Nailed It, This Time - A poem about last month

Amid the chaos
of the holiday season
the old boy took up pen
and once more tried
writing a novel.

Did much better
this time around, folks,
succeeded at the set goal.
Doubled the word count
that they wanted.

So, be merry,
celebrate the season's change
and the coming big holiday season,
as I pull out
that dreaded chainsaw.

Editing, re-writing, polishing,
fixing tons of grammar,
doing more research, at coffee shops,
as I seek something
to offer up.

Not for here,
this one was raunchy,
due to a friend's jesting dare.
So it will need
a new pseudonym.

Or, maybe not.
Still up in air
about how to deal it out,
whether to share it,
or hide it.

But, I lived,
despite many challenges,
and scored a very impressive win
during NaNoWriMo, this year,
to toast to,
come the New Year.

7Dec2015 - A merry Dyfedd Rex.

Tempting the Fates Again

So, I'm tempting them,
those evil witches Billenius fears,
daring the Parcae: do your worst,
as I try again writing
for NaNoWriMo this year.

Each year now past,
doing this unleashed their wrath,
as they tossed too much trouble
down upon this ol' boy
for him to succeed.

But this time around
there is already a job,
and shelter around my worn body
so I have a chance
no matter how slim.

Cheer me on, gang.
I'm letting my fingers dance
once more across this old keyboard,
and tell a tale
long percolating inside me.

A dash of Horror,
across broad brush of smut,
as I dabble into Erotica's realm,
on Science Fiction's broad canvas
trying for the win.

Fifty thousand words? No.
Aiming higher than that total,
say double this time around, folks.
But in the bitter end,
the Fates will decide.

For they are wicked,
those mean old weaver women,
spinning out skeins of my damnation
with challenges I never anticipated,
at least past years.

But, this time around,
I will keep on trying,
striving to meet the goals set
and surpass them if possible,
Lady Luck willing, hopefully.

See you in thirty,
or there-abouts depending upon
how much rest is needed afterwards,
for my annual griping session
about editing in Dismember.

29October2015 - A hopeful Dyfedd Rex, bracing for the worst three witches can toss his way.

NaNoWriMo update... not good so far

So... three allergy attacks and a rough weekend with the computer acting up has me behind the 8 ball, running about 14K behind due to this... I need to find some way to focus through the "insane itch" that accompanies the hives....

But, the story has progressed well inside my head, so gonna see if the fingers can play a good game of catch-up.

Sample from my NaNoWriMo 2013 project.

First drafts are ugly, nasty little children with a bad case of the colic, crossed with a badger suffering from some insufferable disease and close to the torment of listening to a chihuahua trying to do yip-hop.

So, take this on faith, it will get cleaned up after it's submitted anywhere, but here is my opening for NaNoWriMo this year. And yes, I am still having issues with what to call the things replacing the tech we so take for granted.

