Distractions

     It's Friday again, and this time, I have some good news. I have actually been writing again. Not as much as I would like, but it's coming and that makes me happy. I think I have nearly 10k of words on book 5, which is pretty darn good considering that I'm still working on some of the character motivations. It means that this book could end up being a lot like book 4 was. When I worked on book 4 during NaNoWriMo, the story just wasn't coming. I finished 50k, but the story didn't make sense till I worked over the plot again. I ended up rewriting all of it, but book 4 was way better as a result. 

     Of course, I can't guarantee that this one won't end up being pretty perfect as well in the end. That's the thing with drafts; a lot of the time, you just don't know till you go back and read it again. 

     That said, there has been a lot to distract all of us this month. The Boys is out on Amazon Prime and while I refuse to pay Amazon every month for Prime (their streaming service leaves a lot to be desired), I don't mind paying for it a month to get this show. As well, K/DA has been gracing all of us with their music and I'm here for it. Villain had an amazing video for it... I can't wait to see Drum Go Dum later today. Lastly, Sakuna of Rice and Ruin has finally been released. It's a video game about an adorable goddess, daughter of a harvest deity and a warrior deity. You are the goddess, banished to an island and tasked with clearing the isle of dangerous oni. It's a mix of side-scrolling adventure and Story of Season farm sim. Because while you may be a goddess of Ruin, you cannot forget that you are also a goddess of Rice. You have to grow rice, take care of the humans in your care, and become the goddess you were always meant to be. I haven't played it yet, but I can't wait to. 

Picture was taken from XSeed's website... The art is phenomenal as you can see.

     So, while I get back to writing, tell me what's distracting you this November. Or are you just as diligent and on the job as ever and I'm just a slacker? Let me know.

Sneak Peek - Lord's Curse

I promised you a bit of the book today to whet your appetite for the main course next week. So, without further ado, here is the first chapter of Lord's Curse! Set your calendars for the 12th and remember that the ebook is on pre-order! 

Chapter 1

     Deckard knew that healing people wasn’t easy. It took skill, patience, and knowledge to mend bones, close wounds, and stop disease. His innate abilities helped, of course, but he refused to rely on their power. Mainly because he had always wished that he didn’t have it at all. Blessed were rare and prized; they could heal anything short of true death. Unfortunately, due to their rarity, they were treated much in the same way a rare animal was; they lived fine lives in gilded cages. A beautiful contraption, so long as you didn’t think too hard about the fact that it was still a cage.

     He had never been kept that way. Instead, his mother had taught him to use his ability sparingly, gently encouraging the body to mend itself faster while he healed with more conventional means rather than let his secret out. He was the youngest healer in Hidan, but he had studied hard, trained for years to learn the trade and gain the trust of the community. He had built himself a normal life.

     All that work and effort… wasted.

     Dark thoughts fouled his mood, and the weather seemed to follow suit, bringing winds that chilled him to the bone. He shivered, pulling his jacket snugly around him. Deckard turned the corner with relief as he saw the warm glow of the Lucky Koi Inn. The chill of spring hadn’t been replaced by summer’s warmth yet and wouldn’t be for another month or more. The cold had gotten to him more than he liked lately, a condition he hoped the fire burning in the Koi’s huge stone fireplace would be able to solve.

     He studiously ignored the fact that the cold he’d been feeling had nothing to do with the weather.

     He jogged to the heavy door and opened it, slipping inside.

     The lamps were lit in the center of the room, the area most densely filled, leaving dark, lonely spots against the walls where young lovers could pretend they had privacy. The stone fireplace sat against the far wall, beside the door that led into the kitchen. The fireplace was a two way, open to both rooms and through it, the scent of old fish stew and new bread with melting butter wafted into the main room.

     As the door closed behind him, every eye turned his way. Their eyes judged him warily; the same as they would Tieni simply for being one of the Corvidae. He waited to be recognized and his heart skipped in an unhealthy way when he realized that while they knew him, they weren’t sure if he was a friend or a stranger anymore.

     Deckard had been living in Hidan since he was eleven. He’d fought hard to be accepted, to be welcome in their places. It had taken years and becoming a healer to do it. The idea of working his way back to that acceptance among them seemed insurmountable.

     He would have left were it not for seeing Tieni in the far corner, near the kitchen, strumming her lute. Her hair and face were dark, but her clothes were bright, garish when compared to the rest of the townsfolk. She saw him and smiled. That smile still made him feel giddy. She quietly played another measure and then shook her curly hair out, thanking everyone. Even from the door, he could hear, faintly, the sound of her thick hair beads clicking. She gestured towards the bar with the instrument and quickly began tugging a thin string through its bridge. She bit her lower lip as the cord stretched.

     Deckard walked over to the bar focusing on Tieni’s strong hands rather than the stares of people he’d thought of as friends. As he neared the bar, Kenneth caught his eye, an expression of pity on his face.

     “They’ll get over it soon enough, Deckard,” he said, cleaning a glass. “It’s only been a week, after all.” His expression was friendly, and Deckard relaxed seeing it. At least one person didn’t think he had suddenly changed just because they’d found out he was a blessed.

     Kenneth had been the bartender here since Deckard had moved here, but he thought the man was wrong in this case. Nothing had been right since the stranger, Richard, had come to town. With the way things were going, he didn’t think they’d get any better when he finally left again.

     Richard had been searching for a ship lost at sea decades before. While in Hidan, four men had nearly succeeded in murdering him. It had been Kuzunoha, his own ex-girlfriend, who had saved the stranger’s life by bringing Richard to Deckard. Once healed, Richard had convinced her to go treasure hunting with him. Deckard had thought that neither of them would be his trouble again. Until the stranger had returned to town a week later with Kuzunoha nearly dead in his arms.

     During their adventure, she’d gotten herself infected with a mold that had been turning her insides to jelly. His heart had been caught in his throat, choking him as he’d felt her heartbeat stutter and stop. He shivered remembering the feeling of her dying in his arms. He’d been lucky that the healing itself hadn’t killed her. He hadn’t considered the consequences before he’d made use of his power, forcing the mold and sickness out through her pores.

     Everyone thought he’d brought her back from the dead.

     He hadn’t, of course. There were limits to his power and death was one of them. Kuzunoha had been on the brink, unconscious with a heart stuttering to a stop, but it was close enough for his power to restart it as the sickness was forced out of her body. Everyone had seen him do it, his body practically glowing with the magic released.

     Of course, he didn’t regret saving Kuzunoha’s life. He just hoped that people would come to their senses soon; that saving her wouldn’t end up costing him the life he’d built here.

     “I hope so. Could you have a couple of drinks and some stew brought over to my table?”

     Kenneth nodded.

     “The usual drinks for you and the cro– and Tieni?”

     Kenneth was a good man, but he still referred to Tieni as a crow. Strangers were always treated with a mix of suspicion and attraction, and that held double for the traveling folk known as the Corvidae. Fortunately, Tieni could sing and play the lute more than passably well. Since she’d left her family, they let her play in the inns, walk around Hidan and outwardly, people welcomed her like they would have any other traveling bard. So long as she didn’t steal their men, their children, their coin, or caused any trouble. Of course, his relationship with her was seen as proof of the other three and some people were becoming vocal about it.

     Kenneth’s eyes flicked to Deckard’s left, noting someone walking up to the bar and gave Deckard a nod.

     Deckard glanced behind him to see who was coming and smiled, recognizing Carol, the smith’s youngest daughter. She was younger than him, wearing her bright hair bound into a matron’s hair clip. Her wool dress was undyed, other than a single tiny handprint in bright blue. She carried her young son in her arms.

