1 HOUR TO NANOWRIMO YOU GUYS

I'd be running around flailing and going 'aaaaaaaaah' if I wasn't so tired. As is I think I'll just do homework and sip water and stretch and watch the clock like a mouse watching the cat outside its mousehole.

Book Reviews for September

I read a lot of books in September. I mean, a LOT a lot. Like, I-am-crazy-why-aren't-I-using-my-time-to-study-for-my-midterms-instead a lot. It's all okay though, I got A's on all my midterms so no harm done.

Even better, I actually really enjoyed all of them except two, which is way higher than my usual ratio, yay. Also, some of these books--like Cormac McCarthy's The Road and William Goldman's The Princess Bride are tomes I've been wanting to read for a long time, so it's especially satisfying to say I have read them (and enjoyed them) at last.

So here you go, my reviews for the NINE books I read in September. I wish I knew how many pages that was.

Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins

I thought this was a satisfying followup to The Hunger Games (which was, you may recall, my previous Book of the Month); it had plenty of twists and turns, the story got deftly darker, and the stakes were raised without feeling too contrived. Also, there were some surprisingly horrific moments, which helped keep it from feeling like a retread of the first book. While some plot points were painfully obvious to me, others were not. Pacing still whipped past, and I still can't decide if I like that or not. It does make me wonder, however, whether I might actually like the films even better than the books (GASP) because the pacing seems a bit more attuned to cinema. We'll see next year, I guess!

Marvel Civil War: Iron Man

I thought this was good and solid but it didn't have as good a storyline as the other comics. On the plus side, however, the character dynamics were far more interesting, and since I love anything dealing with character dynamics that is a big plus. Also I think this had the best artwork of the lot, I read it super slow because I had to savor and examine every page. Great stuff.

The Shadow of the Torturer, by Gene Wolfe

I finished this early in September and I thought it was for sure my book of the month. As it turns out, it wasn't, but it is a highly recommended read anyway. I am pretty sure this book influenced "Name of the Wind" heavily; that's not a bad thing, just interesting. Its first-person voice is FAR superior to Kvothe's, though and the world and its characters are all really interesting and engaging. It's a pretty dark story and can be a bit confusing at times, but overall it's pretty good. I might check out the rest of the trilogy.

The Sable Quean, by Brian Jacques

I've been feeling nostalgic for Redwall and when I heard there's a character named Globby in this one I just had to read it. Alas, although the book began fine it quickly unravelled to the point where it felt like the entire plot and its contents were just inferior rip-offs of what Jacques wrote in earlier (and excellent) books: the lone badger maid, the dibbuns getting kidnapped and enslaved, underground tunnels with water and carnivorous blind fish, an island surrounded by pike, an over-dramatic female who is part of a traveling troupe, double-crossing villainesses--I could go on and on. The plot really fell apart in the second half, becoming completely random and nonsensical. If the above elements sound interesting, please read "Marlfox", "Martin the Warrior", or "Pearls of Lutra", but don't bother with this one. Not even Globby could save it.

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

This was the second book I was absolutely sure I was going to name Book of the Month, but I ultimately chose another by the slimmest of slim margins. This book is incredible. It's beautiful and heartrending and haunting and riveting and terrifying all at once. McCarthy's use of language is simply wonderful; his descriptions are succinct and yet so well-written that they are far more effective than sensationalism would have been. The characters--I felt I knew them so well basically as soon as I met them, and I cared about them instantly. That's talent, folks. And though there are disturbing and even horrific parts ultimately the end is somehow uplifting. I can't really describe this book well enough, just trust that it was fantastic and basically moved me to tears numerous times.

The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

I love the movie. I can quote it back to front. I consider it, in fact, to be one of the most perfect films ever made; I wouldn't change a thing about it. So I was a bit nervous about reading the source novel. That being said, I ultimately ended up enjoying this book quite a lot; it's funny and smartly written. The best parts for me were the interactions between Fezzick and Inigo and being able to read their backstories. I don't think it would have been half as enjoyable without watching the film first though, because the actors are really what made the characters come to life and gave them the dimensionality and charisma that makes me care about them, really; some of them, like Buttercup, are so ridiculous in the book I cannot care about them. So I am glad I read the book, but the film version still remains by far my favorite.

Heir to the Empire, by Timothy Zahn

A solid, very enjoyable "Star Wars" novel and definitely better than the entire prequel film trilogy put together. Everyone is completely in character, the plot is engaging and well-paced, the dialogue is so perfect I can clearly hear it spoken by the actors from the films, and it's actually pretty sophisticated plot-wise. Best of all, it captures the mood of the first "Star Wars" films really well, fun but dangerous and exuberant all at once. I'm definitely going to read the rest of this trilogy.

Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins

This is a difficult book to grade. Overall it was a bit too remorselessly dark and down, in my opinion, and it's certainly brutal; no longer can this series be called a children's series, if ever it was. Also, a lot of characters change drastically very quickly which can be a bit startling; the ending almost felt like . . . 1984 if it had a happy ending (stupid analogy, I know, I can't really explain it any better though). The emotional payoff is not quite what the reader wants, but I respect Collins for that. There are lots of things that happen that I had thought even from book one "Oh, that'd be cool if she did that" but never thought would happen because they were just too dark. AND THEN SHE DID THEM in this book. So that kind of delighted me, haha. Anyway, I thought it was a brave finale and if not as well-executed as "Ptolemy's Gate", well, that's all right because nothing is. It is a fitting ending to the series.

Gentleman Captain, by JD Davies

Let me just say that when the blurb on the back of your book is more interesting, exciting, and suspenseful than the actual story inside your book you should know you have problems. The author is apparently a historian who crossed over into novel writing and you can tell because the characters are all lifeless and dull and immediately forgettable and he manages to make even sea battles, assassination plots, and mutinous crews boring, but he spends pages and pages talking about history, awkwardly, in the first-person voice of his insipid main character. This is basically a waste of what might have been a good plot; don't bother with it.

Assassin's Apprentice, by Robin Hobb

The last book I read this month is also my favorite. What a breath of fresh air! This is absolutely the best fantasy I have read in a long time; it is essentially perfect in my opinion. I kept expecting it to derail at any moment with a sort of superstitious trepidation and by the end I was so delighted I was probably grinning like a fool at the pages as I turned them. It's beautifully written, is filled with engaging characters I cared about, has a wonderful protagonist who tells the story in first person masterfully, has really creepy villainry, fantastic politics, complexity, tragedy, beauty, mystery, and a totally unexpected twist towards the end that had me literally with my jaw dropped open completely caught unawares. That never happens. Best of all, perhaps, is the entire lack of objectionable content; thank gracious a fantasy novel with no gratuitous sexual content, or, indeed, any sexual content at all. It relies entirely upon the strength of the characters and the story and emerges triumphant. I am definitely hunting down the sequel to this, I can't wait. HIGHLY recommended.

So that's it, folks! Have you read any of these books before, and if so, how do your thoughts on them compare with mine? I'm off to get back to my reading now; I have 13 books borrowed from the library, if you'll believe it. Also, I'm currently in the middle of planning my next NaNoWriMo novel; November's only about three weeks away, after all.

A Little More NaNoWriMo

I'm currently abed with some kind of sickness, I think it's a cold--basically I cough with every other breath, am extremely dizzy, and overall just don't feel good. Thank goodness for the "Tangled" soundtrack and fuzzy bathrobes.

Anyway, I'm trying to make the most of being ill by writing more of my NaNoWriMo novel. I made the 50,000 word count in November (insert celebratory dance here), but I didn't actually finish the book, so . . . I'm still working on it. My goal is to finish it by the end of December.

I'm not posting the full book on this blog, as I mentioned earlier, but I thought I'd post the occasional chapter or two, so here's another chapter! I posted chapter one earlier; this is chapter five, and it ends part one of the book. Enjoy.

Chapter 5: The Outlaw’s Hand

She understood, by the time they neared the outlaws’ camp enough to see the warm glow of its hidden fires, why they had chosen to make this desolate place their refuge. The treacherous sliding of the stones beneath each step, and their sharpness, meant it would be nigh upon impossible to guide any horses in this direction, severely crippling the king’s military advantage. The tumbled maze of stone was also a perfect place for concealment, filled with shadows and crannies, tall shelfs of rock she had to crane her head back to see the tops of, and so many winding ways around the stones it would be extremely difficult to attempt any organized, concentrated attack, even if the soldiers were afoot. A thousand questions burned upon her tongue, but she knew well enough to keep silent once the two outlaws had agreed to escort her to their hidden encampment. They did not trust her, she knew, and to ask any questions like the ones she really wanted answers to--whether they always lived in this place or moved around, how many men were currently fighting under One-hand’s direction, what their own names were, and whether they had featured in any of the stories she knew--would be the utter height of folly. The very fact that they had not blindfolded her or made any attempt to disguise their passage was ominous. She knew enough from her talks with Kerl to know that they were not merely being polite; if she proved untrustworthy, she would not be leaving their camp alive.

