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truepenny tells me it's time for the first lines meme!baaaaa....
LONG!
1) Vethulf and Skjaldwulf did not get along. (A Reckoning of Men, with
truepenny)2) Tin laced her fingers together across her gravid belly and frowned along her nose at the feeble human child. (An Apprentice to Elves, with
truepenny)3) The first hint of returning consciousness was the icy tickle of fluid dropping across his lids, lashes, nostrils. (Chill)
4) It's harder to get good roles when you're dead. (Smile)
5) Nothing made Matthew hate himself more than waiting for the elevator. (Patience & Fortitude)
6) Ragged vultures spiraled up a cherry sky. (The Steles of the Sky)
7) I loved you not. (Posthumous Jonson)
8) On the first sunny day of Spring, Vladimir Karl Wilhelm Alexander, Prince of Freimarc, came to his father's father's fortress for the only time in his short sixteen years. He did not come willing. (A Treachery of Princes)
9) No first line, but an epigraph:
And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.
And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.
And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. (Grail)
10) Mrs. Cornelius stalked into the mahogany-paneled reception room, a jacket matching her chocolate trousers slung over her shoulder like the mantle of a queen, tiny emerald studs glinting in her ears like the eyes of a snake. (Unsuitable Metal)
11) A lone einherjar stood alone on the narrow band of black sand under the curve of the volcano's flank and raised his head to the impossibly bright spill of stars filling the sky. (Between the Bones)
12) No first line (Untitled virtual reality novel)
13) No first line (Untitled Heroic Hookers of the Old West novel)
SHORT!
1) The dream is smoke.
Smoke. Not fire. Not yet.
But you know the fire is coming. ("Smoke & Mirrors," Shadow Unit)
2) One gray-blue eye emerged from under the zippered edge of the jacket, blearily squinched. "From Hell's heart I stab at thee," Todd grated. "Is it the end of the world?" ("The Unicorn Evils," Shadow Unit, with coffeeem)
3) Someone had left flowers again. ("Spell 81A," Shadow Unit, with stillsostrange)
4) The first word was meant to be spoken quietly, if it should ever be spoken at all. ("The Death of Terrestrial Radio")
5) "We wouldn’t be having this conversation if you'd flunked Algebra." ("On Safari in R'lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera")
Good dog, I really am totally out of short stories. 0.0
Oh, and La Datlow took a cute photo of me losing a Locus award to Paolo Baciagalupi. With the much-requested Purple Hair.
- Mood:
sleepy
But that also seems to tell me that I'd better get cracking on some of these other projects. Which means its time for...
the first lines meme!
(Here's what I'm working on.)
Vethulf and Skjaldwulf did not get along.
--A Reckoning of Men. (with
truepenny)The first hint of returning consciousness was the icy tickle of fluid dropping across his lids, lashes, nostrils.
--Chill
And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.
--Grail
It's harder to get good roles when you're dead.
--"Smile"
"We wouldn’t be having this conversation if you'd flunked Algebra."
--"On Safari in R'lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera"
"Of course you notice the blind girl."
--untitled
My mother doesn't know about the harpy.
--"The Horrid Glory of its Wings"
Someone had left flowers again.
--"Spell 81a" (with
stillsostrange)It's not a straight drop.
--One-Eyed Jack & The Suicide King
An old man with radiation scars surrounding the chromed half of his face limped down a salt-grass covered dune.
--The Sea thy Mistress
Nothing made Matthew hate himself more than waiting for the elevator.
--Patience & Fortitude
No first line yet, but an epigraph:
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
--Dylan Thomas
--"The Unicorn Evils" (with
coffeeem)In other news, my new roomie made dinner tonight. Best. Roomie. Ever.
- Mood:
creative - Music:Marcus Roberts - The Entertainer
You know, I wonder if one of the problems I've been having with the writing lately is that I've been microsteering. I bet that's it exactly. that's what it feels like. Like I've been--rather than looking as far ahead as possible and following the grand curve of the road--making constant tiny little adjustments. Which would be a necessary consequence of trying to write Chill before it was really ripe, in tiny little segments rather than as one long controlled/fluid sweep of line.