     He knew her from around town, but the first time he'd spent time with her was when he'd helped deliver her son a few months back. What had she named the boy again? Calvin? He hoped the child hadn’t taken ill. It was all too easy for cold to get into the lungs when they were that young.

     “Good eve, Master Healer,” Carol said, pausing when her voice caught. She could be terribly nervous at times. He tried to smile warmly, even as he stepped back towards the bar.

     “Good eve to you, Carol. How is Calvin doing?”

     She’d come in much closer than she usually preferred to. Her expression was intense; wide unblinking eyes and the rest of her face set as if rigor mortis were about to set in. Before he could worry about what might be wrong, she thrust a thick set of blankets at him. The baby burbled happily inside, smiling as if he recognized Deckard, at least enough to know that he was a friend.

     “I didn't ask before; I didn't know to ask... can you bless my baby? I want him to grow up strong and handsome and skilled with bow and fishing rod...”

     Deckard held up his hands and moved away.

     “Carol... I helped you deliver him. I'm the same guy I was then.”

     Her eyes filled with tears of relief and she pulled Calvin towards her chest, hugging him.

     “You blessed him when he was born? Thank you!”

     That was not what he’d been trying to say. He tried again. “Carol, I didn't... I can’t…”

     She looked confused and then her expression turned stricken and she squeezed Calvin to her chest protectively. The babe squeaked and then burbled at his mother in annoyance.

     “You don't approve of my son?”

     “Calvin is fine-”

     “Is it me you don't approve of?”

     Calvin had started to whimper now, not sure why his mother and friend were arguing. In any other situation, he would have taken Calvin from her, playing with him to make him smile again. He wouldn’t do it with Carol acting so erratically.

     He had to stop this before it got out of hand. Tieni stepped in front of him and gestured at Carol’s baby.

     “The blessed doesn’t feel worthy of your thanks but he knows that you will be a perfect mother to the little one.”

     Carol pulled Calvin closer to her breasts as if worried Tieni might try to reach out and grab him. She looked up to Deckard for confirmation. She smiled after he nodded and glanced back at her baby as she walked away.

     “Thank you,” he whispered.

     He was normally better with words, but the idea that he could do what Carol had asked was ludicrous. He was just a man. One with a God-given gift that could heal nearly any sickness, but a man, nonetheless. Who would have come up with the idea that he could grant wishes and make people’s lives easier? Everyone’s eyes were still on him.

     Tieni pretended not to notice.

     “You need to learn how to escape from people like that.”

     At her words, every eye turned to glare at her. More than a few of those included him in their wrathful stare. Kenneth growled loudly behind them.

     “Hey! No one messes with one of Hidan’s healers. Blessed or not, he's safe in my establishment. Go back to your drinks.”

     There was a pregnant pause before everyone returned to their food and talk. Deckard let out a breath.

     “Thank you.”

     Kenneth picked up another glass, filling it.

     “My momma nearly died of the flu; didn't because you helped her. Whether you healed her or blessed her, I got nothing to say either way. You got the job done and that’s what matters. Now, go take a seat.” He slid their drinks towards them.

     Tieni smiled at Kenneth and grabbed the ale he’d pushed towards her with one hand while he grabbed the light-colored wine. Tieni led the way to one of the dark tables, near enough to the fire that Deckard started to sweat. He put his drink on the table and pulled his jacket off, tossing it on the back of his chair before sitting down. This close to the fire, it should be thoroughly heated by the time they wanted to go back home.

     “Thank you Tieni. I’m sorry you had to see… that.”

     “I hadn’t expected anything else. I mean, I waltzed in and took the best-looking guy in town from them. They were never going to like me,” she said, pretending as if he’d meant the glares she’d received, rather than his embarrassment. She continued, “I will say that I'm surprised to get it from the menfolk too. Normally it's only women that are the vindictive ones, fearing I'll steal their husbands and sons.”

     He wanted to argue, but even if it hadn’t been true before, with his status as a blessed known, he would certainly be Hidan’s most eligible bachelor. Some were treating his newfound status as if he were a gift of the heavens, but even the ones that distrusted him were willing to thrust their daughters at him. Elder Zeisolf had begged him to consider his twelve-year-old granddaughter for a betrothal since she wouldn’t be able to legally marry for another five years.

     “They don’t seem to understand that if I was going to marry someone here, I would have done it already.” His tone had venom to it.

      Tieni took a drink from her mug and licked the ale froth from her upper lip.

     “No one wanted you to marry her, but they still would have preferred her to me.”

     It was a nice assumption, but he wouldn’t have bet on it holding water. Most people in town wanted nothing to do with Kuzunoha. They tolerated her, would accept her spending her family’s money in their establishments, but that was as far as it went. Even her beauty and her family’s wealth hadn’t been enough to entice more than one or two to offer, unsuccessfully, for her hand. He admitted that after he’d broken it off between them, that realization had cheered him, petty as it was.

     “I'd hoped they would start accepting you as one of them.” He told her.

     She scoffed. “Deckard, some of these people still refer to you as the ‘new boy’.”

     The new boy… while he preferred wine, with the way this conversation was going, he wished he’d ordered something harder.

     “What are they saying about Kuzunoha?” He asked.

     “What you would expect; you healed her for old times’ sake, that you still love her and are using me,” she snorted. “I don’t mind admitting that I had wondered. Now that she’s been with us for a week, I see those rumors are just that. Speaking of, how long before she can go home?”

      Deckard frowned, looking to his drink again.

     “The sickness that nearly killed her is gone. Unfortunately, it did a lot of damage before I pushed it out. Her body is weak and thin, her blood flows sluggish and her muscles could take weeks to fully repair themselves. And don’t get me started on that leg injury.”

      “You could heal her faster, couldn’t you?”

     He resented the question. First, he didn’t want to rely on his power that way, had trained hard for years so he wouldn’t have to. He also didn’t want to set the precedence that he would. Healing was difficult enough the way he used it, bolstering all his patients to heal a little faster than they would have naturally. He didn’t even know if he could use it the way she suggested, and he wasn’t going to put any energy into finding out.  

     “I don't want her in my home any more than you do, but I won’t turn her out until she’s well.”

     He was also concerned that she wouldn’t stay at her sister's, meaning that she’d be staying with Richard. In addition to the Koi being less than optimal for someone convalescing, he also didn’t think that sharing a room with that man would result in the rest she needed.

     Tieni nodded and hesitantly put her hand on his. “My father’s letter arrived. He’s wondering when I’ll rejoin the caravan.”

     Deckard sipped his wine again and leaned back. The Corvidae didn’t settle often. They might for a season, maybe two, but if they stayed longer, they tended to stay forever. Tieni had been here since the festival of light, a full season already.  

     “What did you tell him?”

     “I’ll wait until he gets here and see how things are if I haven’t decided before then.” She shrugged. “He should arrive by late summer.”

     “That wasn’t what I asked.” He moved a hand to hers and wrapped it around her fingers.

     She looked away. “I can’t stay forever, Deckard. I like you. But if you’re asking if I’d ever give it up and stay in one place…” she shook her head. “I can’t answer that yet.”

     He kept his hand on hers, but she turned hers so that he could caress her wrist. She knew how much it soothed him. 

     “Would you consider leaving Hidan?” she asked.

     The idea nearly gave him hives. Travel was dangerous; his father had died on the road and his mother had never been the same. Inside the walls, there was safety… but even more than that, Hidan was home now. His heart was pounding. Could he leave town, leave everything that he knew for her?

     “Can I think about it?”