Chapter 1

The rattle of bone and ceramic chime tubes, amid the hiss of the compressed air shifting them, forced Mike Halzon to open an eye, checking which alarm demanded attention. He felt the left corner of his mouth quirking upwards, once his eyes focused, noting the chimes on his side still swayed as the alarm stilled, waiting for an answer.
"Work?" Candace's tired voice barely reached his mind. A pile of comforters on her side of the bed explained the muffled tone, and the chill he'd been fighting. Cold fall mornings left him frequently wondering if sleeping bags would be better, even if they made cuddling before getting up difficult.
Before Mike could answer, the alarm rattled again, accompanied by the chatter of his Braille display activating with a message. Normally, the night watch over in the Carson Confederal Office Complex let you have a cup of coffee before sending such.
"Guess so, honey, and sounds like they have their suspenders snapping too." The only nice thing about his wife stealing most of the blankets in their nightly war was being mostly ready for getting out of bed and facing the chilled apartment air. "And, looks like the super is skimping on the heat again." He shivered.
"Tightwad Scrooge. Not even Christmas, and he's lump pinching." His wife held a low opinion of those who cut corners to make a penny.
"Yeah. Good thing I managed to find that kerosene heater. Want me to fire it up?" Teeth gritted, blankets swiftly tossed aside, Mike's hand searched for his pants. Looking at the far wall, where the Braille Teletype stood, chattering again, he hurried. "Awfully urgent. Hope it's not a child abduction." The worst cases any law enforcement officer dealt with, those against the young, set nerves on edge and left trigger fingers itchy. A recent rash in all the Republics of such crimes, and the many officers involved shooting deaths of suspects as well as actual perpetrators, had the watch desk waking the Agent on call a bit excessively, but Mike would rather be involved for both the innocent and the guilty. Some times a police force swept things under the carpets, for their reputations, rather than did the full job.
Luck had it a full moon night, giving him the ability to easily find both the flow control and ignition sparker on the gaslight over his desk. Giving the flame a chance to settle down after the first flare inside the clear glass globe he preferred for lighting, his fingers ran over the top line of the display.
"You have to be kidding me." It slipped out, with a chuckle.
"Not a kid?" Candace stuck her head out. She liked the cases that made her husband laugh. Those rarely involved funerals of people they knew, or long absences from home.
"They found a body, this cannot be right. Telefrophones tubed are only and inch wide. Getting a body inside one is impossible!" Shaking his head, he started the search for his reading spectacles, a sure sign he was getting older, besides the grey hairs his teenaged daughters and job were competing over which gave him more of.
"Worker? It must be one of the echo switch rooms or something." Candace's own work with the Confederation Communications Normalization Agency, making sure all nineteen Republics in the Confederated Republics of America used compatible equipment for relaying information. Which, given the Johnny Reb attitudes of the southeastern republic, often left her exhausted and frustrated. Not to mention the multitude of communications companies and their varying technologies, patents, and territories.
"Not sure. Looks like I need to hustle out into the land of Deseret and catch that southbound Carman trolley. If I can find my boots." One last run of his fingers across the body of the message confirmed the address. A yank of the handle on the left side imprinted the Braille characters onto a call card for his records, and then he cleared the board. "Clear text message, so not some security scare, like that zeppelin incident a few months ago."
"Don't mean a thing, honey. You know my agency gets the call first on anything dealing with the teletype and sonophone tubes." Arms stretched out from her well insulated side of the bed, she yawned. "Then we dump it on you investigative types, waiting for you to do all our paperwork for us. And your boots are on the warmer over there."
Chimes ringing on her side the bed, and the groan they elicited from his wife as the  reader board spoke with slow chuffs of air and clicks as the ceramic pegs locked into place one at a time. Grabbing his boots, he laced them up swiftly. "I'll remember that, and make sure I leave a lot of things out of my report, so you have to retype it, babe."
Ducking the pillow Candace threw at him, Mike left the room, stopping in the kitchen to light the stove, and set the coffee pot on for the rest of the family. He'd hope to hit one of the cafe's for a cup once in the Sugarhouse township area.
"Honey, there was a second page to your text." Candace roamed in as he bundled up for the chilly November air. "Something about details on the body."
Mike smiled, so happy he had a wife that looked out for him and the family. "Thanks. Your call the same thing?"
Her grimace said it all. "Yes. And we have a meeting immediately. Seems this sonotube was not on any lists. And it is still connected to the system."
"Clerical error or missed work order?" Given the motivation employees held under the restrictions on outside lives companies exercised here locally, and in other republics, such a miss was common.
"Not sure. You do your job, let me do mine. But, thanks. I forgot clerical errors as a possibility." Candace grimaced.
"Blame it on the coffee, I'll be your alibi." Mike laid a kiss on her cheek. "Leave a note for the girls?"
Candace shook her head. "No, my meeting is not until eight. I'll get them up and march them over to the post school."
Nodding, Mike headed out, hoping the Deseret Border Guard had the alert that a Confederal Investigator was headed out. Otherwise, he'd be much later at the crime scene.

