For all you beer-drinking geeks - Happy St. Patrick's Day!
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===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.
#FridayFlash: Night driving, alone
"Five bodies... where the hell am I going to dump five bodies?"
The night had no answers. In fact, the night didn't give a shit about him any more than God or people or the rest of the universe. All he wanted was to be left alone. Was that so much to ask? Now he had five bodies to get rid of.
At least he had plenty of gas. He'd filled up the tank before coming into the city.
When he drove out of the city, everything was blurry. All that saved him was the fact that he could have taken 95 to 76 to 476 in his sleep, driven it with his eyes closed. After a while, when the frantic slamming in his chest slowed into individual pounding heartbeats, the floodlights overhead had come into focus, but were pulsing redly, the highway in front of him telescoping in and out to the rhythm of his heart as though he were looking down a dim, shifting tunnel.
He knew this was no illusion. He knew that it was a result of spiking blood pressure, pressing on his eyeballs, deforming them with backpressure on every beat. His panic, if that's what he was feeling, was literally reshaping the lenses through which he saw the world. He knew his eyes were bulging in and out, in and out, in and out, just like in the cartoons. He knew that his eyes, his pale skin, his trembling, his sweat, his smell... all of these would damn him before a Philly cop or MontCo Sheriff or PA State Trooper shone a light into the backseat.
He had plenty of gas. He had E-Z-Pass for the tolls. He didn't need to stop for anything. He drove north at eighty miles per hour, staying in with the traffic on the northeast extension of the PA turnpike. He was another car. He was nobody. He was nothing special.
He had five bodies to dump. He had three bodies in the trunk (the bleeders) and two in the backseat (the broken necks). The broken necks smelled like beer and sweat and piss and hair gel. They didn't smell like blood, though. The other smells he could handle, deal with somehow at a self-serve car wash. Drive through, wash and wax the outside, then hose out the inside. It would soak the upholstery and the floormats, but heat lamps and fans would dry everything. Let the water flood it all away, let the light and heat restore his car to cleanliness again.
But where to dump them?
If he'd gone into center city looking for a fight, looking for a bad fight, one where people ended up dead, he might have made some plans. But all he wanted was a movie and some drinks. Was that so much to ask? A quiet night out on the town by himself? He was tired of going to the movies at the multiplexes, tired of eating at the chain places, the quirky places, the here-today-gone-tomorrow upscale places. He wanted to see a movie and eat some decent food for a change and have a couple of drinks. Didn't he deserve that much? Didn't he deserve a couple of quiet hours of watching the people around him live their stupid fucking lives and having their stupid fucking fun?
The road began to telescope again, in and out, in and out. He made himself not think about the world around him, the world that didn't give a shit about him and the stupid fucking piece of shit bastards that populated that bleak, horrible world.
His heart slowed again and the road settled down.
See a movie, have a few drinks, go to your car, get jumped, kill the five guys that jumped you. It was like clockwork, wasn't it? Same old shit, the same goddamned shit that always happened when he just wanted a quiet night out.
But it had never been five before. Three was the most. Before tonight, that is. He had every right to park his Audi in a dark alley, didn't he? Was it his fault that a car like his in a place like that attracted guys like the bleeders and the broken necks? Was it his fault? No it was not. It was not his fault they'd come around. They did that on their own.
Knife flash, duck and dive, spin-kick down and elbow up, crush this one's larynx, stab that one in the eye, twist this one's head around and use it to crush that one's face in... the close combat training never left you, burned into your brain and nerves forever, became the lenses through which you see the world.
The alley was so blurry when he loaded the bodies, he had to pull the tarps over by touch. He could barely see anything, drove out along the familiar streets by memory and by instinct.
Five bodies... where? Where?
He got off the northeast extension onto 80 and headed west.
There were lakes up here. Deep lakes, mountain lakes. State game lands, state parks, private land... places nobody gave a shit about. Deep lakes with deep water.
He looked over at the passenger seat, at the rolls of plastic fencing, nylon rope, plastic buckets filled with quick-set cement. Bodies rot into little pieces. Metal, even the galvanized wire and fencing, eventually rusts into little pieces. Down in the cold, the world eats away at everything. Metal, flesh, wood, everything.
Everything except plastic. Plastic is forever. Plastic is untouchable. He remade his heart and brain out of plastic After She Left. The world sneered and laughed and spit on him After She Left, but who the fuck cares about the world, anyway? He just wanted to be left alone.
He cracked the window and let the night air, let it roar in his left ear in as he drove.
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Help keep the words flowing.
The night had no answers. In fact, the night didn't give a shit about him any more than God or people or the rest of the universe. All he wanted was to be left alone. Was that so much to ask? Now he had five bodies to get rid of.
At least he had plenty of gas. He'd filled up the tank before coming into the city.
When he drove out of the city, everything was blurry. All that saved him was the fact that he could have taken 95 to 76 to 476 in his sleep, driven it with his eyes closed. After a while, when the frantic slamming in his chest slowed into individual pounding heartbeats, the floodlights overhead had come into focus, but were pulsing redly, the highway in front of him telescoping in and out to the rhythm of his heart as though he were looking down a dim, shifting tunnel.
He knew this was no illusion. He knew that it was a result of spiking blood pressure, pressing on his eyeballs, deforming them with backpressure on every beat. His panic, if that's what he was feeling, was literally reshaping the lenses through which he saw the world. He knew his eyes were bulging in and out, in and out, in and out, just like in the cartoons. He knew that his eyes, his pale skin, his trembling, his sweat, his smell... all of these would damn him before a Philly cop or MontCo Sheriff or PA State Trooper shone a light into the backseat.
He had plenty of gas. He had E-Z-Pass for the tolls. He didn't need to stop for anything. He drove north at eighty miles per hour, staying in with the traffic on the northeast extension of the PA turnpike. He was another car. He was nobody. He was nothing special.