     He saw a shadow move out of the corner of his eye and turned to see Kenneth’s wife bringing out their dinners. Tieni leaned over the table and kissed him over the bowls of thick stew and fresh-baked bread.

     “Of course.”

That All-Important Detail...

As I work through editing my next book, tentatively titled Lord's Curse, I have found myself returning to my world building. Not to change it, but just to immerse myself in the stupidly large amount of information I have about this world that you guys will only see in tiny bits and pieces. One of those items is the religions of my world. 

Photo by JuniperPhoton on Unsplash. Picture of an Inari Shrine. 

I currently have four fully fleshed out religions for the world, one mostly worshiped by the Dreven like Deckard, one mostly worshipped by the Sian Ku characters like Himiko and Isashi, one worshiped by the Corvidae like Tieni and one worshipped in the land Richard came from. Richard's religion is actually unique in my world, at least so far, in that it is no longer worshipped just by the core people who created it. Due to the metropolis nature of Jiza, most religions are known and worshipped there, but the most popular by a landslide with all people who live in the country is that of the Courtesan. 

I have an excel document, four or five pages long, where I list important information, like the deities in each religion, the avatars, saints and holy people, how each thinks the world was created, whether there is a prophesied end, holy colours, how the church is treated, marriage and other life changes handled, clergy organization and even a few rituals and holy days as well as how general worship is done. 

I didn't need to go this far into the religions, but I have always been interested by real world religions, and its a place where I find that so many books fall short. So many authors have one religion world-wide and you can usually tell reasonably easily exactly which religion they chose to emulate. That always seemed limited to me, and so when I chose to write my novels, I naturally put my work into making that area fully fleshed out. While I don't discuss it too much in my first book, it tends to come up a bit in book two and I go much deeper into it in the third book. 

I'm sure that the authors who don't focus on religion probably focus on the things they enjoy reading about in their books. Things like how the military is run, how governments are run, magic systems, the biology of their world... heck, even the technology in their worlds. My thing is just religions and the mythology of the world.

What do you find the most interesting details that your favourite authors insert into their books? Also, would you like me to talk in detail about all four of the current religions of my world, specifically on my blog? If its something that you would find interesting, let me know! 

Also, just a reminder, if you're in Calgary, I am going to be signing books at the Sunridge Chapters Indigo on June 9th from noon to 3pm. If you're available, come by and see me, pick up a book, and/or get yours signed! I'll hope to see you there!

Early Presents

Its the most wonderful time of the year!

          Or at least that's what the song says. Personally, I love all seasons of the year for different reasons. One of the reasons I do love this time of year though is that my childhood basically taught me that the colder months of the year were filled with presents. First, there was Back-to-School Shopping, which as a stationery lover, was always amazing for me. Then in October, my mother and brother had their birthdays, as well as Halloween happening at the end of the month and then we'd move right in Christmas when my sister and I celebrated our birthdays. While it was tough on the gift side of things, I did learn that it wasn't the amount spent on the gift but the love behind it that mattered. That is why, even today, when inviting people to my birthday, I remind people that I want their presence, not their presents. 

         This year, a friend of mine got me the coolest gift though. She'd heard that a local book bindery/bookstore offering classes that taught us bookbinding. Seriously, by the end of the day, we had all created a tiny hardbound notebook each.

          I should note here, that the pictures below were all taken by a mutual friend of ours that also attended the class.

          We started off with taking about fifty sheets of plain paper and folding them over in groups of five. Then we poked four holes along the edge and tied them together with a needle and beeswaxed thread. 

Take some sheets of paper and fold in half. Then rip or cut down the folded edge. Fold each of the remaining sheets down the centre again. Do them in groups of five or six. Otherwise your packets will be unruly to work with.  

Take a piece of tough string and run it through beeswax a few times. 

Poke four holes through each sheaf of paper. Then start running the thread through, tying each sheaf to the others as you go. 

Here is what the finished set of knotwork looks like. 

          After that, you get to glue on a type of cheesecloth over the spine to help it stay together and you glue on the inner pages. Once you're done you can choose your cover colour and measure out cardboard to make the hardcover. Then you can take the leather or other cover material and glue your cardboard onto it. Then you can wrap the leather around it and glue your book into it. After that, you can press the books to get the inner glue to stick your books together super tightly. 

Unfortunately, I missed getting pictures of most of the cover making and final assembly, but we did get a picture of all of our notebooks getting pressed in the machine though!

         In the end, you have a perfect, little, finished book; notebooks in our cases, since we just used plain paper.

Here are our finished books. 

          The person running the class even let us use some gold leaf and design our books to be more personalized. Unfortunately, the gold leaf didn't stick on the bottom design of mine; its the one in the back that says Feytouched, which is my preferred online handle.  

        Overall, we had a great time making these, even if my cover ended up a bit misshaped on the spine end. I really like the way it turned out, though the rose design on the bottom didn't take the gold leaf well, so it looks more embossed than gold-leafed. One of my latest art supplies though happened to be silver and gold ink, which makes me wonder if I could ink it and make it as nice as the rest. If I do attempt it, I'll share the results in a future post. 

        Offhand, if you are ever looking for a really cool way to spend an afternoon, talk to your local book bindery and see if you can find a place that offers the class. If you're in Calgary, Alberta, I really suggest calling Octavia Book Bindery. It was where we went and they were awesome. I learned a lot and it absolutely rocked. Have you ever done bookbinding? Do you think it would be something you'd enjoy? Let me know in the comments below!

Scalpel vs Chainsaw

          It's a week into April and I'm not even at four hours of my goal yet. Not that I'm horribly surprised. I knew that my first week would pretty much suck. I had a vacation planned with my hubby for our anniversary and I did not have time during the vacation to work on it. Still, I have done some every day that I wasn't on vacation and I'm currently working on it on the other half of my screen. It's my hope to get a few hours of work on it tonight and tomorrow to catch up.

          So today, I am going to talk about something that I've been dealing with this week and that is making the decision to cut your work. Sometimes in editing, you have to cut, not only a few of your words but a rather large amount. I had to do this earlier in the week. During editing, I realized that one entire chapter couldn't be saved. Just to make sure we're on the same wave here, I am not talking about killing your darlings. What I'm talking about is making the decision to slice entire chapters out of work.

          It's still extremely an extremely difficult decision to make. For me, cutting out a line or even a paragraph is a meh, sort of experience. I know I'm making it better and thus, I don't bother sweating the small stuff. Cutting an entire chapter feels a lot different though. To me, it's more like making the decision that all of my writing sucks and has to be reworked. It's even harder if I know that it was a chapter I had trouble writing in the first place.

          I made that decision this week. One entire chapter wasn't doing its job and wasn't doing it well enough to even re-tool the chapter, where I go through and essentially destroy the original chapter, only keep 10% of the words, kill the other 90%, and add new ones back. It's a bitch of a thing to do, but sometimes you have to chainsaw your work, rather than using a scalpel.

          Ah well, time to get back to it.

Baby Steps

          I'm going to start doing small posts to get back into doing this on a weekly/twice-weekly basis. To that end, today's post is just going to be a quick update on where my writing is. I have been writing, nearly every day since I finally finished reading Anne Bishop's latest novel, Etched in Bone. I'd been waiting a year to read it, so from the moment I received it, there was very little writing being done.