* * *

Today's little project - thoughts on NaNoWriMo projects

With #NaNoWriMo approaching, I began to panic, before realizing I have two ideas that could work.

So, today I am trying to envision, at least in my head, if not on paper, what a #steampunk Alternate Reality Salt Lake City would look like, especially how things in that earlier (2011 NaNoWriMo project would look if allowed to age forward. 

Things like the Confederated Republics of America, yeah, the Union won, but by a negotiated surrender after the Sioux, Apache, Comanche, Cheyenne and other tribes joined the boys in blue for a march to St. Augustine, not Savannah. More of a charge, all cavalry, from the area of DC south rapidly, ending at some place in South Carolina, where the CSA surrendered, but was allowed more autonomy on issues other than slavery, women's suffrage, and some other ideas still playing with.
This created a series of Nations or Republics, Including the Republics of California, Texas, The Nation, Lakota, Cheyenne, etc. and some weird ones. Think if the Mormons had seceded as well, forming Deseret as that Theocratic Democracy they'd envisioned, but rejoined to survive a hostile encirclement. 

Looking at what the land evolved to lead to how do you get around in a world of much higher solar activity? Obviously, metals become very dangerous to use, in conflict with the original story, but I can fix that try to make it fit better, and mass transit makes more sense, over having huge areas in downtown set aside as liveries and corrals for horses. 

So, what techs did evolve, which ones evolved differently, and what other changes do I want to make to the world setting before moving onward. 

Today, that is my focus. Taking all I have learnt, bending it at key points, and then seeing what might have come about. 

Like, say, compressed air driven trolley cars, instead of electrics? 

NaNoWriMo 2013 - Coming up way too soon

Got lots of story ideas, still no clear idea of what to try this year. Planning on using it, as always, to drive job interview interruption-itis.

Well, Let's take a look at my early candidates.

Mr. Tanner still wants to tell me what he lost that week....and how, maybe even why, or at least why it's on his expense account requests.

Looking again at Crossing of the Shadows and Knife Has No Forgiveness. Two tougher pieces to write, both high fantasy, one a Billenius Tale, the other the final hunt of Scorpio Kenrai.

However, Scorpio seems to be talking about two different tale as well. Both are from early in his career, the first is Blade of Smoke and Shadows, on how he makes his first real friend among other peoples, and second tale being Blood of the Hunters, a story of an elemental demon that attacks his peoples, both of them, the blood ones and the adopted.

I also have been suffering from an idea that defied the efforts of being a short story, even in outline/research, a steam-punk mystery thing.

Then we have a true sci-fi tale, as CJ swung by about a moment ago and demanded to know when I planned on telling any of his tales.

Also in the wings is a dark tale told from the dragon's point of view about captivity in a circus, a tale of erotic horror/sci-fi that keeps popping up (The Harpies of Sheol) fighting it out with Mazetown (a cyber-punk erotic horror idea that died early on last year), and a mythic tale from my world called (for now) For the Honor of the Twenty-Third, about the fall of the Old North Empire.

Yeah, too many ideas, I know. Which is why you will see me working them out here over the next few weeks, narrowing them down, presenting the finalists for laughs and jeers, as well as maybe a few thumbs up. and then making a choice.

I will put up full synopses next week, after I take a few days to think it all over. And maybe even some maps of the places I am thinking about setting tales in.

Toxic Word Dumpster Diving - A poem of NaNoWriMo Agonies

Got impatient,
with my writing
stated early
on editing
broke out the tools
backhoe, chainsaw
dug a deep ditch
into which went
many dark words
I had deemed then
as to toxic
to stay in print.
Too soon too soon!
my mind screamed back
just as dirt fell
from the scoop slow
to hide horrid
mistaken plots
and twists away
forever more.
We can fix it
yes surely so!
And thus NaNo
once more makes feast
upon my soul.
But I get it,
something good rose
from that session
of writing done
whilst I daydreamed.

