Overclocking (#FridayFlash)

Be easy on me, this is my first attempt at steampunk.

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Image source: openclipart.org

Jacob looked up, hands still in the box. “You over-clocked it, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Thomas. “Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters!” Jacob threw up his hands. “You can’t just swap in a higher speed drive and expect it to go.”

“Why not?”

“Look here. Take this loupe, put it on.” Jacob took up a long pointer. “See here?” He prodded a gear train, deep inside the box. “Liberty Gearworks… well, you’re lucky if your geartrains are properly aligned to begin with. They stamp out their gears as fast and cheap as they can, instead of properly casting them. Nothing’s balanced, nothing’s deburred. That’s why we can all afford a gearworks if we want. We just can’t all have a very good one.”

“So what happened?”

“You over-clocked it. You swapped in a drive with a heavier mainspring, bigger flywheel, bigger ratio drive gear. And did nothing else. Right? Right. So you were spinning the same shoddy geartrains faster. They got hot and threw off oil, and that just made them hotter. Heat makes the gears expand, so you had even more friction…”

“Vicious cycle.”

“Yes. Sooner or later, one of the geartrains jumped a tooth and the whole thing jammed up. Like this.” Jacob poked a gear, deep within the works, with the pointer.

“But I need this thing to run faster,” Thomas protested. “I’m trying to get all the calculations done, and now I’m even farther behind. How can I over-clock it and not have this happen?”

“You don’t. You need a gearworks that’s designed to spin at higher speeds.”

“I don’t suppose you can…” Thomas trailed off.

“I won’t. British contraband gets you six months in prison, you know that. I get shady characters coming in here all the time, offering me parts from Doulton and even Royal Cogsworth, but the local Tea Party watches all the gearhead shops. A few years ago, you might have gotten away with it; but with the Centennial coming up next year, nobody’s in a mood to forget the Civil War.”

“But I know it’s done! And legally! Or so they say.”

“It’s done. But it takes either much work, or much money. Liberty gears their drives as high as their geartrains can take, at least the way they come out of the factory.” Jacob opened a drawer, and took out a geartrain. “You can rebuild the geartrains yourself, or pay to have them rebuilt.”

“It…” Thomas squinted at the gears through the loupe. “These aren’t the same gears. They’re smoother. And they have holes.”

“They’re the same gears. I drilled holes to make them lighter. I also deburred and polished every single one, then I aligned and balanced the shaft.”

“A work of art, Jacob. How long did it take?”

“A week. And how many geartrains do you have in that works?”

“My God. At least a hundred. But if they were all rebuilt like this, how much could I over-clock it?”

Jacob picked up the drive unit that he had detached first thing. “Faster than this. I know of some spinners who run their rebuilds with steam drives. Three or four times faster than a factory Liberty.”

Thomas’s eyes widened. “A steam drive, on a tabletop gearworks? If I had two years, or could afford two years of your labor… no. All right, Jacob. Set it to rights.”

“It just needs two replacement geartrains, Thomas. I can have it ready by tomorrow. Bring me the punch-tape, and the original drive, and I’ll reset it. You won’t lose anything but time.”

“Time is the most important thing, of course. Perhaps I can borrow a colleague’s gearworks to catch up.”

“Or I could put you in touch with a spinner with a rebuilt gearworks.” Jacob rummaged in another drawer. “Ah.” He passed a card to Thomas. “This gentleman rents time on his unit. Not cheaply, mind you, but not as much as two years of skilled labor.”

“It would be worth it, if I could catch up after this debacle,” said Thomas.

“I won’t ask. It must be important, though. But do send him an inquiry. Tell him I recommended him to you as well.”

“I will. And thank you, Jacob.”

“My pleasure,” said Jacob, as Thomas left. “It’s fools like you that keep me in business. Ha. But I’ll do right by your gearworks.” He took up tools and got to work.

Writing Wibbles: Interview with Helen Howell

It is my great pleasure to, once again, have Helen Howell here to talk about her new novella!



Easy one first: tell us a little about Mind Noise. Where did the idea come from?

Mind Noise is about a boy who can hear peoples' thoughts and this tends to alienate him from others. Then one day an old man appears who is able to communicate with him through thought. The old man offers to help him control this gift he has, but the question is, is the old man who he seems to be? And should the boy trust him?

The idea for Mind Noise came from a thought, that led to these questions. What would it be like to hear other people's thoughts? How would one cope with hearing things that perhaps they just didn't want to know? How would you use the information you heard? and how that then affects your life.

I think too, adolescence is a difficult time for either boys or girls to have to cope with, and an extra element like being able to hear other's thoughts, proved to be an interesting subject for me, because one could take it in so many ways. But then I decided to add the old man into the equation and to look at how he had arrived at where he was, and what motivated him. Him befriending the boy was a perfect scenario to build the story on, and adding Catherine into the equation added another interesting element. The boy now has to work out who to trust.

What's the most substantial difference(s) between the (now-defunct) serial version of Mind Noise and the published version?

The story in itself is basically the same, but the rewrite for the published Novella has more background building of the characters and the situations that occur. You get a better feel for the characters and what motivates them into doing what they do. If you like, we get to see the story behind the story.


Once upon a time, you were an exhibitionist (watercolors, not the other kind). Have you ever been tempted to write a story about someone falling into a watercolor and ending up somewhere else?

Funny you should ask that, the simple answer is No. But I have often thought about writing a story about a character in a book becoming obsessed with the writer. ^_^


You have two other books out. Tell us a little about them.

The first book I ever wrote and self published in 2012, was Jumping at Shadows. This is a fantasy fiction for 9 yrs upwards to adults who like mid grade fantasy. It is a story about a girl called Belle who discovers the secret of a family heirloom. When She and her friend Rosy use this heirloom they are propelled into a world of the shadows—the same shadows that have been haunting Belle all her life. Soon Belle realises that the future rests in her hands, and only she can keep the magic of her ancestors from falling into the clutches of a dangerous mad man.

I spent a long time writing this book and re-editing it, it was the first long fantasy fiction I ever wrote and I'm still proud of it. You can get e-books from both Smashwords and Amazon.

My second book, like Mind Noise, was published by Crooked Cat Publishing and is called I Know You Know. It's a story about a tarot reader who sees in the cards of a client that he's a serial killer and the client suspects she knows. Here's the blurb:

The darkest cards in the tarot deck reveal the darkest side of the man sitting opposite Janice—Mr. Edgar Kipp.

She feigns an inability to read for him, but will he believe her?

His parting words indicate that he knows she knows he's a serial killer. And he plans to return. The voice of her dead grandmother urges her to be careful, warning Janice she might be seeing her own future in those foreboding cards. But Janice doesn't want to listen. Gran's dead. How can she possibly help her?

I enjoyed writing this story, as I myself read the tarot cards and I know they can give you insight into certain aspects of peoples lives. I had this notion that to take it one step further, and put the tarot reader in jeopardy from her client because of what she knows, would make for a thrilling story. The story allows you to understand where Janice came from and how she develops her abilities and it also gives you a look into the dark world of Mr. Edgar Kipp.

The book is available from Amazon as a paperback or e-book.


OK, last one: what did you want me to ask that I didn't? What's the answer?

How do I feel about having my work published?

I think the honest answer to this is that I'm happy my work has reached a wider audience. I write because I love to write but if most of us writers are honest, we write to be read too. When someone not only reads what you have written but likes it too, well that's like a box of chocolates being given as a gift. The sheer pleasure of knowing that your work is liked by some is the motivation needed to carry on writing. Because writing is a lonely business and once you release your work into the public, then there are those anxious moments as to whether it will be well received or not.

Thanks for having me over.

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My pleasure, Helen! Now let’s let everyone know where to get Mind Noise and your other books, eh?