          Since then, I've written a rough draft of a new chapter and written some on a new one. Right now these are very rough and honestly, I sorta hate them (one I finished and realized that what I had learned from that chapter was one way NOT to write that chapter), but I think the main issue with them right now is that they feel like puzzle pieces that don't fit. A lot of it is transitions and some of it is the fact that they are still rough, without the faintest of editing yet. I think that once I've worked on them more I'll fall in love with them and as I work on making them fit in with my novel, they will start fitting in a lot better. Right now though, I have the difficult task of working when I feel like I can't write. But I am determined to get this done, and so I'm hoping that these added chapters will be done soon and I can start the editing. I really want this book to be done, sent to my editor and out for the rest of you soon. I also don't want to send out an inferior novel just because I'm impatient. Its a difficult line to walk. Not perfect, but not inferior either.  Hopefully you'll agree with me that its been worth it when you read it.

          But that's enough for now. I'll see you all next time!

Preorders and (Amazing) Purchases

          Bleh, failure after failure... All my fault. February has hit fully, which means painful tendonitis flare-ups and an intense desire to read, forever. Still, lazy doesn't mean I get off scott-free. I have been reading a whole hell of a lot, mainly in preparation for next month and the release of a new book by my one of my favourite authors. Buying that book may have led to me going a bit insane with the books, though... Let me regale you. 

          When Anne Bishop first released Written in Red, an urban fantasy in a not-earth setting, I held off getting it until Christmas of that year and even then, it was not the book I was most excited about. I had a lot of amazing books that year, but Written in Red was one of my favourites. Every year since then, she's released another one, with the final book being released this March, finally. Even after so long, I have been excited as hell for this novel. I've been reading the entire series again, just to make sure that I'm 100% caught up on the entire story before the last one comes out on the 7th. 

          That wasn't the end, though. I found other items that made me drool in anticipation. Spice & Wolf had mentioned an upcoming release last November of a Collectors Edition with all 17 of the past books in it. I was super excited for it, even if the price tag of nearly $200 depressed me. Anyways, as I assume you've figured out by then, I found out that it was being released on February 28th. I couldn't resist, even with the price tag and knowing that I already own all 17 books in physical copies. 

          I received that book today. 

           It's amazing. The book is huge, a near-perfect square. The writing inside is reddish and every drawing of the series has been made larger for this set. The quality is incredible I am so excited. I will probably never read it, sure I would cry if I damaged it. Take a look at my pictures. What do you think of it?

          I am so pleased with my purchase, you have no idea. I have convinced my husband that it needs a velvet-lined stand to display it in. 

          I also found out that Isuna Hasekura has written another book for the Spice & Wolf series that will be focusing on Holo and Lawrence's daughter. Apparently, he's handing over Holo's crown to her, and a full book of her and Cole's adventures will be coming out later this year, or early next... at any rate, I ordered that as well, though I think it won't be releasing until May this year. 

          Then I found out that Patricia Briggs is releasing books as well this month.... I should rise again to continue writing soon, but for today, and for the next week or so, assume that I'll be writing. 

          What about you? With so many books being released right now, are there any that you're super excited about? Let me know in the comments below.

Plotting away...

Alright! I am back and writing again. My arm is still hurting a bit... it seems that the fall managed to exacerbate my tendinitis, which had been reasonably good until then. However, with time all things heal... and get even better! I had time to finish reading over that section and have a plethora of idea to throw in to change the part that my editor suggested cutting. Don't get me wrong, quite a bit of it will still be cut, but a lot will be added as well, including an entire section with Skylla that wasn't in before. It will take a bit of work to do, but that doesn't scare me; I wrote a book. If work scared me, I'd never have begun all this in the first place.

However, my tendinitis is still here, which does mean I'm taking it a bit slower than I would like right now. I'm starting off with a regime of a minimum of 250 words a day. If I'm on a roll at that point, I can continue writing to my heart's content, but if I'm hurting I can stop, knowing I've done my work for the day. So far, its working well. I'm hoping to have a few chapters done of it sooner.

I'm also considering sharing my first couple of chapters on here... if that's something you think you'd like, let me know in the comments below.

Lastly, I can share some exciting news with you all! I finally got my professional pictures taken. It will take me a few weeks to get my pictures back, but when I do, I will have a headshot ready and waiting for my novels as well as a fun picture for things like Facebook and maybe even Twitter. I can't wait to show them off! Keep an eye out for those coming soon!

My Top Ten Tips for Writing

Oh, I almost forgot! I gave a presentation on my top ten writers tips for ARWA with a few of the other awesome ladies there. The girls at the meeting loved my list (as well as some of my turns of phrase) and I figure my tips can only help you achieve more words during Nanowrimo, especially since week two blues may start setting in this week.

Top Ten Tips for Writing

     1. Read. Watch TV. Go see a movie. Interact with the stories you see being told by critiquing what was done well and what was done poorly in each. By interacting with the stories others have crafted, you’ll learn a lot not only about how to construct a good story as well as what sort of stories are being told right now, but you’ll also learn about your own style of writing.

      

     2. For each new book, figure out when you work best. I’ve had novels that only seemed to flow if I was working on them at 2 am in the afternoon and others where getting to work 45 minutes early (around 6am) could earn me 1500 words a day. Don’t expect to always write at the same time for every novel. Circumstances change; your writing should be flexible enough to change with them.

     3. Similarly, figure out where you write best for each novel. Do you write best at home? At work? Headphones on but no music? In a public place, like a coffee house or restaurant? Each novel will draw on different inspirations. Keeping your muse amused is your best bet for writing without issue.

  

     4. When issues do arrive, take time away from your keyboard. Slamming your head against the keys, forcing it, just makes for bad writing. Try to write past it. If it doesn’t work, call a friend, head for coffee or a walk and let your mind dwell on it for a while.

     5. Also, remember your friends when you’re writing. ‘We’ are smarter, wiser and more intelligent than you will ever be on your own. I can’t even imagine how many times I’ll be 100% stumped and blocked, told my husband about it and had him provide a perfect way out for the characters. Use your friends and family whenever you need help.

     6. Find a writing program you enjoy and use it. If Scrivener helps you write, use it. If Word is your thing, go for it. If you need a typewriter in a dark room, lit by candles, it's still valid. Whatever you use, find out about its ins and outs, tips and tricks, so that you can concentrate on your story when you sit down, not the program or technology you’re using to write it.

       7. Writing is hard. Don’t berate yourself over it. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s(Que Baz Luhrmann’s Wear Sunscreen). Seriously, though, allow yourself to make mistakes. Especially for people who don’t plan every detail of their novels in advance, sometimes a mistake can lead your story not only back on track, but to an even better place than you’d originally thought.

     8. Find a friend to keep you on task. However, a critical component of this is having something that you need to keep them on task for as well. Whether it's writing, chores, or something equally unpleasant. Otherwise, every time your friend turns to you and asks, you’ll feel like it’s a nag and that isn’t fun or motivating.

     9.  Patricia Briggs once said that every writer needs a good 'Mike'. In a specific sense, she means her husband Mike, but in a less specific sense, she’s still entirely right. Her husband edits her work, keeps her on task, takes care of her when she’s writing, and can’t take care of herself. He keeps their web page active, keeps track of their online shipping, and does all the heavy lifting and carrying for her when they travel to conventions and the such for work. Whether your ‘Mike’ is a husband, wife, good friend, or family member, there may be many like it, but that one will be yours.

      10. You can polish shit writing into gold. Trust me, I’ve done written the dullest of turds before. But you can’t edit an empty page. If you are writing and it isn’t working, you have just learned one way, not to write this scene. You have still learned something and you can apply that lesson to all of your future works.

    

Do You Want to Read an Update? It Isn't Just an Update...