But just like in driving a car, it's exhausting. And just like in art, if your line is made up of broken segments, it always looks a little jittery, even if you join them together after.
You need the confidence of being able to look ahead and see where you're going to be, eventually.
And now, in celebration of having finished the damned thing, I offer the first line meme, for outstanding projects:
The Sea thy Mistress:
Breathless.
#
"Smile"
It's harder to get good roles when you're dead.
#
"The Horrid Glory of Her Wings"
No first line yet, but it does have an epigraph:
"Speaking of livers," the unicorn said, "Real magic can never be made by offering up someone else's liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back. The true witches know that."
--Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn
#
Grail also has an epigraph:
And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.
And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.
And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.
--KJV
#
"On Safari in R'lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera"
"We wouldn’t be having this conversation if you'd flunked Algebra."
(This story is my "The Amelia Earhart Pancake." I've had the title since 1989, and still haven't written in.)
#
"Snow Dragons"
They're not actually dragons.
#
"Lucky Day"
Gray Putnam was reaching for the door handle when the semi went past, rocking his Audi on its shoes and drowning the driver's side in a wall of water.
#
...and that's what I need to be going on with for the next little while.
- Mood:
huh - Music:WNPR - Where We Live
Well, I finished the book I was reading. And now I have nothing to do except be twitchy and think about what I need to be writing tomorrow. And the stuff I have sitting around unfinished that I could be finishing.
Which means its time for the First Lines Meme, in which I list the opening bits of all my works in progress, as a sort of public accountability.
( Woooooooooooooooorks iiiiiiiiiiiiin progreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssss! )
There. Maybe that will shake something loose.
(Yeah, I know, some of those I have been working on for years already. That's par for the course.)
- Mood:
working - Music:Tom Waits - Sins of my Father
Ah yes, I recognize this state. It's the, I have delivered a book and now I will mope around the house fruitlessly, wasting hours of my life and not wanting to talk to anyone or do anything, suffering bouts of insomnia and amnesia, unable to focus on anything, portion of our programme. Post-novel ennui, possibly my least favorite part of my job.
I'm going to be stupid and restless for a good several days, guys. Sorry.
Since I am deep in the throes of post-novel ennui, I pause for a moment to list the things I really ought to be working on, and when I need to have them finished by. The shtick here is that one writes down the first lines of all one's works-in-progress, on the theory that this will inspire one to closure on a WiP or two. If you are joining us in progress, it goes around the livejournal writergang every three or six months.
I blush to admit how long some of these stories have been on the dratted list.
On the other hand, it is getting shorter. I had 13 short stories on it the last time I did it, I think.
( So without futher ado, what I'm working on-- )
- Mood:
exanimate - Music:Matt Nathanson - Lucky Boy
avocadovpx, who is apparently much in the habit of being linked by me all of a sudden, has a post here on coping with the Dreaded Middle Of The Book.
Anybody who's been here for a while knows that the Middle is not my favorite part. I love beginnings, because it's this delicate balancing act, setting everything up for later use and discovering in the course of it what the book or short story is about. And I love ends, because I am all about the gratification of finishing things. I love that. It makes me happy.
Middles are just the part you need to get across to turn (a) into (b). I never worry about filling them, however, possibly because I have so damned much stuff going on in an average book that I need every column inch. So that's my solution: when you get to that 35K mark, or wherever the dreaded spot where the wall appears for you (it's usually a third of the way into the story, I find, but YMMV) you just start breaking things. Make stuff happen! Kick puppies! Trip the characters into bed! Amputate something! Kill somebody! In other words, make the bastards react.