He had five bodies to dump. He had three bodies in the trunk (the bleeders) and two in the backseat (the broken necks). The broken necks smelled like beer and sweat and piss and hair gel. They didn't smell like blood, though. The other smells he could handle, deal with somehow at a self-serve car wash. Drive through, wash and wax the outside, then hose out the inside. It would soak the upholstery and the floormats, but heat lamps and fans would dry everything. Let the water flood it all away, let the light and heat restore his car to cleanliness again.
But where to dump them?
If he'd gone into center city looking for a fight, looking for a bad fight, one where people ended up dead, he might have made some plans. But all he wanted was a movie and some drinks. Was that so much to ask? A quiet night out on the town by himself? He was tired of going to the movies at the multiplexes, tired of eating at the chain places, the quirky places, the here-today-gone-tomorrow upscale places. He wanted to see a movie and eat some decent food for a change and have a couple of drinks. Didn't he deserve that much? Didn't he deserve a couple of quiet hours of watching the people around him live their stupid fucking lives and having their stupid fucking fun?
The road began to telescope again, in and out, in and out. He made himself not think about the world around him, the world that didn't give a shit about him and the stupid fucking piece of shit bastards that populated that bleak, horrible world.
His heart slowed again and the road settled down.
See a movie, have a few drinks, go to your car, get jumped, kill the five guys that jumped you. It was like clockwork, wasn't it? Same old shit, the same goddamned shit that always happened when he just wanted a quiet night out.
But it had never been five before. Three was the most. Before tonight, that is. He had every right to park his Audi in a dark alley, didn't he? Was it his fault that a car like his in a place like that attracted guys like the bleeders and the broken necks? Was it his fault? No it was not. It was not his fault they'd come around. They did that on their own.
Knife flash, duck and dive, spin-kick down and elbow up, crush this one's larynx, stab that one in the eye, twist this one's head around and use it to crush that one's face in... the close combat training never left you, burned into your brain and nerves forever, became the lenses through which you see the world.
The alley was so blurry when he loaded the bodies, he had to pull the tarps over by touch. He could barely see anything, drove out along the familiar streets by memory and by instinct.
Five bodies... where? Where?
He got off the northeast extension onto 80 and headed west.
There were lakes up here. Deep lakes, mountain lakes. State game lands, state parks, private land... places nobody gave a shit about. Deep lakes with deep water.
He looked over at the passenger seat, at the rolls of plastic fencing, nylon rope, plastic buckets filled with quick-set cement. Bodies rot into little pieces. Metal, even the galvanized wire and fencing, eventually rusts into little pieces. Down in the cold, the world eats away at everything. Metal, flesh, wood, everything.
Everything except plastic. Plastic is forever. Plastic is untouchable. He remade his heart and brain out of plastic After She Left. The world sneered and laughed and spit on him After She Left, but who the fuck cares about the world, anyway? He just wanted to be left alone.
He cracked the window and let the night air, let it roar in his left ear in as he drove.
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Help keep the words flowing.
For the sake of a brand...
What would you do to protect and foster a brand? Would you get a tattoo of your favorite online streaming video service? Would you promise not to compete against or bad-mouth the purveyors of a product or service?
Would you misrepresent the company you work for? Would you misrepresent yourself as an agent of that company? Would you pretend a product is good when you know it isn't? Would you exaggerate the health of the underlying fundamentals in order to attract investors? Would you pretend that everything is fine when you know just how very, very far from fine it all is?
Questions like this are on my mind today.
The conclave of Cardinals is deciding which of them will be Pope, taking over the church at "a difficult, challenging time", as the newscasters say (see UPDATE). Politicians in Washington D.C. are putting out competing budgets, arguing over how to rearrange the deck chairs while the ocean liner sinks underneath them.
And I'm still scribbling away, fitfully writing unimportant spasms of flash fiction while I dither about the novel I wrote, the half-novels I never finished and the proto-novels I haven't written yet. Plots and characters flash by, none yet engaging enough to strike a spark in kindling that I hope is not completely sodden.
The only saving grace about this situation is that when I call myself a writer, I can point to the things I've written as evidence. When I call myself a novelist, I can point to the novel which is now being pushed into finding a place in the world.
I'm not obligated to add any falsifying modifiers to those nouns. No "brilliant young writer" (which is amusingly untrue in so many ways), no "prolific novelist", no "inspiring author", etc. I don't need to lie about being bestselling, beloved, successful, respected, controversial, cutting edge, breakthrough or standard-bearing.
I just have to write and keep writing after a disappointment. All of this is for you, dear reader - or at least for those of you non-TLDR folks who've read this far. I'd hate for you to think I was misrepresenting myself or censoring myself for the sake of the Tony Noland brand. I'm not a wonderful, prolific writer, but neither am I protecting those who molest innocent children or destroying countries with mindless demagoguery.
UPDATE: Since I wrote this, Archbishop of Buenos Ares Jorge Mario Bergoglio has been elevated to the papacy, taking the name of Pope Francis. I wish him well - between the Catholic church as it exists now and the way it should be lies a tremendous amount of contrition and soul-searching.
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Help keep the words flowing.
Would you misrepresent the company you work for? Would you misrepresent yourself as an agent of that company? Would you pretend a product is good when you know it isn't? Would you exaggerate the health of the underlying fundamentals in order to attract investors? Would you pretend that everything is fine when you know just how very, very far from fine it all is?
Questions like this are on my mind today.
The conclave of Cardinals is deciding which of them will be Pope, taking over the church at "a difficult, challenging time", as the newscasters say (see UPDATE). Politicians in Washington D.C. are putting out competing budgets, arguing over how to rearrange the deck chairs while the ocean liner sinks underneath them.
And I'm still scribbling away, fitfully writing unimportant spasms of flash fiction while I dither about the novel I wrote, the half-novels I never finished and the proto-novels I haven't written yet. Plots and characters flash by, none yet engaging enough to strike a spark in kindling that I hope is not completely sodden.
The only saving grace about this situation is that when I call myself a writer, I can point to the things I've written as evidence. When I call myself a novelist, I can point to the novel which is now being pushed into finding a place in the world.