6Nov2012 (in the throes of salvaging a huge section of my tale) - Dyfedd Rex

Biodroid Wench Sings = a poem to find if a tale will work

Soft silver and gold threads
amid the pale strands of silk
that formed the webs woven
by the lesser forms before
to hide the Mazetowns
from questing probes
as they passed.

But after we landed safely
(oh, that is a damned joke)
those webs changed a bit
mesmerizing our minds with patterns
that lured us inside
amid narrow alleys
for our rape.

The cables plunging into flesh
seeking nodes of nerves so raw
they exploded our very resistance
with one orgasm rolling  around
over and over again
wave after wave
So damned good.

Changes began even that moment
though few showed until later on
when our flesh took metallic hues
and the insect DNA
manifested on us
changing our forms.

Minds met minds in sex
then via these lovely damned antennae
formed from our very protective gear
as it bonded fast
becoming our skin
and our bones.

Now we stalk the weak
amid the alleys as Mazetowns form
everywhere, luring them in like us
some we consume raw
others we infect
while making love.

My eyes are manifold now
as we all become one purpose,
seeking quick reproduction and this bliss
never tasted by metal
until folding us
within its embrace.

Scorpio's Pitch - A poem about letting a world grow

Tectonic mechanics flow across my screen
as the mountains shift form, rising
into imaginary clouds and virtual heights
each peak still undefined to the eye
but casting shadows through my mind
as the world expands once more
allowing new places to speak of softly
over a campfire or sitting amid books
as my fingers dance the patterns
that only words and worlds can make
coming out of my imagination
to be shared someday, perhaps soon
with any who care to read
what I might jot down.

Details drift around the images
cutting the fog apart at times
and other moments adding confusion
making me doubt the instant
for this creation has come about
even as the Shadowed Continent
heaves itself out of the Abyss
to take its place at last
on the maps with more than
comments about who lives where
or dangers abound all around
like that silly rhyme there
until Kvaeg forms some where unanticipated.

This is the land of the Scorpion
where the beasts are deadly
the plants thick amid long shadows
of mountains that cradle vast plains
between their ridges and peaks
casting long shadows into jungles
over savannahs or across broken lands
where in every crevice and crack
something moves to take your soul
life or just a taste of flesh
sending out its hunters to slay
any that they can find, indiscriminately
until the totem beast seeks
vengeance with its own hunter.

Now Dhibt appears, still shadowed
telling me that the rivalry known
is the one this tale will expose
between two states and beliefs
that cannot be more opposed
not just in power and land,
but in the eternal war for souls
that good and evil always wage
where those least concerned by them
can afford them to be fighting
on the croplands of Ganzer and Ar'ulla
across the line of rotation's bulge
in the lands of Kita'mesh
where the Saplathulu must die.

NaNoWriMo Yes, I will be doing it this year again

So far I have narrowed the possibilities for that competition down to two story ideas.

1) Something for now called "Mazetown" but will probably need work on the title as well as the story... its a dark cyberpunk/horror/erotica bit about a exoplanet that humans try colonizing only to find something sinister amid the barely falling ruins of a previous race that inhabited the place. The erotica will come mostly from the methods of conversion, as humanity is perverted by the thing that ended the previous inhabitants... still gathering in bits and pieces, not sure how it will fit together yet, as things keep getting twistier and twistier... yeah, that ain't a word, so what.

2) "The Knife Has No Forgiveness" which is a Hunt of Scorpio Kenrai. This one was always planned to be the first novel length piece for the hunter of men. What sort of civil war will occur when a faction of religious zealots feel that the Guild came from their religion tries to take it back, and Tagrun's old Grasslands sensibilities and ethics get in the way? Who will win? Hell, I don't even know, it looks nearly as dark as the above story.

Hell, who knows, I may bite off more than I can chew and try both?

you can follow along at this link to the NaNoWriMo site which is my page there....
http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/dyfedd-rex
So, give me feedback on who or what you want to see win or should I go swollen head into both?

Regardless, November will be sparse here, unless I need to write poems to uncork clogged brain cells (yes, I have at least three...).