This is very much on my mind right now because I woke up this morning with a chunk of "Skull Ring" in my head, so I sat down and wrote that out--it turned out to be nearly 8 pages worth (remember what I said about finishing a novel and having short stories start to fall out of my head?)--and then I stalled because I had hit the middle, and don't know what the plot is. So that one goes back into the hopper. Meantime, I also have "Shoggoths in Bloom" stalled because I need to figure out a plot twist," and "King Pole, Gallows Pole, Bottle Tree" stalled because it needs a plot, and likewise "The Death of Terrestrial Radio."
Which tells me, ma'am, that it's time for the first lines meme.
And so, behind the cut, the current first lines of everything I'm working on right now.
( first lines meme )
- Mood:
complacent - Music:Jimmy Buffet - She's Got You / Thea Gilmore - Razor Valentine
I'm down, actually. Only ten shorts in the queue, and I suspect that two of those may wind up abandoned for all time.
So, here's what I would like to get done this year:
Novels:
All the Windwracked Stars (this will be a ground-up rewrite, but I have seventy pages done.)
He was born white, until she burned him.
Ink & Pen [the novel formerly known as the first half of The Stratford Man: this one needs revision, but I won't know what sort of revision until I know who will be editing it, as the editor who bought it is leaving that publisher. This is, as you might expect, a source of some ongoing stress.]
Christofer Marley died as he was born: on the bank of a river, within the sound and stench of slaughterhouses.
Short Fiction:
"Bone and Jewel Creatures"
As Bijou grew more frail, her creations grew more Byzantine.
"Dark on Wednesdays"
The Tower of Babylon rose through the veil of transplanted jungle foliage and piped-in orchid scent to scrape a desert sky burned almost colorless by the Nevada sun. Visible the entire length of the Las Vegas Strip, it collapsed in fire and fury six times daily, six days a week, wind conditions permitting.
For a premium, you could ride it down.
"The Death of Terrestrial Radio"
The first word was meant to be spoken quietly, if it should ever be spoken at all.
"King Pole, Gallows Pole, Bottle Tree"
The ghosts from the dam always come in the summer.
"On Safari in R'lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera"
"We wouldn’t be having this problem if you'd flunked Algebra."
"Periastron"
After the tipping point, recursion becomes a fatal cascade.
"Skull Ring"
All in all, Ang had expected death to be a bigger deal.
"Smile"
It's harder to get good roles when you're dead.
"Wehrwolf"
The secret to getting away with murder is to tell no living soul. The secret to getting away with lying is to believe with all your heart.
"Your Collar"
When they dragged you from your labyrinth, they collared you in gold.
Tomorrow, I start working on "King Pole, Gallows Pole, Bottle Tree." Oz has spoken. Meanwhile, there's a fanfiction bunny throwing me clever lines of dialogue without a plot attached.
That is not overly helpful.
- Mood:
groggy
And I kind of assume that most people reading this haven't read my stuff. Which is kind of fun, because here I am spouting off about it every day. And I always kind of am startled to find somebody reading me, and wanting to talk about it.
Excellent! How weird is it that strangers read my books?
So, after I get this proposal finished (which may even be today), I think I am going to take January and February Off From Novels. Which might allow a few of these short stories to fall out of my head, and let me recuperate for a long push over the summer and autumn. In March, I have to write "Perisastron," and then after that I have to rewrite All the Windwracked Stars and revise Ink & Pen and write dust.
But before then, I have a bunch of short stories started I'd like to write.
( first line meme )
Really, I need to cut myself more slack. I mean, I tend to think I don't accomplish as much in any given day as I probably should. But this is what I did today:
wrote ten pages
cleaned the kitchen
cleaned off the coffee table
went to the gym
made spaghetti
closed up a bunch of boxes and threw them out
played guitar
juggled
took the garbage out
stole a chair from the dumpster (woot! dumpster diving. it's a perfectly good straight-backed wooden chair, both attractive and sturdy, that mostly just needs to be refinished on the seat.)
answered a question from my editor
blurbed something
watched an hour of television
did dishes
and read some of my research book
...yanno, that's a pretty good day. But I keep thinking of all the things I did not do.
So, tonight, I have just invented a brand new way to hurt myself. Which I know you are dying to hear about.