She processed all this without fear, the same dispassionate resolve that she had felt while revealing the scar at her throat still with her, like a glass she was watching the world through, sharpening every crack in the stones, every shadow, every sound, but distancing her too, so that though she was keenly, brilliantly focused and aware of everything around her, none of it felt real enough to touch. Even her peril would have seemed far away if she had not been so acutely aware of how closely her guides were watching her every movement.

The tallest of those guides, the man who had been first to speak to her and who seemed to be the leader of the two, flickered a grin her way as though sensing the direction her thoughts were tending. It was not an invitation to friendship, but it was not an unkind smile, either.

“The sentries on this side have already seen us approaching. They will have signaled the fires; you are expected.”

“I did not see anyone,” she said, startled into replying. His grin became a little less guarded, a little more genuinely amused.

“That is the point,” he said.

They reached the firelit circle of the camp much more abruptly than she had anticipated; one moment she could see nothing but the rumor of light, and the next it was all around her. It was very quiet, but in a hollow, expectant way which betrayed that the men sitting around the fires or lounging idly against the surrounding rocks had only lately fallen silent--in anticipation of her arrival, she realized. They were all looking towards her, most of them quite openly, their faces all slightly blurred and seemingly identical in the weird-patterning play of fire and dark. Her guides led her forward into the midst of the men, who all moved aside and out of her path, the same look of intent interest on each face, of curiosity, but without a word spoken. Then the bearded man held out a hand to prevent her from walking further, and the one who had smiled at her continued to pick his way through the rings of fire alone, moving from one to the other like a cat moving from stone to stone across a running stream. She heard a few of the men murmur questions as he passed them, and one laughed, but he made no reply, and soon he had gone beyond her sight behind a standing stone to where yet more small fires blazed. She took a deep breath and, not knowing where to look, let her eyes wander without paying much heed to where, being more intent upon her right hand which she still held loosely near the pocket where her mother’s ring was sewn and her knife was concealed.

She did not have to wait long. Soon the man returned, and with a strange look at her which she did not know how to read, he spoke. She had expected him to speak softly, and so was startled when he instead used a raised voice, deep but clear and carrying. He was speaking not only to her, but also for the mens’ benefit.

“You will come with me, lady. Cole, you are to return to the outer lines, and if the men have questions, tell them as little as you can but enough to satisfy them. Understood?”

“You are understood, Martin,” the bearded outlaw said, with a curt little nod, and he turned at once back towards the darkness and disappeared into it, almost silently, his feet sure upon the treacherous stones. She turned back to face the man he had called Martin, and the question must have been clear upon her face for he offered her a little smile again as he beckoned her to follow him.

“He is waiting,” he answered.

The many glittering eyes that had watched her so far followed her as she followed Martin, and she knew it was because although she felt as though she was stepping into a story, for all the men here it was as though she had stepped out of one. How many times, she thought, had they whispered amongst themselves about their leader’s capture, and wondered how it was that he had been taken? Had he told them all? How much did they know? All the agonizing days back home in Kope when the stories had been building around her and Gold-Head and what had transpired that night in the tavern, she had never once thought of the kind of stories which would be building just as surely here, in the place where he came from.

In the dimness between the fires she stumbled, bruising her ankles, but she did not accept Martin’s outheld hand. It was a much smaller fire that he led her to, separate from the others by just enough distance to be noticeable, and she saw only a few men sitting around it, black shapes with no faces, or only half-faces, limned and carved with red light, and one held a flute of silver in his hand, and one was leaning with his face in his arms as though asleep, but none were speaking, and she looked from one to the next in a strange almost-frantic anticipation, eager but shrinking, and shy but not abashed--

And then he was there--

Dangerous things are not always beautiful, Kerl had said. Beautiful things are not always dangerous, she had replied. But there were also those rare things which are both dangerous and beautiful, and those were the most deadly of all.

She was surprised to see Tamarin looking so much the same as he had all that time ago--oh, a lifetime, it seemed!-- from the clothes he wore to the color of the firelight upon his face and in his eyes. And here she stood, guarded by a swordsman and in peril of her life, firelight upon her face also and her heart pounding. It was all the same, she realized, and she must look much the same also, despite her unwomanly garb, but she felt different. She had chosen freely, this time, and had won a smile from the man who they had called Martin, and she was not afraid.

One-hand, he had been renamed, and as he stood to greet her she felt her eyes drawn to the empty space where his sword hand had been, shaken to see that emptiness even though she had known she would find it. The actual flesh and bone of his arm was hidden by his long sleeve, so she saw no scarring, but that was almost worse. She looked up and saw that he was watching the direction her eyes had gone with a wry, bitter patience, and bit her lip in anger at herself. He had clearly had to withstand many gawping stares towards his empty wrist before, and her own staring had done nothing to commend her to him. His eyes were shadowed, but there was a hint of sarcasm in his strange voice when he spoke.

“So,” he said, “my hand has returned to me. Somewhat prettier than before, too.”

She had imagined, all the time she had wandered in the wilderness searching for him, what he would say and what she would reply, but she had not imagined this. He was watching her face very closely, and so she found herself speaking the plain truth, instead of any of the pretty or impressive speeches she had composed in her head before.

“I waited all winter,” she said, “and I have been unhappy in knowing the debt I owe, but they said you had died, and so I could do nothing. When I learned the truth, I had to come.“

He made a dismissive gesture with his one remaining hand. The movement was graceful, as all his movements were graceful. But it was the grace of a dragon and a swordsman, not a dancer or an artist.

“You need not have come.” he said. “Know that what I did, I would have done for any innocent person those lakshistha dragged into the matter. It was not your affair, and it was not your blood to spill. That is all.”

And it is still not your affair, he seemed to be warning her, though there was no reproach in his voice, only the laconic, blunt gentility of a man who says plainly what he means to say and no more. And, of course, a swift flash of anger that she recognized in the word lakshistha even if she did not recognize the word itself. Later she would learn it was a curse of a particularly venomous kind, taken from the tongue of the Ali’oi of the eastern kingdom. Tamarin kel-Athor, as he was named in that land, was indeed far-traveled. Lakshistha is translated literally as ‘slow burning’, as in, ‘They Who Burn Slowly In Aara’. Though courteous enough to her, Tamarin held a bounty of gold for his head for good reason, and he did not forget nor forgive an injury.

“I know you would have done the same for any person,” she answered him. “But I happened to be that person. And even though I became involved only by chance, I wanted to apologize.”

“Apology accepted,” he said, not angrily, not gratefully, just spoken words with nothing fathomable behind them.

Even so, she felt the dismissal like a chill, and forgoing all attempts at niceties went directly to the heart of her reason for seeking him out, suddenly not caring that the other men could hear her.

“Let me stay with you,” she said.

To his credit, he did not look surprised. After a short pause, he nodded towards Martin without looking at him.

“Stay here, brother. You,” he said to her, “follow me.”

He led her a short distance away, far enough to speak in relative privacy beyond the circle of light cast by the fire. When they halted, they stood closer to each other than they had before, and she did not know what to say. She waited, sensing that he needed to be the one to speak first. After some seeming hesitation, he did.

“There are women who take the outlaw name,” he said, looking tired. “And of them I even have two under my command. But it is not common. And there are dangers to this life, which you should not accept lightly, no matter what debt you think you owe me.”

“I do not accept lightly,” she said. “I have given up everything I had to find you. And I trust you.”

“You trust me?” This is where, in the stories, he would have laughed at her, but although the slight bitterness had crept back into his voice again, he remained serious. “And yet you stand before me with a knife in your hand. Yes, I know. And Martin knew, and Cole knew. It is part of this life; either we are observant and survive, or we are careless and . . .”

She was careful to not look at his maimed wrist, and he did not finish his sentence. She was a little embarrassed at the transparency of her attempt at self-defense, but she tried not to show it. The little blade glinted as she drew it from her pocket and held it out to him. He did not take it.

“So you knew that I was armed, and yet you left Martin behind.” She said, “And that could mean, as I see it, any one of two things: Either you are confident that, even with one hand, you could easily subdue me if I sought to slay you--which confidence I am fairly sure is well-merited; I am no swordswoman yet--; or you trust me.”

She drew a quick breath.

“They would have killed me. All my life I have lived as one of the small people in the world, and yet I never really realized fully what that meant until the king’s man nearly killed me, and then when he did not, paid me for my time. I was a seamstress before, and after that night I became handmaiden to a fine lady, and she treated me kindly in her own fashion, but it makes no difference no matter how I try. I could never be happy like that again. They did not know me, and would have killed me; you did not know me, and yet you gave your freedom and your hand for me. Do not send me back to their world, with that knowledge still weighing upon me. Let me remain here. I will learn to fight for you, in place of the hand you lost; I will serve you faithfully, and stand against your enemies steadfastly, for it will not be servitude, not when you are the only one who treated me like a creature of worth, and when I owe you my life.”