          Wow, I did not realize that ten days had passed since my last post. I should have, but this cold I caught has driven me to the brink of exhaustion. So, I apologize for that. I'm finally getting better and so I figured I should really get on with my next post. Which is part self-congratulations and part gift from me to you.

          First off, a quick update on my plans from now to the end of the year. My novel has been self-edited and sent to my beta-readers. First responses have been overall positive, with one asking me flat-out when the sequel would be ready. I'm hoping to have full comments from them in the next day or so which will allow me to go through it once more before I send it to a professional editor to go over.

          Yes, I have arranged for time with an editor for Hunter in early November. I don't know how long that process will take overall, but given any chance, I'm hoping to have it out and available for Christmas this year. It will depend on a lot of factors and with this being my first time going through the process, I could be severely underestimating the time needed for it. In any event, as soon as I have news on that front, I'll let you know. I'm hoping to give you as much time as possible to get excited for its release before it comes out!

          I will also be working on a new novel for Nanowrimo, the third book in my Kitsune-Ken series (I wrote the second earlier this year). I'm expecting it to be another 65-75k words, so I'll probably have to finish it in December (though I'll be a Nano-rebel and start it early if I have it ready before November 1rst).

          For those of you planning on doing Nanowrimo with me, I got bored a few months ago and put this together.

          The picture is from Frozen, though I'm uncertain of who originally created this version. If you find out, please let me know so I can attribute it correctly. You can customize it pretty much however you want to match your total, the year or whatever. My idea was to use it as a single sheet to keep you motivated since you update it daily. Really however you decide to use it, just have fun.

THE SITE IS BACK UP!!!

          Yes, it's that time again. As of October 1st, the NaNoWriMo site relaunched with all their new bells and whistles ready to go. For me(and 350,000+ other writers, worldwide), "it's the most wonderful time of the year".

          For those of you who don't know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Every November(to take advantage of the nearly universally crappy weather), people around the world devote themselves to writing a novel. Some write longer novels, some shorter, some write multiple novels, but they are all held fast by a promise to try to write at least 50,000 words during that month. And that's pretty much the rules. Agree to write 50,000 on a novel/work of fiction during the month of November.

          In general, for new writers, they suggest starting something completely new, rather than working on something you've spent years on. This is for a good reason. If you think about how you have to make this work perfect, you'll never finish it in the timeframe, if ever. With a new novel, you have fewer inhibitions to hold you back.

          Personally speaking, I've been doing NaNoWriMo since 2007, which will make this my 10th year(and 9th win, hopefully) and I have to admit, I can't imagine November without it. I've written completely new novels, I've continued old novels, I've rewritten novels for it, always getting my 50,000 words. The one year I didn't win was my first. I signed up early, forgot about it for half the month and then wrote just over 2,000 words before giving up. I promised myself that I would clear my plate for the next November. I did and wrote 67,306 words.

          I suggest that everyone try it at least once. Even if the only thing you learn is that you don't like writing, it's been useful. If you do end up enjoying it, you'll have found a new hobby, a new facet of yourself that you never knew before.

          If you do sign up, please follow me and let me know on the site! My handle there is Feytouched and I would love to keep track of each of your novels with you!

          As well, if you're in the Calgary Nanowrimo group, the Wrimotaurs(like a minotaur, but with a quill instead of a hammer), you'll be seeing me on the Facebook page every day. My nickname there is now The Lady of Best Lines because I started a new trend of asking people what their favourite lines they wrote that day were. I'll be continuing that again this year! So if you write a perfect line, you have a place to share it. It takes a lot to share any writing let alone a first draft line! But I know every one of you is up to the task!

          Lastly, if you haven't seen yet. NaNoWriMo has a new thing on their site this year! It's a timer so you have a place to time your sprints on. Apparently, it will also have a pop-up so you can add your word count immediately onto the site if you wish. I'm totally looking forward to trying it out.

Stats!

It has been way too long, but I finally have some stats for you.

The original title for this novel was just "Kuzunoha's Story", which changed just before last Nanowrimo to Kitsune-Ken. Kitsune-Ken, while an awesome name, didn't really apply to just this story, so it became my series name. Just last month, the final name I chose suggested itself... Hunter.

Kitsune-Ken (狐県) is the name of a Japanese game. It's basically a type of rock, paper, scissors game, where your choices are Hunter, Fox, and Village Head, though I always remember it better as Lord. The game is played by making hand symbols, like in rock, paper, scissors, but instead of just one hand, you use both hands. To make the sign for Hunter, you move your hands to mimic holding a rifle. To make the sign for Fox, you put both hands up above your head as if they were a fox's ears. To make the sign for Lord, you sit up straight and lay both hands on your legs. In the game, the hunter beats the fox with his gun, the fox beats the lord by tricking him and the lord beats the hunter by being of a higher social class. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is also a version of this where players lose an article of clothing each time they lose a round.

Hunter was originally 175 pages long when finished and was 76,224 words long. The current version is only 169 pages and 65,263 words long. The original chapters were much longer; I only had 34 of them (and one was nearly 15 pages). The current version has chapters much closer to each other in length; about 4 pages average and has 41 chapters.

The first 17k were written during Nanowrimo nearly two years ago. However, I admit that what I'd written was essentially trash and it sat around on my hard drive guilting me into doing something with it. At When Words Collide 2015, I started playing with it again and apparently had sudden realized what was supposed to happen. I worked on that first 17,000 words and applied essentially heavy cutting and editing techniques before nano and cut it down to nearly 10 of words that would need to be re-written, but would do as a starting place. During Nanowrimo, I wrote another 68,635. but somewhere between 1,000 and 4,000 of it was notes on characters, places or future storylines that didn't fit within the bounds of this novel.

Kuzunoha is the main character and she has the lion's share of the chapters at 21 out of 41. Richard is the next biggest character in the story with 13 chapters. Skylla has 3 and Jocelin and Himiko both have 2. This means for all of you that want a lot of female viewpoints in your books that about 2/3 of this novel is written from a female viewpoint!

And I think that's where I'll stop. Do you guys have any questions about it?

Well, that's all she wrote...

Well, that's it, that's all she wrote, I'm done.
Except that you're never really done when you're creative. There's always another book to write, another picture to draw, another song to create... there's always something more to do.
I am finished with Hunter, the first book of my Kitsune-Ken series. I've sent it out to beta readers (though really another one or two would be helpful) and I'm waiting for them to get back to me on it. With their aid and suggestions, hopefully I can make it even better. Then its a quick trip to a professional editor, while I work on covers and figure out how the publishing world works and...
Like I said, there's always another thing to do when you're creative. This book will hopefully be released just before Christmas this year, though I'll have to adjust that after I find out more from the editor.
In addition to that, I'm planing on what's going to happen in book 3 of this series. I'm going to be writing it during Nanowrimo this year, so another thing on my authory plate.
I will have stats for you... total word count, chapter from a female/male pov, average chapter length... interesting things like that. But for right now, I've been enjoying my rest. Reading, video games, giving blood... I even hosted a painting night!
Soon enough, I'll be back to work, planning, writing short stories, and doing other assorted authorly things. But for this week, there is rest and sleep and relaxation.
What do you guys do to relax after finishing a huge project? Do you have any suggestions for any great books for me to add to my reading list?

Ass-Kicking

          Both ways really... I've been getting my ass-kicked by this last chapter and then did a little ass-kicking myself. What happened you may ask?

         Part of my novel involves the main characters finding a boat in a hidden grotto. The original chapter where they find it was useless, it required an entire rewrite. Halfway through the rewrite, I discovered that part of my research was incomplete... vastly incomplete, actually.