But first, some backstory.
So, my left shoulder kind of sucks. Which is to say, when I was 21, I slipped down a flight of icy granite steps at the Wilbur Cross building at UConn, and was only saved from dashing my brains all over the place by my left forearm slipping between the uprights on the wrought iron bannister, so my weight fell against my left arm, and I did not actually go arse over teakettle.
Because I am an ox (I have a heavier bone structure than many men a good five inches taller than me), I did not wind up on the receiving end of a compound fracture. Instead, I bounced on my ass cheek on the steps, said "ow," and a few other choice words, extricated my arm from the uprights, assured the semi-hysterical witness that no, my arm was not broken and I did not need to go to the ER.
Um, anyway, several years later I started having pretty serious pain in my left shoulder, which was aggravated by typing. At that time, I was... a typesetter.
Yeah.
Anyway, I figured out some ergonomic workarounds and made it get better, and carried on. Until 1998, when I was working updating Microbiology procedure manuals at an inner-city hospital (I loved that job) and the old problem came back and started getting worse. Until I had the semi-constant sensation that somebody had the blade of a butterknife under my shoulderblade and was leaning on it while prying the scapula away from the rib cage.
I have... a really high pain tolerance. [which will be relevant later] And this was quite unbearable.
Um, I went to see my doctor, who diagnosed bursitis, and collectively we decided to try to address it through ergo again, because not so much with the cortisone shots. Anyway, we fixed it, it went away again. Nowhere in here did I twig that this was in any way related to my injury.
In 2000, I was in a car accident. Afterwards, because I had lost all grip strength in both hands, I went to see a chiropractor. Who took some x-rays and said, quite promptly, "What on earth did you do to your shoulder?"
And I said, "Nothing."
And she said, "No, look here, this is all scar tissue. Did you do something to yourself about seven years ago?"
...the sound you hear is a penny dropping. Anyway, apparently at the time I had separated the shoulder and, ah, never noticed. Because, see above, high pain tolerance, right?
Anyway. I have this shoulder which sometimes hurts a lot. (One of the reasons that I lift weights is that it helps my back and helps my shoulder release. As does yoga. And the juggling and weight lifting and now the guitar seem to help a lot with the aching hands that are part and parcel of my job.) So, to cope with the shoulder that sometimes hurts a lot, I now have this giant VROOM vibrator massager thingy.
Which I'm certain has an industry second life as a sex toy, but that's neither here nor there. And I'm no doubt a vast disappointment to any voyeurs on my block, because one will usually find me face down on the sofa with this thing on my back.
(end backstory)
Anyway, the massager thingy's vibrations make my inner ears itch.
So here I am with the thing on my back, and I idly and absently poke my pinky finger into my ear to itch it.
...except my fingernail is apparently longer than it's ever been.
...are you with me so far?...
And all of a sudden OMG BLOOD EVERYWHERE GOAT SLAUGHTERING TIME. I mean, we're talking Saturday Night Live quantities of blood. Titus Andronicus, The Massacre at Paris, The Revenger's Tragedy quantities of blood. "Who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him" quantities of blood.
One's ear canal is... apparently very vascular.
Ahem.
(I'm really glad I got the bleeding stopped in about thirty seconds, because explaining that one in the E.R... well.)
.
- Mood:
bloody - Music:Joni Mitchell - raised on robbery
When it's the Kaiser Chiefs, I get to the point of planning my own death much more quickly than this. (I might even stave it off for another week, if that copy of Black Tie White Noise I ordered would show up.)
This ties into that discussion of whether there are many new writers in SFF, doesn't it?
(Charlie Stross said a while back that turning forty was made easier by the constant assurances that he was one of the Hot Young Things of genre. I am here to note? It works on 35 too.)