Links to Mind Noise:

Amazon:
US: http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Noise-Helen-Howell-ebook/dp/B00HXX4RY2
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mind-Noise-Helen-A-Howell-ebook/dp/B00HXX4RY2

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/399499



Links to I Know You Know:

Amazon:
US: http://www.amazon.com/I-Know-You-Helen-Howell-ebook/dp/B00BH59NAU
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/I-Know-You-Helen-Howell-ebook/dp/B00BH59NAU

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/286746


Links to Jumping at Shadows:

Amazon:
US: http://www.amazon.com/Jumping-At-Shadows-Helen-Howell-ebook/dp/B008TJKXQ0
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jumping-At-Shadows-Helen-Howell-ebook/dp/B008TJKXQ0

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/204743

The Swamp Witch and the Deacon (#FridayFlash)

We’ve met Hattie before, in Past the Witching Hour. The two of us have some plans for more, but at our own pace.

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“Knitting’s good for the soul, Mr. Sniff. And it keeps my fingers nimble.” Hattie held her project in one hand, and used the other to scratch her cat behind the ears. “Now go take that nasty old mole off and eat it, or whatever you plan to do with it. Good kitty.”

Hattie resumed rocking on her porch, the creaking of the porch boards a counterpoint to the click of her needles. Add some boom, she thought, and it would sound like what the kids play in their cars. Out here in the swamp, though, only sirens carried to her door.

Mr. Sniff hopped back on the porch, then hissed and jumped onto the rail. He crouched, watching.

Hattie followed her cat’s gaze, and saw that flash of color. “You be good, kitty. That’s my friend.” She prodded the cat with a toe, and Mr. Sniff jumped down and glared before slinking away. The parrot glided under the porch, and alit on the perch that Hattie had made for him. “What news, Rainbow?”

“Visitor,” Rainbow croaked. The parrot had come to the swamp about a year ago, probably an escapee from some birdcage in Nawlins or up north, and had struck up a friendship with Hattie. He warned her of people on her path, and she gave him shelter on cold nights. Mr. Sniff thought he would make a fine feathered feast, but Rainbow knew to be wary of the cat. The bird was smart enough to carry on a limited conversation, too.

“Thank you, Rainbow,” said Hattie. She took a bag of nuts from a pocket, and shook at few into her hand. “Snack?”

“Snack. Thank-oo.” Rainbow flitted down to the arm of Hattie’s rocker, and picked the nuts from her hand, before flying away.

“Here, kitty,” said Hattie, laying down her knitting. “Let’s look like we know all and see all.” She chuckled. Nobody walked through this part of the swamp unless they wanted something from the Swamp Witch.

So when Scott Devereaux reached the clearing, where Hattie’s house perched on one of the few firm spots in the swamp, he saw the witch standing on the porch with arms crossed. Her black cat sat on the rail next to her, glaring at him. How did she hear me? he thought, then shrugged.

“What’cha needin’?” Hattie snapped.

“What makes you think I would want what you have to offer?” he said, a little more boldly than he felt.

“Nobody comes out here ‘less they need my help,” she said. “C’mon up and sit, Mr. Devereaux. Whatever it is, it stays ‘tween us. I ain’t stupid enough to go blabbin’ ‘bout people’s bidness.” Though I sure was tempted to turn in your daddy, back when you were in diapers, when he wanted some help for that thirteen year old girl he knocked up. But being strict about keeping people’s secrets was part of being a Swamp Witch.

“You know who I am, then.”

“Course I do. Your daddy’s the preacher at that big ol’ Protestant church. You’re the deacon, and he’s settin’ you up to take over when he retires next year.” She took her rocker, and waved a hand at the other one. “Pull that chair around. Tell me what’cha need, and I’ll tell ya if I can help.”

Instead, he stood, looking down at her. “What I need is for you to get gone. You’ve been a blight on this community long enough, and respectable folk have had enough. You do the Devil’s work out here, letting people escape the consequences of their sins—”

Hattie snorted. “You think you’re the first self-righteous fool who come out here to run me off? You might be surprised at the ‘respectable folk’ around here who I let escape the consequences of their sins, little boy. Me and your daddy went to school together, he knowed me all his life, and he’s been preachin’ ‘round here longer than you been born. He never seed fit to do nothin’ but live and let live, least by me. I know he taught ya to mind your own business, too.”

“Don’t you dare talk about my daddy,” he hissed.

“Okay by me.” Hattie sounded not at all intimidated. “I know he didn’t send you out here anyway, and he ain’t part of this. Maybe we should talk about you instead. Or, you wanna pay for your own sins, nobody’s makin’ you come to me.” She gave him a significant look.

“I am not interested in hearing your lies and innuendo.”

“Well, you don’t want my help, and I ain’t goin’ nowhere. So I guess we got nothin’ more to talk about.” Hattie picked up her knitting, ignoring how the younger Devereaux glared at her and tried not to fidget as the evening light dimmed.

“This ain’t over, witch.” Devereaux finally spun around and stomped down the porch steps.

“I know what’cha need, boy,” she called, and Devereaux spun around. “Yep. You think I don’t know what people need before they come a-callin’? I figgered you wouldn’t wanna talk about it, so I left it along the path.” She nodded at Devereaux’s wide-eyed stare. “So count off fifty paces after you pass that first tree, you’ll come to a little break on your left. Go through it, and count twenty more paces. It’s there.”

Devereaux nodded once, then turned and walked away without another word. “He didn’t offer to pay, I notice,” she muttered. “Theft is a sin, and sin has consequences, eh kitty?”

Mr. Sniff looked down the path, and arched his back at two faint splashes.

“Oh, dear,” said Hattie. “Dern fool got off the path, and the Swamp Critter got ‘im.” She returned to her knitting. “Time to find a new girl to take over, kitty. I’m gettin’ too old for this.”

Indie Life / Writing Wibbles

Welcome, Indie Lifers, to the free-range insane asylum! Don’t forget to hit the linky at the end, and see what other indies have to say about their travails, triumphs, and tips this month. This is the final Indie Life post, as the Indelibles have decided to wind down this monthly meme/theme. (bummer!)


Time to Market

I’d planned to write this last month, but life got in the way.

A few years ago, while I was readying White Pickups for a wider audience, I was trying to decide how to proceed. Should I follow the traditional route, landing an agent who would land me a publisher? Or skip that and take my chances with this newfangled indie publishing thing?

So, taking Kristine Kathryn Rusch's advice to “treat your writing like a business,” I sat down and did a cost-benefit analysis. Best case, I could make millions either way (ha!). Worst case, I’d make a few bucks going indie and nothing at all traditional (if I couldn’t get an agent, etc.). Either way was essentially a wash, except in one aspect. My dayjob is in the high-tech industry, and time to market is a major consideration for any new product. Can we get it out the door before our competitors roll out something similar?

In time to market, going indie was the clear winner. Even if I landed an agent immediately, and that agent got me a publishing contract a week later, it would be another two years before my book hit the shelves. I needed an editor and someone who could design a decent cover; I could format the thing myself. Maybe a year, tops. Then lightning struck: my editor turned out to be sitting next to me in the church choir, and a Photoshop expert offered a special for a cover. Bing-bang-boom, and there was my book, ready to go!

Last year, I released the first three Accidental Sorcerers stories, a pace that traditional publishers would find hard to match. But now they’re trying (New York Times link). Due to the roughly 5 month pace, I think I’ll only finish (i.e. publish) two this year. But I have several other things I’m working on. I published EIGHT books this year, all told—but only because I had a backlog. Now my backlog is clear, and I’ll be hard-pressed to come close to that kind of output this year. I publish when the book’s ready, and they were ready.

But it was in December that the indie advantage of time to market really showed itself. I was looking over some Christmas-themed flash and short stories I’d written over the last few years, and thought “huh, I ought to throw these into a mini-anthology.” Thus was born Christmas Guardians (and Other Stories of the Season).

