Whiskers on Kittens

Finally did the first Jackson and Sanchez scene. I have a feeling I'm going to revise a few times before I am happy with it. There's a hell of a lot happening in these last chapters of Part II.

I got a few hundred words down over breakfast. And second breakfast. Was glad I had a computer available for the next few (text is up to 30K now).

Glad because these are a few things I had to look up. Animal life (and tracks) at White Sands. Colors of various "warning, radiation" signs. The street address of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The dates of the kitty litter incident at WIPP, and the safety officer exodus at LANL.

The correct term for the Air Force field uniform. Oh, that was fun. Turns out the same year as my story, they are phasing out one style and bringing in another. Only, not across the whole service at once. Some of them are still back in a third!

Air Force slang. The correct branch of the Air Force for my pair (not that they are telling Penny). Ranks addresses and saluting protocol (I may have saluted a lot, but I was never an officer). What is a HEMI (that was a thing ten years ago, as of this story. Oh, well. Penny has already stated she doesn't do cars. Or Chrysler trucks). The contents of an abo knapping kit, shapes of Clovis, Folsom, and Western Stemmed Tradition points. Burlington (Missouri) chert. Genetics of the Solutreans. Kulkulkan. 

There was probably more but that's all I remember.

And, no, Spock is totally wrong here. Unless things really are different in the Star Trek universe...after all, didn't we already have the Eugenics Wars? Khaaaaaaaan!

The Trouble with Research

...is that it is volatile. I spent three days (well, I was doing other things, too). But three days just to track down a particular piece of art.

See, I'd seen it. I made a note to myself that I might want to use it. But that was when I was early in the development of The Early Fox and didn't know quite where it was going to go. So I read three or four books on nuclear New Mexico, on Navajo miners and Downwinders, as well as on ranchers and eminent domain in White Sands and on the hill that became Los Alamos.

No matter how much I take notes, and highlight passages, I just can't remember the stuff I end up wanting to use. So I try, these days, to parcel my research efforts out. I read just enough to make sure the plot points are plausible.

And I wait until I'm actually writing the scene before I read any further.

One downside to this is it is almost like cramming for an exam. In this current book, the geology of the playa plays a crucial part in the plot. But I already wrote the scenes that are heavily about that geology. I risk having forgotten too much when I come back to it for the final clue.

Another downside is a lack of front-loading. My new Nuke Museum sequence is going to take some absorbing of Los Alamos in the Trinity Test days. Ideally, I'd stop and watch Oppenheimer and do some more academic research and I'd let that sort of cook until I could basically write a short historical-fiction excerpt.

And...oops; Manhattan just dropped on Prime free. Of course, the same book I discovered the Noel Marquez painting in, is SCATHING about the Manhattan mini-series...

I don't want to lose steam so I'm skipping over the museum to do Penny's meeting with Jackson and Sanchez, and the end of Part II. Which is what I'm doing with Egtved anyhow. But I do worry that the stack of plot changes is reaching critical mass. At some point I need to go back and rewrite before I forget that what a Christie Pit is got moved to Chapter 8 so needs to be taken out of Chapter 4...

Also research-wise, the desert stuff especially makes this a very visual book, and that makes it better to do at home on the dual-monitor setup. I really do love writing in a cafe over a long brunch, but the phone screen can only handle blocks of text. I can't have pictures of the rocks and sand spread out at the same time.

I only got five hundred out today, but I still have a little time after dinner and -- now that I'm about to hit the "Test Bed," it is going quickly.

Good thing, too, because I've got shiny new idea syndrome. Ran into another article and I want to do the boat one, and the viking one. But no vikings in boats. For how lightweight these damn Athena Fox stories really are (and for how low the sales are on them), I really should be punching them out on a four-month basis.

Oh, yeah. And started the home folder and dropped a 500-word proof-of-concept on my "words about writing" book.

Frybread

I've been fried all week. Strange week. Have a lot of energy at work but collapsing in the evenings and thus, no writing done.

One day into the weekend and there's 1,700 words down. The whole Pueblo Cultural Center thing written. But...reviewing that work (after I woke up again, damn this sickness), realized I'd completely forgotten the mural. So now need to open one of my Kindle books, track that thing down, and slot it in.

On top of the open tabs I've got on pueblos of New Mexico, language groups, blue corn, and the Three Sisters. And oh boy is frybread a rabbit hole. Not just a million varieties, but history legacy and identity and, yes, even controversy. That is a hell of a lot to load on to one pancake. No wonder the stuff is nearly flat.*

These driving scenes are killing me. I end up talking about all sorts of strange things in them. The intent was to just make them contemplative, just a landscape passing almost as if in a dream. But I am not Tolkien. I can't fill three pages on how dry the rocks are. I couldn't even do it with a nice fat tree to describe.