Review roundup:
treize64 on The Chains That You Refuse.Polymath At Large reviews The Chains That You Refuse. Speaking of Charlie (Hi, Charlie!) sie also hits Accelerando and Joe Haldeman's A Separate War and Other Stories.
mr_bad_example (the name alone is enough to get me humming; I must be in an easily influenced brainspace, neurochemically speaking. send in the deprogrammers) comments briefly on Blood & Iron.aimeempayne reviews "Sounding" for Tangent Online.Archery last night was a pleasure.
netcurmudgeon, ashacat, taichigeek and I went to the video dart range, which is a range where you can shoot pretend moving animals with blunted arrow tips. (I do not actually hunt, but the critter walking across the screen is a nice, novel challenge.) Also, you never know when being able to pick off a moving target with a silent projectile at twenty yards will come in handy.
Ahem.
Assuming it was rutting season, the wind was low, and the woods were full of extremely stupid white-tails, I might not starve if civilization ended.
ashacat? Will have cornered the venison concession.I have mostly gotten my to-do list out of the way. Going to gym in a minute, must remember to BUY STICKY RICE, put gas in truck. Then come home and not stir from the house until I've finished
sartorias' book. Which is good; I'm just flighty.The pop star elf story is cooking along in my head. So,
scalzi, um, gonna do another guest edit somewhere looking for hackneyed cliches? ;-)Of course, it's not one of the things I need to be doing. Which, prioritywise right now, are:
Undertow revision
Write "Chatoyant"
Write "Lumiere"
Dust proposal.
But short stories are really the province of the muse. They come when they will, and all must bow before them. They are not amenable to the kind of grinding willpower that gets a novel writ.
Right. Pants, food, gasoline, exercise, rice.
Come home and work.
Possibly dust under the computer; it's incredibly gross down there.
P.S: confidential to everybody who hasn't done it yet this week: Back up your data today.
*yes, that is the Jonathan Richman song. and yes, I did almost die in convulsions when I realized it.
- Mood:
flirty - Music:David Bowie - Pablo Picasso
Things to do in 2006 & the first part of 2007:
long things:
Revise The Stratford Man and The Journeyman Devil if it proves necessary to do so
Dust proposal
Write Dust
Page proofs for Whiskey & Water
CEM for Undertow
Page proofs for Undertow
Rewrite the rest of All the Windwracked Stars (This, being the equivalent of writing a Whole New Book from an outline, will wait for a while, thank you, and possibly until the proposal sells.)*
Revise The Sea thy Mistress, including adding plot thread ripped from By the Mountain Bound*
*sell this series.
short things:
Things I need to write:
An untitled novella scheduled for Galactic Empires, 2008, Gardner Dozois, ed.
(no first line yet, or even title)
A novella and a novelette I owe to Bill Schafer, "Chatoyant" and "Lumière"
^ "Chatoyant"
"Chatoyant, said of a mineral's luster: 'containing numerous threadlike inclusions, aligned to produce catseye figures with reflected light.'"
^ "Lumière"
On a fine May morning in 1903, Abigail Irene Garrett boarded an airship bound from New Amsterdam to Paris, via Koln.
It was an act of naked treason.
"1796," dammit, no, Jay, I still haven't forgotten.
Mrs. John Adams looked to her sewing.
Things I want to write:
"Orm the Beautiful"
Orm the Beautiful would never die. But neither would he live much longer.
"Periastron"
No first line yet.
"Dark on Wednesdays"
The Tower of Babylon rose through the veil of transplanted jungle foliage and piped-in orchid scent to scrape a desert sky burned almost colorless by the Nevada sun. Visible the entire length of the Las Vegas Strip, it collapsed in fire and fury six times daily, six days a week, wind conditions permitting.
For a premium, you could ride it down.
"The Death of Terrestrial Radio"
The first word was meant to be spoken quietly, if it should ever be spoken at all.
* "King Pole, Gallows Pole, Bottle Tree"
The ghosts of the dam always come in the summer.
* "On Safari in R'lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera"
"We wouldn't be having this problem if you'd flunked Algebra."
* "Black is the Color"
Along the north bank of the River Clyde, the oblong cobbles were glazed with sunrise light. The thump of music from a barge-turned nightclub had ended hours earlier. There was left only silence and the morning chill.