By this time, I was in the Green Envy Press co-op, and I contacted the cover designer. I had a photo that I thought was suitable (which would save money on a “lark” project). Instead, Angela came up with a cool microphotograph from Wikimedia Commons. I already had a “floral leaf” graphic to mark the end of each story, and I had experience formatting an anthology. We arranged the stories, did a quick edit-through, and I hit Publish.

Concept to product availability: two weeks. Let’s see a traditional publisher top that. My co-op partner is trying to top it, with a Valentine-themed micro-anthology to be written and released in time for VD itself. Fun times!


Now it’s your turn: How do you use your time to market advantage?

Thanks for reading, and check out some of the other Indie Life writers this week!

Resurrection

While Daughter Dearest was still in college, the wife got a mini-van and gave her the blue Civic to drive back and forth to Waleska. It was newer, and in much better shape. The old green Civic was a backup, until we loaned it to BrandX to use… for driving to college and back (but, in his case, Gainesville). He drove it—and, just as one might expect from the offspring of Mr. Sunshine, assumed that basic maintenance was something for someone else to deal with. The car overheated a lot, and we’d ask him if he checked the water. “No.” Well, duh.

So eventually, the green Civic couldn’t hold its water, and we parked it. And there it sat… until one of The Boy’s friends expressed an interest in it. We agreed on $400 for the sales price, and he brought us the money (cash) in several installments.

So he topped up the radiator fluid, took it for a brief (1/2 mile) drive, and returned with water gushing out of the cap. “Just needs a head gasket,” he said, and on Thursday he returned around 3pm with the gasket and a large collection of tools. I was working at home that day.

“Don’t we need to tow it down to the chicken house?” I asked. (The Boy has his Acura down there, undergoing its own engine transplant.)

“Nah,” he said. “It’ll only take a couple hours.”

“To pull the head?”

“Yeah. It’s no big deal.”

I checked in on him a couple times through the day, just to see how he was doing and to take a picture. “The head’s really clean, for having 300 thousand miles on it,” he said. “I expected an eighth inch of sludge all over everything.” He scraped off a very fine layer of oil-colored coating with a fingernail.

Well, of course, that “couple of hours” turned out to be closer to five hours; which meant he had to finish the job in the dark, with his friend shining the headlights of his own car at the Civic. I would have loaned him a trouble light, but The Boy already had it down at the chicken house. With all the tools he brought with him, I still loaned him a pair of pliers and a 1/4" 10mm socket. But as we were coming home from the usual supper at the inlaws, he was wrapping it up.

“Can I get a couple gallons of water?” he asked. No problem. When I did the major garage clean-out, I gathered up some gallon jugs and hung them on a pole. I also found about five gallons of radiator fluid, and offered him some to go with the water. One of the half-full containers was exactly right, he said, and was grateful to have it. (Plenty more where that came from, no problem.) So he filled up the radiator, and took it on that half-mile test run. Sure enough, the head gasket replacement fixed the problem, and he drove it home. He offered to help rebuild the red Civic, after The Boy gets his Acura going, and I’ll be happy to have it running (even if I just sell it).

So everybody’s happy. We have $400 in our pocket and one less piece of rolling stock cluttering up the manor grounds. He has a working vehicle. Now if I can just get him to stop teasing me about this rotary engine he’d be glad to drop in my Miata. (NO. :-)

Blink's First Adventure (4/4) (#FridayFlash)

Previous: Meet Blink | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Last week, while Captain Heroic created a diversion, Blink popped into the Blackuras’ house to free Frank—but as he untied Frank, a punk confronted them with a lug wrench! Will Blink prevail? Read on for the thrilling conclusion!

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Frank moaned and backed up two steps, and the punk grinned.

Blink thought of several possibilities all at once: yell for help, take off and leave Frank behind, or stand and fight. He reached for his pocket, where he had the panic button that Captain Heroic gave him, but stopped. This is your show. If he was going to be a hero, he had to act like one, not wimp out at the first sign of trouble. And he did have a football player on his side… “Frank,” he whispered. “Log roll.”

“What?” Frank asked, but Blink had already popped out of the room, behind the punk.

“Now, Frank!” Blink yelled, throwing himself forward.

The punk turned, throwing himself off-balance, just as Blink plowed into him with a grunt. He staggered forward into the room, flailing. Frank suddenly realized what Blink meant, and threw himself at the punk’s feet. The punk went down, lug wrench skidding across the floor, and Frank rolled and came up in front of Blink in a three-point stance. Blink flickered away again, reappearing three feet in the air above the punk as he tried to scramble to his feet. He dropped onto the punk’s lower back, slamming him back down. The couple in the next room paid no attention.

“Let’s go!” Frank rasped, stepping toward the door, as the punk curled up and wheezed for air.

Blink popped in front of him. “Not that way. There might be more downstairs. We can take the easy way down, but I need to hold you. Okay?”

“Do what you gotta,” said Frank. “If I have to stand on my head and sing I Kissed a Girl to get outta here, I’ll do it.”

Blink snickered. “Okay. Good work in there, by the way.” He wrapped his arms around Frank’s middle, lifted him with a grunt, and then they were outside before Frank could say “Thanks.”

A yellow four-door pickup truck stopped at the curb, and Blink led Frank to it.

“Who’s truck is this?” Frank asked.

“Captain Heroic’s. I got shotgun.”


“…so me and Blink had to fight our way through the whole gang to get outside,” Frank was telling the crowd gathered around him. “He said I did great! Then Captain Heroic picked us up—in the Heromobile!—and took me home. It was totally awesome. I’m probably gonna end up bein’ Blink’s sidekick or something.”

“And he’ll be called Blank,” Stevie whispered to Lashaun and Chris, who snickered.

“You gotta give him points for creativity,” Lashaun said, once they were safely out of earshot. “He could make geometry sound exciting.”

“We were surrounded by obtuse angles,” Stevie intoned, “me and my acute angle against the horde! But when we lined up back to back, we became… booooom! Right Angle!”

“And the temperature rose to… ninety degrees!” Chris chortled.

Stevie thought, nodding or laughing in the right places, letting the banter wash over him on the way to geometry class. He could be just Stevie until summer, now. Captain Heroic said the heroes would make sure Dad kept up his end of things, so Stevie wouldn’t have to choose between villainy and homelessness. They would also help Mom find a better job. In return, when school finished, he would go to “summer camp.” Of course, that really meant being Professor Zero’s lab rat, and taking lots of training from the other superheroes. And getting interviewed by Montana Rack…

That might be hard, but the hardest part would be keeping Mom from finding out.

THE END

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Blink’s adventures now continue, with Blink: Superhero Summer Camp! And be sure to check out the other heroes and villains of Skyscraper City—here on TFM!

Writing Wibbles

With the weekend came February, and with February came time to re-open that first draft of Into the Icebound that had been waiting patiently for my gentle editing touch (and all the things I thought about and had written down in the last month). I found a few problems, mainly with timelines, and a few minor things. I then printed the sucker out, and read it through over lunch and into the evening on Tuesday. And, of course, I found a few more things.

So… ready for the beta readers? Not quite. Someone on G+ linked to a post by Hugh Howey, in which he talks about the three things required for engaging prose. Two of them (vocabulary and a plot that people will care about) seemed self-evident to me, but “an ear for the rhythm of words” stuck out as something new. Or maybe not so much new as “aha!” You see, my partner in co-op +Angela Kulig has it. It comes natural to her, and it sets her work apart. She claims to be a lousy writer, and denies my opinion that she’s a very good storyteller, but her books read like poetry. There’s that rhythm of words, that I instinctively try to not mess up when I edit her books.

