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TheZot

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  1. TheZot

    The substitute

    By TheZot,

    Well, OK, there's a remote possibility this one'll get touched, but I'm not betting on it. Again, it's got characters and a setting, but no plot. Pesky things, plots -- they go missing when you need them most. (Maybe I should check between the couch cushions)
     

    The substitute
    I know it's pretty normal for kids to have imaginary friends when they're little. Someone to play with and talk to when things get really bad, someone to confide those secrets that you just can't tell anyone else, someone to share your pain when something horrible happens and you just need someone who knows how to deal with it. I found mine the summer I was six, when my mother was dying of cancer.
     
    Our back yard ran up into a state forest. It wasn't big, but it was craggy and overgrown, and only took a few minutes of walking before you lost all signs of civilization. When things got really bad with mom I used to go wander through it, pretending it was the forest primeval, someplace deep and brooding where nothing bad happened and nobody ever died. Yeah, I know, looking back on it there's no way a six year old kid should be doing that, but Dad was so wrapped up in Mom's dying that nobody paid me any attention. I made sure to always take a compass and pocket knife with me so I could find my way home if I needed to. This made sense to a six-year-old. Probably would've been OK too, if the compass actually worked and the knife wasn't broken. It was the symbolism that was important, though. It didn't matter that they didn't work, I had a Knife and a Compass, so I would be fine.
     
    That's where I met him
  2. TheZot

    Fiddly bits

    By TheZot,

    Well, it looks like I'm going to be using this blog for more than I planned, so I went and tweaked things a bit. Added in some categories, changed the titles of some of the entries already posted (made 'em the names of the stories), categorized the things I've posted, and limited the size of what's shown, since the main display page is damned big what with these 1-2K word story pieces stuck in them.
     
    Yay for excuses to avoid real work!
  3. TheZot

    By Design piece

    By TheZot,

    Right, I know I should be working on the last chapter of Yankee (and the first few chapters of its sequel) but I've been distracted by work and other stuff. This has been sticking in my head too -- I guess I shouldn't ever say "I wish I could write like that, but I can't" since then my brain will nag at me until I do.
     
    I think I'm calling this one By Design, but I'm not sure. It actually involves a lot of landscape architecture, though you'd not know it from this bit.
     
    Anyway, this is only a partial chapter. There's no finale (where Rick runs away, pretty damn horrified at the destruction and at how out of control he got) nor any setup. Two of the characters of the story are in this one. Phillip's a landscape architect who specializes in water features, both outdoors and indoors (which is to say he builds fountains and ponds), while Phillip's a financial planner. (Not that either of their professions makes a difference here) Rick's been essentially celibate since college because of two really bad relationships in a row and some bad stuff at home at the time -- given that he's in his early thirties it's been a long time since he's had sex of any sort, even alone. Phillip's been persuing him with some vigor for the past few months, and they've got a semi-bizarre near-friendship and courtship ritual going, as Phillip's been working hard to get under Rick's skin and Rick's not been running away.
     
    This scene takes place in the morning. Phillip's dropped in, after Rick's gotten out of the shower but before he's had breakfast or gotten dressed.
     
    There is a point to this posting, more so than just prurience (not that I've any problem with that!) I've never written a sex scene before, and I'm not sure it works out right, or if there are things missing that ought to be in. This chapter isn't here to tittilate the readers, either -- this is a pretty damn big change in their relationship, and it's supposed to show how repressed Rick has been, and that he's not anywhere near the sexless person he thought he'd turned into. The chapter that follows has some repercussions as well. Rick's convinced what he's done is rape. (Phillip's "I started it" and "Can't rape the enthusiastically willing" arguments don't work much, since Rick knows full well that it doesn't matter, he would not have stopped if Phillip had said so, and it's the disregard for consent that's getting him)
     
    Anyway, I'd appreciate a read-over and comments on it, since I know the blog's not really set up for proper editing. Stuff I've missed, things that need more explanation, bizarrely shifting architecture, physically impossible acts, or whatever. It's first-draft, so there are some missing transitions (indicated by extra blank lines), but hopefully that won't matter.
     
    Oh, yeah, and I'm pretty sure pasta sauces don't make for good prophylactics. Just for the record, you understand.
     
    By Design, chapter ten-ish (maybe)
     
     
     
     
    "You know you want it, Rick." Phillip practically purred that sentence, his voice low and husky.
     