And a white stallion's hunger.
(and two bonus stories, because of course I was starting to get caught up and my brain gave me more.)
"Upon Deaf Ears"
"How would you define yourself?"
"Smile"
He was a better ghost than he'd been a man.
(I wonder if this goes with the fragment I've had kicking about for years about the smiling murderer?)
La.
And that is my to-do list for a while.
Also, I should clean the apartment. And catch up on some of this reading. And the critiques. And go to the gym. And eat something today, as I forgot last night.
- Mood:
pleased - Music:NPR - Morning Edition
( Short fictiony things, with bonus first-line meme: )
In addition, here is my to-do list for the long fiction:
By the Mountain Bound revision (ongoing)
Dust proposal (soonish, like)
The Stratford Manrevision (if it sells and there are notes)
All the Windwracked Stars rewrite (ongoing, will become a priority if it sells)
The Sea thy Mistress revision (low priority)
A policeman's work is never done.
- Mood: working
- Music:Dire Straits - So Far Away
So now, I will apply the time-honored technique of public shame. The WiP first-line meme, more like a first paragraph in a couple of places. Perhaps a little exposure will help them to ripen.
Undertow
André Deschênes bent over files at his desktop, brow furrowed as he sorted documents into the J folders. Tiny green-lit blips streamed across his interface, filling the target. He was intent enough that he jumped when Maryanne bumped the door open with her hip, though he didn't look up until she set a tin tray on the steel edge of his desk.
The napkin-covered outline of a revolver lay beside the coffee pot, the china cup, and a doughnut on the gold-rimmed plate.
"Dark on Wednesdays" a/k/a "Babylon, And On"
The Tower beside the gold-glass ziggurat rose through a veil of transplanted tropical jungle plants, complete with richly scented orchids in concealed pots, to scrape a desert sky burned almost colorless by the intensity of the Nevada sun.
"Chatoyant"
"Chatoyant," said of a mineral's luster: "containing numerous hair-like inclusions aligned to produce 'catseye' figures in reflected light."
(A Don Sebastien story, and all I have is this one line and a page of notes.)
"Gretchen & Tamara Go Bowling"
Too easy by half, but a girl's got to eat.
(I have no plot for this yet. It might have a shoggoth. That's all I know.)
"Love Among the Talus"
In the land of the shining empire, in a province north of the city of Messaline and beyond the great salt desert, a princess with a proverbially tip-tilted nose lived with her mother, the Dowager Queen. The province was very wealthy. The princess was very beautiful. The future looked very dark.
(This is my "cold rock sex" story.)
"Paddareen"
The dead man sat in a wing-backed chair before a cold fireplace. His rooms were dark and still.
(This is an Abby Irene story, with Jack and Sebastien too.)
"The Death of Terrestrial Radio"
The first word was meant to be spoken quietly, if it should ever be spoken at all.
"1796"
Mrs. John Adams looked to her sewing.
(And that is exactly all I have of that story so far.)
Untitled "Beauty & the Beast" riff
Sandy loam clung in the cleats of her hard rubber soles as she limped on to the wooden causeway. Good earth, that road ran through; the river must flood across the cornfields at her back in the spring. The low retaining wall beneath the palace on the island told her as much. She left little packed divots of that earth behind as she walked forward, boards springy under her step, her attention focused on the waving of the causeway, the scent of the breeze off the land behind her, the blue of the river on either side.
Not on the square whitewashed towers of the palace on the island. Not on the fairytale pewter gleam of its graceful domes, clad in beaten silver. Not on its proud spires and banners, not the low dark archway set askew of the road that led her inside.
She'd have all the time in the world to get used to those.
"On Safari in R'lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera"
I've got nothing but a title. But oh, how I love that title.
Hmm.
*puts the stories in a paper bag on top of the refrigerator with an apple or two and hopes*
- Mood:
determined - Music:Ella Fitzgerald & Joe Pass - Nature Boy
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