Soundtrack Monday: Terra Firma

Steelflower in Snow

Years ago, the only time I had to myself was a walk after dinner when my ex-husband was home and napping in his chair. I could conceivably leave the kids safely with him, put on some headphones, and walk through dusk or night itself.

Of course, every time I came home there was a mess to punish me for leaving. I still haven’t decided if the ex was consciously pulling that bullshit or if he didn’t even realize he was being an ass. Either way, it was maddening.

Anyway, the walks were a refuge; while I was writing the original Steelflower, Delerium’s Terra Firma was what I imagined playing when Kaia arrived in Hain. If the series ever becomes a movie (unlikely, since the only white person for two whole books is Redfist, though maybe Kesamine counts) that’s what would be playing over the opening montage of several days while the principals get into position.

You can hear Kaia arriving on a ship, Redfist hiding from the guards and deciding to dice a bit in the foreigner’s quarter, and see Darik and Kaia just missing each other in the crowds, Kaia stopping every now and again to watch some street acrobats or pay a bit of tradewire for a snack. There’s even a space in the song where Darik realizes he’s lost the darauq’adai, and his desperation–not to mention his frustrated anger–mounts. Then, you can almost hear Kaia getting drunk and her hand flashing out as she picks Redfist’s pocket.

There are other songs that remind me of Kaia, but this one’s the clearest. Everything about it speaks of Kaia’s world, and more to the point, her grace and beauty. She wouldn’t think herself beautiful, but most of the time I do, and I’m sure Darik does.

It’s a shame he’s keeping such a large secret from her. Of course that won’t end well, it never does. But that’s a story that may not ever be written.

Enjoy the music, my friends.

Blank, Pointy-Tooth Screens

Cormorant Run

The weekend passed in a blur, between chores and getting wordcount in on Damage. The best thing about it was the rain moving in. It is now officially autumn, and I couldn’t be happier.

I always work best when the rains settle like an inverted grey bowl, tip-tapping the roof and window, hissing between leaves beginning to turn, plopping into puddles. Maybe it’s all the negative ions being thrown up, maybe it’s the ambient white noise, maybe it’s the petrichor, maybe it’s the cleaning of the air. Maybe it’s all of them.

I also watched Wes Craven’s Dracula 2000 and its two “sequels”, the latter only loosely related to the first movie but starring Jason Scott Lee. I don’t quite uncritically love them, I’m aware of how bad all three movies are. The first one played with some extremely interesting themes and the third had the right ending1 instead of an action-movie Gary Stu vomit-fest, so all in all, they’re not bad.

Vampires are a blank screen we use to project a number of anxieties onto. I know–I’m guilty as charged, between Selene2 and the scurf in the Kismet series.3 Both had their uses, and I might be ready to write Tarquin’s story. Or even Imprint, the Beguine vampire smexy-story I’ve been adding chunks to over literal years.

But first I’ve got to finish Damage and get the Season 2 zero of HOOD out of the way. Now that I’m in the productive half of the year, that might even happen in a hurry. And of course there’s running, running with dogs, walking with dogs, parenting, and making sure my meatsack doesn’t give out under the pressure.

It feels like juggling chainsaws, complete with the risk of lopping off a hand when one grabs the wrong way. Tiger by the tail, and all that.

I should also get the monthly newsletter out of the way. Incorruptible goes on sale later this month, too, so there’s housekeeping to do for that.

It’s a good thing the rainy season’s long in these parts. I’d probably never get anything finished otherwise. Time to finish absorbing my coffee and get with the program; it might be dangerous to stay in one place.

Over and out.

Fermentation Giggles

These silicon disks with vents in the middle are known as “pickle pipes”, but I call them “fermentation nipples” because, along with sounding more scientific, it makes me giggle like a schoolgirl each time I say it. Or type it. Or even think about it, frankly.

They fit on any wide-mouth Mason jar, and the nipples (*snork*) allow gases created by fermentation to escape while not allow oxygen in, so you get that lovely anaerobic reaction. I have a HUGE crock for making sauerkraut, but these will do for smaller batches, leftovers from filling said huge crock, and experimenting with things like carrots, cucumbers, and other ferment-able veggies.

Singing “Like a Pickle” to the tune of “Like a Virgin” and dancing around your kitchen giggling hysterically is entirely optional, but I think it makes the results taste better.

…sorry, I can’t stop laughing. Enjoy your weekend, chickadees.