“You need not know how to fight. All you need is a strong enough hatred. Is there anything you hate enough to fight against?” He asked, watching her closely with something almost like a smile tugging at the left corner of his mouth.

“Yes,” she said.

“Look at me,” he said. She obeyed, and he looked long and searchingly into her face, as she thought of William the captain calling She’ll do, from the bright open doorway, and of the weight of a silver penny in her hand. At last he stepped back.

“It may be,” he said quietly, “that when we think of hate we think of the same things, you and I.”

There was a little night wind skittering amongst the stones, and the men at the fire had begun talking amongst themselves again, the low rumbling of their voices indistinct at their distance. The moon had risen above the thick clouds it had been clogged in and in response to both its silvery light and the reminder it gave of how late the hour was getting, the outlying fires were beginning to be stamped out. He looked at her.

“What is your name?” He asked.

“Aude,” she replied, shifting the weight of her rucksack from one shoulder to the other.

“Then I give you welcome, Aude, and--I thank you.”

They made their way back to his fire together, she walking upon his right hand side, and the voices of his captains rose like moths towards a light at Tamarin’s return.

"Tangled" Tomorrow!

I am so extremely excited about this film, it's unbelievable. It's an obsession. I'm terrified it won't live up to my expectations. Augh, why do I do this to myself?

Here's a shiny new trailer--Japanese, no less!--which is a million times better than the standard American trailers. Why couldn't the American trailer been more like this one in tone? It gave both me AND my 16-year old brother goosebumps. Take a look. The audio is in English, never fear, although the voiceover is Japanese. I tried to get my brother to translate for me, but he was able to manage translating only about 60% of it.



I've been kidding my younger sister and saying that we shouldn't comb our hair until we watch the film. My younger sister is 10 and has never had a haircut, and my own hair is down to my knees, so we are major Rapunzel fans.

Sacramento was gorgeous and fun. The drive there and back went pretty well, all things considered--we got a new 12-seater van, which was really strange, especially since I was sitting in the back and found out the hard way that my parents in the front seats can't hear me when I'm way back there unless I yell at the top of my lungs. HR, my 6-week-old baby sister, cried sporadically but overall was extremely well-behaved. I'm very proud of her.

I did not recall in my championship, but I did place 22nd. To be ranked 22nd in the entire Western Region is not a bad thing; sure I wish I had placed high enough to be recalled, but I am grateful I was able to dance at all, and enjoyed myself. I haven't been to any big competitions in a long while.

My little siblings weren't that excited about the competitions, since they go to feises all the time; dance is old news now. Instead, they were excited about other things: a horde of cows we saw (and smelled) on the drive; trying to translate the Latin painted on the walls of the cathedral we attended Mass in; howling with laughter when the wind blew my umbrella inside-out during a rainstorm; seeing magpies for the first time; collecting the bright-red fallen maple leaves. I liked all that too, as well as the cold weather; it was nippy, but so refreshing a change, especially seeing all the fall colors.

There was a basketball court at the hotel we stayed at, so my dad got a basketball from the front desk and we all trooped outside to play. The littlest kids have never played basketball before, so it was fun teaching them and seeing them attempt to dribble and shoot a ball which is basically as big as them. Then we had an impromptu game after dividing up into teams. It was fun until my 16-year old brother for some reason decided to pass the ball to me by throwing it as hard as he could at my face while I was standing about two feet away from him. I was afraid I had broken my nose at first, but it seems okay now, though still very sore if I touch it. That was the end of the game for me, anyway.

Now I will spend the rest of the month focusing on exercising, "Tangled" (I am saving to buy the soundtrack and graphic novel), Thanksgiving, and my NaNoWriMo novel. Said novel is currently only at 15,000 words, partly because I spent the last week or so devoting all my writing energies to writing a birthday story for one of my sisters (it ended up being 38 pages long), and partly because of how dance has been eating up my time this month. I wrote a lot more on the car trip though, and I'm determined to get back on track. Somehow. I'll do it. I WILL.

NaNoWriMo Novel, chapter 1!

I will post the entire thing, chapter by chapter as they are completed, on the Radish Room. For those of you who aren't members on that blog, however, I'm going to post excerpts here. Here is the only complete chapter I will be posting, Chapter one.

Working title is "The Outlaw's Hand". I'll try to post a summary later, but I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out exactly how to summarize this story, so we'll just see.

Enjoy, hopefully, and comments are always awesome!

The Outlaw's Hand, Chapter One

The rain fell upon the town in a dogged, dispirited shower too heavy to be properly called a drizzle, but not quite enthusiastic enough to merit the label of torrent. It coursed down roofs of chipped, slanting shingle; soaked thatched roofs until they turned a sodden, dark color promising a healthy growth of mold and mildew in a few weeks; and slipped spitefully down even the flipped-up collars of the few men and women unfortunate enough to be still outdoors, hurrying through the narrow streets from work or to it, without any roof at all. There were not many of them, but such faces that showed were all stamped with an expression remarkably similar to the rain itself: surly and cold.

The largest gathering of people to be seen, numbering maybe fifteen in the darkness, was huddled outside a tavern which gave testament to the sort of clientele it serviced with the absence of any lettering upon the large, crudely painted sign which depicted a green fish stabbed through by a wicked-looking hook, garishly bright blood dripping from its sagging mouth. Some called the place The Bleeding Cod, others The Hooked Fish, but most just called it trouble. Sailors on leave, fishermen newly back in port after days at sea, and other types poor enough to be illiterate and to possess appetite without palate gave the tavern a steady enough stream of business to keep it running comfortably, but it still exuded an air of dilapidation rather than prosperity. Its bulbous and warped glass windows, so old and grimy as to be nearly as opaque as the walls which they were set in, were at the moment filled with a brown-yellow light, like smoke lit underneath by a sullen fire. The puddles in its little courtyard, lit feebly with that light, were iridescent with oily rainbows.

It was not the sort of place which typically drew bystanders, since any men passing were either of the type to go immediately within, or to hasten past before any brawling started. The crowd outside was not dispersing, however, but instead was growing, heedless of the miserable rain. There could have been a few reasons for this phenomenon, the first being the sound of a raised voice inside the building, which instead of being the usual bawdy slurring was sharp, authoritarian, and even through the thick stone walls had a clear accent not commonly heard in seedy port towns. Even more unusual, however, was the large number of horses standing and blowing steam in the slick and oily tavern courtyard. They were sleek, powerful beasts, and obviously well-trained to judge by their remaining in a stolid formation even though only a ragged boy--most likely a street urchin whose services had been bought temporarily with a tossed coin or two--stood guarding them, The rain dripped irreverently from their combed manes and tails, and soaked determinedly into the livery they wore, but even so the richness of the cloth and harness was unmistakable, and gleaming proudly upon each brow, breast, and flank was the winged crest of the king.

The girl, when she came hurrying around the corner and within view of the crowd, might have been dimly aware of some kind of disturbance and excitement taking place at the tavern, but the rain had drawn her hood up and her eyes down, and so she saw neither the horses nor the king’s crest they bore. But she did hear the sudden metallic crash which sounded from within the tavern just as she drew abreast of it, and, startled, she both involuntarily slowed her step and raised her head, taking in all at once both crowd and horses, crest and boy. While fights were not exactly uncommon at The Bleeding Cod, the sounds they made were far more likely to be the heavy, meaty cracking of fist against jaw or the crash of a wooden stool being used as a makeshift club, not the clear, cut-glass music of steel against steel. One of the larger of the bystanders, a wide-mouthed hulk of a man whose pierced ears and seamed, leathery skin clearly marked him as one of the tavern’s would-be patrons, took notice of the girl as she stood frozen and staring, and with the leering nonchalance of a man trying to endear himself to a woman, did his best to fill her in on the situation.

“Ye might want to be finding a different way home tonight, miss. That’s the king’s own men in there, and ‘tain’t for drink they’ve come. Came riding up like a storm they did, and burst straight-way through the door, swords out and shouting, though some went round the back and sides of the place too. I’ve some mates inside, meself, and I was to meet them, or I wouldn’t be here, but it’s not them your fine king’s boys are after; word is they have managed to trap--Hold, and where is it you be going?”--For the girl, instead of lingering to be regaled further concerning what was happening within the tavern, had begun to hurry away down the street, slipping a little on the wet track of mud the dirt street had become and clutching the empty basket she carried tighter in her arms. She had not gone more than two paces, however, when the tavern’s sturdy door was thrown open with such abrupt strength it rebounded with a loud crash from the tavern’s slimy wall. There was a sudden spill of yellow light upon the ground--real light, not the oil-slick dribbling from the windows. For a brief split of a moment, she saw the hard black silhouette of a man in the bright doorway. But then she felt a sudden firm grip upon her arm, and she before she could even cry out she was dragged through the crowd, which scuttled to make way, through the hot, steaming mass of horses in the little yard, and up to the man who still stood in the bright doorway. She had barely the time to comprehend that her captor was mailed and helmed, clearly one of the soldiers who had been in the tavern, and she had only just begun to struggle, when they reached the door. Bewildered and angry, and not a little afraid, she tried to speak to the man waiting there, but he scarcely even glanced at her face. His own face was lean but strong-jawed, and it was ridiculously elongated by the tall helm he wore, upon which a captain’s badge gleamed.

