authors | Nascent Novel

2:45 am Tuesday and I’m wide awake. A storm is heading my way promising 18 inches of snow. Everyone in the house is sleeping and my brain is on overdrive, no I haven’t had any coffee…yet. I think the few brain cells I have left would melt if I did.

My current book Tombyards & Butterflies is doing fantastic in its first week of release, but that’s not what’s keeping me up. The second book is nagging the hell out of me. If you are creative you know exactly what I’m talking about. The idea that wont be quiet. The plot point that just wont stop. The character that whispers into your ears when you are driving, showering, doing the dishes or any other activity where a pen and paper( or phone) is out of reach, forcing you to stop and hurriedly get that idea down. And you do, because like a wisp of smoke, if you dont it vanishes and taunts you, remaining just at the fringe of conscious thought.

So I’m up and I haven’t blogged in a while because this latest book has demanded I write-hard and fast. It pushes me to write to the exclusion of everything else and so the blog, like a secret mistress, gets my visits in the dead of night when I can’t sleep. But the story,implacable, unrelenting, is there looking over my shoulder, pacing and tapping it’s foot. It gives me the stink eye and then floods my brain with ideas as if to say,”try writing that post now.”

I manage because I enjoy my blog and writing. My brain is always writing, always dealing with the alchemy of words, spoken and written. A part of me seriously believes that all creatives are slightly mad and unhinged-it’s what drives us and fuels our creative expressions. I can only speak to my experience. Writing a book is mad work. You sit down and have a conversation with the voices-in your head. You weave a story around that conversation and then invite others to jump into a world with you. Sure… totally sane.

Taking a blank page, canvas, or pick your medium, and transforming it into a book, a painting, a piece of music, a piece of you, is the ultimate form of creation. To bring forth something from nothing is the both the most empowering and frightening thing you can do and you must do it. To refuse the impulse is an act of abnegation and the fastest way to insanity.

In an effort to stave off my impending madness I am going to go wrestle with a story that just wont quit. I’ll see you on the other side.

In an effort to embrace writing here regularly I wanted to share a part of my current work in progress, but first… its Nanowrimo ! This is the month thousands of people get together and try and write a 50k novel in 30 days. Yes, its as hard as it sounds. If you haven’t tried it I seriously recommend it. You will be part of a great community and can share in the experience of focused writing for a month. I wish all the would be authors out there the best of luck in getting to 50k before the 30th!

Now for that excerpt .This is a little different from what I usually write but I wanted to go in a different direction, let me know what you think in the comments below!

Here it goes:

I remembered my grandfather, my sister, and various aunts and cousins, in their coffins and gone forever in the tombyards where the butterflies settled like flowers on the graves and where the flowers blew away like butterflies over the stones.-Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing.

ONE

What’s more exciting than chasing a rabid werewolf? Chasing that rabid werewolf in downtown Manhattan. The Village as a neighborhood is a warren of intersecting streets and dead ends. We had been at this for thirty minutes and I was getting aggravated.

“This is what the English did—who lays out a city like this?” I said as we ran down Sixth Avenue. “A grid, Monty would it have killed them to use a grid?”

“The Dutch were here first,” he said. “The English didn’t arrive until 1664. That’s how you get the name New York.”

We chased it down Minetta Lane off Sixth Avenue. The wet dog smell punched me in the face as soon as I turned the corner.

“There’s something wrong with that smell,” I said. “God, he reeks!”

“I didn’t realize you were a werewolf scent expert,” Monty said as he caught up.

“I’m not, but this guy smells like he hasn’t bathed in a year,” I said. “Did you see his eyes?”

“I did,” Monty said. “He seems to be suffering from some kind of reaction.”

“Reaction?” I said. “He tore that poor woman in half. That’s not a reaction. That’s a full-blown infection.”

“It does seem he’s unstable,” Monty said as he looked up and down the street.

“Just a bit, yeah.”

We followed the scent to the end of Minetta and on to Macdougal Street when a large furry blur shot past us.

“Shoot it, Simon! Shoot!” Monty said.

“What do you think I’m doing?” I said as I fired several times.

“Shoot it harder!”

We jumped behind a parked SUV. The license plate read RUFFRDR. It was one of those huge things that wasn’t quite a tank, but could never pass for an ordinary car. I figured there was enough vehicle to protect us from the Were’s razor sharp claws. That theory evaporated as it sliced through the metal and plastic with ease, rendering our cover useless. The SUV fell apart like a block of Legos and I couldn’t help thinking that RUFFRDR was going to wake up in the morning and have a very bad day.

“Really, that’s what you’re going with, Monty? Shoot it harder?”

“Strong,” rasped the creature on the other side of what used to be a perfectly functioning mode of transportation. “I’m going to rip out your intestines and eat them while you watch.”

“Wow,” Monty said. “He’s pissed. What did you do to him?”

“Now would be a good time for magic,” I said. “You know a fireball or two? Or some Were melting spell?”

“Can’t—he’s wearing null proximity rune,” Monty said. “I don’t understand why the silver ammo isn’t affecting him. You did switch out for silver ammo, right?”

“Silver…ammo?” I said, “Of course I packed the silver—shit.”

I forgot to switch the ammo.

“You forgot, didn’t you?” Monty said exasperated. “We’re out here fighting a werewolf, Simon.”

“I know,” I said. “It’s a little hard to miss.”

“I’m going to die,” he said as his voice hiked up an octave. “Out here on the filthy street alongside you, wonderful.”

“No, I just misplaced it,” I said with feigned indignation. “Hey, I had to pack all of the bags while you did your meditation thing to charge the magic you’re currently not using.”

Monty narrowed his eyes and glared.

“Are you saying this is somehow my fault?”

“I’m just saying a little magic would make this go smoother, especially since I forgot to pack the silver ammo.”

A journey into creative warriorship