I'm not obligated to add any falsifying modifiers to those nouns. No "brilliant young writer" (which is amusingly untrue in so many ways), no "prolific novelist", no "inspiring author", etc. I don't need to lie about being bestselling, beloved, successful, respected, controversial, cutting edge, breakthrough or standard-bearing.
I just have to write and keep writing after a disappointment. All of this is for you, dear reader - or at least for those of you non-TLDR folks who've read this far. I'd hate for you to think I was misrepresenting myself or censoring myself for the sake of the Tony Noland brand. I'm not a wonderful, prolific writer, but neither am I protecting those who molest innocent children or destroying countries with mindless demagoguery.
UPDATE: Since I wrote this, Archbishop of Buenos Ares Jorge Mario Bergoglio has been elevated to the papacy, taking the name of Pope Francis. I wish him well - between the Catholic church as it exists now and the way it should be lies a tremendous amount of contrition and soul-searching.
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Help keep the words flowing.
#ABNA - congratulations to the 3rd round
From the Grammarian, Professor Verbosity and myself, congratulations to all the writers whose books are moving on to the 3rd round of the ABNA! I'm not among you, but it was fun and exciting while it lasted!
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Help keep the words flowing.
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Help keep the words flowing.
A limerick to pass the time
While I'm waiting for the next round of ABNA to be announced, I'll compose a limerick. That always makes the time pass more easily.
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Help keep the words flowing.
The list ain't out, but searching
Pays off for hearts a'lurching.
I know it makes me surly
Seeing winning books named early,
But on the "Reload" button I'm still perching
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Advances vs. working on spec
Over at his Whatever blog, John Scalzi has a post about advances and what they represent. Every author would like to have a fat advance as part of a great contract, but what does a zero advance contract mean?
What I do here at Landless is monetized through only one horrifically ineffective mechanism. Although I certainly expect to be in a situation where I and my agent/lawyer will review and consider a publishing contract which will address the subject of advances against earnings, I'm not there yet. My knowledge of novel publishing is analogous to a virgin's knowledge of sex: purely theoretical, based on avid research. So what's my take on advances?
When it come to being paid for my fiction, I've written for payment (i.e. one check up front, no royalties), written for exposure (i.e. for free, with no expectation of royalties), written for self-publishing (where I bore all the costs of production & got the majority of sales revenue) and written on spec (where I bore none of the costs of production & got a small fraction of sales revenue).
Of these, by far the worst monetary ROI was the "on spec" writing. Sales are driven by promotion and publisher organizational ability. Where I have skin in that game, I work. If I've already been paid, or don't expect to be paid, my work is to write, submit and move on. Where my payment is tied to sales, my effort is proportional to my expected reward. Self-publishing pegs my share of the gate at anywhere from 35-70%. My percentage for "on spec" jobs ended up being considerably lower than that.
I haven't made any formal calculations of this, but enthusiasm for promotion of any one item starts to crap out below the 10% level. Busting your chops to sell $100 in product in order to get $10 is getting close to the point where I'd make more selling washing machines at Sears.
A low percentage is offset (to an extent) by leveraging the same amount of promotion to sell multiple products. When BUY MY BOOK! becomes BUY ALL MY BOOKS!, then $10 can turn into $20 or $30 - a much better ROI. If the percentage is too low, though, even that doesn't help. Under those circumstances, it's better to take the lessons learned, walk away and go do something more productive.
An advance against sales means the publisher is willing to put itself in the hole based on confidence that there will BE sales. The bigger the hole, the more commitment to the project. For any book I've written, I'm already in the hole for my blood, sweat and ink. I want my partners to be right in there with me.
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This is why advances are a good thing: They put the author at the front of the line to get paid. Which, given that the publishing industry is all about selling what the author provides, is where the author should be. If a publisher doesn’t have paying the author first as its default, then it tells me something very significant about what they think about authors — and what priority authors are in their publishing scheme.The whole post is informative, as are the comments. Well worth a read. Scalzi's summation - that an advance puts the author first in line to be paid - clarified a lot of muddy water for me. Well done you, Scalzi. However, what about other forms of compensation? Monetary or non-monetary? Up-front or delayed? Guaranteed or conditional?
What I do here at Landless is monetized through only one horrifically ineffective mechanism. Although I certainly expect to be in a situation where I and my agent/lawyer will review and consider a publishing contract which will address the subject of advances against earnings, I'm not there yet. My knowledge of novel publishing is analogous to a virgin's knowledge of sex: purely theoretical, based on avid research. So what's my take on advances?
When it come to being paid for my fiction, I've written for payment (i.e. one check up front, no royalties), written for exposure (i.e. for free, with no expectation of royalties), written for self-publishing (where I bore all the costs of production & got the majority of sales revenue) and written on spec (where I bore none of the costs of production & got a small fraction of sales revenue).
Of these, by far the worst monetary ROI was the "on spec" writing. Sales are driven by promotion and publisher organizational ability. Where I have skin in that game, I work. If I've already been paid, or don't expect to be paid, my work is to write, submit and move on. Where my payment is tied to sales, my effort is proportional to my expected reward. Self-publishing pegs my share of the gate at anywhere from 35-70%. My percentage for "on spec" jobs ended up being considerably lower than that.
I haven't made any formal calculations of this, but enthusiasm for promotion of any one item starts to crap out below the 10% level. Busting your chops to sell $100 in product in order to get $10 is getting close to the point where I'd make more selling washing machines at Sears.
A low percentage is offset (to an extent) by leveraging the same amount of promotion to sell multiple products. When BUY MY BOOK! becomes BUY ALL MY BOOKS!, then $10 can turn into $20 or $30 - a much better ROI. If the percentage is too low, though, even that doesn't help. Under those circumstances, it's better to take the lessons learned, walk away and go do something more productive.
An advance against sales means the publisher is willing to put itself in the hole based on confidence that there will BE sales. The bigger the hole, the more commitment to the project. For any book I've written, I'm already in the hole for my blood, sweat and ink. I want my partners to be right in there with me.
||| Comments are welcome |||
Help keep the words flowing.