Howey has a lot to say about rhythm, but I wanted to quote this part:

Rhythm requires mixing up long sentences and short. It requires repetition, so that key concepts are stressed a second time, that they may lodge in the brain. It often means breaking rules and dropping commas where they don’t belong, signaling to the reader to take a breath, to pause, to relax, to prepare for more to come.

I often abuse punctuation when I’m writing dialog. When my characters are talking, I’ll sprinkle commas, ellipses, and em dashes as I see fit—I use them to set the pace of the dialog, to try to plant the rhythm of the character’s speech in the reader’s head. Editors go nuts when we do that kind of thing, though.

So what-all does this have to do with my self-edit? Easy: I’m going to go through the printed MSS one more time, looking for that rhythm of words. Then… it’s beta time!

The End (of both Winter #2 and Jury Duty)

Yesterday dawned bright and sunny, and warmed up rapidly. The snow began retreating right away. But I could not tarry to enjoy the dawning of Spring #2, as I had a jury to sit on.

So, once again, off to the courthouse. I bypassed the assembly room, and went straight on back. I’d left my Juror badge at home, because the wife hit me with three last-minute things as I was trying to edge away, but they got me another one.

“Why are there seven of us?” one of the jurors asked. “I thought the judge said they were going to pick six people.”

“I assume one of us is an alternate,” I said. “But I figured they would have told us who.” Nobody wanted to speculate further, then the bailiff came and led us in. It used to be that the judge came in last, there would be an “all rise,” and then everyone could sit after the judge did. Now, it’s the jurors who come in last, and everyone stands for us. Things change, ever so subtly, over time. (The lawyers address the judge as “judge” instead of “Your Honor,” as well, something I’ve never managed to feel comfortable with.)

So… on to the trial. New Year’s Day last year, a cop pulled over a woman doing 78 in a 55 zone. This is the edge of the retail district, and there have been several nasty wrecks at the stoplight just up the road. They smelled like booze, and she had a few bobbles during the field sobriety test. He took her in, and she blew a .17 on the in-house breathalyzer.

Now, I had mentioned some interesting stuff in Thursday’s post. With the trial over, I get to tell about it. During voir dire, the defense attorney asked “has anyone had classes in computer programming or engineering?” Several hands went up, mine being one. Most people had basic things like Excel training or a general introduction, one had a Java class.

Then, he got to me. “I had three years of electrical engineering classes at Michigan Tech before I switched majors.” Programming languages? “Yes, FORTRAN, Pascal, I taught myself C and C++, did some recreational assembler programming,” etc. It was pretty easy to put two and two together… he had mentioned the brand of breathalyzer they use at the local cop shop in an earlier question, so I figured he was going to work that angle. Calibration procedures? “I’ve never done them, but I have a general idea of how it’s done.” I figured that there was just no effing way that he’d want me on that jury.

So (remember, this was Thursday) when the clerk called off the numbers of those of us selected, I was shocked to hear my number come up last.

Back to Friday. We heard the opening arguments, and then we (for once) got to go to lunch on time and without a huge rush to get back. I walked to the local Pool Room, where the onion rings are second only to The Varsity’s, and got a chicken sandwich to go with them.

I have to hand it to the defense attorney: he did the absolute best he could with an open-and-shut case. He pulled a nice head-fake, making the main thrust the less than courteous behavior of the cop (e.g. he put on a raincoat, and made the poor tipsy woman do all her field sobriety tests in the rain). He did try a clever dodge—the cops calibrate their radar devices daily, while a trained dude comes in quarterly to calibrate the breathalyzer—but mobile gadgets need more frequent calibration. It didn’t help the DA, when he sort of overstated his case to begin with, but in the end the defense couldn’t overcome that pesky breathalyzer reading.

When it came time for the jury to do its thing, the judge called my name. “You are the alternate juror,” he said. Surprise! That meant I got to sit by myself in another room while the other six did the hard work. The bailiff was kind enough to let me keep the note pad they had issued me, so I did a little writing while waiting to see if I’d get called in (not an idle thing: one juror actually did have a heart attack earlier in the week, and the alternate got the call). I had time to fill up a sheet of paper on both sides, then the bailiff said the others were ready.

So in we marched, me at the end of the line this time, and the other jurors had reached the same (reluctant) conclusion that I had. Guilty. Again, to my surprise, the DA suggested a very lenient sentence, since it was her first-ever brush with The Law. She got off with a sentence slightly lighter than what The Boy got for having a small quantity of dried leaves, and he wasn’t operating a motor vehicle under its pernicious influence at the time.

So that was the end of jury duty. We shuffled down to the clerk’s office to get a “proof of service” letter. I probably won’t need it, but it’s always good to dot your Ts and cross your eyes.

I learned a few interesting tidbits in this whole thing. For example, on Planet Georgia at least, they can’t administer a breathalyzer test within 20 minutes after you burp. So if you keep belching every 15 minutes, you can defer having to blow until you sober up. :-P The Boy claims that putting mustard on your tongue will defeat the breathalyzer as well, but how many of us keep a bottle of mustard in our glove box for the Blue Light Special? You can also ask for an “independent test,” which is something the cops are required to tell you, but don’t exactly make a point of. (On the stand, the cop admitted to some less than 1% of DUI arrestees asking for one.) I’m certainly not advocating driving while bombed—remember, I was ready to vote guilty if need be—but I’m always one for people outwitting machines and knowing their rights. Do what I do: drink at home and write weird stuff. Don’t let the cops steamroll you, but remember that most of them are trying to do the right thing.


So. Spring #2. It was nice enough that I took Mason outside today. I would have built a fire in the firepit table, but he’s not exactly the kind of kid who likes to stay in one place. We had a pretty good time until the sun got into the trees and the breeze came up. Suddenly, it felt like the first of February all over again.

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day. I sure hope the real spring comes early. Especially after January. On the other hand, it was a good month for book sales…

Blink's First Adventure (3/4) (#FridayFlash)

Previous: Meet Blink | Part 1 | Part 2

In last week’s episode, Blink met up with the retired Captain Heroic, and convinced him to help save Frank Crain from the Blackuras. Blink stole that wad of cash from them, and now the street racers are revved up for vengeance! Can he rescue Frank on his own?

---

The Blackuras’ headquarters was a house across from an abandoned factory building. The parking lot was open, and had more than enough room for all the members to park their cars (all Integras or Civics, all black). The street was dark, the only sound coming from the house. It sounded like a mid-week party.

The Heromobile glided into the parking lot, wearing its “old sedan” skin, near-silent but for the whisper of tires on pavement. The Blackuras’ own fleet hid it from the house. Before tonight, Stevie would have been thrilled beyond words to get a ride in the Heromobile, but Blink was focusing on the work ahead. He had outlined his plan to Captain Heroic, who suggested a few refinements. But he was ready to go.

“How did you find this place?” Captain Heroic asked.

“I was hangin’ out at the Twenty-Four on Saturday, and one of them came in for gas. I heard ‘em talkin’ about how much money they took in, so I popped into the trunk and hitched a ride. Then I popped out after they cut off the motor. When they went inside, I looked in the window, and saw all this cash laying on the table. So I popped in, grabbed two handfuls, and popped out before they knew what was going on. I found a Slaver-Mart bag in the trunk on the way over, so I stuck the loot in that and got away.”

“Slaver-Mart?”

“That’s what Mom calls Saver-Mart. Where she works.”

“Gotcha. Did anyone get a good look at you?”

“Nah. I was wearing a balaclava, anyway.” Blink fished it out of his hoodie pocket. “I guess I need to put it on, huh?”

“I’ve got something better. In the glove box.”

Blink opened the box, and lifted a black eye mask. “This?”

“Why not? It goes with your hoodie. Maybe wear the two together.”

“Yeah.” Blink pulled the balaclava over his head, then added the mask. “Now you see me…”

“And let’s see if we can locate your friend.” Captain Heroic pulled something out from under the driver’s seat that looked like a futuristic pair of binoculars.