         One of my characters worked on the docks in his homeland and worked on a ship... he should know the types of ships and nautical words. The main character grew up in a town that had a dock and her family did high-end trade, so she's heard most of the words, even if she doesn't use them herself. I know none... What can I say? I love the water, but I grew up in land locked Calgary. Our outdoor pools open in June and my family never had enough money to go boating. Since I've grown up, I've had the opportunity to go boating once... but other than that, I have little to no experience. So, research, research, research.

          As well, learning about the ocean and nautical terms made me realize that ocean water in May at my characters latitude might be too cold for prolonged swimming. It totally is, in case you're like me and don't know. There isn't any ice in the water, but the chill is still there. Trying to find a different way for them to find the grotto left one option and that one option destroyed most of my plotting and would have required a complete re-write of the end chapters. Which was an option, but in the end, not the better one.

          Instead, I played with thermals and raised some of the waters temperature up so that it was actually warm and went back to my original plot. Sometimes, it isn't a darling that needs to be killed, but is a lover that you need you seduce back to your bed for the night.

          It was exactly what I needed. I'd been working on that chapter for 6 days already, trying to fix and unable to figure out why it wasn't working. One simple change to the original idea and I was able to rewrite it from scratch and edit it within a twenty-four hour period.

          I celebrated by playing Don't Starve and learning to play a Japanese card name called Koi Koi. Now, its back to editing before I hit the sack. Less than ten chapters to go before this novel is done and can be sent to the editor!

Netflix And Honour Seem like Odd Bedfellows

          Yesterday, I finished editing chapter 15, which is awesome. Today, I just about half finished chapter 16, though I'm hoping to get a bit more done tonight. It might be difficult since I signed up for Netflix, though.

          Okay, so I'm exaggerating. Even when I was a kid I tended to read more than I ever watched television. Still, after working a full day at work on 5 hours of sleep, I must admit that the siren song of my pillow is strong.

          I can hear the question that is probably most on your minds... if I don't watch television, why would I ever pay for Netflix? Well, my completely honourable reasons are the documentaries. I am one of those people that actually enjoy watching documentaries and since most of my novels and stories pull on myth and history for inspiration. The less than honourable reasons are, of course, enough awesome shows (like Young Justice and more than a few anime shows) that I want to watch are on it that its worth it for me to pick it up.

           Anyways, I'm going to see what I can get done and hopefully I'll have some good news for my next post.

And The Realness Just Keeps Coming

I found out yesterday that if you look on the When Words Collide website, I'm at the top of the presenters (that aren't special guests) list. A nice colour picture of me, though I'll certainly have to get an actual official photo done eventually and it even has a link to my website. I was a bit flabbergasted when I first saw it. It still has a feeling of not-quite real when it happens, like I must be looking into an alternate universe, rather than my own. Realizing that it is my own is an even stranger sensation. There is a lot of power in those situations. I've heard it called the "moment of change", and some ascribe intense power to it. You only need to budge the stone of power to make it fluidity itself. It will always return to stone later, but for that instant, you can do anything.

I suppose it will all become old hat eventually and seeing websites mention me or have my picture up won't send me into a fluttering mess inside. In the meantime, its pretty darn amazing and I sincerely hope that it won't get old quickly. In the meantime, please jump over there and take a look!

I haven't heard back from When Words Collide yet about the other workshops I was hoping to take part in, but I'll let you know when I hear something. I can tell you that I will be presenting during the ARWA meeting in October with a few of the other girls there. Once again, I'll give you more information on that when I have it!

Also, I have decided that I do need a newsletter. It will be delivered monthly and much else besides that is still up in the air about it. I think I will have a mythology section, where I will talk about a specific story, mythological creature, or in some cases, historical person if the two overlap. I will have a section for where I am in my writing/editing and what I'm currently working on. Occasionally it will include a short story (most likely under 5k) on a variety of characters, some that will be in my books and some that may have stories to tell that I won't end up writing a full book about. 

I will point it out when it is up and ready to go at any rate. I'm hoping to have it up and the first one ready to go for the first of July, so keep your eyes peeled for it, eh? Let me know if there's anything else that you would specifically like to see in a monthly newsletter beyond what I've mentioned here (or what you don't want to see if any of this makes you not want to sign up at all). 

Avast Ye Matey's; Yo Ho!

          A few days ago a friend of mine, Starla Hutchton, brought to my attention a woman online who had been asking for sites to pirate digital books from. I was appalled but didn't think much of it at the time. It sucks but aside from agreeing that these people are dirt, there wasn't much I could do. I will admit that I thought this woman was especially an idiot as she's a photographer and I'm pretty certain that she would be up in arms if I called her up, arranged a photo shoot, and then said I wasn't going to pay her but still want the pictures since I like her work.

          Today, I found out that this blew up online. Authors got involved commenting, she made fun of the authors and started banning people. The whole story is told pretty well right here, so I'll let you read it and make your own decisions. What flummoxed me though was the amount of people who agreed that pirating is right.

          I'll admit that when I was younger and I was making quarters above minimum wage that I torrented stuff. Nearly everyone did when Napster first came out. I never felt entitled to that music, but it didn't seem any worse at the time than waiting for that song to come on the radio and recording it from there. Since then I've gone to some pains to buy the music I listen to, I pay for a Crunchyroll subscription for my anime & buy series when I can, and I make a point of buying all my books.

          So why do I do it? Well, first off, it makes me feel good. Knowing that I am supporting my artists and the things I love makes me feel like I'm making a difference; like I'm letting the author know how much I appreciate their work. Usually I accompany that purchase with an email telling the author why I love their work, since as a writer myself, I've found that being told that somebody loves my work or has suggested my stories to someone else makes my day. But more than that, I do it because they deserve it. Writers and other creative people deserve to make money on the things they create.

          I will add a caveat here. Lending someone a copy of your books to give them a taste of a specific authors work is something that I totally agree with. In my experience it leads to more sales for the author. I've turned at least a number of people into fans of SM Stirling's Emberverse series by doing so and all went out and not only bought that book, but they usually continue to buy the rest of the series as well.

          However, somebody once said that people don't appreciate something they've received for free. And from what I can tell that is true. Whether its a tarot card reading, a book you've written, a picture you've drawn, a song you've made... whatever it is, you deserve something for your time. If its your first attempt that might be as simple as a compliment. But as you work on your craft, you'll get better and better at it, your skill will increase, and you deserve to begin getting paid for your work.

          You don't see CEO's saying that they work at 7-11 on the weekends to pay for their love of working for their corporation, or lawyers saying that they work at Wal-Mart 9-5 because they just can't give up defending people in court. Even priests, generally expected to be the epitome of nobility, are expected to make enough to pay for their expenses through tithing at their parish.So why are people who work in creative pursuits expected to be even more noble and give away what they do for free?

An Announcement!

So, I can now officially announce that I will be on at least one panel at When Words Collide 2016. The one panel I can tell you about right now is titled Mythologies Around the World. I suggested this because I was thinking about different ideas that I wanted to see books written about and I really wanted to see mythology and creatures that we haven't seen yet.

We started with European monsters and went from vampires to werewolves. After that we got a run in shifter stories, which simply based on the diversity of creatures has been enjoying a long popularity. We've also seen more than a few books based on witches and native mythology. But I noticed that there isn't much from other areas of the world. I thought having four or five people to talk about a different country or set of countries each that weren't often talked about would be really interesting and informative, especially if you write.

I was considering doing Japan; its a country that I'm very interested in and that I've done a lot of independent study on already. However, I decided that taking that route would be the easy one. Instead, based on my interest in the tales of the lara, a mermaid-type of creature from South America, I decided to choose Brazil.