    "I don't think
  4. TheZot
    This one's been kicking around for ages. Yes, before you mention it, I write far too much dialog -- with Yankee (and some of the other stories I've got in progress) you see the third draft. The first draft's generally 80% dialog, the second has all the intervening bits added, and the third's the cleaned up version after getting a twice-over from an editor.
     
    This story, for reasons I never did figure out but accept anyway, takes place entirely inside an apartment. That's not to say that the characters never leave, nor that they don't interact outside the apartment, just that the reader never sees those bits.
     
    I expect that's a technique that's rarely, if ever, used for good reason, but what the heck. Never claimed this was high art. (Nor sober art, for that matter)
     
    A story in scenes of dialog
     
    "Who are you?" Mike stood dripping in the doorway of his kitchen, dressed only in a beat-up old Battlestar Galactica towel.
     
    "I'm an elf, kid. Haven't you ever seen one before?"
     
    "What? I don't believe in elves!"
     
    "Wouldn't worry about it. We don't believe in you, either. Got any beer?" He started rummaging around in the refrigerator. Clinks, thuds and the odd muffled scream came drifting out. "You really ought to clean this out more often," he said, eying something green, limp, and fuzzy on the middle shelf.
     
    "Wait a minute. Elves don't drink beer!"
     
    "We would if you kept this fridge better stocked. Nice towel, by the way. Quite the fashion statement."
     
    "What?"
     
    "Just don't believe I'm drinking a beer. It should be easy." The elf popped the top off a bottle of Sam Adams and knocked back half of it in a single gulp.
     
    Mike could see that he was quickly getting in over his head, so he decided to try a different tack. "What exactly are you doing in my apartment?"
     
    "Drinking beer, of course. Why, what does it look like?"
     
    "I was thinking in broader terms
  6. TheZot

    Fiddling's fun!

    By TheZot,

    Not productive, mind, but fun.
     
    Being a Computer Geek in real life, when I did up the new layout for Wild Life, I wanted it simple to splat out new chapters without me having to fiddle much with the generated HTML, while still having it look good.
     
    The looking good bit was tricky (and it turns out that IE7 has a busted CSS box model, so my outdented chapter tabs didn't work, dammit! No tabs for you, IE users!). I knew what I wanted it to look like, but I've never done any CSS work, so it was a bit of a challenge to get going. Luckily what I wanted was actually doable (well, except in IE) so I'm happy.
     
    That, of course, led to managing the actual content. Up until now I've been writing in Word, saving as HTML, and running the result through a perl program to strip out the crud. Then there was some hand-editing (with a 20% error rate, alas) to patch it up and send it out.
     
    Needless to say... yech.
     
    I didn't want that for Wild Life, so after the CSS got nailed I wrote some PHP to generate the boilerplate HTML, which led to some PHP to handle the overall page generation, which led to some more restructuring, which left me with a nicely data-driven set of pages. You can't see it, but the main PHP code for the Wild Life pages is entirely generic -- the body is in a separate data file, and there's a file with the chapter numbers in it, so uploading a new chapter's a matter of changing that chapter file, sending up the actual new page data file, and cloning the main php file to a new one. (I could do it with a single PHP file with a ?chapter=whatever tail, but I think that's icky looking) All the existing pages get the new chapter numbers on their side tabs, and it's good.
     
    It's all nicely automatic, and since the html that Scrivener generates is pretty clean, it doesn't even need much post-processing, and I can do all the post-processing with a little program. That's cool, fewer things for me to make whoopses with.
     
    Getting Wild Life spiffed up like this, of course, meant cleaning up the short stories, which meant more PHP fiddling (No easy grouping by filename), as well as a bit of messing around with redirects in meta tags so the old URLs still worked if anyone had them bookmarked. Simple enough.
     
    Since consistency is a nice thing, I did the same thing to Yankee, and after a few rounds of genericizing the code the actual PHP for Yankee and Wild Life chapters are identical. They share all the library files, all the main PHP pages are the same (just copies of one another with different filenames), with the only difference being the data -- stylesheets, chapter lists, and chapter contents. As it should be. The index page doesn't auto-generate yet, but I probably ought to tackle that, as soon as I figure out what its style should look like.
     
    That's where I should've stopped, of course.
     
    The trouble here is that to check things out I have to do a quick scan of the text to check for bad characters -- untranslated em dashes, smart quotes, elipses, and suchlike stuff. There was also some screwed-up parts of the text, words missing, bad punctuation, and mis-spellings. Scanning leads to reading, and reading leads to wincing, and, well...
     