Small Prices

She-Wolf & Cub

I promised myself I wouldn’t start autumn’s round of baking until the daily high temp became a comfortable mid-seventies1 or so. The forecast appeared good, I put together a starter while prepping the pot roast yesterday…

…and today the forecast has changed and the goddamn high is supposed to be in the eighties, just where I didn’t want it.

Ah well. A little sweat is a small price to pay for the season’s first bread.

Last night Damage finally dropped into its groove with a deep, satisfying internal click. One of the characters is a cagey beast indeed, and I had to wait just outside his mousehole for him to get interested and stick his nose out. Now I’ve got him, and the real work can start.

So much of this job is patience. Waiting, while frustrating, is often the most efficient strategy. If childhood didn’t teach me that, motherhood certainly did, and writing’s just sealed the deal, so to speak.

I also have to put together a short survey. I may cancel HOOD after only two seasons and shift to a different serial. It’s sad, but the story is structured like a TV series and that might be a little too much for some readers. Sometimes when the audience numbers aren’t there, one has to refocus.

So if you like Robin Hood in Space, be ready to say so when the survey comes around. Only actual Serial Time or Nest Egg subscribers will get a chance to vote, since they’re the ones funding the whole deal.

I’ve the dogs to walk, bread to mix and set for its bulk rise–if I get it done early enough I might escape the heat later–and more of Damage to write. It’s going to be a busy day, just how I like it.

And so, off I go.

The Nose Knows

Rattlesnake Wind

The rains have moved in. It smells like the cusp of autumn–cedars drinking deep after dusty drought, the dust itself breathing out spice before it turns to mud, summer-yellowed grass stirring and greening at the roots, leaves preparing to dry and drop. It’s one of the better olfactory landscapes, and one of my favorites.

It was an article of family catechism that I always had a runny nose; my caretakers–such as they were–dosed me with Sudafed on an almost daily basis because my sniffing irritated them. The only time I escaped it was when we lived in Wyoming; the air was so parched I couldn’t have mustered postnasal drip if I tried.

It’s strange. I can close my eyes and remember how every place my peripatetic family ever lived smelled, even when I was supposedly a sniffle-blocked child. I know smell is one of the more basic senses; often, that’s where I start when building a scene or a character.

Moving to western Washington after the dry altitude of Wyoming meant relentless, insulting “teasing” by the adults, centered on my nose. It was a comparatively small thing considering the level of other abuse I endured, but I found myself thinking about it yesterday while I stood on the deck and breathed deep of autumn.

I don’t think I had any more postnasal drip than any other child. I think that the so-called adults just picked something tiny to gaslight me about as part of a wider pattern, and medicated me with Sudafed (to the point that decongestants based on pseudoephedrine no longer work when I actually have a cold) in order to have one more reason to beat or harass me when I forgot my dose. I think that, contrary to their long-held beliefs and constant harping, I was actually quite normal but ended up getting into the habit of paying a great deal of attention to smell.

I also think, my gods, what a stupid, stupid thing to fixate on as a parent. I’m just glad it didn’t develop into Munchausen-by-proxy. Instead, they were far more prone to neglect when it came to my actual medical needs, which I never thought I’d be grateful for.

Anyway, I stood on the back deck for a while last night between rain squalls, inhaling deeply, and I thought about Wyoming. I thought about long grass, about dry membranes, about the taste of pseudoephedrine pills, about the niggling penny-ante parts of abuse, about rain and leaves and lightning.

My nose always told me the truth, unlike so-called parents. And I find myself, at forty-plus blessed years old, untangling yet another lie I was told so often I half believed it, and appreciating my faithful, wonderful sense of smell.

Freedom smells like a dry wind roaring through car windows when I was finally eighteen and driving away. It smells like the books I can leave wherever I like in my own damn house without fear of their being shredded or tossed in the rubbish, like the shampoo I can buy myself and use without fear of being screamed at for using too much, like my own bed in the middle of the night when I wake and realize there will be no heavy, stealthy footsteps creeping into my room while I lie rigid and anticipating pain.

And I realized a deep truth, painful like lancing a boil: Of all the varied smells that have passed through my life, I like freedom the best. And I wish you, my friends, a deep draft of whatever means “freedom” to you.

Soundtrack Monday: Pump Up the Volume

Dante Valentine

It’s Soundtrack Monday again! This one is for the readers of the Dante Valentine series.