“What’s that?” Blink asked.

“Infrared scope, with image enhancement. Lets me see through walls. Sort of.” Captain Heroic pointed the scope at the house, turned a knob, and began muttering. “Bunch of people in the kitchen… living room… upstairs—uh, that’s not it. Heh. Oh… I think I found him.”

“How do you know?”

“One person, sitting still in the middle of a bedroom. It’s upstairs on the left. Can you do your thing from the ground, up to the second story?”

“No prob. Let’s get started.”


Inside the house, the happy party babble came to a halt with the hollow report of a string of firecrackers going off in their mailbox. Several Blackuras leapt to the windows in time to see an old Buick take off, burning rubber. Even through the walls, they heard someone bellow, “Whoooooo! Catch me if you can, slowpokes!”

With a chorus of “Oh hell naw!” the Blackuras poured outside to their cars, some on cellphones, alerting other members already on the street. With the yowl of highly-tuned four-cylinder engines, the street racers added their own tire smoke to the haze. They turned the corner, and blew by a big yellow pickup truck sitting at the curb.

Upstairs, Frank Crain listened to the commotion, hoping maybe the cops had come for him. But things got quiet again, except the couple in the next room kept doing it, and he shook his head.

Then there was someone in the room with him.

“Really, I ain’t him,” Frank pleaded again. “Just lemme go, okay? I don’t know nothing.”

“Sssh. You wanna get outta here?” a voice whispered.

“Yeah,” Frank whispered back. “Who are you?”

“The real Blink. Now you know why secret identities are supposed to be secret.”

“Yeah. So you ain’t mad at me about sayin’ I was you?”

“Maybe a little, but this ain’t your battle.”

“What’s the deal, anyway? They kept sayin’ something about money.”

“I pulled a fast one on them, and they didn’t like it.” The zip ties around Frank’s wrists parted, and Blink started cutting at the bonds around Frank’s ankles. “Have they figured out you were just talking crap?”

“I thought if they had, they’d let me go.”

“Okay, you’re loose. Let’s—”

“You ain’t goin’ anywhere.” Blink and Frank turned to see one of the Blackuras standing in the bedroom doorway, brandishing a lug wrench. “Siddown, both of you!”

continued…

Jury Duty Day 2, and more Winter #2

So everyone has heard about the debacle that was Atlanta traffic on Tuesday afternoon by now, right? Seriously, people who don’t live on Planet Georgia: it’s not the two inches of snow that throws everyone in the ditch here, it’s the quarter inch of ice underneath. I was explaining elsewhere, that we get snow in a fairly narrow temperature range—below 25°F, it’s usually “too cold to snow” here. So when we do get snow, the ground is often warm enough to melt it… then it freezes while we get more snow on top.

Then, once the snow came in, it stayed below freezing for several days. Usually, it’s here today and gone tomorrow. And we had icicles on the house. Icicles, people! Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen that?

Oh yeah… jury duty. I wasn’t called in on Tuesday, which is fortunate, because the mess really started in the afternoon. I just plopped the work laptop on the desk and got to it. I called the jury duty hotline in the evening and got: “report on Thursday, January 30.” I ran the message again to make sure I got that right… then realized yeah, they’ll be closed Wednesday.

So Wednesday was another work at home day, except that I took a brief break to let Mason play in the snow. The only problem (as you might expect) was convincing him that he was getting cold and we needed to go back in. But in the time we were outside, he got to make snow angels, drive his trucks around, crawl around in it, fall down and complain about losing his footing.

He pointed out the icicles on the house… and I have NO idea where “I want to eat one!” came from. And he was very insistent about it. What the heck, I used to do it all the time. I found a sufficiently long stick, got him to stand back, and knocked one down.

I was rather surprised that he started slurping that thing, and wouldn’t turn it loose. That is, until he fell… then the icicle went flying, and he started begging me for another one. But he was cold, and I was getting cold, so I took his angrily protesting self back inside.


OK, back to jury duty. When we last saw the inside of the courthouse, it was 2:15 p.m. Monday. None of us waiting in the assembly room had been given a lunch break. That didn’t jibe well with the comforting speech from one of the judges earlier in the morning, who claimed to understand the inconvenience that reporting to jury duty was (before heaping the inconvenience of no lunch on us all). With a couple days to… um, cool off, perhaps things would be better today, right?

So I trundled in, flipped open my Kindle, and waited. I popped earbuds on and cranked up some music at one point, because a pair of teabaggers were reinforcing their constructed reality. And waited some more. Read some more. Played Midnight Mahjongg on my iPhone. Waited some more. Noon came, with no sign of an impending lunch break. Here we go again…

Fortunately, some judge suddenly thought about the starvelings in the assembly room, and we got a super-generous 45-minute lunch break starting at 12:45. It was enough time to grab a lunch special at the local pizza joint, anyway.

So we returned. I was hoping the all-day no-call meant that all the cases were being pled out, and we’d all soon be sent home. But… around 3p.m., the clerk called a clump of jurors, and they filed out. Shortly after, he assembled another clump, which included yours truly. Heigh ho, heigh ho, it’s off to court we go.

As for the rest of the story, it will have to wait for (I hope) tomorrow, when we finish the trial, because I got selected. That was very surprising, and I’ll go into details when it’s over.

Jury duty. It’s like getting a “chocolate” icicle:

Writing Wibbles: the ABC Award

Helen Howell has awarded me the Awesome Blog Content (ABC) award. Thanks!

These are the rules, with annotations as suggested by Helen:

1) Download the award logo and add it to your acceptance post.
2) Nominate a few fellow bloggers and share the award.
3) Since the award is ABC, take each letter of the alphabet ABC and use it to tell something about yourself.

So here’s the ABC part:

A is for: Age. The ol’ double-nickel, aka 55.

B is for: Baking. I enjoy clearing the decks in the kitchen, slinging flour everywhere, and watching family members gorge themselves on what I make. Actually, I make better biscuits than the wife does, but I don’t make a point of telling her that!

C is for: Computers. I’m pretty good with them, especially Macs, especially now that they have Unix as a sub-layer. I used to joke about being one of the few parents whose kids would come to him with computer questions.


And hmm… who do I nominate? So many worthy choices… I’ll tag a couple I haven’t ever tagged before:

• Eric J. Krause, whose writing prompts seem to find a home in my stories more than anyone else’s prompts.
• My partner in co-op, Angela Kulig, who writes great blog posts and needs to do it more often.

And hey, if you want the award, scoop it up and have fun!

Winter #2, and Jury Duty day 1

Image source: openclipart.org

So I missed blogging about Winter #1, when it hit −1°F for the first time since the 1980s. The outdoor dogs got through it just fine; we put hay in and around their houses and they had no problems. In fact, Mongo (Buster T. Butthead’s progeny) never bothered going inside his house. I checked on him several times in the early hours of the night, when it was already in single digits, and he was just curled up happily in the hay. The other two dogs had enough sense to use their doghouses, and they were plenty warm. In the morning, Mongo was basking in the cold sun… no problems.

For you metric-inclined folks,
that’s 2°F. About −17°C.

Winter #2 settled in late last week, bringing another round of frigid temperatures, entire days below freezing, and so forth. Sunday poked itself up to around 50°, and it’s almost as nice today, but the next blast is coming in tonight. Snowpocalypse again! My fighting off a bad cold is not helping matters any.


As if Planet Georgia having its first real winter in three years wasn’t enough, I got a jury summons right around Christmas time. That, of course, brought to mind the Jim Carrey version of the Grinch, when he was playing in the post office: “Jury duty! Jury duty! Pink slip! Blackmail! Eviction notice!” My mother in law was also summoned, but she died in May so they weren’t going to get her in there. The wife had the “privilege” of calling the clerk to tell them about it; she held up pretty well.