“She’ll do,” he said to the man who held her, in a voice both agitated and hard. “Take her in. Quickly, quickly--”

And the door was yanked shut once more, leaving the bystanders out in the rain once more, and hiding light, king’s soldiers, and girl all from view.


Once inside, the smell of rain and mud and wet stone was instantly replaced with that of sweat, sour drink, grease, and, more peculiarly, onions. But stronger than any of those smells was the smell of blood newly-spilled, so strong it stuck to the back of the throat like smoke, and could be tasted upon the tongue. To one side of the dingy common room, that farthest from the roaring fireplace, was a small and ragged group of men. They were mostly patrons, looking somewhat bemused and foolish, though there was also in their midst an immensely fat, immensely distressed-looking man who was probably the owner of the place. Standing before the windows and blocking the door were the king’s men, their swords up and wary but as yet unmoving. Upon the floor, almost tangled among the soldier’s booted feet, there lay in their still hot and stinking blood the bodies of two men, their skewed helms and the badge upon their surcoats flickering redly in the firelight. And backed into the farthest corner of the room, beside the fireplace, blade still red-running in his hand, stood another man.

He was not tall, but he did not stand like a small man. His clothing was very plain and very weathered, and he wore no cloak, though one hung discarded upon the back of a nearby chair that had somehow managed to stay upright during what looked to have been a fierce struggle. He was not breathing hard and did not seem agitated in any way despite the half-ring of king’s steel drawn up about him, but there was a dangerous, eager light in his eyes that was very like to that of a wild beast which has lately killed and which knows it must very soon kill again. His face was darkened by the sun, as were the backs of his hands and what little could be seen of the proud line of his throat, and his hair was long and dark.

One of the soldiers, the most senior under the captain, had been speaking to him in a low, wheedlingly reasonable tone of voice when the captain returned with the girl. His jaw was grey and stubbled, but his voice did not sound old.

“Give yourself up, man. The place is surrounded. You will not win out alive.”

“I have done so before,” the man replied cooly.

“Ah, but that was in Altressor, was it not? To each land its own, but here we do not allow men who are enemies of our laws and our king to escape. It was over for you the moment our man recognized you in the street.”

“So you told me once before,” the man answered, “and yet there lie two of your men dead. If you are so sure I am taken, why do you hang back as though afraid? I shall tell you: It is because you are afraid. But of the stories, I wonder, or of the man?”

The soldier was saved answering by the captain unceremoniously thrusting the girl forward, his left arm wrapped around her so that her arms were pinioned tightly to her sides, and a thin knife glinting where he held it poised against the quick-beating hollow of her throat.

“Not as afraid as she is, eh, Gold-Head?” He said, coldly. “Drop the sword, or she dies.”


“Sir! Please, sir, I was only passing, I was not looking, I swear I was not--”

“Silence,” he growled, tightening his grip on her arms. But she still struggled, furious at how pitiful and scared she must look to this roomful of armed men, and terrified all the same. She did not want to die.

“Please, sir, I have to be home, my mother--” She felt the sudden tang of king-forged steel at her throat, and a red wire of pain burning there. With a hideous sound, partway sob and partway gasp, she froze.

The man beside the fireplace had also gone very still, his sword held half-up in guard, but his eyes fixed upon the thread of blood trickling down into the girl’s collar.

“Ah,” he said. He had a peculiar voice. “So not even you can quite entirely believe your own propaganda, Matthew? That’s good.”

He did not wait for a reply. Quite calmly, he let fall the blade, and it rang upon the stones of the hearth. He raised his hands carefully into the air. Before the echo of metal had quite faded, they were upon him. He was slammed down across one of the few tables still standing and whole, and she saw a few quick flashes of silver as various knives and other weaponry were retrieved from his person. His hands they bound with a leather belt.

When, after a surprisingly short time, they dragged him upright again, he was pinioned, weaponless, and breathing a little erratically. There was blood upon his mouth from where his face had struck the tabletop, but his voice and carriage was just as courteous and bitter-calm as they had been before. He nodded to where the girl still stood, rigid in the hands of the man who held her, her eyes as round as coins.

“Go on, Matthew. Let the child go. She has served your purpose.”

Instantly she felt the vice-like grip upon her arms slacken, and the cold touch of metal against her throat was gone. The captain shoved her from him, impatiently rather than contemptuously, and replaced his knife in the leather sheath at his hip. His long face was alight with satisfaction, but his entire attention was now bent upon the captive swordsman, and as quickly as she had been dragged into the whole wretched business, she was now dismissed. Forgotten for the moment, she stood in the firelight, pressing trembling hands to her throat and then staring blindly at the red upon them when she drew them away, as the dead men upon the floor were dragged away and the tavern-keeper, plucking up some feeble semblance of courage at last, began to attempt to needle the captain about paying compensation for the broken furniture and the bloodstains upon his already filthy floor.

They gave her a silver penny for her trouble. Numbly, she took it, and when the youngest of the guardsmen lingered to offer to walk her home, she accepted the offer with the same wordless numbness. Several times on the way he attempted to engage her in conversation, bubbling and ebullient with the triumph at the tavern, but she replied not a word.

A lamp still burned in her mother’s window, when at last she stood upon the threshold of her own house, in her own quiet street. The young guardsman there took his leave of her. He was a handsome lad, with thick auburn hair and green eyes, and even though garbed in the leather and heavy steel of the citadel and king’s service, he walked with a spring in his step.

She stood watching him, dreamlike, until he had quite gone into the darkness, and then, shifting her empty basket upon her arm and smoothing her skirts, she tried to open the front door. More than a half-score times did her shaking fingers slip useless upon the latch. Suddenly, she wished she had cast the silver back in the courteous face of the man who had given it to her, and that she had walked the dark road home on her own.

I've been wondering today about what book Belle is reading in the beginning of 'Beauty and the BEast'. I mean, Belle is one of my heroes (heroines?) and so I've wanted to know what her favorite book is since I was very small, but for some reason the question has returned to puzzle me today, I'm not sure why. When I was small, I was convinced that the book was "The Princess and the Goblin" by George MacDonald, but I couldn't really tell you why that is.

Three more weeks until "Tangled" is released, and I can't wait! A song, a romantic duet, has been released online by Disney, and it's utterly charming. I'm trying to not remember that before I can watch the film, I have to get through Oireachtas, which is the weekend previous . . . too scary a notion, that!

Another scary notion? The idea that NaNoWriMo is only 2 days in, and I'm already behind. Only by 700 words or so, but . . . eesh. I'm going to stay up now before bed to get caught up. Yes. Song currently running through my head: "Hushabye Mountain" from "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". One of my favorite movies, but I haven't seen it in a while, I wonder why I'm thinking of it now?

Book reviews for October coming up soon! And there's actually quite a lot of reviews this time, too!

Oireachtas Coming . . .

Oireachtas practicing officially started today, and I have the aches and pains to prove it. Plus, after losing my beautiful old hard shoes at my last competition due to a mix-up and REALLY poor management by the feis committee, I have a brand new pair to break in which, as any Irish dancer can tell you, means I'm going through a torturous time. I mean, I have blisters on my heels. Blisters, Gandalf! And I never get blisters any more, or at least not for a good many years. It's sad :(

Dance itself, however, remains wonderful. Frustrating at times of course, but always well worth the effort put into it, and more. Blisters become calluses, with a little time. I'll be fine.

Books! I've already finished my Nathan Hale biography, the first of the O'Brian novels I borrowed, and am now happily devouring both "The Mauritius Command" and my book on the American Revolution. So there will be a real proper Book of the Month this month, as well as a good number of reviews, huzzah!

As to writing, I've been determinedly plodding along, and it's going splendidly, actually! I'm really excited to actually be making this much progress in my novel. In addition, I am just getting more and more excited about NaNoWriMo! I've written up a little blurb about the story I'm planning to write--the type you'd see on the back of a book--but nothing more than that, so I can have enough creative freedom to actually write the 50,000 words without hitting a block. I'm trying not to plot ahead at all, which is difficult for me, but hopefully will prove a helpful exercise. I'll post the blurb here once October hits.

I'm currently typing this with only half of my attention; I'm mostly absorbed with an animated short I'm watching on Youtube, "The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello". Steampunk and silhouettes and adventure and creepiness, oh my! A friend recommended it to me, and I'm loving it so far.

Tomorrow I make a birthday card for my littlest brother, who will be turning five this week! And then I'll read some more, write some more, and attempt to make tapioca pudding with the contents of a really old box of tapioca I found in a kitchen cupboard the other day. Hopefully it'll be yummy, instead of poisoning me or something. We'll see, I guess . . .