    I should've stopped. Really.
     
    Yankee was my first novel, and while it isn't horrid, it has some issues. The style's inconsistent in spots, Justin's Asperger's isn't handled properly everywhere, the word choices are awkward some places, and the last two chapters are a bit phoned in. I'd leave it alone, but I'm supposed to write its sequel, so I feel the need to fiddle.
     
    So... now I have the whole thing, all sixteen chapters, pulled into Scrivener, ready for rewrite. It should, hopefully, be fast enough to do. Couple of weeks end to end, and I think I'll pull the old chapters down (or off the index page, at least) while I re-release the updated version. That should segue into Carpe Diem's release, though that won't be done nearly so fast.
     
    I am so going to owe Joe for web whacking above and beyond the call 'o duty when this is all done...
  7. TheZot
    After altogether too long, it's time for another run with Ben and William. Coming Home is up for your reading pleasure. Prequel to Dirty Basement, and sequel of a sort to Firegrass, the guys are moving from itinerant barbarian heroes to men about town. Transitions are always troubling.
     
    Now that this is done, it's time to head back to other projects. Busted's been inching forward ever so slowly, but it is moving. And as you might notice from the minor cleanup of D'home page, Carpe Diem is officially on the way. Took me ages, but I finally managed to wrap my head around the story, so it should start inching its way out.
     
    The Plan is for a new chapter out every two weeks. Carpe Diem's going to have to share space with Wild Life, since I really can't leave Ben and William behind, so there should be a chapter of each every month.
     
    Assuming the damn alien doesn't win. He's been pestering me. (You know how those aliens are...)
  8. TheZot
    (I should know better than to throw out offhand little things. Geeks, like magpies, are distracted by shiny things, and I'm very much a geek...)
     
    "I'm so glad you could make it," Harold said. "I've tried everything I could think of, but my roses keep getting worse!"
     
    "Don't worry, Mister Hargrave," said the gardener. He was wearing a green t-shirt with the 'Jake's Lawn and Garden' splashed over the left breast pocket. "I'm sure we can find out what's going on and get it taken care of."
     
    "Thanks, thanks very much," Harold babbled. "It's only a month until the garden show, and things were going so well this year..."
     
    The eponymous Jake patted Harold reassuringly. "No worries," he said.
     
    While Jake made a survey of the garden Harold paced nervously around his living room. He thought he'd had a chance this year, what with the MacKenzies off on their european tour, and Phil Brant on that white kick. He snorted at the thought. White. Sad color for a rose, and the flowers showed every blemish, no matter what you did.
     
    He jumped at the knock at the back door. Rushing over he threw it open and almost overwhelmed Jake, who stood there brushing the dirt off his hands.
     
    "What is it, did you find out? I thought maybe it was aphids, or Japanese Beetles, or some disease..." he babbled.
     
    "I think we've narrowed it down. I'll show you, and we can see about working out a treatment program," Jake said. He turned and went back out the back porch door, Harold trailing behind.
     
    The garden was indeed in terrible shape, the many rose bushes wilted and sickly looking. Jake squatted down next to one of the near bushes.
     
    "Now, if it were aphids you'd see 'em clustered on the stems. And if it were Japanese Beetles you'd see 'em all scattered around and humping. Randy little bugs. Not to mention you'd have the dead patches in the lawn and moles. You don't have moles, do you Mister Hargrave?"
     
    Harold blushed to the roots, knowing how he'd neglected his grass. "Only a few," he stuttered. "I think they come from next door."
     
    Jake glanced at the yard to the left. It was a mess, the grass a patchwork of species and weeds, with bright yellow dandelions scattered thickly across it.
     
    "I see,. Good thing they're mostly down-wind. Anyway," he said, turning to the rose bush. "What you have here is your garden variety orc infestation."
     
    "Orcs?" Harold asked, pulling back in astonishment.
     
    "Yep, orcs. See," Jake said, pointing at part of the ground with is toe. "You've got the classic signs. Burned out firepits, the gnawed bones of hapless forest creatures, and see, over there?" Jake pointed at a squirrel pelt that had been crudely cleaned, tied to a stick, and stuck into the ground. "Fetishes."
     
