Hearing voices: Part two

So last time we met Warwick, the conflicted bad guy of my Super Hero Novel of Awesome (I think that’s my new favorite title: SHNA), and today we are going to have another encounter from that novel. This scene exists, but will never actually happen in the novel, so here it goes.

“How did you do it?”

“My dear Warwick, whatever do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Raijin. How did you get the Elders to assign you my new apprentice?”

“So now she’s your apprentice. Funny, but the Elders didn’t seem to think you’d done such a hot job on your *last* apprentice.”

“Edana wasn’t my fault.”

“Which part? The part where I found you in bed with her, or the part where you got her killed?”

“Raijin, please listen to me, this apprentice of yours, it’s important.”

“Huh, well, she is now. Tell me, why exactly is she the key to your newest scheme?”

“I… look, just don’t do anything stupid with her, okay?”

“Like sleep with her? I don’t swing that way.”

“Damnit, everything in life isn’t about sex.”

“Oh, then why is it always about sex with you?”

“Because I love you.”

“You lying sonuva bitch. Get out of my way, I’ve got a rookie to train, and you can sure as shit bet that when I’m through, they’ll be singing songs about her in Andromeda.”

“You have no idea what you’re doing.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Please, Raijin, just keep her away from Ceafoo, that’s all I ask.”

“Sorry, but the telepath handed her over to me. She’s already tagged.”

“Shit!”

“Tell me what’s going on, Warwick.”

“I can’t let you get involved.”

“Involved in what? I’m already a Knight, it’s not like that comes with a pension plan.”

“Just… just watch your back.”

And there it is. Turns out I hate writing without tags. I love dialogue, but a slap in there would have gone a long way (or maybe a knuckle sandwich, Raijin isn’t so feminine).

Thank you to everyone who stopped by for the first installment and I hope you enjoyed this slice of SHNA.

Hearing voices Blog fest

Right, so today is the start of hearing voices, the fantastic Blogfest by Cassie and Angie. For details head over here and sign up. To start things off, we’re going to have a little sit down with one of my characters to get to know him better. His name is Warwick, and he is actually a bad guy. I’d apologize since all the other posts I’ve read this morning are starring these likeable MC’s, but I’ve always been sort of fascinated with the bad guys, so this week, it’s all about the villains.

1.What is your biggest vulnerability? Do others know this or is it a secret?

I’m a guy, what do you think? A woman: Raijin.

2. What do people believe about you that is false?

Pick one? Damn, and I thought working for the man was hard. One thing? Well if it’s one thing then it’s everything. I’m not who anyone thinks I am. I am not the bad guy, and despite my ex-wife’s assertions I am not an asshole. I am not a heartless bastard, I’ve just dared to dream there is more to this existence than falling in step with our great masters who destroyed themselves. I mean really, they’re all dead—or as good as, if they’re all hiding from the rest of us—and exactly how does that make them good role models? No, I don’t buy this bullshit, but I’m not a bad person. Everyone should have a choice, a real choice.

3. What would your best friend say is your fatal flaw? 

She’d say I was a heartless asshole, so I’m not sure she counts as my best friend anymore, but if Raijin had to pick it would be my inability to devote myself to any cause, just, worthwhile or otherwise. She thinks I’m a drifting looser who only got into the Knights to ask her to marry me (she is, of course, correct).

4. What would the same friend say is your one redeeming quality? 

Raijin doesn’t think I have redeeming qualities anymore. She said she used to love me, but that I’m a sack of lies, a political creature with more heads than a hydra. I’m not saying I haven’t lied once or twice, but who did she think she was marrying? I have never lied to her which is, of course, part of the problem. So that’s my one redeeming quality: I have never lied to the woman I love.

5. What do you want most? 

Freedom, and not that bullshit they talk about but real freedom.

Soon.

Brussels Sprouts vs. Ice Cream

I’ve been thinking about something a lot lately. My current WIP hasn’t been a ton of fun. It’s been hard, boring work. It makes me want to cry, and that never makes me want to work on it. So I delay (you know, by writing posts or doing *cough, cough* research), but then I’m stuck working on this project longer than I need to.

It reminded me of brussels sprouts when I was a kid.

I hated brussels sprouts.

And I don’t mean I didn’t like them, I actually found them detestable on a molecular scale. That’s right I hated the molecules of the brussels sprouts. So whenever I put them into my mouth, I would sort of move them from one side to the other trying to psych myself up to actually swallow that nasty veggie. Inevitably, the pushing of vegetable from one side to the other never makes it taste any better. Each part of my tongue was equally abhorred by the mere presence of the boiled, soggy vegetable, and no amount of trans location was going to improve it.

After a full tour of my taste buds, I would finally just swallow it and try not to think of it swimming around in my stomach next to the mashed potatoes.

But when it came to desert, did I give it the same tour of my taste buds? Did I take the time to savor it? No, of course not. I was a kid, and I ate my ice cream as fast as I could manage, barely tasting it.

So what led me to taste every scrap of the despised brussel sprout but swallow the ice cream whole?

Right now my WIP is the brussel sprouts, and my next WIP is my ice cream.

I’ve officially given my WIP a full tour of my taste buds and it’s time to just get it out of the way.

Do you wallow in the things you need to do before you can get on to the ice cream?

Insecure writers: Dreams

(If you haven't heard about the insecure writer's group, go here, jump on the linkidy do dad, and hop around to some other blogs. You are not alone.)