PS: Just finished the film. Strongly recommend you check it out :)

Further Excerpts from "Quinn"

As you no doubt know, I never did finish my NaNoWriMo novel--though bravo to all of you who did, and I'm determined to get beyond 2009's 35,000 words this year--but I still have an affection for what I did manage to churn out, and for the rest of the story that I hope to finish some time in the future. Anyway, here are a few more samples of what I did manage to get written. I hope you enjoy, and I promise I shall finish the story properly one day :)

I am no author, but it comes to my mind that the best way in which to begin the story of a life would be to start at the beginning: that is, at the birth of the subject. Here I am afraid I must already fail you, for I cannot remember the day of my birth, nor the occasion, and I have never in all my life found any one who could enlighten me on the subject. In an attempt to save the situation I shall now list the plain and pertinent facts that I do know, poor as they are, in whatever order that seems to me most logical: 1, that I know I was born a child unwanted, given freely to the orphanage by a hale mother when I was not yet forty-eight hours into this world; 2, that I have never discovered the names of either my mother or my father, nor did they feel it necessary to inform me of mine; 3, that the tender years of my infancy I spent in as much misery as any child can bear, though in better health than many of my fellow orphans, for I have always had a hearty constitution, and 4, that I was saved from my purgatory when I was six old, by a man named Gabriel, and brought by him into a new life. Since this is the first true birth of mine that I can recall, it is here that I shall begin my story.

The day was December the fifth, in the Year of our Lord 1849. The time was just about six o’clock in the morning, perhaps a little after, and snow was falling. It was a Monday, I remember, because the day before had been a Sunday made memorable by my being struck a terrific clout to the head after service by Mrs. Palmer, the mistress of the orphanage where I lived, for not paying her esteemed husband’s after-supper sermon the attention and respect that she thought it deserved. As to whether I was truly guilty, I cannot say, aside from admitting that it is true that I do not now remember the sermon, though I do remember the clout. No doubt it was a fine sermon, though, for Mr. Palmer was quite the pious orator when it meant the opportunity to expound upon the failings in other men’s virtue.

As I turn my memory back to that time I see as though in a photograph or film the child I was at the time, being but six years of age. He was small for his age, wretchedly thin, his small hands already calloused with chores and work, his ankles and wrists swollen with the cold. His clothes were poor, his shoes non-existent. His face was thin and peaked and pale; his eyes were grey and inquisitive; his hair and brows very dark and straight. He was a poor, ugly, starved, pitiable thing, inquisitive and nervous and slowly pining. I know that boy was I, but it is hard now to believe.

That boy who was I was one of perhaps a score and seven children kept in the little cottage-turned-orphanage on the outskirts of Little Camden. St. Alboin’s was not a religious institution, but was instead the private residence of a husband and wife, having only four bedrooms, in addition to the sitting room, the kitchen, and the front hall. Some houses for orphans were charitable places, caring for abandoned children for the sake of true Christian compassion and the goodness of the owners’ hearts, but St. Alboin’s was unfortunately not one of them. The room he slept in he shared with nine other boys, all of whom would lay upon narrow pallets on the floor like so many bricks in a wall, packed securely but far too close for comfort. Now and then the older boys in the room would grow too vexed with the situation and after the master and mistress of the home had retired to their own chamber the bullies would rouse a younger boy from his sleep and force him to leave the room and find sleep elsewhere, so that they might snatch his blanket and pallet and the little extra space that his vacancy provided. The boy was often picked as the nocturnal outcast, for he was small for his age and being even then given to solitary thought instead of the games of his fellow orphans he did not have any friends to defend him. As any boy found out of his bed and room before the mistress’ wake-up call in the morning would be subject to severe punishment, he would usually be forced to serve his period of exile by slipping out of the bedroom window and using the creepers and brickwork on the side of the house as a ladder down to the yard, where he would attempt to snatch some sleep until it was time to climb back up and in before Mrs. Palmer rapped upon his door. The boy did not mind the expulsion as much as he might have, as what little of the stars could be seen through the factory fumes was beautiful, and at least in the yard he had as much room to himself as he could wish. The only difficulty was the cold. Summer nights spent in such a fashion were very pleasant; winter nights were a purest form of torture.

The master of the house, whose name was Palmer, was a florid, healthy man. My memories of him consist mainly of the ruddy sheen of his face, the crisp but yellowing wig he would wear perched upon his head, and the peculiar way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, as though they were hastily retreating away from his mirth. We children soon learned upon our arrival at St. Alboin’s that it was best to follow suit, for Palmer was a stolid man and rarely laughed save only when he was drunk, and then he was liable to find outlet for his merriment by seizing whatever boy happened to be nearest and proceeding to give the unfortunate a good thrashing. I was not caught often, for I was nimble and small, and I did not like Palmer, being well pleased to keep my distance from him at all possible times. When sober he mainly ignored us children, save only when he waxed philanthropic by scolding us for our failings and doing his utmost to impress upon us the utter wretchedness of our situation in life, our being all parentless and penniless and living only upon his own charity. I generally ignored him as he ignored me, seeing him as nothing more than a great fool, whom I disliked but did not fear. It was his wife I went in constant fear of, and of the serving woman she employed to help mind us and the house. Both were quite unafraid to use the brunt force of a heavy fist upon our ears as punishment for anything they interpreted as mischief, and not infrequently madame would refer a child to her husband to beat properly for a more serious offense. Now that I have a more extensive experience with the adult world to draw upon, something that I in my isolation severely lacked when I was a child, I do not think that she thought of herself as cruel, but only severe and inflexible in the only way she knew how. It is the best excuse I can give her for the terror she instilled in those of us who were under her rule. At the time, however, she seemed to me both sadistic and brutal, her rules and strictures being the most dreadful things in the world, and her punishments most harsh, and I for one was made none the better for them.

Palmer and his wife took us children in for as much of a business reason as a charity reason, for Palmer’s elder brother was the owner and manager of the textile factory on the other side of town, and despite the new laws implemented then regarding the labor of children in industrial factories, children were commonly still seen as valuable workers by such men: cheap, small, numerous, and expendable. With his younger brother operating an unofficial orphan home, snatching children from the gutters in the name of charity, the factory owner had easy access to an under-age labor force which he could take and use without attracting the notice of the London officials, who were, alas, not omniscient, particularly in monitoring the doings in little towns so near the northern Scottish border. The wicked truth was the Palmers took in whatever orphaned or unwanted children they could find on the streets, clothed them and fed them enough to keep alive but starved them of any kindness or happiness and beyond teaching them the simplest prayers and how to sign their own names, did not bother to educate them, as those children--and to think I was one of them!--were being raised not as human beings but as merchandise, commodities to be tended at a minimum and then sold for a profit.

So every half-year or thereabout a carriage would rumble to St. Alboin’s front gate, the men would speak hurriedly but at length in Palmer’s study, money would change hands, and a handful of orphans would be plucked from our ranks, fussed over, given a fine parting meal by the women, and then spirited away into the carriage which would carry them away swiftly down the dusky road as night fell, while the rest of us were made to line dutifully along the picket fence and wave our farewells until our former playmates had quite vanished.

This was not quite the universal fate of children at St. Alboin’s, of course; some boys would occasionally be adopted as hands for farmers in the surrounding county, and some would run away. But the great majority were raised only to become workers at the factory, where most of them would die of hardship before they reached their sixteenth year. At the time, of course, I was almost entirely ignorant of the politics of my upbringing and the dark significance of the black carriage with its men. The first time I can remember watching the carriage rumble away without me, I was around two years of age, and I cried all the night after because I was crushed at not being chosen, at not being wanted and not being taken away. I never cried about it again, but the pain of not being thought worthy enough was always there like a shard of glass in my throat, hurting and hurting. I was, I suppose, a supremely foolish child.

When I was old enough to ask about my birth parents, I did summon the courage to ask Mrs. Palmer about them, and since she was above all a practical-minded woman she did not see any reason to evade the question. That is how I know that I was not orphaned through the death of my parents, nor for any tragic reason beyond that my mother simply did not want me, which I suppose is after a fashion the most tragic reason there could be. My mother did not disclose her name the day she arrived at St. Alboin’s to hand me over, but she was dressed decently if not richly--was dressed in a pastel colour--, had dark hair and dark eyes, was somewhat short, smiled frequently, had good teeth, was not more than twenty-five, and possibly much younger. More details I was not able to draw from Mrs. Palmer, and so that is all the picture I have of the woman who bore me. It was enough to haunt my dreams for years after, though, and to instill in my young heart a sensation approaching horror at the thought of a woman who could be young and beautiful and smile as she gave away her son because she did not want him. Until I met Gabriel, the feeling of being born unwanted and living unwanted was an obsession approaching a morbid fascination to me, and no doubt contributed to my growing up with a very solitary and introspective disposition . . .


. . . The gentleman turned back towards me, and crouched down upon the rug.