#FridayFlash: What more?
"What if I have nothing left to give?"
"You will always have something left to give."
"But what if I don't? What if they've taken everything?"
"If you're able to ask the question, 'What more can I lose?', then you still have something left."
"What? My life? I should die?"
"No, that serves no purpose. They don't want you to die. What would they gain from your death? Nothing."
"I don't understand."
"After you have given everything you possess, after compatriots, friends, family, children and spouse have all be sacrificed, after you are naked and exposed and helpless... that's when it all truly starts. The normal trappings of a normal life are merely that: trappings. Peripheral, inessential."
"If everything is gone, then what more can I give? Tell me."
"When you are brought so low that every moment is wailing dread, when every breath is pain and every eyeblink is a half-second escape from unrelenting gray despair, you still have something to give, something they can take away."
"And that is? What would I still possess at that point? Hope?"
"No, hope will be long-fled by then. They would have rooted hope out of your soul and left only a raw wound in its place."
"Then... what? If I'm lying in frozen agony, rotting in the mud and beyond all hope and reason, what more could they take?"
"You've answered your own question. If you are still capable of feeling anguish and despair, then you must still possess a memory of what your life used to be like. Even if it's only the animal consciousness of the sensation of not-pain, a lingering body-memory of 'a time before this', they will want it. They will chase it down the corridors of your mind and demand you give it up of your own volition. Until you are no longer able to feel anything at all, physically or psychically, you still have something in your possession."
"I... I see. And when I reach that point? Is that when Eternity will be open to me?"
"Eternity. Chaos. The Void. The Timeless Beyond. It goes by many names."
"But will it be open to me?"
"They will open it to you, yes. But you will lack the will to go through. The price of your transport to the Great Doorway will have robbed you of the ability to accept your prize. It is the way of things. You, like every other being who has sought Eternity, will hang on the lip of the pit, alive but unmoving."
"No. This is where you are wrong. I will NOT be like all the others. On my father's grave, I swear: Eternity will be mine to command. Spill the blood and burn the leaves, old man. Summon them. I am ready."
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"You will always have something left to give."
"But what if I don't? What if they've taken everything?"
"If you're able to ask the question, 'What more can I lose?', then you still have something left."
"What? My life? I should die?"
"No, that serves no purpose. They don't want you to die. What would they gain from your death? Nothing."
"I don't understand."
"After you have given everything you possess, after compatriots, friends, family, children and spouse have all be sacrificed, after you are naked and exposed and helpless... that's when it all truly starts. The normal trappings of a normal life are merely that: trappings. Peripheral, inessential."
"If everything is gone, then what more can I give? Tell me."
"When you are brought so low that every moment is wailing dread, when every breath is pain and every eyeblink is a half-second escape from unrelenting gray despair, you still have something to give, something they can take away."
"And that is? What would I still possess at that point? Hope?"
"No, hope will be long-fled by then. They would have rooted hope out of your soul and left only a raw wound in its place."
"Then... what? If I'm lying in frozen agony, rotting in the mud and beyond all hope and reason, what more could they take?"
"You've answered your own question. If you are still capable of feeling anguish and despair, then you must still possess a memory of what your life used to be like. Even if it's only the animal consciousness of the sensation of not-pain, a lingering body-memory of 'a time before this', they will want it. They will chase it down the corridors of your mind and demand you give it up of your own volition. Until you are no longer able to feel anything at all, physically or psychically, you still have something in your possession."
"I... I see. And when I reach that point? Is that when Eternity will be open to me?"
"Eternity. Chaos. The Void. The Timeless Beyond. It goes by many names."
"But will it be open to me?"
"They will open it to you, yes. But you will lack the will to go through. The price of your transport to the Great Doorway will have robbed you of the ability to accept your prize. It is the way of things. You, like every other being who has sought Eternity, will hang on the lip of the pit, alive but unmoving."
"No. This is where you are wrong. I will NOT be like all the others. On my father's grave, I swear: Eternity will be mine to command. Spill the blood and burn the leaves, old man. Summon them. I am ready."
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The Semicolon Bounce
After GrammarGirl tweeted a link to "Ode to the Semicolon" on Monday (Grammar Day, in case you missed it), I saw a nice bounce in traffic to that poem's page:
I included the "Pages per visit" metric to show that hits to a single post don't necessarily translate into a lot of traffic to other pages. Still, I'm happy.
An English teacher contacted me after reading the poem and asked permission to use it in class. She's doing a unit on poetry and, coincidentally, on the proper use of the semicolon. The Ode is a perfect teaching tool for that kind of thing.
Nice to see that this poem is still fun for people.
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 |
| The red semicolon marks the bounce. Click to enlarge. |
I included the "Pages per visit" metric to show that hits to a single post don't necessarily translate into a lot of traffic to other pages. Still, I'm happy.
An English teacher contacted me after reading the poem and asked permission to use it in class. She's doing a unit on poetry and, coincidentally, on the proper use of the semicolon. The Ode is a perfect teaching tool for that kind of thing.
Nice to see that this poem is still fun for people.
===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.
Unexpectedly, I write
Over on Today's Author, I talk about what it feels like to be THAT GUY. You know... the one who didn't study writing in school, didn't start off wanting to pursue a career as a writer and who often feels three or four Presidents older than most of his writer cohort.
Go take a look. Comment if you feel so moved.
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Go take a look. Comment if you feel so moved.
===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.
You can't teach writing
Today's Three Word Wednesday words are: brutal, grope, transfer
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A metaphor brutal begins:
"Transfer old wine to new skins"
Critics will grope
For this tired old trope
To stab writing teachers with pins
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The Copperplate Killer - Part 6
The Copperplate Killer
Part 6
"Sheriff Roxborough, Deputies, on behalf of the federal government, I'd like to thank you for your assistance in capturing this man." Thyme indicated the unconscious Thomson, bandaged and strapped to a stretcher across three folded-down seats. "It's a damned shame about that poor girl in the saloon, but a mad dog like this has no respect for laws of common decency. Even to the last, he's nothing more than a heartless killer."