And I'm not ready for the nuke museum scene. I wish I had work week still on me because dreaming up this one is good stuff for the mental back-burner. I have the edge of something with Penny imagining herself a Los Alamos wife (and it was wartime, so yeah, a lot of them were working inside the gates, too. Some even had degrees!) And somehow carrying this on to some sort of bad blood between a surly teen or an influencer or someone who damaged an exhibit, and blames Penny for getting in trouble over it.

Because I really do want that chase through the missile yard. And doing it with Penny half-thinking spies at Los Alamos...

But I'm losing my focus, so I'm gonna go watch the Tenth Doctor play the Fifteenth... 

* Frybread, described by many as an indispensable ingredient of a powwow...is made with wheat. Think about it for a moment.

Crime Novel and Museum Guide

My outline revisions now have Penny visiting two museums in Albuquerque before doing her hike into the desert. It harms the pacing, but it is the best way to set up stuff I want her to know for the stuff that happens in the end of Part II.

And I don't actually have to info dump. She can be showing learning "things" basically off-stage, with the scenes about...scene stuff.

I have this idea of her somehow experiencing Los Alamos in the 1940's via some of the exhibits. Bringing that more to life. It isn't exactly the core historical period but, really, the historical thing for this book is largely the nuclear age.

BTW, I write this on the 80th anniversary of the Trinity Test. 

I also, really really want to do a chase or fight scene around the rockets. It looks almost like a railyard out there, with these missiles on their sides lined up like detached strings of freight cars. I had thoughts while I was there of ducking in and out in one of those "chase through the railyard" scenes.

Only problem is, there's not anyone chasing Penny yet. There are at least two (possibly three) distinct things she does towards the end of Part II that changes that status and changes the game.

And I sort of want this to be real stakes. Not her imagination running away, not a confused Karen chasing after her because she thought Penny was a docent and is demanding she explain the Titan Missile Program to her bored kids. In the best of all possible worlds, this would be the fallout from some Good Samaritan act earlier.

I'm feeling a little better about the lack of side quests. I mean, I still don't have them, but she did do a few active things to earn clues, and wasn't just getting them handed to her. 

Anyhow.

I made another lovely trip to the ER. So understandable why I'm writing a bit slow. But it really does feel like I'm getting the hang of putting out a good 5K a week, and it is methods that can be expanded to more, perhaps significantly more.

Which is good, because I'm still having Shiny New Idea syndrome.

I still wish sometimes I was doing Actress Penny. Taking it even further; she actually did a bunch of movies of the sort of Asylum kind -- possibly mockbusters referencing more directly properties that I wouldn't be able to include in their original form.

So no skills in archaeology, or gunplay, or really much physical skill other than a rough-and-tumble physicality. But a skilled mimic with eidetic memory and original-Penny's gift of gab/CHAR 20 ability to convince other people. She'd be the kind of hero who could fake knowing guns well enough to bluff an enemy...but also able to somehow pull off firing the thing anyhow when things went sideways.

And the movies are a running gag, both for pop-cultural references that are entirely IP free, and as her version of the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook.

The more plausible/likely idea I had, though, is to take the idea of fiction becoming real, and two ordinary people getting forced by "the story" to take on roles of omni-disciplinary historian/linguist/archaeologist and companion good-at-everything-physical Action Girl archetype.

And make that the last chapter of the "Other Adventures of Athena Fox" idea I proposed earlier.

Those who can't do...

Made my 1200 over the end of the VP-8 scene, and then came back to the keyboard just before bed with a waterfall of notes that brings the plan all the way up to the end of Part II. Folding in that left turn to Albuquerque, a key revelation about Mary Cartwright (the Tewa-speaking NAGPRA representative who came out to the dig outside Holloman AFB), the fallout of Penny's unauthorized walk deeper into the missile range, the Demon Core, Clovis points...

But I realized today I've slipped again into a bad habit. I wanted to have clearer clues and have the plot change with each clue. I've done that, more or less. Even if there isn't a shooting at the giant pistachio until several chapters later.

But basically Penny is going around talking to people. She isn't having to struggle for these, not mostly. No disguises, no fights, no side quests ("Sure, I'll tell you all about the Christie Pit, but first can you take these corn muffins to a coffee shop in Taos for me?")

And I could have done something interesting at the Shroud Museum. Confront Penny with her faith (or lack of it), and at least give her some morally gray choices.

I haven't even done any plot-tangential delays to her "Go to the next location, pick up the next plot coupon" journeys. The best I got is I had her help a tourist family take pictures of their kids with the aliens.

I mean, sheesh, Michael Rennie could have asked her to help setting up the conference room.