This is nowhere near the first time I’ve been on jury duty, but it’s the first time in a long time. But getting back to Winter #2, there was ice on the roads going into town. Which didn’t make sense at all, given that the low at FAR Manor was 37° last night, but this is Planet Georgia. The local police were stopping cars on a side road, warning them about the roads; the tow trucks parked along the side of the road suggested someone had already slid off into the woods.

I didn’t lose traction anywhere, but did keep the speed down. I dropped Mason off at his preK, grabbed some breakfast, then went back to the courthouse.

Image source: WPclipart.com

The fun began when the judge started asking the general questions that everyone has to answer. When he got to “any felony convictions?” he lost more of the pool than all the previous questions combined.

Then, I was in on a selection for a DUI case. If you’ve never been lucky enough to get called to jury duty, they go through a process called voir dire (which is not French for “do you really belong here,” but that’s the upshot). That’s where the fun really began.

I do believe that the increasing Criminalization of Everything is starting to catch up to the “justice” system. About ⅓ of the potential jurors were getting struck (or “reserved”) for various reasons—one was going through his own DUI arrest, another had been stopped once on suspicion of DUI, others had different brushes with the law. Before we got halfway through the process, the judge sent those of us who had already been questioned downstairs. I’ve been on several trips through the jury mill, and I’ve never seen anything like this. Last time I was there, the lawyers would ask their questions, then the DA would strike or pass, and the defense attorney would do the same, until they had their jury.

While I’d raised my hand and answered several of the lawyers’ questions, I felt sure that I was going to get selected for that case… but it didn’t turn out that way. I continued to read +Brooke Johnson’s The Clockwork Giant on my Kindle, and waited for lunch. And waited… and waited… Finally, at 1p.m., I asked the clerk if we were going to get a lunch break. “The judge decides,” he said. Sure, judges are like minor deities in their courtrooms, but I’ve never had to wait until 2:15 for lunch during jury duty before. Finally, we got sent home for the day, with instructions to call in this evening to see if we have to come in tomorrow.

I hope not… Winter #2 is still in effect, and it’s supposed to sleet and/or snow in the morning, then snow all afternoon, and never get above freezing.

Stay tuned for more misadventures in jury duty! I’m live-tweeting stuff that doesn’t name any names on my Twitter account through the day. Look for the #juryduty hashtag. And if we get a real Snowpocalypse, I’ll be blogging that (if the power holds up).

Blink's First Adventure (2/4) (#FridayFlash)

Previous: Meet Blink | Part 1

Last week, Blink’s mom opened an envelope, to find enough cash to make the house payment! Shortly after, a friend called to say an obnoxious classmate was missing! What happened to Frank? And where did that cash really come from? Read on…

---

“Channel Fourteen,” Lashaun urged him. “It’s running right now.”

“…Westside Middle School, did not return home from school today. His parents say they checked with his friends, and nobody has seen him since school let out at 3:35 p.m. If you know where Frank Crain might be, please call Hotline Fourteen at…”

“Geez,” said Stevie looking at the screen, “they put his football picture up there?”

“Yeah. You think someone grabbed him off the sidewalk?”

Stevie had a pretty good idea that was exactly what happened, and who had grabbed him, and why. “Maybe,” he said. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, huh?”

“Yeah. Hey, my mom wants something. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Who was that—oh my!” Mom gasped. “Is that boy from your school?”

“Yeah. He’s a real jerk. He probably mouthed off to the wrong person. Or maybe he’s out breaking windows, and he turned off his phone so they can’t track him.”

“Stevie, what have I told you, talking about people like that?”

“I know. Sorry. But he is a jerk.”

“Being a jerk doesn’t mean he deserves something bad happening to him,” said Mom. “Anyway, I’m keeping you home tomorrow.”

“Does that mean I can stay up late?”

“Until eleven. No later.”

“Fine,” Stevie huffed. “Can I use the computer, then?”

“Sure. I’m pretty worn out. I think I’ll go to bed early. But I’ll be checking on where you go.”

“Geez, ma. The computer can’t even play Youtubes, it sure can’t play anything—dirty.” Stevie caught himself about to say fun and corrected himself at the last second.

“I know. A new computer is on the list, once we can afford it.” Mom kissed her fingertip and tapped him on top of the head. “Night, kiddo.”

Stevie waited for the bedroom door to close, then opened Twitter through the anonymizing relay site he’d found last weekend. He had created an account for Blink through it, and followed the known heroes and villains, but had left it dormant since then. Now it was time to use it.

@CapHeroic This is Blink. I need to talk to you in private.

Stevie waited anxiously, hoping for a response.

@Blinkss14 Why?

@CapHeroic I need your help.

@Blinkss14 I’m retired, you know.

@CapHeroic It’s about the missing kid. It’s because of me. Please.

CapHeroic followed you.

@Blinkss14 DMed you.

Stevie sighed with relief, and opened his direct messages.

Can you meet at Fountain of Progress Square?

I’ll have to wait for my mom to go to sleep, but yeah.

See you there.

Stevie logged out, then cleared the browser cache and history. Mom didn’t know he knew to do that, just yet. He clicked around to a few school-related and game sites, checked his email, then got up to check on Mom. She was already asleep, her TV playing some chick flick. He turned it off, then arranged his dirty laundry under the covers in case she checked on him. Finally, he put on his black hoodie and popped outside.


“Captain Heroic?”

“Yeah. Blink?”

“Yeah.”

“Show me.”

“Over here,” Blink whispered. Captain Heroic turned to see the kid, standing thirty feet to the left of where he had been.

“Okay, I’m convinced,” said Captain Heroic. “Let’s skip the small talk. Who took the kid?”

“The Blackuras.”

“Why?”

Blink sighed. “Frank was telling everyone at school he’s Blink. So they went after him.”

“The Blackuras are just a bunch of punks in souped-up Integras. They’re not going to tangle with supers.”

“They run the street races, y’know. I… I kind of popped in on them and grabbed a bunch of their cash.”

“You what?” Captain Heroic scratched his greying head. “You stole money from them, is that what you’re saying?”

“Yeah.” Blink sighed again. “They got it illegally, I figured that wouldn’t make it so bad. Mom can’t get a better job than Slaver-Mart, and Dad’s supposed to send child support so we can get by. But sometimes he doesn’t.”

“So you took the money to help your mom pay bills.”

“Yeah. Grimes Financial threatens to foreclose on us any time we’re late on the house payment. That’s why I was there, that night last week. I was thinking about grabbing some money out of their vault, I figured they’d get it right back anyway, y’know? Then DeVine showed up.”

“Right.” Captain Heroic paced in front of the fountain for a minute. “So what are you? A hero, or a villain?”

Blink fought back tears. “I… I don’t know yet. Frank’s a butthead, but that doesn’t mean I want him getting hurt. So I’m gonna get him out. But I need some help.”

The old hero thought a moment. “I wouldn’t wish this on anyone your age,” he said at last. “Most Type Ones don’t manifest until they’re twenty. Sixteen’s the earliest I ever heard of until now. You’re what, thirteen?”

“Yeah. What’s a Type One?”

“That’s someone who’s superpowers come naturally. They’re genetic. Type Twos gain theirs after some external event, usually a lab accident. I’m a Type Three, just a normal guy with good reflexes and very good gadgets.”

“Oh.”

“Okay, I’ll help. But this is your show. I’m the sidekick, got it? I’ll step in if something goes wrong, but otherwise it’s all you. And no more swiping cash, even from the bad guys.”

Blink grinned. “Fair enough. But you have to drive. I’ll navigate. I got an idea how we can do this.”

continued…

Writing Wibbles

The last few days have been fascinating, from the standpoint of an indie writer. First, Melissa Bowersock told us about The Editing Myth, where it turns out that traditionally published works might not get that thorough editing that we’ve all assumed they do. When at least sometimes, the reality is they accepted the manuscript verbatim and had zero editorial suggestions.