"What do they call you, boy?"

But I would not answer that. I hated my name, hated it so much it galled me like a blister on my thumb. Mrs. Palmer took it upon herself to answer in my stead.

“This is Wilfrid, sir, who has lived here all his life. We found him upon our steps six years ago, give or take a few months. It was the twelfth of October, and the feast of the goodly saint Wilfred of Ripon, which is why we christened him with the name.”

“Wilfrid is a fine name, lad.” His eyes were kindly and laughing at once, surprisingly alive in his tired face with its white hairs. “Do you know, one of my favorite novels tells the story of a hero named Wilfrid. It’s an adventure story, with knights and sieges and lovely ladies. You can read it if you like, once we reach the house. And it’s a fine thing to be named for a saint.”

“I cannot read. And I hate him.”

“Be reasonable, child,” Gabriel said quietly, with a hint of shocked disapproval in his voice that I, all unrepentant, easily detected. “To hate is a strong and poisonous thing. The man lived a holy life, and never did any wrong to you.”

“It was on his day that my mother chose to give me up.”

There was a long, slow silence. I was suddenly terrified that I had spoken too much, too many secrets. Then the gentleman leaned slightly forward so that his face was level with the mine.

“What is the name you would like to be known by, then?”

This time I hesitated, the secret name roiling against the back of my teeth, against my closed lips. I could taste it there, the sweetness of the secret, as strong a tang as the coppery tang of blood, as sweet as molasses sugar. It was the first time in my long life that I would taste secret words unspoken upon my tongue, but it would not be the last. But the gentleman’s voice and eye was very kind, and I understood by then instinctively that here was a man who would not laugh at my precociousness, nor scold me it. That strange unknowing knowledge was enough to make me already love him. Food was not the only commodity starved from the children in that house, and I had always been lonely, even if I had not entirely realized it.

“I call myself Julian,” I whispered.

“Very well, Julian,” he said, quite seriously and shifting position a little with a wince that betrayed the stiffness of his old joints. “It is a pleasure to meet you. My name is Gabriel. Would you like to come home with me?”

For a moment I could not speak, and then I ventured: “I would, sir, I would like it very much, sir.”. . .


. . . Mr. Gabriel Quinn was a man of set habits. Every morning he woke at six and was dressed and presentable by six-thirty, whereupon he would take a half-hour stroll outdoors before breakfast. When I was small I rarely woke in time to walk with him, though sometimes I did, but as I grew older I became keener to join him on those morning excursions, and so learned to imitate his orderly way of living and to regulate my waking and sleeping hours. When I was small, those morning walks were like glorious romps, with the streets only beginning to wake up, or when we occasionally ventured out into the fields, there were crickets to capture and examine, and bedewed grasses taller than I to whip at my face. This custom of the morning stroll still remained well into my teen years, and even after I had removed to London for my studies, I never missed a morning when I visited home. Those walks in later years were more philosophical and serious in nature, opportunities for us to debate the possibilities of electromagnetic engines and the practicality of ____________.

Breakfast would be served at seven, but he would refrain from opening the newspaper until after the dishes were cleared. He did not smoke, nor drink excessively, and was always the picture of benevolent gentility. As he settled down to his papers and books and letter writing, I would make my way to the sunny, wide-windowed room where I knew I would find my French tutor waiting. I was never late, desiring by my punctuality to impart a favorable and mature impression upon the man. He was a Frenchman long in England, so that although he spoke with an accent it was only just strong enough to be aristocratic, without consciously reminding me that he was a foreigner. I liked him, and he was fond of me, for one evening when he stayed for supper I overheard him praise me to Gabriel that I was the brightest and most dedicated pupil he had ever had the pleasure of teaching. That could, of course, have been the wine speaking, for he was exceedingly fond of the vintage, but I believe his enthusiasm was at least mostly genuine.

After my studies for the day were completed in the early afternoon, I was charged with finding Gabriel in his study and would then spend anywhere from fifteen minutes to a full hour with him, reporting all I had learned that day and having him explain to me anything I had found difficult. He was very well-spoken and well-educated, and always had time enough to help. After the interview was over, I was left to my own devices until supper at six, and generally would rush out of doors to find my playmate Caulton, who would generally be waiting for me. We would have a merry time, usually playing one game or another based upon or inspired by our latest reading material. Hektor and Achilleus, Odysseus and the horrendous Cyclops, Launcelot and Gawain, who began as friends and ended their days as bitter foes. I suppose there is some foreshadow in that, at least.

At other times our games would be dictated by the fertile mind of Caulton himself, who even at that tender age was as marked out for a future in the writing of fiction as I was destined for the life of a scientific inventor, and those days were when we would play the parts of heroes that he would conjure from his own fancies. Our most frequent characters were that of the Night and the Day, who were according to his mythos two brothers eternally in conflict, each seeking an unknown secret on the earth that would give him sole power over the world for ever. He was always Night, though his hair was fair and his eyes were blue, for he thought the role dark and mysterious and therefore more appealing. I, in my turn, was always perfectly content with playing the part of Day, though my sunny name belied my dark hair and pale skin. Day is the time of light, of illumination; of the discovery of secrets and the enlightenment of men’s minds.

Sometimes Caulton would take supper with Gabriel and myself, but this was rare. Far more frequently my guardian and I took our meals together just the two of us, and I liked it that way. After supper was over I would sometimes follow Gabriel into the sitting room and sit upon a stool at his feet, and he would favor me with a story, either of his own life or a paraphrase of a book he was reading at the time, for he was a great reader. In that he got along with Caulton extremely well, for both had the same liking of adventure stories. I myself preferred the old romances and epics, and, when I was a little older, the fierce mythologies of the Celts. But in this way I learned a little more about Mr. Gabriel Quinn and the life he had lived before he discovered me in that little shed at St. Alboin’s.

As I have mentioned before, he was a purveyor of antiques, having inherited the family business from his father in his young days and with perseverance and aptitude, not to mention a considerable amount of luck, he became rich from his practice and being able to add this to the money he inherited from his father also--for his family had never been quite poor, and were indeed well-t0-do--he was able to not only refurbish and rebuild his ancestral home at Brownstone manor, but was also able to marry. Despite wedding young, he had no children, and his wife had died some years before he adopted me. The loneliness, he said, had become too much, as well as the feeling of having missed his chance at something important, the chance of having done something in his lifetime worth being remembered for.

“Remember, Julian,” he would tell me, the lamplight soft and dark in the folds and hollows of his burgundy dressing gown and his knobbed old fingers steepled thoughtfully, “what every man really wants in the end is immortality. Sometimes, I feel that the immortality of the soul, though marvelous in its own right, is not by itself enough. It is in man’s nature to want a little immortality upon the earth, as well as in the heavenly spheres. I don’t mean by this the mummification or other heathen rites of immortality that the old civilizations used, but instead the immortality of deeds, good deeds. I took you from that orphanage because I admired your resilience and your intelligence, lad, that much is true, but it was also because I knew that by taking you from there I could give you a new lease upon life. When I am gone, you will live on, and to judge by your already evident skills, you will do great things. You will be my immortality, Julian,” and then he would smile and bid me good night, and I would climb the long stairs up to my blue-and-cream bedroom, where I would fall asleep while still listening for any rumors of his movement on the floor below, for although an early riser, Gabriel was also prone to staying awake late into the night, usually reading.

“You will be my immortality”--How my eyes must have shone as I listened to the pride in his voice! To accomplish the great deeds which he promised me was the dearest dream of my heart, and something I looked forward to even as I worked at my studies by day and played the golden afternoons away with Caulton. And I am afraid it was not entirely a dream fueled by gratitude and love for the man who had rescued me from my previous wretched existence. For I knew that although to accomplish some mighty thing would be to win immortality for my beloved foster father, I also realized that it would equally mean immortality of the same kind for myself. . . . .


. . . Those were my happy years. It saddens me a little to recall them now, knowing that they could not last forever, but wishing all the same that they had lingered a little longer, just a little longer. The days blur indistinctly into one long golden ribbon, so that I cannot tell you more. I see the pictures of days and events, but I cannot remember now what order they came in. Know therefore that I grew up healthy and happy, my mind ever quickening and my thirst not only for knowledge but also for my turn to transform that knowledge into things new and wonderful became ever stronger. Those were happy years, but already was planted within me the seed that would eventually bring me so near to destruction. I wanted immortality, and Gabriel had assured me that it was mine for the taking. . . .


. . . So much for my scientific studies. It is easier to skim over extended periods of my life quickly as though they mattered less than others than it was to live through them at the time, but that is the nature of this business of writing one’s own life over, I suppose. At any rate, in short order I was eighteen years old, a student at university, studying in earnest and close to entirely absorbed in my work. I have already shown the main obsessions of my life up to this point: Mr. Gabriel Quinn, my benefactor; John Caulton, my closest friend; and my scientific studies, which pointed the way to eternity. Yet now, there was to enter my life the fourth of my life’s greatest obsessions, and one which nearly would blot out all of the other three. Her name was Diana Whitton, and at the time when I first saw her she was but sixteen years old.