The one that started as a side quest is now an integral part of the plot. "Dynel" (Penny doesn't know her yet, but was struck by the vivid color of the hair dye she is using) was just a thing Penny saw and maybe said something about. Now it is a crux moment for her emotionally, transitioning her from avenging Lon's death to being willing to listen and find a compromise with the new safety officer at WIPP.

I'm also getting increasingly uncomfortable on this one about all of these real people and places. The Shroud Museum is such a small (but earnest) little operation I really, really don't want to make fun of them or otherwise show them in a bad light. Hell, I sort of hate to be putting in print the word on the street; that the White Sands Mall is dying.

***

Anyhow, the Viking book (next part of Penny's Road Trip) is looking more and more likely. No ideas yet where else to put her on her cross-country journey in search of America. Very possibly Boston. Perhaps I can schedule another trip back to my own birth town.

Today's plot bunny, however, isn't a bunny. It is a turkey.

(image stolen from Poseidon's Scribe)

I want to make a writer's lexicon. Not a complete one, not one with all the APA-standard citations. Just what I am seeing in the field today, and what I've coined myself that seems to work (some of which are making minor traction outside my own notes).

And mostly just being cranky, clever, and talking about books and ideas and tropes and writing philosophy from a constructivist standpoint. The history of "Mary-Sue," what the evolving usage says culturally, how it may help or hinder a writer (particularly a beginning writer, against whom it often appears as a threat or even a weapon).

The downside is, well, having to do the work. Of doing the looking up of histories and usage and at least credit sources.

And that's the worse part. I can't just copy the Turkey City Lexicon, or five hundred pages from TVTropes, because those are copyright creations. Even if their CC status allows, it isn't right to do. I need to add value.

Which paradoxically means that a complete lexicon (itself quixotic) is morally questionable. Better to take selections and build upon them with original thoughts and writing.

Which does work because the original Turkey City, as with Diane Wyneth-Jones "Tough Guide" works, are the products of skilled writers. They are short precise stinging and to the point.

I...am not. Verbose, I can do.

(And I already have a cover concept).

Ode on a Grecian Mask

I got done with the VP-8 scene. Got through in one go. Okay, there's some parking lot conversation I want to fit in. There's just a little more business between Penny and Lon to get through.

So I've got the dig team, the NAGPRA liason, the conspiracy theorist, and the retired nuclear physicist all on the page now. Always exciting the first time you try out a character. Lon took three drafts to try to zero in how he worked on the page. And he is still too nice a guy.

Next chapter, I add Jackson and Sanchez and that's it for major recurring characters. I think "Michael Rennie" may come back for a brief scene and there's a docent at the Nuke museum in Albuquerque who has a big chapter, but I've almost got the whole cast in place.

Oh, yeah. The VP-8 was the thing they turned loose on the Shroud of Turin as one of the many ways people have argued over the authenticity of the thing. I may end up needing a sensitivity reader for Catholicism for the scene I just wrote as, funny thing, the people at the museum are believers.

But I referenced another of Schliemann's exploits. Might end up cutting that. I've really reduced Penny's rambles about Sir Historical Figure Not Appearing in This Story for this novel. All part of my distillation.

Distillation one way, decompression in another. My latest worry is I might have too many action beats going on. I've become too conscious of the way people in a conversation notice bits of body language and read nuances and assumptions into them. Sure, I came through theatre and TTPRG where that is always part of the dialog as experienced.

But I feel I might be overdoing it. Today, when I got to the cashier at my usual place to order brunch I saw the previous guy had forgotten to sign for his purchase. He was still getting water so I tried to catch the eye of the cashier so she could remind him, instead of a stranger shouting "Hey, you!" down the hall.

She hadn't looked at her side of the display, she just saw me trying to catch her attention so gave me a short "I will be with you in a moment, sir!"

But at that moment water guy stood up and saw me looking at him. So I caught his eye and made a scribbling motion in the air. He moved closer but figured it out on the way. Signed, left with a quiet thanks. And cashier lady turned around none the wiser and took my order.

Now, that's some fun stuff. All is grist for the writer's mill and swap out one of those items for a live grenade and you might have a story moment. But I am worried now that I am pinging on too much of this stuff now -- maybe I really am spectrum and it has taken me this much lifetime to finally start noticing all this stuff -- and I'm cramming more of it into the flow of my writing than I really should.

My dialogue is decompressed to all hell anyhow. Penny was never an efficient speaker, in dialog or narration, but now I have entire sequences of people going "Oh? Well, yes. You sure? Yes" at each other.

And for all my intent that this was going to be 90% lyrical descriptions of empty desert, there sure are a lot of conversations.

Is this just fantasy?