    Jake shook his head. "Stupid buggers, they--"
     
    He was cut off by a roar. Jake spun, pulled a gun from the back of his jeans, and fired, all in one smooth motion.
     
    Harold turned to see an eight foot tall humanoid figure with tusks and a face like a pig fall to the ground. There was a hole dead-center in its forehead. He watched with horror as the creature's body turned to brown goo and spread out into the ground.
     
    "You'll want to put some fertilizer down, the things really screw up your nitrogen balance when they do that," Jake said as he tucked the gun back into his pants.
     
    "Oh," Harold said, nearly speechless. "Will they be... difficult to get rid of?"
     
    "Ah, don't worry, they're easy enough to clean up. Couple of guys, some day-old pizza for bait, and we should have them cleared up in a few days." He gave Harold a reassuring smile. "Relax, we've done this plenty of times. Could be worse, you could have leaf hoppers. The plants'd be shot for the season if things had gotten this bad."
  9. TheZot
    Right, as I've threatened recently, I've another Ben and William short I'm working on. (Though does it still count as a short story if it's 9K+ words? I dunno)
     
     
    Anyway, I've been trying to stretch some with this one and have a more deliberate structure and theme to the story. That's a good thing, I think, assuming I managed to do it, but it makes it tougher to tell; with a good adventure story you just have to make sure that the thumping happens in more or less the right order, the descriptions all match, and there's sufficient witty banter to make everyone overlook the inherent silliness of the genre. (A genre I very much enjoy, I'll add, but that doesn't make it any less silly)
     
     
    This one's been more work, and I need some careful read-overs of it to make sure I actually accomplished what I was setting out to do.
     
     
    If anyone's interested, I'd very much appreciate some beta readers to flag where it did (and didn't) work.
  12. TheZot

    Busted chapter 70

    By TheZot,

    [Y'know, simultenaety isn't so much of a problem when you're writing first-person...]
     
    Chris was swearing at himself the whole way home. He'd f**ked up, and he knew it. That meant it was time to break the news to Toby. He wasn't looking forward to that.
     
    He parked his car and walked around the back of Steve's house. Steve's car wasn't in the driveway, which probably meant he hadn't gotten back yet. He felt a twinge of guilt for leaving Steve with the paperwork, but better Steve than him. He was having enough trouble with the captain without having to deal with catching crap for badly done reports.
     
    "Hey, sport," Chris said as he walked into Steve's kitchen. Toby was sitting at the table with Bob and Amy. Steve's kids were doing their homework, while Toby was busy coloring.
     
    "Hi Papa." Toby didn't look up. His head was down and he was concentrating on finishing his picture, a masterpiece in browns, blues, and greens. Chris could only see bits and pieces of it around the boy.
     
    "What are you drawing?"
     
    "A picture, Papa. 'M almost done," he said.
     
    Chris sat and waited while Toby finished, his little hands flying over the paper.
     
    "All done," he said, putting the crayon down. "Can we go now?"
     
    "Sure, Toby. Can I see your picture first? Maybe we can put it on the 'fridge."
     
    "'K, Papa," Toby said brightly. He held the picture up for inspection.
     
    Chris' heart sank when he saw it. Toby had drawn a desert, the background filled with brown mesas and green cacti. There was a bright yellow sun in one corner, and what looked like a dog on one of the mesa tops.
     
    In the center was a little stick figure with a big smile on its face. He was flanked by two other, larger figures, holding their hands. The one on the left was wearing dark blue clothes and a hat with a yellow star on it. The other was in grey, a white and black spotted ball at its feet. On the left edge was a tent, with another little figure sitting in front of it.
     
    "That's me, an' that's you, and that's Daddy. Up there's coyote, and over there by the teepee is grandpa."
     
    "They didn't use tipis in the desert, Toby," Chris said. "Those were mostly used by the tribes in the plains." That just added to the guilt. This was a part of Toby's heritage, and he didn't know because his father had been too wrapped up in his own problems to teach him properly.
     
    "Oh, okay. Can we have dinner now?"
     
    "Sure, sport," Chris said. He opened the back door and they started walking across the deck.
     
    "Is Daddy gonna be home for dinner?"
     
    Kids, Chris thought, really knew how to twist the knife, even when they weren't doing it on purpose. Maybe especially when they weren't doing it on purpose. That was when they asked the questions that you didn't want to answer.
     
    "Maybe," Chris allowed. It was, after all, possible, so it wasn't really a lie. Not really.
     