Fascinating.

But we’re not done!

On the heels of that bombshell, the Passive Guy blog ran a post about how a traditionally-published author blogged her own earnings over three years, then took down the post “for contract disclosure reasons.” The Passive Guy concluded with It’s not an iron-clad rule, but some of the worst contracts from an author’s perspective include some sort of prohibition on the author’s discussion of the contract.

By coincidence, Steve Zacharius (the CEO of Kensington, a second-tier publisher in New York) was engaged in a discussion on a different blog, and one of the commenters pointed him to this post. He joined the discussion, and it’s a most fascinating one. In fact, it triggered a second post, Response to Kensington, that garnered even more comments. What was telling: several commenters asked him, repeatedly, to provide a copy of Kensington’s standard boilerplate contract. He refused by using the standard executive tactic: answering as if the question were different (for example, “we don’t disclose specific details of an author’s contract”), and deflected related questions about average advances. Some authors did weigh in with how much they had been offered, figures from $2500 to $50,000.

Other authors complained about trouble getting rights reversions, or lack of editorial feedback (shades of “The Editing Myth”), and Zacharius did respond forthrightly to those people. Someone suggested a survey, where authors could respond anonymously, and he seemed to really like that idea. I really think he has his heart in the right place, but he can’t quite wrap his mind around the idea that authors no longer really need a traditional publisher—at least, not on the traditional terms. He continuously repeats “eBooks are only 30% of the market,” when those stats don’t include indie sales (which Amazon says are 25% of their eBook sales, and that’s a pretty dang big chunk of sales to ignore).

But the you-know-what got real when he accepted a dialog with Joe Konrath, a major cheerleader for indie publishing. This long but fascinating dialog might not be over just yet, and is definitely worth the time to read.

Some people say that reading the comments section of a blog is the way to madness. Not in this case. It’s eye-opening. Go see if I’m right.

Blink's First Adventure (1/4) (#FridayFlash)

After we met Blink last week, he wanted to let you know about his first adventure…

---

“Hey, Stevie! Did you watch HNN last night?”

“Yeah.” Stevie Winkler scooted over a little on his stool, giving his friend Chris some room to set his cafeteria tray.

“Man,” Chris enthused, “wouldn’t it be awesome, to have superpowers like that? Ultra Woman said he was a kid.” He swept a dramatic arm across the cafeteria. “That means it could be someone in here, even!”

Stevie put on what he hoped didn’t look like a fake grin. “Yeah. Kinda like Robin, huh?”

“Except he’s not a sidekick.” Chris looked around the cafeteria, and waved at Lashaun, carrying his tray.

“I guess you heard, huh?” Lashaun took a stool across from them. “Any ideas who it is?”

“Could be anyone,” said Stevie. “Probably goes to a private school or something.”

“Yeah, those rich kids have all the luck,” said Chris.

They ate, talking about their classes and teachers, pausing to watch as girls walked by. As they took their trays to the dropoff window, Marla Davis came up behind them. “Did you hear?”

“Hear what?” Chris asked.

“Frank Crain is Blink!”

“No way,” said Stevie. He knew exactly who Blink was, and it wasn’t Frank Crain. Frank should have been in ninth grade, but got held back last year.

“He’s telling everyone,” Marla insisted, pointing across the cafeteria to a gathering crowd.

The boys followed Marla over to where Frank was holding court. “How do you know it isn’t him?” Lashaun asked Stevie.

“A real super wouldn’t give away his secret identity,” Stevie whispered.

“Yeah, but who’s gonna call him on it?” Chris shook his head.

“…so DeVine was trying to wrap me up in his plants,” Frank was telling the growing crowd of admirers, “and I just kept popping in and out and all about.” He grinned at the unintentional rhyme. “Then I got an idea, and started going around him. He kept chasing me with his plants, and I got him wrapped up in his own tangle!”

That’s not how it went down, Stevie thought, although Frank’s story was a lot more exciting than what really happened. He and DeVine had just talked until Ultra Woman showed up, then DeVine escaped through the ceiling.

“Yeah, and Ultra Woman said I was awesome,” Frank concluded.

“If you’re really Blink,” Stevie called over the other kids’ heads, “give us a little demonstration.”

All heads turned to Stevie, and those closest to him edged away. “I don’t have to show you nothin’,” Frank sneered.

“Whatever.” Stevie snorted softly and rolled his eyes. “C’mon, guys,” he told Chris and Lashaun. “Mr. Eng don’t like us being late for Geometry.”

A rough hand grabbed his arm and jerked him back, and Stevie found himself nose to nose with a much larger Frank. “You callin’ me a liar?”

“Is that how a superhero rolls?” Stevie asked, loud enough for everyone around to hear. “Bullying kids a head shorter than him?”

Frank glanced around at the skeptical faces, then quickly let Stevie go. “I just don’t like bein’ called a liar, is all,” he grumbled. “You got class. Don’t be late.”

“That wasn’t too bright,” said Lashaun. “He coulda punched your lights out.”

“Yeah, but then everybody woulda known he’s talkin’ crap,” said Stevie. “He can’t go pushin’ everyone around, now, or he proves he’s no hero. It was worth the risk.”

“That reminds me,” said Chris, “whatever happened with that dork from high school who was gonna kick your butt?”

“Oh, that.” Stevie had his cover story ready; that was when he’d discovered his ability to teleport. “He put me up against a tree. I ducked, and he hit the tree. I think he broke his hand, but I took off while he was yelling about it.”


Stevie was doing homework a week later, surrounded by the crumbs of a freezer pizza, when Mom came in from work around nine. “Hi, hon,” she said, heading for the bathroom.

“Hey, Mom,” he said, eyeing the bulging envelope on the table. “The PTA sent a flyer home about the bake sale, and some lady came by and dropped off an envelope.”

“I don’t know if we’ll be able to help with the bake sale, hon,” said Mom, over the flushing toilet. “If your father pays the child support this month, maybe. Same with the religious thing, whatever that was.”

“Uh, I don’t think it was a religious thing,” said Stevie, as Mom came in to look over the mail. “She said something about a single mothers foundation.”

“Yeah. Maybe this is stuffed with cash, then,” Mom said sarcastically, ripping the envelope open. She gasped. “Oh my God,” she whispered. She sat down, and Stevie thought it was just luck that she landed in a chair. She fished the cash out of the envelope. “Oh my God,” she said again.

“Wow, it was cash!” Stevie tried hard to sound surprised. “How much?”

“Oh, I…” Mom started counting, but her hands were shaking too hard. “Can you count it, Stevie?”

“Sure.” Stevie counted out the twenties and fifties. “Fifteen hundred,” he said at last.

“Wow,” she breathed. “That’s the house payment, right there. Talk about a big help. If your dad gets off his ass and sends your support check, I’ll be able to put something back for your college for a change. I’m surprised they’d hand out cash, though.”

“I dunno, ma. They just dropped off the envelope. I didn’t know what was in it.”

“I know.” Mom slid a twenty to Stevie. “This will make up at least some of your missed allowance.” The phone rang. “If you’re done with the pizza, Stevie, why don’t you get that? I thought I wasn’t hungry, but now…” she shrugged.

Stevie recognized Lashaun’s number on the caller ID. “Hey.”

“Stevie!” Lashaun sounded almost frantic. “Did you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“Frank Crain disappeared!”

continued…

Blink (#FridayFlash)

Image source: openclipart.org

While Skyscraper City has a vibrant nightlife, most of that is concentrated in the entertainment district. A few blocks away, in the financial district, solitude reigns after dark. There is the occasional light, of course: someone in the IT department working a late shift, or security guards making their rounds.

And not all lights find their way to a window.

