero and villain have sustained grievous wounds.
     I think I really enjoy it because I can apply it to my writing. In urban fantasy where there are very disparate levels of skill, ability, and power, there are no level playing fields, and the fight should reflect that level of desperation.
     Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go write a fight scene.

Inspiration

2010-08-24T19:03:00.001-07:00

     It's unpredictable. It's spontaneous. It's unreachable. It's around the corner. It's on the tip of my tongue. I'm always amazed when a flash of inspiration strikes me. Sometimes I'm really working on something, and then it clicks. More times I can count it just suddenly pops up, and I'm off to the races trying to write it down before the inspiration fades. Whatever it's called, whatever it's source. I love it.
     The really cool thing? It happens more often the more I write. Creativity seems to beget more creativity, and it gets easier each time. I can't make inspiration happen, but I learn tricks to encourage it to make an appearance.
     Do any writers out there have tricks they use to encourage inspiration?

Forbidden topics

2010-08-23T20:14:00.000-07:00

As a teacher, I've seen my fair share of essays on topics that I don't want to deal with any longer. I've even known teachers to create a list of banned topics such as abortion and capital punishment. I think it's mostly because students all say the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Without a new take, a new, fresh perspective, I'm tired of it. Yet I haven't created a banned list yet. Emphasis on yet. I find myself leaning in that direction, though, as I will groan after just a few lines because I can already tell that there's nothing new to read.
I've seen a few agents post about how they're tired of certain stories. Vampires readily come to mind as I've seen agents post on those a time or two, and I understand that agent inboxes are clogged to the RAM with queries for them. I'm sure there are others, so I wonder, and ask (politely of course) what topics make agents groan even within the genres they accept? Also, would it be possible for a fresh, new perspective on such a topic to grab an agent, or is it too late by the second line of the query?

Self-publishing

2010-08-22T20:56:00.000-07:00

     This one just seemed to pop up all at once for me. There's a lot of people asking me to go and self-publish. "It's the wave of the future" and it would get me out there and making money on my books instead of wasting time trying to get an agent. The artistic integrity of my book would be maintained that way as well, allowing me complete control over the whole thing, right down to the cover.
     Yes, it is a siren song. Complete control, and seeing my words out there among the people ready to be snapped up by a ready populace. And of course that would just be the beginning! Agents and publishers would realize how awesome my abilities are after sales go through the roof, and they would clamor to me, and I would make them fight in a gladiatorial arena, presiding over them like Caesar, until only the survivor remained. My money is on The Janet Reid (AKA The Query Shark). I would then reign as Supreme Emperor Author over the NYT bestselling list, putting to shame the likes of King and Patterson.
     Hey, if I'm going to dream, I'm going to dream big. I am a writer, after all.
     But that's all that is, or at least the odds of it happenning are approximately the same as winning three lotteries simultaneously while surviving several lightning strikes.
     Squared.
     More than that, there's a reason why agents and publishers exist. Aside from the editorial input, they know what sells. They know the market as well as anyone can know the market, which is pretty darned impressive. And that's just the tip of the iceberg! Agents do things the likes of which I cannot fathom! Nor do I want to (my comment is in there somewhere. Keep looking!). I have enough headaches being a writer, and I can only imagine it will become more intense when there are writing deadlines to balance along with my mundane existence. The hassles of trying to do the work of an agent while self-publishing a book and writing others is just insane. At least for me. Others who have the knack, have at it!
     More than that, I know my writing skills, and I know my ego (Pause for those comments regarding my massive ego) and I know that my writing isn't perfect. It's just not. I know it's not. I think I'm a really good writer, but even the likes of Thomas Jefferson needed people to read over his stuff and edit! I need agents and editors to take a look at my stuff and help me make it even better, and yes, it can always be better.
     More than that, know that the gatekeepers are there for a reason, and that if I move to self-publishing, I may not have the chops to handle agents, editors, and publishers. It's a hard, unforgiving business, and if I don't have the patience and determination to make sure my book is the best I can possibly be, and to navigate those treacherous waters (ooo, another shark reference), then what agent or publisher would want to pick me up? I've read the blogs of several agents regarding self-publishing, and they all cite these just a few of the reasons to avoid self-publishing. I could go on, but I'm not writing this to slam self-publishing, merely to say, it's not for me.
     Sure, I'm going to rack up a log of battle scars and shark bites before this is done, but I'm going to make it. I'm going to see my books sitting on shelves, and I'll be able to tell the war stories of what I went through to make it.
     Greatly exaggerated, of course. I'm a writer.

F3 Rain Cafe

2010-08-20T09:19:00.000-07:00

     The cafe nearly closed for the day. Its patrons had long since deserted the all outdoor seating, except me. Usually, the rain in this city came down gently, but steadily. Now, though, I watched drops come down hard enough to bounce off the glass top table in front of me.
     The couple that had stared at one another with longing, lovers' eyes had left almost as quickly as the storm had begun, the smolder in their stare neatly quenched by the rain. All around other patrons did the same as the big umbrellas were caught up in a gust fierce enough to topple a couple of the tables. The clerks had no choice but to lower and remove the umbrellas or watch them pull off a Mary Poppins impression.
     With no cover, no one had stayed, though the occasional brave soul would rush into the cafe under cover of soaked newspaper in a mad dash from their car, only to repeat the run with a cup of coffee on the way out.
     I continued to sit in the rain, leather jacket zipped up, and the brim of my hat dripping water down in front of me. I took a sip of my own coffee, the insulated foam warding away water and chill. It was good coffee. I sat there enjoying rain's show and song.