It's a more difficult route, since I'm going to have to fit in study on a number of different creatures before I decide on exactly what to do the report on and begin planning my part of the presentation. Still, I don't regret my choice. Once I decide what I'm doing the presentation on, I'll let you know in what I'll be doing. In the meantime, if you know of a Brazilian myth, monster or tale that you think I would find interesting, please email the story and creature name to me at InkedFoxPress@gmail.com or just respond in the comments below! Also, share your favourite cultural story or critter you grew up with and where you're from... we're one world and even just a few miles makes a huge difference to the beliefs a group will hold.

Vitajte

I'm going to start off on a bit of a one-off comment here. Sometimes, I love looking at my blog stats. Today, I'm laughing because the most views of the week has come from Slovakia. Most likely its a bot, since the most used languages there are Slovak followed by Czech (though both use the Latin alphabet like English, so you never know...). On the off chance it isn't a bot, Vitajte to my Slovakian readers! If you aren't a bot, let me know by leaving a comment below, in whatever language you use. Google translate is a thing and I'm not above using it if it enhances communication.

Actually, looking at my stats, though most of my readers are in Canada, with the next largest country being (unsurprisingly) the United States, the next three are from Slovakia, Portugal and Germany. While I actually do know people in Germany (Hello Uncle Ragnar and Dan Wells*), I have to say that I think I've ever met anyone from Slovakia or Portugal. Part of me hopes it isn't the bots. I'd like to have a diverse readership when I start publishing. 

That does bring to mind Dan Wells, again though. He's an author (of Writing Excuses podcast fame as well as writing two of my favourite series - Partials and I am Not a Serial Killer) who found after publishing that most of his readership was in Germany, not his home country of America. Though I don't think that will happen to me, I'd be honoured if it did. I wonder how many writers look at their readership and viewers and how many of them are surprised by where they're most popular, especially indie writers who may be publishing everything online. 

The other thing I will mention, is that my productivity has suffered this week all due to Don't Starve. Every time I make the mistake of turning that game on, I lose hours to it without even noticing. Because of that and other general busyness, I only got a two and a half chapters finished. Bleh, back to editing... I'll make a deal with myself. After I finish editing this novel (and have most of my presentation figured out for August), I can play for a week straight with no regrets while I plan my next novel. 

*Note: While I'm throwing around Dan Wells name here, I don't actually know him in a "we're friends" way. Basically we've chatted on Twitter three or four times. If you haven't read his books, especially the above mentioned series, go find them. He's an awesome author. If you're in the stats, you can also look for his I am Not a Serial Killer book which is currently being made into a movie/theatre play right now. I'm linking his blog here, so you can find out all about his stuff as well.
TheDanWells

Mindscape

      Welcome to Wednesday! This week has been killer for me. I haven't had time for much of anything; writing or editing. I'm really looking for my weekend to make some extra time up. To account for that, I've decided to share a little short story with you guys.

      A few years ago, I was in a group where we wrote short stories on a subject and then shared them with the group. Here is a fun science-fiction one I wrote. Please, let me know what you think of it, and I'll have something with a bit more substance behind it come Sunday.

Mindspace

      Alice took a deep breath and looked to the machine as nurse Talia taped the thin disks to her forehead. The device itself was nothing but buttons and wires, with a slim unassuming white plastic case around it. It looked like the newest gaming console, with its soft lines and rounded edges but the thick needle tubes still sitting in their base destroyed the illusion. The rest of the room was white, sterile and lonely. No music played and nurse Talia worked in complete silence. The only sound was Alice’s breath and her beating heart.

     "Honey, stop that.” Nurse Talia chided in a thick South American accent. It made her drawl sound patronizing. “You’re going to start hyperventilating if you keep on like that.”

      Alice took a deep breath. “Sorry about that. I guess I’m just nervous.”

      "Ah Honey, you don’t have to be. It’s just a little trip to Mindspace. You’ll only be gone for a few minutes… hardly long enough for even a peek. You just watch, you’ll be like all the others. Crying out like a babe when I wake you up begging to stay in for just five more minutes.”

      Alice nodded. That was what she was hoping for. To be accepted as a colonist, you needed to be able to handle spending time in your own mind. Space travel meant cryogenics, and cryogenics meant Mindspace.

     “It is safe, isn’t it?”

     “Honey,” Nurse Talia sounded tired. She probably was. The package Alice had received about colonization answered all of these questions. “I’m only freezing you to minus one hundred and fifty degrees Celsius. Why you’ll only be in Mindspace for five minutes. That’s just long enough for you to get a feel of the place so that you can tell the administrators about it. You’ve passed all the other tests, being healthy, fertile, and un-poisoned. You wouldn’t be in my cryo-room if you weren’t qualified.”

      Alice nodded with a sigh. “I know. I had to check.” She smiled weakly. “It’s just such a new technology.”

      The nurse put her hand on Alice’s arm. “Honey, it’s been five years. This is the second colony ship.”

      Alice nodded. It was actually the third, but by courtesy nobody mentioned the E.S.S. Birth. The Birth had disappeared before it had reached its destination. The Earth Confederated Republic had never found the wreckage which left its fate to be argued by conspiracy theorists and people with too much time on their hands. The current favourite was that Cordians – aliens with tentacles for legs and thick voices that reverberated when they spoke – had taken it. In fact, the rumor went that they hadn’t just stolen the technology but were also using the bodies of the colonists to bring the CNTX-31 to Earth.

      Alice almost rolled her eyes. Every fifth grader knew that it was chemical reaction between expended naphtha and solar flare radiation that was mutating the Sonic Hedgehog protein and causing Earth’s infertility crisis.

      Alice winced as she felt a prick and saw nurse Talia sliding a thick tube into her forearm. Alice grabbed the seat chair, digging in with her fingernails as the tube slide into brachial artery. It was the widest vein in the arm, but it was also the closest to the base nerve clusters. She ground her teeth and swore as the nurse pushed it in the last centimeter. Her arm felt cold and then she felt the back of the tube open, allowing blood to flow through.

      Nurse Talia apologized as she moved to Alice’s leg with the next thick needle. “Sorry about that Honey, it always hurts but you seemed to be so lost in thought that I figured you wouldn’t notice.”

      Alice gritted her teeth while the other three intravenous injectors were placed in her. Then the nurse walked back over to the machine and tapped a button on it. It whirred to life, a quiet buzz in the otherwise silent room.

      “Time to sleep, Honey. I’ll see you in five minutes.”

      Alice watched as the blue fluid that would effectively flash freeze her ran towards her body. The blue fluid entered her and she felt sick, waiting for it to take effect.

      She cut off a scream as the fluid super-cooled her arms and legs, numbing them so expertly that she almost didn’t register the pain as she lost the use of her limbs. She took deep breaths, feeling the cold icy feeling work its way towards her chest. She shivered, moaning but nurse Talia shushed her.

    “Quiet Honey. It’s nearly over now.”

      Alice opened her eyes wide as the fluid entered her heart. Her shriek was cut off as her heart stopped, freezing it like it was nothing more than a steak in someone’s freezer. She collapsed, dimly aware of the numbing sensation working its way towards her brain.

      Alice felt grit on her face and blinked, trying to clear her sight. Everything was fuzzy and it took her a moment to remember why. She’d been applying for colonist privileges. Only colonists could leave the planet, escaping the pollution and radiation. It may have been dangerous to go but it was deadly to stay.

      If all had gone right, she was in Mindspace now.