Caulton insisted upon us going out to celebrate my nineteenth birth-day with what he termed ‘a real party’, which I knew meant nothing more than finding a decent pub somewhere with cheap food and excellent wine and getting rip-roaring drunk. Normally I would not have allowed him to persuade me to consent to such dissipation, as I was in those days acutely conscious of my own appearance and what other men thought of me. My customary outfits were sharp enough, indeed the best money could buy without being flamboyant, and I took care always to oil and curl my hair, which to my grief was far more difficult for me to do that it was for Caulton, whose fine, fair hair was quite pliable. My own hair has always been heavy, and was reluctant to hold any shape I wished to put it in. But I did not quite belong in academia yet, despite all my preening. I do not know now whether I looked a fool to the other young students, but I felt sure I did then, and I had none of their in-born airs. In the vast maze and treacherous morass of London all I had was my intellect, my ambition, and the feeling of superiority with which I comforted myself when I was sober and all the other students were drunk . . . .

My Tardis . . .

Is officially one-fourth complete!

Or, well, one-fifth, counting the roof.

Actually, make that one-sixth, counting the floor.

But . . . Check it out, one panel down!

I really took this picture when it wasn't quite done--you can see the windows on the right look different from those on the left. But it's all finished now. 

I'm almost ridiculously proud of it, mostly because I'm a truly mediocre knitter at best. This is seriously the most complicated pattern I've ever attempted, which I'm sure all you seasoned knitters will smirk at, but I'm self-taught, still learning as I go, so this is quite an accomplishment for me. I'm hoping that by the time I reach the fourth panel, it'll look much better than this one! :)

Also--Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you all had a fantastic day. I spent mine mostly eating, writing, and sleeping, which means it was a stellar day. Four days off of school in a row feels like a little slice of heaven; it seems incredible that I had a whole summer without school earlier this year. Whatever did I do with it?

What books are you reading now? I haven't really had much time for reading new books this month, what with NANOWRIMO and all that (yes, I'm still frantically writing, and yes, I hope to finish on time nonetheless), but I've been reading through my copy of the complete Sherlock Holmes stories again, partially because of how many people have told me that my Quinn narrator sounds like Watson, and partially because--well, Holmes and Watson are my favorite superheroes! ^_^ I'm trying to read them all in order from cover to cover, something I haven't done in a while, and am currently still finishing up A Study in Scarlet. Yes, I told you I am mostly busy with my writing! Even my reading is suffering, horror of horrors! 

On a sidenote, I found Watson's list of 'Sherlock Holmes--his limits' even funnier on this umpteenth reading. If I were to make a similar list for myself, I suppose it would go something like:

1. Knowledge of Literature.--Extensive, but limited mostly to pre-1950's English Language and Classical, with some Russian. Well-versed in Celtic, Germanic, and Classical mythologies.

2. Knowledge of Philosophy.--Limited to Greek and Chinese, and supplemented by some poor independent musings.

3. Knowledge of Astronomy.--Feeble.

4. Knowledge of Politics.--Variable. Reasonably understanding of political theory, but treats the political reality with something bordering on disdain.

5. Knowledge of Botany.--Nil. 

6. Knowledge of Geology.--Poor.

7. Knowledge of Chemistry.--Very poor. Does know a little about medieval-era poisons.

8. Knowledge of Anatomy.--Limited. Disturbingly seems to focus mostly upon anatomy as relevant to injuries, illness, and other such trauma.

9. Knowledge of Sensational Literature.--Next to nothing.

10. Plays the piano, guitar, recorder, and tin whistle, all poorly.

11. Is an avid dancer, cook, artist, seamstress, and photographer. Takes with her everywhere a green notebook, which she scribbles in almost incessantly. 

12. Talks to herself.

Hm, I wonder if Watson could have guessed that all of this adds up to 'author' any better than he guessed that all of Holmes' attributes added up to 'detective'? Looking at it, it certainly seems a bit batty, heh. I guess we are all of us somewhat peculiar when our personalities are dissected and listed like that. It's somewhat fun, though!

Quinn: An Excerpt (II)

The beginning of Chapter One, where Julian Quinn himself finally takes over the narrative. 

Chapter One.

I am no author, but it comes to my mind that the best way in which to begin the story of a life would be to start at the beginning: that is, at the birth of the subject. Here I am afraid I must already fail you, for I cannot remember the day of my birth, nor the occasion, and have never in all my life found any one who could enlighten me on the subject. In an attempt to save the situation I shall now list the plain facts that I do know, poor as they are, in whatever order that seems to me most logical: 1, that I know I was born a child unwanted, given freely to the orphanage by a hale mother when I was not yet forty-eight hours into this world; 2, that I have never discovered the names of either my mother or my father, nor did they feel it necessary to inform me of mine; 3, that the tender years of my infancy I spent in as much misery as any child can bear, though in better health than many of my fellow orphans, for I have always had a hearty constitution, and 4, I was saved from my purgatory when I was six old, by a man named Gabriel, and brought by him into a new life. Since this is the first true birth of mine that I can recall, it is here that I shall begin my story.

NaNoWriMo 2009, Update 2

I'm working hard as I can on my WriMo novel, but man, school is keeping me so busy! Still, I'm at about 7000 words now, which means I'm slowly inching my way up to where I'm supposed to be. Yesterday, being Veterans Day and therefore a holiday from school, helped somewhat, but unfortunately I also had two tests today I needed to spend the time on studying for . . . And tomorrow is my Russian test for the week. I'm spending this evening solely on my novel, though. Quinn is an impatient chap.

Also, I'm waiting for the rain to start. An enormous storm is ready to break any moment here in the state of HI, and I've had my window open, watching the clouds gathering and darkening, all afternoon. The sky is a thick blue-grey like steel and lead right now, but tinging with pink lines too, so I suppose that means that somewhere behind all the clouds the sun is setting. The air smells really good; rain in Hawaii smells just as good as rain in Oxford did, but in different ways. It's sweeter, but not as earthy.

And I'm going to post a double-feature book review post after November is over, since I'm spending all my free writing time writing a book of my own, and since I'm not getting much reading done this month. A little, but not much. Biggest news on the distraction front: "Waters of Mars" is coming out on the weekend, which means that I have to take into consideration the fact that I'll probably be spending two hours not writing--one hour to watch the thing, and one hour to recover. Don't worry, I'll try to be somewhat productive while watching; I'll work on knitting the second panel of my TARDIS plushie. Yep, that's called geek-productive, and it's fun.

Okay, time to get back to real work! I wish I had a typewriter.

Quinn: An Excerpt (I)

Well, here's all I got for you fine folks thus far. I know it's pathetic, but I hope to catch up this week, now that midterms are finally over. And I actually have more than this written--my total word count is 5,209 at present, while what I am posting here is only 2,442 words. But it is the best place to insert a break for posting purposes, I think. I'll post more tomorrow (hopefully), and the plan is to actually have the chapter finished by then, too. We'll see!

Comments and critiques are eagerly welcome, but keep in mind that this is of course a first draft Nanowrimo novel, and that any ideas on improvement will be kept in storage until after November is over. Also, although I have a general idea of what will happen in the story, most of it is in fact a mystery to me, so I'm kinda making it up as I go along. Like I wasn't expecting this narrator to come along and demand the writing of the first chapter, but demand it he did, and I'm letting him do what he likes. Quinn will just have to wait for his turn to take over the narrative, it seems :)

Also, I will NOT be posting the story in its entirety on this blog. Bits and snippets, yes, but not the whole thing, due to my being unwilling to publish any serious writing in full on a website where anyone can read it and, theoretically, steal it. Yes, I know I am paranoid, but I have reason from past experience to be! If you still want to read the story word for word, shoot me an email at cpsk@hawaii.edu, let me know who you are, and I'll send you an invite to the private writers' blog that I've set up, "The Radish Room". I will be posting the entirety of Quinn on that blog, since it's secure.

Quinn: Prologue

It had been many years since I had last seen Mr. Julian Quinn, and as is the nature of such flighty things, my memories of him, once so cherished, had long since been forgotten--still there in my mind, surely, firm and unassuming as stones in a riverbed, but softened, worn faded and shapeless, as all things eventually are, by time. Looking down through the flowing waters of fifty years that ran between us, I found them grown smooth also, slipping from my fingers like minnows. Such reminders of age do not rest easily upon me: the sensation of the dull cotton of my brain gathering dust and moonbeams and my bones gathering the cold. So it is that even now that I approach the age at last when a man's best source of entertainment is plumbing for those river stones to examine them anew in the sunset of his days, I have always avoided those sunken memories of the man with an instinct something akin to that of a wary beast still tendering old hurts. And, considering the half-century of silence that I had not been alone in building between us, I suppose he felt something of the same regarding memories of me.

