The only time in my life that I’ve ever risked looking directly at the sun was in 2019 when bush-fire smoke made that possible. Here the sun setting behind Chincogan or more popularly known as ‘Chinnie’. A little relationship to the story so far.
This is it! I’ve just let Draft 2 Digital (the publisher I’ve been with for about six years) know I’ll be serializing it here on my blog. Mind you, it’s not nearly Monday yet in the northern western hemisphere, so I am jumping the starter gun a bit.
And in addition, I said I’d write a post with Ushen’s letter. That’s not happening. It isn’t hard to read her story between the lines, and the details will keep till we meet her again as a grown up woman down the track.
Giving the manuscript another edit while turning it from a print format into an online reading format, I’m laughing about the bits that are already dated. I’ll be interested to hear about you tripping over them.
Connecting A to B
Connecting Earth Fall to Meld is not happening. The amount of time between them is out of wack. I think now that the events in Earth Fall took place before anything in Mongrel happened.
Lol, does it seem like I’m talking as though these events are coming into being without a writer’s input? Put like that? Yes, it does. A broad band of muscular storying is growing between Earth Fall and events in Mongrel and it’s not like I planned anything much.
Mongrel was to be part one of a trilogy that in my mind I’ve already scaled back to a twosome. Time will tell. Mongrel resides in the long long tail of indie published novels marketed by Draft to Digital.com.
I had a quick read of Mongrel’s Chapter 26 the other day and thought I wouldn’t mind running my eagle editing eye over it once more. And maybe turn it into an audio file by reading it chapter by chapter into some software and publishing that chapter by chapter.
Which will necessitate taking it off Amazon if I don’t want to get a shirty email, saying I’ve been cancelled, as the biggie doesn’t allow any part of a production it’s selling to exist outside the virtual covers of the item being sold.
Making some friends over on Substack, I got a bunch of links on how to find my voice. Thank you, Aurelian Ashmore. So yeah, I’m looking into it.
The action from here to the end of Earth Fall is from Ushen’s point of view. Her very early memories and experiences are glossed over somewhat, since realistic communications would’ve ranged from inchoate to difficult as she is only two years old at the beginning of the chapter.
Rather than posting up the whole lot at once, I decided on short chapters relating to the distinct phases of Ushen’s life. Plus, my thinking was that starting with very short chapters would allow me to expand where needed while editing, and that has been the case so far. Section 1 started with a bunch of notes of about 500 words, that became approx 1800.
As seems to be becoming usual these days, I’m behind on sourcing/painting imagery. The image pertaining to this installment may be added later.
Me—Mog—trying to figure out what I’m supposed to be looking at …
Usually there are birds in there. Flitting and flying. Twittering and chirping.
Sometimes we look at mice or squirrels. When they run out of the picture I get worried amd have to check for them under the couch.
I can’t believe how well this watercolor sketch I did a few years ago illustrates an alien cloning bath. The warmth with steam rising in the left foreground, the bleak winter weather in the background.
This is me hiding from the old woman, it’s my playtime but a few minutes ago she made like she was a bird! Can you believe it, she puckered her lips and whistled!
At first I couldn’t believe she was making those noises. I’m shocked that she can. I hid so she couldn’t see me or more to the point that she can’t see me!
She’s been saying for a while that she’ll get me more catnip. The shop where she got the previous supply closed down. It’s no excuse. Times like these, with her whistling, I want to hide my head in the catip pillowcase.
We’ve got it growing too, but so disappointing only three of the seeds made plants. here I’m trying to take in the goodness of the single leaf she allowed me.
I ask you, one leaf! She said because all told there are only eight leaves. It’s not a viable plantation.
Rita de Heer 