Category: About Writing

Lodestar, Notes for Part III

For the purposes of ordering book covers at the same time for all three parts of Lodestar, I’m continuing with this part of the saga. Viewpoint characters will be Ahni and Srese and the implant by way of both Srese’s and Kes’s life-suits.

(For those following Kestrel–you know who you are–don’t worry.)

Some of the materials I’m rewriting have been ‘on the back-burner’ and ‘under the bed’ for more than ten years and have dated somewhat. This is a definite risk where science fiction is concerned.

Lol ‘under the bed’ is where we writers kept our manuscripts in the pre-computer days, when everything had to be either hand-written or typed or both. We kept our first drafts in grocery boxes under the bed between edits, and we stored our non-viable manuscripts under there for when we’d need to mine them—pick and shovel style—for anything useful.

‘On the back-burner’ was a rotation strategy when we happened to be writing two or three novels at the same time. This was never recommended, but a rule often broken, from what I heard. We’d have a metaphoric stove going, with front and back burners. We’d keep one or two works stewing on the rear hot-plates while the one we were working on was being stirred on a front burner.

‘Burner’ will no doubt be remaindered when we all change over to 100 percent electricity.

My favorite metaphor for the writing process is the composting one. This refers to the idea that all the notes and scraps of paper living on a writer’s desk, her study floor, the front and back pages of printed books, her handbag, my pants pockets, gardening shirt and every other flat surface or container are collected.

The next step is to layer them, perhaps in proposed chapters, and arrange them in strategic places around my chair in the study nook for subsequent inputting. Overnight—because I’d always be called away to deal with this or that household crisis—things melded in a mysterious composting process such as happens on a forest floor, resulting ‘magically’ in meaning and order.

This time, however, I’ll be incorporating new ideas and updating old materials. I’ll be repairing bridges, writing stealthy byways, and designing new camel-ways. No magic other than sere insights.

I see I’ll have to adopt some kind of engineering metaphor to take care of all that road-building.

Hope to have you along.

Lodestar 40, Kes and Ahni

A big one today. Well, big in events and emotions. I’m positioning this as the final chapter in the second installment. I’m undecided about Part III.

It can either be Sard’s story, The Remaindered Avatar, posted already as far as it goes, but needing me to write a finale.

Or I can break new ground with Srese’s ongoing story? With Srese as the viewpoint character in this installment, Kes and Ahni continue their lives in the background with every so often a spot-lit action.

40-finally-together-lp-223-1Download

Cat Tales, 12

Me, lolling about in the sun

That big fluffy white rug is me of course, relaxing in the sun, while the pernickety old woman has her coffee and catches up on her social calls.

“Frog eggs?!” she said excitedly. “I have some too.” She laughed. “They’re no problem in my frog pond. I have an old cast iron bath now, that someone was tossing out in the white-goods recycling event.”

I pricked up my ears. Rolled over and sat up. Stared at the frog pond in the back of the yard. Reeds and a yellow flowering plant showed above the rim. On the white ledge nearest lay a bent piece of wood.

My human went on with her conversation. “There’s not a canetoad on Earth that can jump backward and over the lip. And they are not that good at climbing. Yes, I’ll teach my cat not to hunt them.”

Huh, I thought. We’ll see about that. I’ll hunt whatever catches my eye. And something did catch my eye just then. I stared.

The piece of wood on the lip of the pond moved! All by itself! Not a breath of wind!

This I needed to investigate. I hopped down from the deck and stalked silently toward the frog pond using all the cover at my disposal.

“Won’t do you any good,” the pernickety old woman called from the deck. “It’s the Frog Pond Guardian at her post.”

Her words made no sense. Belly to the ground, I leopard-crawled nearer, the nasturtium patch grew densely to well above my head.

I peered around the corner …

A large water dragon stared implacably back at me. I’d heard rumours about this lizard. In the backyard nextdoor it was supposed to have bitten off the head of a hen sitting on a nest of eggs.

The lizard moved! I backed up in a hurry! Waited there in the protection of the nasturtiums. Peered round the corner.

No. It just changed position. Lay there, immoveable.

“She’s just sunning herself,” the pernickety old woman said from behind me. What is it about her? She is always, always, giving away my hunting position.

Cat Tales, 11

Me, Hand-of-God, hunting skinks in my backyard

Finally I could learn to hunt, and me a large middle-aged cat with a low-slung belly. As a kitten, and with my mother and my brothers and sisters, we were ‘contained’ in a cattery yard. Where my mother could teach us only how to hunt flies and cockroaches.

As a teenage cat, I was contained in the basement of a large house. A large basement that meant, but all of it indoors. Cockroaches there, too. Then I came here.

After studying my new territory, I decided that my first prey animals up from cockroaches would be garden skinks. About the length of my foreleg including my paw, and very fast.

These little lizards live on all the fences surrounding my backyard, about one per metre, but come down onto the ground to catch insects. Where I’ll catch them. When I get fast enough.

The first time I was nearly successful the pernickety old woman took a photo of me, as above, and then laughed.

She laughed at me?

“Too slow!” she chortled. “They know all about big black and white marauders, and have evolved to be very fast!”

I set out to prove her wrong. Days later, I managed to snag with my paw a look-alike from the house wall. I laid it proudly outside the laundry for the pernickety old woman to inspect.

“An Asian Gecko,” she said. “Very good! You can eat as many of those as you like. They’re not native and starting to be a real pest, running over people’s faces at night, and the like.”

I ate it but it was nothing like my kibbles. The tail had spines on it. Yuck!

Lego: Bosley’s Builders, 3

Patty, the mechanic, who came and went. Boss thought she might be able to fix the run-about. She thought it a pile of buffle* you-know-what. “Should start again,” she said. “There’s quite a good one going second-hand at Brick Resales, you know that place?”

Part Three of the saga is out–on the Brick Stories Page–up on the Menu. Telling you again because we have new readers.

*A ‘buffle’ is the type of buffalo that this story’s herders breed. The buffles are out there grazing the swamp grasses. Below, the buffle herd.

Cat Tales, 10

I love curling up in a warm plastic potplant dish

Escaping from the house, I rapidly got into new habits. I’d sleep most of the day. On weekends, I’d spend the day on the deck with my human.

Weekdays, when the builders arrived at 8.30 AM and went home at 3.30 PM, I slept somewhere warm but out of sight and out of mind.

From about 4.00PM onward, I got to know my backyard. Because, of course, the pernickety old woman put every kind of barrier up to stop me wandering. More on those later.

At approximately 5.00 PM, the pernickety old woman would open the screen door and stand there shaking the kibble tin.

The kibbles rattling was her sign that I should come inside for my dinner. She’d lock the screen door after me. Keep me inside during the exciting hours of the week.

After only my second night inside ready for anything, because I’d slept all day, I started planning my escape.

Watching for wildlife with the deck still a bit wet from rain during the night. I’m on the lookout for intruders.