      Mindspace was a name for the psychic area that your mind inhabited. The reason early cryogenics hadn’t worked was because the mind couldn’t be turned off. It had to remain active and alive, while the body stayed frozen. If the mind died, the body followed suit.

     The blue gel, known as cyroprotech, froze the body but kept the brain oxygenated and firing neutrons like the blood did. A doctor that had fallen into a coma had supposedly discovered the mental space that had made cryogenics work.

      According to the brochures included in her colonist application, Mindspace usually appeared as a favourite room, without any doors and windows. The rooms were supposed to be well lit, comfy and clean. Everything the person had learned in their lifetime could be accessed in Mindspace, as soon as you figured out the way your mind stored the information.

      The pictures the company had shown her had been large rooms, brightly lit, with yellow or off-white painted walls with brightly coloured blue and green couches or chairs. In the center of the room had been an elegant glass table. Against one wall had been a bookshelf with a TV conveniently placed in the middle shelf. Sitting almost forgotten in a corner was a computer. Pictures on the walls had shown an ocean and forest with dolphins in the first and deer and bunnies in the second.

They'd looked open, roomy and inviting; Her room looked nothing like that.

      The walls were grim and grey with paint peeling off in large chunks. The ground was littered with debris, as if the roof had fallen in at some point and no one had ever tried to clean it up. A basketball lay on the ground, in front of a huge picture window. The window was letting a weak facsimile of natural light in, tinged a dark grey that suggested gloomy clouds overhead. The window itself was open, letting in a light breeze that couldn't quite conceal the faint scent of rot. Somebody's washing line had been strung into the room, though, even through the window she couldn't see the opposite wall those lines attached to.

      Standing, she tried to wipe the grime off her. It stuck to her in grey/white clumps with the consistency of half dried mud and plaster dust. When she looked up to the roof, she realized that it was more of the rolling grey, like the kind the window showed outside. It looked almost like a low hanging cloud was obscuring the ceiling from her.

        The room felt oppressive, like she was unwelcome. Books lay in tatters on the floor, their knowledge caked by so much dirt that she doubted they could be cleaned and set to right.

      She shivered wishing there was a way out of the room that didn't involve moving closer to the open window. She looked around but the only other way out seemed to be the roof. At least if those were clouds and not just some sort of fog. She reached up hesitantly, but though the clouds looked low, they were high enough that her hand couldn’t reach them. Her hand felt cooler the closer she came to the dark roiling mass and she shivered again.

      She needed to get out of here. She walked closer to the window, looking at the rickety chair  propped up against the wall. She flicked it with a finger. It wobbled for a moment but didn't collapse into a broken heap like she'd half expected that it would.

      The breeze was stronger at the window and Alice realized that the moist scent of decay was even stronger outside. The fog looked closer here and she reached her hand out hesitantly towards it. The temperature fell as she got closer but her hand still couldn't quite reach.

It was irrational, but she had the sudden need to touch it. She leaned onto the windowsill, stretching out as far as she could. She almost lost her balance but finally her fingers touched the fluffy cloud.          For an instant, nothing happened and she felt disappointed. It should have done something, rather than just feeling…

      Suddenly, her arm felt like it was burning and Alice sucked in panicked breath. Thin ice traced its way up her arm and Alice quivered in pain, chocking off her scream as she leapt backwards into the room.

       Her hand felt like it was frozen solid and she couldn’t move it at all. It was like her limb had been turned to stone. She clutched it to her chest, forcing her mind to think past the burning cold while she tried to force her fingers to obey her. It felt like an eternity but finally, she was able to flex the cold digits. The ice around them had been thickening but with her movement it shattered, falling to the ground, where it melted to mix with the mud.

       She continued to flex her fingers, noticing that her skin had turned blue in the short amount of time the ice had covered her. As warmth started returning her skin started changing to its natural colour. When the burning was replaced by a strangely abused bruised feeling, she risked glancing up.

Her mouth dropped. The fog outside the window was clearing at an alarming rate, revealing the husk of  a dead civilization. Empty buildings rose into the sky almost out of her view. Though she could see other windows in the buildings most of them looked like they were boarded over. In the one or two open ones she could see the light of dim fires and the occasional shadow that suggested people like herself. She leaned out, waving her arms and crying for help but none of them even seemed to see her.

She turned and sat against the windowsill, still flexing her fingers absent-mindedly, with an almost twitchy motion. She wondered if the other people had been like her, trapped inside and unable to see past the omnipresent fog.

      “So you’ve managed to wake up?” an easygoing voice said. “I hadn’t expected that.”

      Alice jumped in surprise and turned to see a small black cat sitting on her windowsill. The little beast smirked at her. She had the urge to poke the cat and ask it who had spoken, but this was Mindscape. It obviously wasn’t like her world. Maybe Mindscape was like a dream and weird things happened in dreams all the time.  

     “Woke up?” she answered calmly. She rubbed her fingers together, trying to alleviate a strange pins and needles sensation in the tips.

     “Yes.” The cat told her seriously. It started cleaning a perfect black paw. “Most humans can’t see beyond the bounds of their mind, but you can.”

     “I’m not a Talent.” She told the cat. Talents were rare and feared. How could a simple trip into Mindspace turn her into one?

     “You weren’t.” he corrected. “You were a latent Talent. With one trip in here, you managed to overcome that limitation. Think of what you could be with enough practice.”

       None of the thoughts that passed through her mind were good ones. They didn’t need to be. She’d wondered all her life what having that power was like.

       “How?” she asked bluntly.

       “Do what you were going to do anyway. Take the colony ship… Imagine, if you can get this far in under five minutes, imagine what we can do over the fifteen years you’ll be in stasis.”

       She caught her breath and then nodded once. The possibilities would be endless.

       Suddenly she felt a tug and the cat nodded knowingly.

      “We’ll meet again.” he told her. 

      Before she could do anything more, she was yanked out of her Mindscape.

      Her eyes opened in a startled yelp as warmth flooded her body. She strained against the restraints as she felt each individual nerve chime as it came back to life. She collapsed against the back of the chair, shivering as the new chemicals detoxified the cryoprotech out of her system and filled her with a sensation that was surprisingly close to how it felt to drink hot chocolate on a cold day.

     There was a heavy weight on her chest and she pushed at it ineffectually, trying to catch her breath. After a moment, she could understand nurse Talia’s words. “Wake up, Honey. Stop resisting. It’s time to come up.”

     “I’m awake.” Alice croaked, her voice quivering as much as the rest of her. 

     The nurse leaned off and looked into her eyes. She shook but only because Alice herself was. Alice took a moment and took control of her body, forcing herself to ignore the pins and needles feeling covering her.

      Finally she stopped and the nurse let go, looking at her apologetically.

     “Sorry, Honey. You were having a bit more trouble than most waking up.”

      In her mind, Alice heard the nurses thoughts reverberating. Get a hold of yourself, girl. I want to go for my break already. I hope she’s not a junkie. That would mess up the rest of the days schedule.

     Alice nodded at her. Her teeth were still chattering, but she could still speak. “S-sorry. Having t-trouble waking up wouldn’t d-disqualify me, would it?”

N     urse Talia shook her head, relieved. “Of course not, Honey. It just means that they’ll have to take a few precautions if you’re accepted. Make you’re not the first one woken up.”

      “That’s good.” Alice said truthfully. The longer she had to ‘sleep’ in Mindscape, the better.

     She sat up gingerly and rubbed her fingers together while the nurse unhooked her from the machine. She had a lot to do after she lied her way through this test. In particular, she was going to need to find out all that she could about hiding Talent.