Placing your book in the right genre is getting harder and harder. More of that mighty algorithm, in which everything from YouTube recommendations on up is trying desperately to narrow down what specific niche it is that you like best so it can feed you nothing but that.

Being outside of popular genres harms your exposure and thus your sales. Falling outside of recognized genres...is the kiss of death.

Oh, guess what's leading right now? Fantasy. Romantasy may or may not be peaking. Cozy Fantasy might have managed to murder itself through over-tailoring. Urban Fantasy is heading in the direction of Steampunk, which still has life every now and then but the chatter on BookTok et al will only consider it if approached with ironic intent.

SF is not doing well at all. Nor is historical (outside of historical romance, which despite surging and ebbing through trends, seems likely to survive forever).

And YA dystopia? The punchline (my personal theory is that audience went off into k-drama to get the hit they were after). In any case, any publishing boom there could be fueled for decades on the backlog of manuscripts they've already seen.

There are readers hungering for something new, or at least something they aren't being offered enough of. There are strong fans of historical fiction. The problem is, this market is small enough in comparison to the big movers it can't really survive in isolation. It needs to be shared with the larger audience to gain enough additional sales in the "I don't usually read this sort of thing but..." that it makes back investment.

And that's not something the algorithm supports. Commodification of this sort leads to homogenization. Nobody wants to make the one cereal without sugar, the one orange juice with pulp. They want to be the same burger, the same hammer, but a few bucks cheaper than the other guy.

Anyhow. Writing is potentially less of a career than it has ever been. The boom of self-publishing is largely over as there is a glut of product and a buyer's market. (Most of the big successes were aggressive self-marketers, but even that has narrowed down to a very specific and rare set of skills -- not a route open to everyone.)

Oh, yeah. None of the projects on my table are fantasy. And one of them is arguably steampunk.

Boogie with a suitcase

Still sick. Three weeks now.

But still pushing, and put 1,500 words in the can today. I got a little slowed down with the first meeting with Lon Davis, as it took three tries to get where I was going with his character and what plot bites I was going to drop in that first scene, and what I wanted to save in reserve.

And I still need to go back and refactor Dylan a little. He has to be much more shy during the work scenes, and sillier in the off-work scenes. I need to keep taking lectures away from everyone, and I also want to firmly establish that he is in no way a love interest.

Yeah, so much for the love triangle.

But the first John Freeman scene went great. (I even nailed down his favorite guitar, which is a 1960s Greco in green).

The biggest problem I have at the moment, in fact, is that I've decompressed too well. I'm over 8K for Part II already and even though I'm moving the second body drop, I don't know if I have time for another clue before Penny has to go walk out into the desert -- and meet Jackson and Sanchez.

(Another side effect of the decompression is Penny has already managed to talk more about her family than she has in any other single book of the series. I know; I've been saving the bit about the Hofner Bass for two or three books now, but I really didn't expect to get to a very interesting bit about her big sister. Not until at least the Vikings book. Assuming I do that story.)

(Oh, and came up with another plot for the Adventures of Athena Fox idea. A golden plate with Mayan astronomical observations necessary to "do something" about a loose asteroid or something. Said plate, unfortunately, held in the high-tech penthouse of an eccentric collector with far too many well-armed bodyguards...)

So I'm now at 20K for the book and I might have it half-written before the cover creator I'm trying out even gets back to me (100 Covers is having a summer rush. Well, they shouldn't have given away those 50% off codes).

That's assuming I keep putting off Egtved, maybe forever. Because otherwise I'll have to stop and dive into the bronze age for a week or two.

Defending that which needs no defense

So there's this familiar hero's journey. That's the hero that basically wins because he is just so honest, earnest, believing in his cause and willing to fight for it, that he convinces those around him.

He brings hope back to the faltering rebellion. He wins friends and allies who support him. Sure, he is willing to take risks, he works hard, and he can fight, too, when the need comes (and surprisingly well) but really it is this power of personality that does the trick. It is like everyone else read the script and realizes he's the hero of the story.

That's what is underlying those White Savior narratives. The white part may be new, and problematic, but that goodness thing goes back way past Dick Wittington into Jason, Theseus, and Gilgamesh. (Of course they had, depending on the culture involved, the advantage of being really tough or really, really clever as a useful selling point. Yes, let's throw in with the guy who keeps winning.)

So I was pushing hard to get my word count last night and my playlist rolled through to the soundtrack of Barbarella.

Okay, it didn't hit me until the extended flight sequence; Pygar takes wing, and carries Barbarella into battle. Which she wins. And her good eye and her calmness under fire is a big part of it, but the whole thing wouldn't have happened if she hadn't brought Pygar's confidence back to him.

Because she believes in him. Take the sex out of it, and it is just like the typical male hero with their engaging grin and their, "This time we can win" speech.