    "Does he like meatloaf? I like meatloaf, Papa," Toby said.
     
    "I don't know," Chris answered. "Do you want some tonight? I think there's some in the freezer."
     
    Toby stopped in the middle of the yard and thought. "We should save it for Daddy. Can we have mac'n'cheese?"
     
    Chris gave a half-hearted smile. The conversation was intensely painful, and he started cursing at himself again.
     
    "Macaroni and cheese it is, Toby. With garlic bread," he added.
     
    "Yay!" Toby started dancing around.
     
    "Or maybe we could order pizza," Chris said, pretending to think about it. "That would be nice."
     
    "No! Nonononono! Mac'n'Cheese Papa! You said! Go cook," Toby insisted. He pushed at Chris, trying to get him into the house.
     
    "Are you sure? You don't seem very hungry."
     
    "Papa! I'll tell Daddy you were being mean!" Toby said with a pout. It brought Chris up short.
     
    "You're right," he said softy. "I'm sorry. I'll get dinner started."
     
    Chris wasn't feeling all that well right then, though. What Toby had said hurt more than he cared to think about. He knew it was only going to get worse. He owed Toby the truth, though, no matter how painful it was. Or how much it might make Toby hate him.
     
    That thought made his stomach churn, and started a throbbing behind his eyes. He was getting a headache, which just pissed him off. It seemed appropriate. He was going to break Toby's heart. Some pain of his own seemed fitting.
     
    "Papa? Can you make extra?" Toby asked. His voice sounded a little off, but Chris was having a hard time thinking clearly. The throbbing had spread, and his whole head was fuzzy with pain.
     
    "I don't know that Joe's going to make it in time for dinner," he said.
     
    "That's okay, Detective," said an unfamiliar voice. It was oddly harsh, and it tickled old memories. "We can wait before I eat."
  13. TheZot

    Busted chapter 65

    By TheZot,

    Thursday morning Chris was in a foul mood. He'd half-hoped that Joe would be at the house when he got home Wednesday. Maybe Joe would bitch him out the way he deserved, he could apologize, and they could work something out. The possibility of make-up sex occurred, though he wasn't sure he was ready for that, even if Joe hadn't been hurt.
     
    Joe hadn't been there, of course. Toby had cheerfully let him know that he and Aunt Mary had dropped him off at his apartment, then asked when his new Daddy was coming back. It was the closest Chris had come to snapping at Toby since the boy had been born. He'd asked again at breakfast, though Chris couldn't quite bring himself to tell him that his Daddy might not come back. Ever. That wasn't a conversation he was looking forward to.
     
    Steve was sitting at his desk when Chris got in. He was holding a baggie with the harlequin mask. There was an envelope and a DVD on the desk in front of him.
     
    "Morning, Chris," Steve said. His tone was carefully neutral.
     
    "Morning," Chris replied. He was feeling cautious. This wasn't Steve's normal behavior.
     
    "Davidson dropped off some stuff," he said, waving at the collection of things on his desk.
     
    "And it is
  14. TheZot

    Busted chapter 62

    By TheZot,

    Steve was quiet the whole drive back to the station. That worried Chris. When Steve was quiet it was a sign he was thinking, and Chris really didn't want him thinking about Joe. That was something Chris himself was trying not to do, not that he was managing it.
     
    He'd really f**ked up at the hospital. He knew that. Joe had needed him and he'd pulled away. Need might've been a strong word; Joe clearly could take care of himself. Chris was sure he didn't really need him. Still, he'd seen the hurt in Joe's eyes when he'd pulled away. Hurt and anger. Joe had been pissed. Chris couldn't really blame him.
     
    Chris had panicked when the captain had come in the room. Until then he hadn't thought about what he was doing. Joe was hurt and he was just acting on instinct. He hadn't been thinking then. He was thinking now.
     
    Was this what he really wanted? Joe had just waltzed into his life and taken over. Chris didn't have a choice, didn't have a chance. Things just moved around him, and he didn't have any say, or control.
     
    He hated that. He'd hated it when he was a kid, and he'd hated it with Megan. And now with Joe it was happening again. This time he wasn't just getting pulled along, he was participating it. That made it worse. He was as much at fault as anyone, and he still didn't have any control over it.
     
    Chris was jolted out of his thoughts when the car stopped. He looked up, but they weren't at the station. Steve had pulled off the road at one of the spots they used when they had paperwork to finish or were setting up a speed trap. It was secluded enough that they wouldn't be bothered.
     