I don’t know how many people really know this, but dreams hurt. And I don’t mean a Charlie horse in the middle of the night, a scrapped knee on the sidewalk, or a little road rash. Dreams hurt like the moment when you’ve broken your ankle again (for the third time!) and you know exactly the road of pain and hardship, the hobbling around and not trusting your balance, and the year—the full effing year—of not being as good at a hundred little things--if you’re lucky and don’t need surgery this time. Dreams hurt and ache. Dreams are full of fear and anger and feeling inferior. Dreams are harder than anything else in the world. Dreams are love.

If I could have told myself this when I was sixteen, my sixteen year old self would have laughed in my face and called me an old sack of regrets, a bitter dried up hag who couldn’t hack it, so get the hell out of the way for those of us who can. I was a bit judgmental as a teenager.

But my sixteen-year-old self wasn’t strong enough for my dreams. Even the most minor threats to my dreams would send me off, crying in a corner like a foolish school girl (guess what? I *was* a foolish school girl). Even then I should have known how much power my dreams had if they could hurt me before I’d even started reaching for them.

And once I started trying (even in my usual half-assed way), oh man. Talk about the dumb I have done just for my dreams.

I spent three years in a major I hated with people who hated me (and frequently told me I was too dumb because I was a woman, but that's a story for another day).

I loaded all my belongings into a truck and drove across the nation to a place I’d never seen before and prayed I’d land on my feet. I had friends with me, but that was a leap of faith, a big scary leap of faith. And I would have done it all alone, but my friends are almost as crazy as me.

I worked hard. I moved again. I dragged my family across the country to the desert (leaping again). I’ve tortured myself through years of things I would have never considered doing except for these dreams. I’ve stayed up late nights; I’ve worked through every weekend for six years; I’ve gotten on dozens of planes, stood in front of hundreds of angry scientist, written hundreds of thousands of words in a format that hurts to put to paper.

All for a dream.

I have never been closer to my dreams. I’ve never been further from them. I fear them. When I get them, will I be disappointed? Broken? Crushed? Will I be able to get a job when I’m done, or am I really frantically working myself out of work? Will all my dreams take this much soul crushing work? Should I dream smaller dreams? Or is it worth it? Is all of this pain and suffering, the doubt and worries, the sacrifice (don’t ask me how many times I’ve had ramen for dinner), the anxiety, the fact that I haven’t had a night without nightmares for six years, is all of this worth making the dreams of one foolish school girl come true?

It’s a funny thing, dreams, you have to make that choice on your own. No one can ever tell you it was worth it but you.  And you’re not even in a place where you can judge. That’s hard, but here’s something even worse: that’s what it’s like to dream the dream. Losing the dream is much worse. Losing the dream is like having a piece of your soul torn out and thrown on a busy L.A. freeway.

And foolish school girls who dream dreams that burn in their hearts don’t know how to deal with their soul dying. They imagine they are invincible, and they believe somewhere that, despite the evidence of their own eyes, the world is fair. They don’t know if they’ll live through losing their dream (almost always, if you’re wondering), but it’s not easy. Losing dreams hurts more than cutting off your own hand. I think that sometimes giving up a dream to maintain some other part of our lives really is like the coyote chewing off their own leg so they can be free of the trap, because dreams are like that. We didn’t choose them. All of mine have sprung up out of the ground, cleverly disguised as my regular life. I never woke up and said “Wow, my life would be so much better if I just had a dream.”

Dreams are dangerous. Dreams are power. We have so little control of them, we don’t even get to pick them.

Dreams choose us.

I fear them because I’m rational, but I fear my cranky older self more. What would I be like in twenty years if I belly flopped at the finish line and didn’t get up to cross the line? What would I tell my children? That my dreams beat me down until I couldn’t get up again? Could I give up on that sixteen-year-old girl who didn’t know better, the one who didn’t know that a broke kid from the sticks barely had a chance and even our valedictorian dropped out so no one would blame her if she broke under the pressure of it all?

I wouldn’t be here (literally right here) if it weren’t for my dreams. If I didn’t have my dreams, I might be more content, I might have a whole soul—one unbroken by trials—but we are made bigger by our dreams, even the ones that hurt. Dreams force us to throw our hearts into the forge and see that our hearts can be made into swords.

Squeetastic

Right, so I’ve spent the last decade with my head buried in academia. Things happened when I wasn’t paying attention. I’ve never been very on the cutting edge of what’s going on. I’m always a late comer, even on things that I should be the first person in line.

That’s good and bad, by being a late comer, I always trip onto things with tons of back issues so I can gorge myself on the awesome in a binge of, well, awesome.

Usually I keep the squeetastic to myself because it’s sort of embarrassing—which for the record, is totally lame! Why should it be embarrassing that I can sing the theme song to Sailor Moon acapella? I should be able to love everything that I love without worrying about being judged, but I do worry. I am judged. And that’s why I found it so incredible to stumble onto a group of people who promote awesomeness and decreasing world suck by being nerdy and unironically being enthusiastic about the things they love. They are the Nerdfighters.

I first ran into them when Elizabeth posted this video of Maureen Johnson on writing. It was awesome. 

Then I started to watch more of their videos until I found this one. And since then I’ve been completely hooked. 

One of the great things about binging on awesome is that I trip across things that other people are already like “Dude, Rena, we all already know that.” So if you already know who Meghan Tonjes is, fantastic. 

For everyone else: I have found my theme song for this year (and it was written for last year). 

So yeah, I'm totally hooked, so I'm off to buy Meghan's songs. 

Oh, and if you want to fly your nerdy flag, feel free to steal my badge in the side bar.