How foolish men are, and old men most of all! When we were boys together, I might have laughed at it--nay, I surely would have made merry over the notion. Now, however, I can see the tragedy of the thing.

It was morning when the letter came, tucked quietly into the packet of the daily post and papers that my youngest granddaughter brought to me in my study. I did not immediately take notice of her arrival, for I was absorbed in my latest writing--a good story, I thought it then, certainly my best since Phoebus. Unlike my old myth fancies and poetic prattlings, however, this was a story set here in my own England, in that place and time when I had been young. Even muses, it would seem, grow tired and begin to yearn for their beginnings again. 

Mary greeted me merrily that morning, I remember, lingering a brief spell to keep me company and to clear away the breakfast things that still cluttered my desk; the cold tea dregs and the plate, the knife and the napkin. She had dressed already for work, fresh-faced and bright-eyed, her hair clipped short and curled in the fashion that most pleases women these days, the hem of her grey smock of a dress frisking about her calves. Such a poor thing for women to wear, to my mind, though little Mary is quite proud of it, and indeed that morning her dress’s many black buttons shone like eyes. She had plainly polished them the night before. Those buttons are all the fripperies she and the other women of her age are allowed in these dark days, though they wear them almost as proudly as they flaunt the slimness of their ankles from beneath their dress hems. But still there are times when in my dozing hours I catch like butterflies the memories of silk and lace and taffeta and ribbons, skirts wide and rustling, hair braided and bound and bedecked with flowers, and I think I see my Mary as she should be, as girls her age were in the days of my youth, and then I cannot but pity her. Some thought of this kind was in my mind as I set aside my pen to greet her, and we spoke some little time together. I recall that she spoke something of the cold, as winter drew close, and I teased her gently as was my wont as regarding her ankles, which would have been so scandalous in my own time. She only replied as she did to most things: with a smile that dimpled so deeply, it could have held rainwater. It was a smile like the one I had once smiled as a boy, which may, I suppose, also account for the fondness I have for the child.

And all those careless, precious moments, the letter waited for me, so close I could have touched it without fully extending my arm, and yet I knew nothing of it. It waited silently and patiently, and I felt no such chill or premonition such as I have read of in the old novels; no half-remembered voice whispered to me from within the yellow paper; no unconscious compulsion preyed upon my mind, urging me to open it, to read the words. My life, at least, has never been like a novel, no matter how many I have written.

It was only once Mary had gone that I turned my attention at last to the few letters she had left. She had flung open the shutters at the window to make way for the sunlight, so that the mahogany of my desk that had been so black moments before now bore whorls of red and gold in its glossy heart, and a brilliant white fire was kindled in the reflective sides of my tobacco tin, though the letters remained as they had been, pale and unremarkable. I slit them open methodically but swiftly, impatient to return to my writing, not caring even to glance at the names scribed upon the envelopes themselves, but instead scanning each envelope’s contents swiftly and coming to my own conclusions before I reached each signature.

The third envelope was of excellent quality, doubly impressive in light of the paper shortages, as it seemed to my author’s fingers nearly as thick and sturdy as parchment, and creamy and pleasantly textured. I suppose I fancied it some sort of note from the government, or perhaps from the publishing firm; I do not remember now. I do recall clearly that I slit it open easily enough, withdrew from its chrysalis a single sheet of paper, and tossed the envelope aside to join the other papers in the clutter on my desk. The paper it had borne, in sharp contrast to its elegant wrapping, was a casualty of the war effort, of cheap make and no longer than the span of my hand, and no wider that I could reach from forefinger to thumb. In the corner of the sheet was written the date: 17 October, 1915. Underneath it was an address, a London address, of all places. And there at the top of the page, in the cramped handwriting that had once been as familiar to me as my own breathing, the cramped, precise hand that had so aggravated our schoolmaster when we were boys: My dear John . . .

I have said some memories wear smooth as river stones. Yet there are some, when snatched from the water, which are found to be exactly as they were a thousand years ago--it was only the moss, the distortion of the stream current, the trick of the light glancing from the surface, that made you see them as they never truly were, that made you forget. 

My God! How his face was instantly there before me, and not merely his face, but him, the man in his entirety, just as he had been in our glory days as students and young men first stepping out into the world, sharper than I had thought any memory could be, complete from the dark gloss of his carefully curled hair to the scar from a pox in childhood still evident upon his chin to the defensive way he hid his hands deep within his grey trouser pockets. I know not what expression was upon my face then, nor can I recollect leaping to my feet and calling for coat and cab--though my daughter and her family later assured me that I did--so suddenly and completely was my conscious mind overwhelmed and astounded.

Still, it was not many minutes later, I am sure, that I emerged from a state which was probably the closest I have ever come to fainting in all my life to discover myself seated in an electric carriage, rattling over the twisting, sordid byways of old London town, with the cyclists and horse-drawn cabs and heavily bundled pedestrians flashing past. I had no collar at my throat nor hat upon my head; my coat was in a bad state of disarray; and I still clutched the wondrous paper tightly within my fist. I discovered, when I shifted my position and attempted to straighten out my rumpled coat, that my walking stick had been set carefully against my leg. Later I was to discover that I had insisted upon going out alone, saying only that I needed to meet a friend, and that I would not listen to the confused protests of my daughter and her family. They had at last given way to my will, but my daughter had made sure to set the stick in the cab after me, along with a goodly amount of money in my left pocket. I did not much regard it at the time, being so caught up in a sudden boyish spirit of adventure and intent only upon urging the driver to drive faster to the address which I could show him upon the note I held, and to take the shortest way. And always before my eyes like a ghost the face and form of the young Julian Quinn of my boyhood days. It seems absurd to me now that I never once gave a thought to the rather obvious fact that Quinn would have now become an old man even as I have. In my fancy I saw him as he had looked in his student days, when he was as dear to me as though he had been one of my own brothers; I saw him working by candlelight, carefully writing out his letter summoning me back to a happier past, those bitter differences that had broken our friendship in anger showing all forgiven upon his expressive brow, and his ugly hand firmly signing the letter, Julian Quinn.

Once the long-suffering little man at the wheel had managed to convince me that he could urge the vehicle no swifter than he had already urged it, and that he was certain of the address and we should get there in the speediest possible time, I turned my attention at last to Quinn’s note, and read once and then again the actual body of the words he had written to me, as I had not managed to get past the opening salutation previously. It is strange that I should have recognized his hand so easily and immediately in the characters of my name, written firmly on the penny paper with a pen that was obviously old, by the way the ink sputtered and bled and then ran dry upon the page. The poor ink-flow rendered his handwriting, which had always been notorious among acquaintances for its illegibleness, nigh impossible to puzzle out, and not all of that was due entirely to the pen. Age was evident in his lettering just as I had noticed it becoming evident in mine. Still, it had been enough, and as I puzzled eagerly through his words now in their entirety I became aware suddenly for the first time of their import and meaning. I set out here for the reader’s benefit the letter in full, copied directly from the original by my own hand.

My dear John, it began; My dear John, pray do not be alarmed that I should choose to write to you now after so many countless years of silence. I had no other recourse left to me, now that Diana has died. These past four months have been a misery and a torment to me, and I have no one at all left to me in all this wide world save you alone, an unhappy truth that I hope you will forgive me for burdening you with. It is this loneliness, this strange emptiness of the mind, that weighs most heavily upon me all these dreary days, and the screaming of the sirens and the smoke rising from grand old Europa do nothing to give me peace. I wish I could speak to you again in person, John. It would be such a comfort to me. Yet in my heart I believe--nay, I know--that this is after all the best method of conveying my farewells to you, for ever were you too stubborn for your own good. You would not understand if I were to appear upon your doorstep only to bid you farewell, and I am afraid that perhaps my own courage could not withstand the ordeal. It is easier to explain myself thus, with pen and ink and paper, not having to see your expression as I confess myself.

John, when you read these words, I shall be dead. 

Do not mourn for me, my dear fellow; I have been far too poor a friend to you for any tears. If, however, you cherish at all any part of our friendship that once was, I entreat you to take the key I shall enclose with this note and go swift as you can to the address indicated upon the back of this sheet. The door you shall find awaiting you there will open to the key. Upon the table you will see to your left, you will find a manuscript. This too is waiting for you, John. It is all I have to bequeath, and there is no other man left living in this world to whom I can bequeath it, nor indeed to whom I would wish to bequeath it. Do with it as you will--burn it, print it, bury it, but only first swear to me that you shall read it. It is a hard thing to die alone, and it will be a comfort to me to know that there will be a man left living after me who will know the truth of my life, and perhaps find some gladness in it. This is perhaps only the flattering of an old man’s vanity, but I shall sleep the easier for it.

I remain, sir, your servant,

Julian Quinn

PS-. If I might make so bold as to make one last request of you, John--Diana lies buried in the _______ cemetery, beneath the ash sapling on the west side, and beside her lies my father in his grave. If you would visit every so often to think of them, and pray for me, I should be ever grateful. J.Q.