    They just sat there quietly. Chris was waiting for Steve to say something. Steve was trying to figure out what to say.
     
    "So what the hell is your problem anyway?" Steve finally managed. It wasn't what he wanted to say, but he couldn't get anything better out.
     
    "What?" Chris was surprised. He knew Steve was going to say something, but he hadn't expected that.
     
    "I mean seriously, what's your problem? Are you going to f**K this one up too?"
     
    "I don't know what you
  16. TheZot

    Busted chapter 58

    By TheZot,

    [Mmmm, banter. And some background, though I'm not sure if maybe it's too late in the book to be adding in background at this point]
     
    Chris and Steve sat at the back of the scruffy conference room. There were two dozen people in it with them. Some of them were other detectives from the city, some of them were detectives from the state police, there were a couple of guys from the Attorney General's office, and some PR guy from the state. They always got one of those whenever something that might end up on the front page of the papers for more than a day happened.
     
    Chris took a sip of his coffee and waited. His good mood from the morning had evaporated. This was yet another briefing, to get everyone up to speed. The third damn day of briefings, and he was tired of it. It wasn't helping that he and Steve had put the case together well enough that these jokers felt the need to step in and take it away.
     
    Steve wasn't nearly so bothered. This stuff happened, and as far as he was concerned, if they found the guy and got him off the streets before someone else died that was good enough. Getting to laugh at the pompous little guy who couldn't get the video projector working was a bonus.
     
    "So," Steve said, "looks like someone had a good night last night."
     
    Chris snorted. "Yeah," he replied, waving his coffee cup at the guy at the podium. "Handed him the case on a f**king silver platter. Probably beat off thinking about the promotion he'd get."
     
    "It wasn't him beating off I was thinking about," Steve said with a smirk.
     
    "Then you really need to talk to Mary about that little problem of yours."
     
    "Not so little, my friend."
     
    "I know your friend isn't little," Chris said, tapping himself on the chest. "It was your dick we were talking about."
     
    "Perving on my dick? What would Joe say?"
     
    "'Is that it?' probably."
     
    The lights dimmed at that point, and the projector in the back of the room flickered on.
     
    "Right," the small man at the front of the room said. "It looks like we have a psycho of some sort out there. We've done a profile of the victims so far, and it looks
  17. TheZot

    Busted chapter 54

    By TheZot,

    [Less angst here than I expected. Chris is taking this all remarkably well]
     
    Joe woke with the sun in his face and a warm body spooned up behind him. It was a nice way to wake up, and the erection pressed up behind him was nice too. They'd gone to sleep back to back, but at some point Chris had rolled over and wrapped himself around Joe. It was something he hoped he'd have a chance to get used to.
     
    He shifted a little, so he could look at Chris. The motion made Chris stir, and his hand slipped onto Joe's hard dick. That was something Joe could really get used to too.
     
    Moving had woken Chris. He kissed Joe's shoulder, then froze when he realized where his hand was.
     
    Joe realized too, and before Chris could move he put his own hand on top of Chris'.
     
    "It's okay to touch, Chris," he said softly.
     
    Chris swallowed hard. He was comfortable, and it felt right. The dick in his hand was like his own, but not the same. It felt huge, though he knew it wasn't, not the way his hand fit around it.
     
    Joe moved his hand, and Chris' with it. Joe couldn't stifle the slight moan he made as Chris stroked him. That was fine. He didn't want to.
     
    The position he was in wasn't as comfortable as he wanted it to be. Joe rolled onto his back. The blanket moved with him, leaving him partly uncovered. The cool air felt good on his skin. He pushed it the rest of the way off, leaving himself completely exposed. Chris had moved with him, still lying on his side. He hadn't stopped stroking.
     
    "You're
  18. TheZot

    Busted chapter 53

    By TheZot,

    [And we get all cuddly. Awww... ]
     
    Joe yawned. He was surprisingly comfortable, sitting on the floor, his head on Chris' lap, with Chris stroking his hair. He probably could have stayed there all night. Chris needed to get up in the morning, though.
     
    "Chris?"
     
    "Mmm?" Chris had fallen into a daze. He was feeling secure in a way he hadn't really ever known. Everything just felt so right, in ways he'd only ever felt with Toby. This was different, but just as good. Better, really. He felt complete.
     