Roxborough let fly a stream of tobacco juice towards the spittoon in the corner. "Let him hang, I say. With the whore, how many does that make for him? Killed, I mean."
"A store keeper, a railroad inspector, a clerk in an assay office and that girl last night. Plus the two marshals. That's six that we know about. Plus thefts, arson, and his other crimes. He'll get his trial, Sheriff, and then he'll get his just reward. Oh, and speaking of rewards, I've already wired ahead about your assistance. You can expect a letter of credit for the five hundred dollars in reward money to arrive at the Farm and Seed Bank in a week or so."
"Aw, hell, Thyme," Jeremiah said, "all we did was come in after we heard the shooting. Since we didn't even hardly do anything, it wouldn't be right to -"
"That's right friendly of you, Justification, and we appreciate it." Roxborough placed a hand on Jeremiah's shoulder as he spoke over him. "A man like that, a desperate killer and all, the thing could have gone any number of ways. We were happy to be of assistance. The sooner you get him on back to face the hangman, the better off we'll all be."
Thyme smiled. "Sheriff, I couldn't agree more."
All four men climbed down from the coach. As they shook hands in farewell, Charlie gave Thyme an extra bottle of opium tincture. Doc Vincent had patched Thomson up well enough to survive the long trip to Washington D.C., but he'd agreed that the man would be easier to handle if he were sedated the entire time. Thomson came around when the doc was fishing the slugs out of his arm and leg. He'd been shouting like a demon, promising bribes in gold and silver if the doc were to let him go, and promising vengeance in fire and blood if not. Needless to say, the doctor was happy to be rid of him.
The engine whistle sounded. With a last wave, Thyme climbed back aboard the passenger coach. Attached as a special to the 7:05 freight train, it was going to be a bumpy and slow ride to Topeka.
He watched out the window as Highwater disappeared down the tracks. Then he turned to Thomson, drew back his fist and punched him hard, right on the massive wrapping of bandages that covered his upper arm. Thomson moaned and rolled his head.
"Still too far gone, huh?" He pulled out the bottle of opium tincture and regarded it for a bit before putting it away again. "We've got all day, you 'Copperplate Killer' son of a bitch. I can wait for you to come around."
At the end of the day, Thyme thought, after he's told me where he hid the gold, I'll give him a drop or two. It's gonna be worth listening to his screaming all day just for the look on his face when I tell him I'll get a promotion for finding the money.
He settled into one of the seats, arranging himself for a nap. It had been a long night. From under his hat, Thyme took one last look at his man, trussed up and bleeding afresh where he'd punched him. He snorted.
Play your cards right and I might even let you live to see Washington. Maybe.
The End
10 More Rules of Writing
This follows last week's post.
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- If your MC is sympathetic, don't make him sound unsympathetic in your book promotion. It's misleading.
- Even if you have personally seen people put mustard on pretzels, don't assume your readers will believe that's a real thing.
- Grammar is the servant of communication, not the other way around.
- People use cliches when they talk. If your characters NEVER use cliches, how realistic is your dialogue?
- If your intended audience doesn't already know what's wrong with the phrase "Jedi mind meld", don't make them feel stupid for not knowing.
- The YA market is hideously overpopulated. So is every other market except Westerns. Don't let that stop you.
- If it's funny to you, it will be funny to 5% of your potential readership. That's good enough.
- Rather than bitch and moan about Microsoft Word, either learn how to use it properly or learn how to use an alternative.
- Nuggets of writing advice on the Internet don't mean much from an objective standpoint, since they often contradict each other. However, from an objective standpoint, green eyes are just as attractive as brown, blue, gray or black. That doesn't mean your heart doesn't race at one vs. another.
- Thinking about what you read and how it relates to other things you've read will ALWAYS pay off when it comes to writing.
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#FridayFlash: Robot Money
On a warm February day in Philadelphia, just on the corner of N 6th and Arch St., as the sun slanted across Independence plaza, a robot found a $100 bill. The corner of the torn and soggy banknote was peeking from under a pile of melting snow, the last gray and gravelly remnant of the only snow that had fallen in the winter of 2034.
The robot was not programmed for much independent planning, but like all courier bots, it was linked to CarryMan Incorporated's central computers over the Philadelphia Center City WiFi Network. It took less than 30 milliseconds for the robot to report the unusual sight to Central and to get instructions that allowed it pick up the $100 bill.
With the smooth grace of piezofibronic musculature, the robot shifted its bag of documents from one shoulder to the other, then bent, wiped away the snow and lifted the bill. The robot's eyes and tactile scanners weren't designed for nanometer-scale resolution, but that wasn't necessary to tell that something was wrong.
Another consultation to Central with new information: the bill was counterfeit. Although it had the right engravure, holoimprint and ink conductivity, the embedded RFID nanochip cluster was flickering chaotically. Amid the static-filled, buzzing scanresponse, the cluster was reading as that of a $1 bill. Central concluded that the time spent in the salty slush must have caused the chips to reset to their hardcoded defaults, wiping away the viral spoof code the counterfeiter must surely have embedded. With that code, any bill scanner would have read the bill as a real $100; without it, it was a mismatch like a cowboy hat on the offset engraving of Benjamin Franklin.
The robot queried again: What now, Central? What now?
Evidence of a misdemeanor (not perpetuated by a CarryMan's owner) could be reported to the Philadelphia Police Department at earliest convenience. However, evidence of a felony had to be reported at once. (A case pending before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals dealt with whether the CarryMan's owner's connection with the suspected felony had any bearing on the reporting requirement.)
Central thought for a moment, then directed the robot to turn onto Arch St. and enter the Federal Building. While the robot was walking up the gray granite steps, glinting wetly in the February sunshine, Central composed a draft press release and alerted a human in the CarryMan Inc. PR/SM Department. The situation had real potential: a CarryMan robot, setting aside its normal tasks in order to turn in the phoney $100 bill directly to the U.S. Secret Service. As a combined CableNews/Facebook/MindBlast media campaign, the matrix of "robot helping law enforcement" and "CarryMan can handle the unexpected" was a good combination.