A light came on, above the hung ceiling in the offices of Grimes Financial Services, illuminating the unsightly tangle of cables, ductwork, and support beams that are the bones and sinews of any office building. The beam sparkled and shone as it played across the dark expanse. DeVine had planned this caper for months, and tonight was the night.

Twisting his arms and ankles into the ivy he’d sown, DeVine willed it to grow. Grow it did, carrying him with its advance as it stretched across the dark, empty space, lashing itself to any protrusion it could find. It would be a dead giveaway, but DeVine would be long gone before anyone found it.

A dark object with sharp corners finally came into view: the top of the vault. This was DeVine’s target, of course. The noise of cutting through it would attract attention… but who needs to break in when you got the keys? he thought, patting his pocket. Still wrapped in the ivy that partly gave him his name, DeVine willed it to lower him to the hung ceiling. Hanging over the security camera watching the vault doors, he waited.

The red light came on, and DeVine got ready. As it winked out, he unscrewed the coax and pulled it away. That would trigger a fault, but the camera was made by Republic and they failed all the time. If the guard was napping or distracted, he might not even notice before DeVine re-attached the cable on the way out.

With the camera disabled, he lifted the adjacent ceiling tile and slid it over. The ivy lowered him to the floor, and he set his own motion detector alarm before striding to the vault door. Sliding his ID card (a copy of the Chief Security Officer’s) through the reader, he entered the passcode 4569. A green light flashed, the bolts retracted with a loud thump, and DeVine slipped inside—

“What the…” he muttered, looking at the black-clad figure already inside the vault, watching the door.

“Hey,” the figure said. The voice sounded local—not one of the Devis or Masked Warriors, then—and youthful.

“What are you doing in here?” DeVine demanded.

“I dunno. What about you?”

DeVine had planned for the possibility of company, but not when it was waiting for him in the vault. “None a’ya business,” he grated. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Uh… Blink, I guess. Hey, you’re DeVine, right? Can I get your autograph? Some of my friends have most of the heroes, but nobody’s got a supervillain’s John Hancock.” Blink fumbled a notebook and a pen out of his pocket. “You don’t have to say ‘to whatever,’ just your name. That would be awesome.”

“What? What?” DeVine sputtered. “Of all the… who are you working with, kid?”

“Who? Oh. Nobody. I’m just here.”

“Yeah, well—” The motion detector started beeping. “Aaah!” DeVine shot the kid a final glare, and dashed out the vault door.

Blink ambled over, watching the villain clamber up the ivy, pull it up behind him, and push the ceiling tile back into place.

“Whatever,” he said, walking back into the vault.

“Freeze!” a woman’s voice barked.

“Hey,” he said, turning. “Hey, Ultra Woman!” Blink was still holding his notebook. “Oh yeah, I got your autograph already.”

“You’ll be collecting autographs from prison guards,” she said, reaching to grab him.

“It was DeVine. You just missed him. He went up into the ceiling, through that tile right there.” He pointed.

“I’ll check it out, but don’t move.” Ultra Woman rose up on her boot jets, knocked the ceiling tile out of the way, then poked her head inside. “I’ll be damned,” she grumbled. “That’s DeVine, all right.” She dropped back down to face Blink. “You’re still coming with me,” she said, grabbing his arm. “You got a lot of—huh!”

The kid had got away somehow, and was now standing in the vault. “You’re not my mom,” he said sullenly. “I don’t have to take orders from you.”

“What the…” Ultra Woman found herself at a rare loss for words. “Who are you, kid?”

“Blink. Oh. You can take the credit for stopping DeVine. You don’t even have to mention me. I gotta go, now.” And he disappeared.

On the sidewalk outside, Stevie pulled his hoodie up and started walking. He’d popped into the vault to think, maybe grab a little loot. Maybe. Instead, he met a villain and a hero, one right after the other. This whole superpower thing was cool at first, but now he had to wonder. Neither side seemed too happy to have him around—which he was used to, but still.

Being Stevie Winkler sucked, but maybe it wasn’t as dangerous as being Blink. Besides, he still had to figure out which way he wanted to go. “A hero gets the girls,” he muttered, “but the bad guys are rollin’ in the green.” A cop car sped by, flashing like a Christmas tree on crack, and he made sure it kept going before resuming his homeward plod. He had all of Sunday tomorrow before facing another week of the personal Hell that some called middle school. Five more years of this crap seemed like forever, but it gave him time.

Most of all, to decide what he wanted to be when he grew up.

---

If you like Blink, check out his first adventure, and check out some of the other heroes and villains of Skyscraper City — here on TFM!

Stocking Your eReader Sale!

So Santa brought you a new Kindle, or an Amazon gift card, or both, and you want to get the most reading for the money? The authors at Green Envy Press, and several friends, have got you covered:

All eBooks are 99¢ or free, so you can get a lot of reading for a little money! There’s also giveaway for a Kindle HDX, so click on the pretty picture to see all the details… and come back every day through the end of the year for more books and more prizes!

Christmas might be over, but we’re still giving stuff away…

Writing Wibbles: Looking Back

This will be the last Writing Wibbles of 2013, so I think it’s a good time to look back on what-all happened in my personal writing world.

It was a grueling year, production-wise. I started the year with a lot of stories completed or nearly completed, and ended up launching seven titles. That doesn’t count the books I edited or proofread for the co-op. The pace forced me to examine how I did things after the editor sent back those last changes, and I did manage to streamline a lot of the processes. Part of that was making checklists, so I didn’t forget something important.

That was the supply, what about demand?

In a nutshell: I was blessed. I didn’t make nearly enough to quit my day job, let alone rack up sales like Amanda Hocking or Hugh Howey, but I did a lot better than others. I haven’t dug up exact numbers for how many books sold (let alone how many of each), but most of the books sold were 99¢ each, giving me a royalty of 35¢ give or take. I have a reasonable handle on income and expenses. Being in a co-op, where we all help each other out, I didn’t have production-related expenses like editing or cover design (but I paid by editing and formatting other books). There were other expenses… so, here’s the round numbers:

Income: $3000

Promotional expenses (giveways): ($150)

Nook HD (for verifying EPUBs): ($180)

So while I didn’t pay off the mortgage or anything (rats), I was able to afford a badly-needed replacement for my ailing Civic, which died about a month after I came home with the Miata. Writing made a difference for me this year, an important difference, both financially and emotionally.

And for that, I’m grateful. With any luck, it will make more of a difference next year. I don’t plan to have such an aggressive release schedule, but maybe I’ll have more time for promotion and for rolling out paperbacks. That’s going to be interesting, especially once I automate the conversion from EPUB to typesetting markup. Stay tuned…

The Sorcerer's Daughter has Launched!

And… there's the Launch Cannon! Now, how about a blurb?

As Bailar and his apprentices help the Conclave prepare for conflict with the rogue sorcerers, Sura learns that she is a descendant of a noble House in the Alliance. But when she discovers the price of her history, it may be too late.

If you haven’t got it yet, there are links to stores that carry it on my eBooks page. Amazon and Smashwords have it now, more to come. There’s a bonus flash story that only members of the mailing list have seen otherwise, and excerpts from Angela Kulig’s Heroes and Vallenez and Tony Noland’s Verbosity’s Vengeance.

Around the blogosphere, check out these posts:

• Tony Noland interviews me about the new book
• Helen Howell reviews the story (thumbs up!)

Happy reading, and happy holidays!

This Isn't the Future We Were Promised

Image source: openclipart.org

When I was little, I ate up all the stories about the future: flying cars, moon colonies, cruises to Saturn’s rings, robots doing all the work, and an end to poverty and racism.

What we got was: none of the above, plus the Internet, and powerful computers that we can carry around in a shirt pocket. And texts like this:

Daughter Dearest: Will you bring me some toilet paper?

Can I exchange this future for the one I actually bought?