    "You've got to go to work tomorrow, right?" Joe was working hard to keep his hands in check. It would've been so easy to let them go, to stroke Chris through his jeans. Joe didn't think he was quite ready for that.
     
    "Yeah," Chris said. He wasn't actually looking forward to the day. Too many meetings with too many people, filled with action plans and crap like that. Steve always tolerated that stuff better than he did.
     
    "Then let's go to bed," Joe said. He stood and offered his hand to Chris.
     
    "When you say bed, you mean
  19. TheZot

    Busted chapter 46

    By TheZot,

    [Right, you'll notice that chapter 45 is missing. I'm working on that, and it's turning out to be more involved than I thought. I'll post it when it's done, but in the mean time... 46!]
     
    Monday morning Joe was a wreck. His conversation with Alex had not gone anywhere near where he thought it was going to, and now he was questioning his whole relationship. He thought things had been going fine. Sure, Alex was a little flighty, but he hadn't expected him to just
  20. TheZot

    Busted chapter 35

    By TheZot,

    [isn't family swell?]
     
    Joe had been staring at his phone for the better part of an hour. The Chinese food he'd ordered for lunch had gotten cold and congealed while he stared at it. He didn't care. He didn't have much of an appetite.
     
    He shook his head. Putting it off wouldn't help any. It would make things worse, really. The later it got the more likely someone would be drunk. He didn't need to deal with that.
     
    Sighing, Joe picked up the phone and dialed a number he knew by heart. He hadn't called his parents in more than fourteen years. He'd honestly planned on never calling again. Plans change.
     
    He prayed that his father would pick up. He half-hoped that nobody would and he'd get an answering machine. He wasn't that lucky. At least it only rang three times before someone picked up.
     
    "Yeah, what?"
     
    Joe winced. It was his mother, her voice as sharp as it had ever been. At least she sounded coherent. That was something.
     
    "Hi Ma," he said. He had to catch himself from calling her Mrs. O'Malley.
     
    "What? Who is this? Ya got the wrong number."
     
    "No I don't," he said, wishing he really had. "It's Joey, Ma."
     
    "Joey? Joey! You little shit, are you in trouble again?"
     
    "I was never in trouble, Ma, and I'm not now."
     
    "Then what the hell do you want? You haven't called in what, two years?"
     
    "Something like that," he said wryly. Give or take a dozen. He'd sent a card every year for Christmas and for each of his parent's birthdays. With no return address, and he drove to Boston to do it, so the postmark would be out of state. He felt a vague obligation, but not enough to let them have any idea where he lived.
     
    Not until now, at least. He'd forgotten to block the call. He just hoped nobody had put caller ID on the line. Probably not
  21. TheZot

    Busted, chapter 8

    By TheZot,

    [Y'know, this wasn't here when I started the story. And Joe's probably going to get in so much trouble. Oh, yeah, I'm practicing cliff-hangers. They seem useful things.]
     
    Detective Russell pulled up into the apartment complex driveway. Like a lot of complexes in town, it was a collection of small buildings. These were brick, six apartments per three story building. There were twenty of the things lined up ten on a side. The complex itself was relatively new, maybe thirty years old at most, but the street was lined with trees and even in the summer sun the place was dark and a little chilly.
     
    It was one in the afternoon, and the complex was mostly quiet. That just made the ambulance and the squad cars around the fifth building on the left look all that more out of place.
     
    Joe hadn't said anything as they were careening through the streets, afraid to distract Detective Russell and have them crash. Now that they'd slowed he felt it might be safe to ask.
     
    "What's going on?"
     
    "Don't know yet," the detective said. He was distracted, eyes darting everywhere, looking for anyone unusual. He had no more information than what dispatch had given him, but that was enough
  22. TheZot
    Sometimes you realize that the world is just sort of bizarre if you look at it right. For example:
     
    The train I take into work in the morning carries more people on it in one go than the entire population of a town I lived next to.
     
    It's the 7th of January, and my son and I went into New York City today to see the cherry trees, which were in full bloom in the Brooklyn Botannical Gardens. We were both wearing t-shirts, and it was really too damn hot.
     
    Somewhere in Wales there's a guy who can say he plays electric guitar for a classical orchestra.
     
    There was a Japanese film crew at the gardens doing some what I can only presume were news show spots, and yeah I'm watching the Doctor Who music special right now. Still, that's not the point.
     