Through the big glass doors went the robot. Through the metal detector, through the positron emission tomography array, and up to the information desk.
Central had already sent a note to the Federal Building's main A.I., telling it to expect the robot and explaining about the counterfeit bill. The man at the information desk read the result of the conversation between CarryMan's Central and the USSS's mainframe A.I. The robot was directed to take the phoney bill up to Agent Michelle Argilente, Room 462.
Four minutes later, the robot stepped off the elevator on the fourth floor and turned without hesitation to the right. (Central had requested and received a floor map from the building A.I., which it had passed along to the robot.) In the time it took the robot to move from the elevator area to Room 462, the human in the CarryMan PR/SM Department read the draft press release from Central, made a few word changes and approved it for release as soon as the USSS took possession of the phoney $100 bill. The tweetstream update cloud would be released to all the social media sites 120 seconds after that.
The door to Room 462 was an old fashioned manual door of wood and frosted glass. With a gentle, controlled hand, the robot knocked on the door frame. A woman's voice gave permission to enter.
Seated behind one of six desks was Agent Argilente, identified by the I.D. keycard clipped to her blouse and by the nameplate on her desk. Agent Argilente turned away from the note on her screen, written by the building's A.I. and amended by her boss and by the agent down at the information desk. She stood as the robot entered, clearly aware that CarryMan Incorporated might use a video recording of this moment in a public service ad campaign. A thirteen-year veteran of the Secret Service, Agent Argilente had seen plenty of viral videos of uniformed cops being unnecessarily rude to robots who were just doing their jobs. Such things made bad press for the offending department and punitive amounts of extra paperwork. With a polite expression, she held out her hand for the counterfeit bill.
The robot stepped forward and jammed its left hand into Agent Argilente's neck, hard enough to stab through the trachea and crack the vertebrae in back. With its right hand, it smoothly slipped Agent Argilente's Glock from her shoulder holster. Before any of the other five agents could draw or even move from their seats, the robot fired TAP-TAP, TAP-TAP into the heads of Agent Tomas Corjesu and Special Agent Jennifer Cho. Special Agent Shandi Jenkins also got a TAP-TAP, but the second round went into her shoulder, not her forehead. The robot's aim was thrown off by the firing by the two remaining agents, whose names the robot was unable to read from their I.D. keycards.
Still clutching the phony $100 bill with the viral code-modified nanochip cluster, the robot fell to the floor under the hail of heavy, copper-jacketed slugs, its higher computational functions lost in the shattered, sparking ruin of its chest. The last command in the hijack instructions the robot got from the bill's rogue chipset was to crosslink its main gelcell batteries and release a guaranteed-1000-day energy supply all at once. It took less than 100 milliseconds for the robot to override the safety interlocks and initiate the simultaneous crosslink, as directed.
For more than five seconds, CarryMan Central alternated queries directly to the robot with queries to the Federal Building's A.I., trying to determine A) why it had lost touch with the robot, and B) if it could move on the press release and PR/SM media campaign. The building A.I. told Central that it had a report of shots fired on the fourth floor, but before it could send any additional information, the building A.I. also went offline. A quick check showed that the A.I.s of the surrounding buildings were also offline.
After a full fourteen seconds of thought and analysis, Central drafted a new, very different press release and sent a Red Flag e.mail to a human at the PR/SM Department.
===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.
The robot was not programmed for much independent planning, but like all courier bots, it was linked to CarryMan Incorporated's central computers over the Philadelphia Center City WiFi Network. It took less than 30 milliseconds for the robot to report the unusual sight to Central and to get instructions that allowed it pick up the $100 bill.
With the smooth grace of piezofibronic musculature, the robot shifted its bag of documents from one shoulder to the other, then bent, wiped away the snow and lifted the bill. The robot's eyes and tactile scanners weren't designed for nanometer-scale resolution, but that wasn't necessary to tell that something was wrong.
Another consultation to Central with new information: the bill was counterfeit. Although it had the right engravure, holoimprint and ink conductivity, the embedded RFID nanochip cluster was flickering chaotically. Amid the static-filled, buzzing scanresponse, the cluster was reading as that of a $1 bill. Central concluded that the time spent in the salty slush must have caused the chips to reset to their hardcoded defaults, wiping away the viral spoof code the counterfeiter must surely have embedded. With that code, any bill scanner would have read the bill as a real $100; without it, it was a mismatch like a cowboy hat on the offset engraving of Benjamin Franklin.
The robot queried again: What now, Central? What now?
Evidence of a misdemeanor (not perpetuated by a CarryMan's owner) could be reported to the Philadelphia Police Department at earliest convenience. However, evidence of a felony had to be reported at once. (A case pending before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals dealt with whether the CarryMan's owner's connection with the suspected felony had any bearing on the reporting requirement.)
Central thought for a moment, then directed the robot to turn onto Arch St. and enter the Federal Building. While the robot was walking up the gray granite steps, glinting wetly in the February sunshine, Central composed a draft press release and alerted a human in the CarryMan Inc. PR/SM Department. The situation had real potential: a CarryMan robot, setting aside its normal tasks in order to turn in the phoney $100 bill directly to the U.S. Secret Service. As a combined CableNews/Facebook/MindBlast media campaign, the matrix of "robot helping law enforcement" and "CarryMan can handle the unexpected" was a good combination.
Through the big glass doors went the robot. Through the metal detector, through the positron emission tomography array, and up to the information desk.
Central had already sent a note to the Federal Building's main A.I., telling it to expect the robot and explaining about the counterfeit bill. The man at the information desk read the result of the conversation between CarryMan's Central and the USSS's mainframe A.I. The robot was directed to take the phoney bill up to Agent Michelle Argilente, Room 462.
Four minutes later, the robot stepped off the elevator on the fourth floor and turned without hesitation to the right. (Central had requested and received a floor map from the building A.I., which it had passed along to the robot.) In the time it took the robot to move from the elevator area to Room 462, the human in the CarryMan PR/SM Department read the draft press release from Central, made a few word changes and approved it for release as soon as the USSS took possession of the phoney $100 bill. The tweetstream update cloud would be released to all the social media sites 120 seconds after that.