One of the things I loved about Danny’s world is slicboards. Flying skateboards are just plain cool. This particular song, MARRS’s Pump Up the Volume, was what I played repeatedly and obsessively while writing a certain bit of Saint City Sinners. Readers will remember when Danny goes to the Hole to find Konnie Basileus’s slictribe; this particular track is also, incidentally, the closest to the sound of Krewe’s Control and the Hover Squad, Jace Monroe’s favorite and preferred provider-of-jams, that is currently available.

I do want to write the Hell Wars trilogy, which centers on Lia Spocarelli and her adventures. (You can find a taste of that in the short story Coming Home.) One of these days I’ll have the time to do so.

Or so I hope. Japh would probably tell me to do it quickly, since mortal lives are so regrettably brief.

Enjoy!

The Last Turkey Morning

No turkeys were harmed in the course of this entire thing. Inconvenienced, maybe, but that’s it.

I know you guys are wondering what happened on my last turkey-wrangling day, but it’s entirely anticlimactic. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The Princess, a little concerned for my safety (or maybe my sanity, since I was returning home almost prostrate with heat and muttering about turkeys), decided to go with me on the last day. “I could hold the shovel,” she suggested, with a glint in her eye.1

“No way,” I said, immediately. “If that fucking turkey comes at you I’m going to have to kill it, and I want to avoid killing *friend name*’s turkey if it’s at all possible. You can stand outside the coop. With Shirley.”

“You’re a good friend.” She hopped off to get ready for the expedition.

I suppose I should add that my children are well used to Shirley, since she sits in the dining room most days, keeping an eye on the dogs while they’re at their bowls.

Anyway, we got there–I did not have to wrangle goats that day, thank the heavens–a little earlier than usual, and after dealing with all the other livestock we headed down to the coop. It was a bright, very hot morning, promising a tar-softening scorcher of an afternoon.

The Princess had seen Heloise and the chickens before, but never a turkey. “That’s… a really big bird,” she said, clutching Shirley to her chest.

“Just keep his attention.” I cast a critical glance at the coop fencing, which appeared to be holding up. “Wave Shirley around or something.”

“Yes ma’am.” She set to with a will, performing what I can only describe as a very slow interpretative penguin dance.

I tossed in scratch, glanced nervously at Turkey Boy, who was strutting back and forth with his tail high and his wings down, and backed cautiously out of sight.

I got in and out of the egg room, blocking the opening with the shovel, and found a paltry three eggs for our trouble. I did not, however, heave a sigh of relief until I was out of the egg room, the door firmly shut, and further firmly out of the coop itself, with the antechamber door closed as well.

“He’s really quite stunning,” the Princess said when I rejoined her at the fence. She had ceased her dance and was staring in rapt amazement. “And he looks calm.”

“Uh, not really. See the way his wings are down? That’s part of the mating dance. He’s not stomping, but he’s close. Plus, see how his snood’s getting red, and his throat too? He–“

I might have continued to lecture, but Turkey Boy made a short dash for the fence. Both the Princess and I stepped back in a hurry, and I almost turned my ankle in a rathole. Shirley swayed, and Turkey Boy stopped dead.

He might have leapt for the fence, but I think he saw Shirley and the Princess as an unholy cryptid of some sort, a terrifying amalgamation of young woman and flightless bird. He stopped, staring at us, and his throat vibrated with loud gobbles. Goose Girl had already nipped into the egg room to get at the kibble before her midmorning bath.

“Let’s not push it.” I grabbed the Princess’s sleeve and all but hauled her away.

I’m glad of two things: that someone else saw the sheer size of the bird, and that Turkey Boy didn’t come through the fence. If he’d gone after my child, she might have had to fend him off with Shirley before I arrived with a shovel–or before I grabbed him with my bare hands. Those spurs are deadly and only God knows what the resultant wounds might have been infected by, but I’d wring that bastard’s neck if he came at my baby.

We locked everything up and got in the car, and I didn’t quite spin out of the gravel driveway.2

We drove in silence for a short while, and finally the Princess turned to me from the window, her eyes gleaming with mischief. “Are you feeling relieved?”

“No more turkey,” I muttered, with feeling. “Thank gods.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “They’ll go on vacation again next year. By then you’ll have forgotten all about this.”

“Oh, fuck,” I muttered, knowing she was right.

It took a good hour before she stopped giggling.

ANYWAY, that was the last day I had to wrangle a turkey, and it passed without incident. Except for the rats, of course.

But that’s (say it with me) another story…