    This is important, at least to me, because I'm writing more sword and sorcery fantasy stuff. And let's be honest, the traditional version of it's been done to death -- it's possible that every "two guys with swords" story that's been told in the past fifty years is just a pale echo of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.
     
    And still... I'm writing them. Partly because I like 'em, and partly because my son read the first one I wrote and wants more. (Which is a hell of an encouragement to write) I don't even mind covering well-tread paths, since he's not read all the stuff that this could reasonably be considered derivative of. I could, I suppose, go all post-modern but, like Astro City, that'd require the background he doesn't have to really work well.
     
    This does leave me in an odd position, because while I want him to like them, I have to like them too, and I have to write them well. (Or at least as well as I can manage) I'm not feeling too up for writing complete retreads, though.
     
    That's where the perspective thing comes in. If the stories themselves are the same old thing, how can I look at them differently? What exactly about my characters lets me show something in the stories that nobody I know of has shown, or at least shown in the way I see it? What can they bring to the plots that's fresh, or different?
     
    Having the heroes be lovers as well as partners does put a slightly different spin on things, though one I can't use all that much. 'Cause, let's be real, he's 11 and it's going to be a long time (if ever!) until he reads In The Lair of the Serpent Queen. (You know the one -- what happens when the guy who falls into the archetypical Vallejo or Rowena painting (where the villainess is barely wearing something diaphanous that's only keeping her decent for cover art through sheer luck and a lot of double-sided sticky tape...) isn't directly affected by the evil queen's eldrich sex appeal because he wants to go boink his studly partner instead) So, using some of the relatively direct parts of their relationship is out.
     
    So I get to think instead. How would I look at the stories I loved as a kid? How would I tell them, what would the characters I've created (or discovered, for some of them) do in those situations, and how would it all turn out. What does perspective bring to things?
     
    I'm not sure I know the answer, really. But I'm pretty sure asking the question is important.
  23. TheZot
    Okay, not you personally (not that there isn't something horribly wrong with you or anything) but your characters.
     
    I've been thinking about that lately, as I've been doodling out the outlines for a new novel with new characters, and poking at existing characters in new stories. What's wrong with them?
     
    It may seem like a strange thing to wonder about, but I was reminded by ABG (Author of the most excellent, though not done, Torch Song) that a character's flaws are at least as interesting and certainly as important as their finer qualities. What are their problems, their issues, their demons, what things wake them up in the middle of the night screaming? What, basically, are the bad things driving them forward?
     
    Just about everyone's got something wrong with them, something less than good that affects them, gives them that mental limp or that little twitch in some circumstances. It's part of being human, I think, and if you want your characters to be human they have to have troubles too. I don't mean troubling circumstances -- those are external, and they can certainly make a story interesting, but actual troubles, which make the characters interesting and more real.
     
    For a short story this probably isn't a big deal. If you've got two or three thousand words you're likely concentrating on a few scenes and a small part of the characters behaviour, but in longer works (novellas, novels, and series) you've got time for the characters to express themselves. If they don't you end up with them feeling... plastic, and sort of a cariacature of real people, when you really do want them to be real people. And real people have problems.
     
    So, what're yours?
  24. TheZot
    Bah. Characters are a pain. I should be working on the rewrite of the last two chapters of Yankee, or on its sequel, or on Wild Life, or even (gasp!) actual Real Work. Instead... instead I'm cleaning out someone's basement. Metaphorically, at least.
     
    At least this thing should be shortish, probably about as long as Firegrass was.
     
    To tease, here's a bit of the beginning of this untitled thing:
     
    Untitled Story
     
    "William," Ben said, his voice thick with accusation. "What did you do?"
     
    "I didn't do anything," William protested. "Its just that there's a pocket dimension in our basement."
     
    "Really," Ben said.
     
    "Yes," William replied, nodding hard.
     
    "Where, exactly, was this pocket dimension?"
     
    William started to fidget uncomfortably. "You know that back corner where the stone in the walls was discolored, the one you didn't like so you put extra wards over it and moved the traveling trunk on top of it for safe keeping?"
     
    Ben just nodded.
     
    "Well," William said brightly, "you need a new trunk."
  25. TheZot
    I'm not entirely sure which is the worse thing, the fact that iTunes has an unnatural fondness for the KMFDM in my music library, or that I find it fits my mood. One or the other's probably worrisome.
     
    At least it's interspersing Evanescence occasionally, just for a change of pace.
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