The door to Room 462 was an old fashioned manual door of wood and frosted glass. With a gentle, controlled hand, the robot knocked on the door frame. A woman's voice gave permission to enter.
Seated behind one of six desks was Agent Argilente, identified by the I.D. keycard clipped to her blouse and by the nameplate on her desk. Agent Argilente turned away from the note on her screen, written by the building's A.I. and amended by her boss and by the agent down at the information desk. She stood as the robot entered, clearly aware that CarryMan Incorporated might use a video recording of this moment in a public service ad campaign. A thirteen-year veteran of the Secret Service, Agent Argilente had seen plenty of viral videos of uniformed cops being unnecessarily rude to robots who were just doing their jobs. Such things made bad press for the offending department and punitive amounts of extra paperwork. With a polite expression, she held out her hand for the counterfeit bill.
The robot stepped forward and jammed its left hand into Agent Argilente's neck, hard enough to stab through the trachea and crack the vertebrae in back. With its right hand, it smoothly slipped Agent Argilente's Glock from her shoulder holster. Before any of the other five agents could draw or even move from their seats, the robot fired TAP-TAP, TAP-TAP into the heads of Agent Tomas Corjesu and Special Agent Jennifer Cho. Special Agent Shandi Jenkins also got a TAP-TAP, but the second round went into her shoulder, not her forehead. The robot's aim was thrown off by the firing by the two remaining agents, whose names the robot was unable to read from their I.D. keycards.
Still clutching the phony $100 bill with the viral code-modified nanochip cluster, the robot fell to the floor under the hail of heavy, copper-jacketed slugs, its higher computational functions lost in the shattered, sparking ruin of its chest. The last command in the hijack instructions the robot got from the bill's rogue chipset was to crosslink its main gelcell batteries and release a guaranteed-1000-day energy supply all at once. It took less than 100 milliseconds for the robot to override the safety interlocks and initiate the simultaneous crosslink, as directed.
For more than five seconds, CarryMan Central alternated queries directly to the robot with queries to the Federal Building's A.I., trying to determine A) why it had lost touch with the robot, and B) if it could move on the press release and PR/SM media campaign. The building A.I. told Central that it had a report of shots fired on the fourth floor, but before it could send any additional information, the building A.I. also went offline. A quick check showed that the A.I.s of the surrounding buildings were also offline.
After a full fourteen seconds of thought and analysis, Central drafted a new, very different press release and sent a Red Flag e.mail to a human at the PR/SM Department.
===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.
Tony Noland's 10 Rules of Writing
Tony Noland's 10 Rules of Writing
- Good handwriting is for bank clerks.
- No dream sequences in Chapter 1.
- Semicolons are like nipple pinches: fantastic if occasionally applied with panache, tedious if overused.
- Weather isn't a metaphor for anything. Ever.
- Bad guys aren't bad guys to themselves or their friends.
- First you start writing , then you finish writing. In between, you keep going.
- It's OK to say "no" to a project someone invites you to.
- Agents and publishers aren't evil just because you aren't their highest priority.
- Meeting deadlines isn't just polite, it's good for repeat business.
- Everyday real life is full of funny coincidences, but they look stupid in a book.
Adieu, "Gravity's Rainbow"
Reading "Gravity's Rainbow" was like running a supermarathon blindfolded over unfamiliar rough ground, while being intermittently tickled by octopi and slapped by BDSM fiends who misinterpreted your acceptance of their way of life with an unspoken desire to join it.Unless you're in an MFA program (which I'm not) or hang out with the kind of people who discuss classics in experimental postmodern American literature (which I don't), you will have zero occasion to casually mention that you just finished "Gravity's Rainbow".
Exhausting, exhilarating and the kind of thing I'm proud of having finished. I'd brag about it if I thought anyone would care.
Even if you do manage to work it into conversation somehow ("Hey, the Phillies are looking pretty good this year. Think that new power hitter will pan out?" "If he can get under the ball and hit some homers. The way the ball curves when it's hit right reminds me of the way rockets fly in the same parabolic arc, what Thomas Pynchon called 'Gravity's Rainbow'. I just finished that book, actually.") you'll look like an idiot when faced with the obvious follow-up question ("Oh, yeah? What's that book about?" "Um... well... it's hard to explain..."). The book is "about" so much, there's no way to encapsulate it that will do it any kind of justice.
I will say that the book will be almost incomprehensible unless you have a decent working knowledge of all of the following:
- the history of the London Blitz, the Nazi rocket program and WWII in general
- polymer chemistry
- physics, especially as related to ballistics, low-temperature phenomena and metallurgy
- jazz composition
- sadomasochistic sexual dominance and submission
- ESP and paranormal phenomena
- song lyrics from 1930s and 40s popular music
- Russian and German
- mood-altering drugs of all kinds
- film-making
- spycraft in the OSS era
There is a value in reading difficult books. They make you think, they make you slow down to consider every phrase, every nuance. Books like this one serve a different purpose than books that are quicker and more easily digested. I could never write a book like this, nor would I want to. I'm glad such books exist, though, and I'm glad I read this one.
Next year, maybe I'll try Middlemarch.
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No bliss like conjugal bliss
Today's words for Three Word Wednesday are: douse, naughty, pale
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A pale and serene moon above
Two people, both naughty, in love
In candlelit house,
Their ardors they douse:
"Conjugal bliss, turtledove!"
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The Copperplate Killer - Part 5
The Copperplate Killer
Part 5
Thyme eased his way through the crowd, spilling more of his whiskey as he went. By the time he was nearing the piano, his glass was more or less empty. He also had taken a good look up the stairs and along the second-floor walkway. A latticework screened off the bedroom doors - enough to preserve some bit of privacy for the clients, not enough to prevent the madame and the bouncers to see who was coming and going from which room. After ten minutes of scrutiny, Thyme was no closer to figuring out where Thomson was. He was debating how he might go upstairs and start "accidentally" knocking on doors when he got lucky.
The madame had a harsh voice that went from molasses sweet when she was cajoling a client, to oxhide rough when she was berating one of the girls. After thanking one of the clients, who was going downstairs with a wide grin and a bounce in his step, she turned to snarl at the girl he'd been with. An argument ensued, which ended when the madame slapped the girl hard across the face. The girl picked up a tray from the floor in front of one of the doors and stomped down the stairs. The handprint on her face brightened to a shade of red like an overheated stove, but whatever pain she felt must have been vastly outweighed by anger. She practically flung the tray at one of the barmen and told him that she was no goddamned waitress or scullery maid, and that he could clear away his own dishes. The slap and the march down the stairs had attracted some attention. A couple of men propositioned her, clearly enticed by the idea of having a woman while she was so furious. With a toss of her head, she named a price and took on upstairs with the first man who agreed to it.
Thyme watched her go. Practically every other man in the vicinity did the same, so he felt safe in examining her closely. As they passed by, she kicked at the door where the tray had lain.
And that's where the son of a bitch is holed up, Thyme said to himself, right there.
At every other door, a whore and her client went in or out about every twenty minutes. The madame kept the girls busy, so the upstairs hallway was an active corridor. As he mentally reviewed what he'd seen since he came in, though, that particular door hadn't opened once. And why would a tray of used dishes be outside a floproom? Anything other than the usual bar food would have had to come from one of the eateries nearby. Therefore, Thomson must have had the tray sent up after being here long enough to get tired of eating pickled eggs, beef jerky and pig's knuckles. The tray had held only one soup bowl and one plate when the girl flung it at the barman, so he didn't have any of his gang with him. And if he was holed up that way, for that long, then he would have already had a girl or two by now and been done with it. He was almost certainly up there alone, killing time and waiting for the 7:05 freight train to Topeka.
Perfect.
Thyme looked around the room for an unoccupied whore. They were doing a pretty good business tonight, and the were all engaged in negotiating with fresh clients. He'd been in enough whorehouses to know that the minutes spent flirting and enticing were as much to allow the girls to rest their thighs between clients as it was to get the clients to pay for more exotic (and more expensive) delights. It took him a few minutes to spot one who wasn't having as much luck as the others, but he found her.
Even for a whore, she was ugly. Pop-eyed and dumpy, the heavy layers of pancake makeup couldn't hide a stupid-looking face badly scarred by the pox. As he sidled up to her, he could see she was drunker than was necessary, and mad as hell that one of her prospects had been snatched away by one of the other girls. Thyme slipped his left hand around her waist, ignoring the scream of pain from the gunshot wound.
He gagged, trying also to ignore the smell of her, a sour mixture of old sweat, whiskey and the leavings of her more recent clients.
She turned in surprise, then put on her best honey face, a visage that was more disgusting than enticing.
"Why, hello, there," she said, "how are you tonight? Lookin' fer some fun?" Her voice was gravelly and slurred, her teeth tobacco stained. Good lord, he thought, how low-rent do they come, anyways?
Thyme, playing the drunk, got through the preliminaries as quickly as he could. They settled on a price for some basic, meat-and-potatoes servicing and, still with his arm around her, he led her across the room. He could hear the snickers and even an outright laugh behind his back as he took her up the stairs, but he made sure to keep his left arm draped around her waist. They went down the hall toward one of the empty rooms.
As they passed by the door to Thomson's room, he reached his free hand up and squeezed her through her loosened bodice, hard enough to make her jump away from him. Like a squaredancer, he stepped in time with her and crashed her against the door. Whorehouse doors are never locked, and it burst open. They went stumbling in, the girl first, held in up front by Thyme's strong arm.
Thomson fired twice, two shots as fast as he could get them off from where he was sitting by the bed. Thyme felt the impact of them in the whore's chest, her body pounded back against his shoulder, thud, thud. If she'd had a scream in her, it came out as an explosive cough, a spray of blood and pieces of lung. Her arms flailed in front of her like a wounded bird. Shielded behind her, Thyme saw Thomson's face go wide with surprise as he stood, still frozen in a gunslinger's half-crouch, his eyes on the bloody froth gushing from her naked chest, visibly appalled by the jerking wreckage of the innocent woman he'd just killed.
A moment was all Thyme needed. His hand had been on his gun the instant they'd crashed open the door.
Now, shooting from the hip underneath the dying whore's arm, he fired at the shocked and immobile Thomson. Once in the left arm, twice in the left leg. Thomson staggered back with each impact, scattering the solitaire game he'd had lain out on the bed. Thyme flung the girl aside and leapt forward. Thomson raised his gun, but Thyme kicked him in the head, swinging his boot around as hard as he could. The brass toepiece caught him on the temple and raked across his face, tearing open Thomson's forehead and snapping his head back. The killer slumped down to an insensate pile, his blood pulsing steadily onto the cheap woven rug.
... to be concluded...
#NaNoReMo update
Finished "Gravity's Rainbow", after a year of intermittent reading. Maddening, brilliant book with a frustrating, confusing end. It's still too fresh for me to think about how that chaotic, bizarre, unresolved ending might be intended as a mirror (or twisted exemplar) for how all human lives wend their way to one fragmented ending or another.
This line near the end is rendered freakishly difficult to understand by the context of the surrounding sentences:
"The knife cuts through the apple like a knife cutting an apple."
If I see oceans of meaning in that sentence, lifetimes of possible reinterpretations, it's because I have not yet shaken off the spell of "Gravity's Rainbow".
This line near the end is rendered freakishly difficult to understand by the context of the surrounding sentences:
"The knife cuts through the apple like a knife cutting an apple."
If I see oceans of meaning in that sentence, lifetimes of possible reinterpretations, it's because I have not yet shaken off the spell of "Gravity's Rainbow".
Cat person or dog person?
This is me today (the cat, not the dog):
Which are you? The cat or the dog?
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Which are you? The cat or the dog?
===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.
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