The gist: young woman living her life like any other normal person, suddenly finds herself neck deep in a mess that involves magic and a whole list of other things she’s always been told aren’t real.

I decided I [...]]]> As you probably know by now, I’ve written a novel.  I’m working on the second draft right now.

The gist: young woman living her life like any other normal person, suddenly finds herself neck deep in a mess that involves magic and a whole list of other things she’s always been told aren’t real.

I decided I wanted to share this excerpt with you. Comments are most welcome.

Enjoy.

© 2010 Patrick Hester. All rights reserved.

Sam Kane – an excerpt.

I moved to the rail, setting my coffee cup down very carefully.  I heard the ’snap-click’ of a zippo as he lit up.  A stream of smoke shot straight out beside me as he stepped up and looked out at the graveyard.  “What do you think so far,” he asked.

“What do I think?” I replied.  “I think I lost my job today.  I think you are loony.  I think she’s loony too.  And I think it’s time I went home, filled the tub with really hot water, had myself a good, long cry and soaked for the rest of the day because tomorrow, tomorrow I need to start looking for a new job.  Thanks for the coffee though.”

I didn’t even look at him as I turned away.  I saw my entire future going right down the shitter.  The thought entered and fluttered around the edge of my mind that I was going to have to tell my father that I was no longer a cop, that I’d gotten my partner put in the hospital with little chance of a recovery and that I was going to lose everything I had because I didn’t know how to be anything other than who I was; a cop.  And my father, the career officer, the thrice decorated beat cop, he was going to make me feel even shittier than I already did because he just has that way of making me feel like an utter waste of otherwise good genes.

I was halfway to the door when Mayfair spoke again.  “You saw a ghost last night.”  I felt my knees give way and I half-stumbled before windmilling my arms out to stop myself from falling.

“It’s never an easy thing, having your world turned upside down,” he was saying.  I heard him, heard the words, the tone of his voice so somber and quiet, but my mind was back in that apartment building staring down the hall at something that had caught my eye and held it while my partner rushed into the apartment with his gun drawn and at the ready, sure I was right behind him, watching his back.  I could hear him crying out in fear at first, emptying his gun faster than I thought possible.  Then he made a sound I would never be able to forget nor describe adequately no matter how hard I try, all full of anguish and terror and pain, how the pitch of that shriek climbed higher than I thought a human voice could manage.

“We’re told that the boogeyman doesn’t exist, that the world is a place of black and white, right and wrong and everything fits into these neat little columns that can be explained away by science.  ‘The closet is simply a closet’ they tell us, and we clutch at our stuffed animals and pray for the weak glow from the night-light plugged into the wall for our appeasement to extend just a little bit further than it does, for it to chase away the shadow we can see just on the edge of our vision.”

I don’t remember falling to my knees but I did, both in my memory and there on the porch.  I could feel the tears on my cheeks now, streaming down my face in the hot Denver afternoon and yet I felt like I was right back in that apartment building hallway again.  My partner was being ripped apart and I couldn’t move though my mind was screaming at me to help him or run away or do anything but just sit there where I could hear everything happening just a few feet away.  But I couldn’t take my eyes off the face of a child staring at me from down the hall, a child no more than ten years old and yet there was such pain and sadness on her face that it broke my heart and made me want to scoop her up in my arms and hold her safe.

“Eventually, we convince ourselves that what we see isn’t really there, that it can’t be there because that’s just childish nonsense.  We develop a sort of blind ignorance to the supernatural world.  When faced with the impossible, with what cannot be, our conditioning takes over and we cannot accept it for anything other than a hoax or a fraud, something perpetrated by kooks and phonies looking to cash in on superstitious, ignorant fools.”

Her eyes made my breath catch in my throat.  They were translucent and milky and though fifty feet easily stood between us, I thought I could see red veins crisscrossing around the irises.  A voice was whispering in my head, telling me to relax, to let go and to help her find her dolly because she couldn’t go to sleep without it.  Wasn’t I a nice lady, the voice whispered and I nodded, to help her and keep her safe from the bad men?  The air had turned thick and cold at the same time.  Every breath had become a chore, turning to fog as it passed my lips.  Still, a part of my mind was screaming that there was something else, something important that I needed to do, someone I needed to help.

“But there are those moments, those rare and impossible moments, when the world we know crashes into the one we cannot accept and we find ourselves having to cope with something our minds aren’t ready to handle.  As adults, we see the world around us as very cut and dry and so we make excuses, we try to force that which doesn’t make sense fit into those neat little columns and one by one, they start to fall apart because it just doesn’t fit, it just doesn’t work the way we’ve been told it does.”

Somehow, I managed to turn my head a little.  I could see inside the apartment just there, out the corner of my eye.  Could see that this thing, this great big hairy animal thing that was half-man half-dog like I had only ever seen before in movies, was shredding my partner’s torso with these massive claws on its left.. paw?  Hand?  Its fangs were red and dripping, its muzzle covered in blood.  My partners’ blood.  He was still alive, was held aloft by the creatures second, impossibly long clawed hand.  His face was turned to mine and there was this look there – this ultimate, final expression of utter horror.  I screamed in my memory and I screamed on the back porch at Banba as the creature tore at him, and blood splattered across my face.

“And then our world starts tumbling down around us.”

Suddenly, I couldn’t feel the cold anymore.  Everything was getting warm, warm enough that sweat started streaming down my body, clinging my clothes to me, mixing with the blood on my face.  The ghost had changed as I slipped away from its gaze, the little lost girl fading into a gruesome visage of an old woman with half her face gone and ribs sticking out of a torn and shredded nightgown.  She shrieked like a banshee, extending her bony hands towards me, grasping.  She took a halting, shuffling step forward, and I could see ragged black claws, could feel her need, her hunger to consume me somehow which just created a whole new kind of terror for me.

“Everyone reacts differently.  Some have innate or repressed abilities which can help them cope and move on.”

But something inside me had snapped.  Sure, I was afraid of the old woman, but I just knew there was something more important that needed to be done.  I turned back to my partner, back to his agonized screaming and I found myself screaming too – only my scream was pure rage.  I wanted that creature dead, I wanted it to suffer, wanted it to get the fuck away from Jorge.  I was so full of anger and rage that I actually saw red, and then the heat I felt all around me seemed to focus and move away from me in a straight line that struck the werewolf, if that’s what it was, square in the face.

“Some, a very rare few, have a certain Talent.”

The creature exploded in flames.  Then the flames licked the walls, and everything started to burn.

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I know I haven’t talked about such things in a while, and there’s reasons for that.  What sucks is that reasons start sounding like excuses if you say them often enough.

Reason #1 I [...]]]> The plan for the weekend is to lock myself away for as long as possible and try to really push on writing projects.

I know I haven’t talked about such things in a while, and there’s reasons for that.  What sucks is that reasons start sounding like excuses if you say them often enough.

Reason #1 I haven’t talked much about writing projects lately: My energies have been focused elsewhere.  First up, I’ve been looking into purchasing a house.  Scary, right?  That has really sucked up a lot of my energy.  I knew it would be rough, just not how rough.  Second, there’s my mom’s health.  She’s been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor on the back of her lung.  We go in today to see if there is any other cancer or just the one tumor and find out what the treatment is going to be and when it begins (probably very soon/aggressive).  This has caused me to lose a lot of sleep lately.  We’re talking a LOT OF SLEEP here, people.  I don’t function well without sleep so taking some away from me?  Not a great idea.  Lack of sleep = grumpy brain = no write me stuff for read thing.  (That’s a direct translation of the electrical impulses shooting from my brain to my fingers when I try to type!)

Third, work has been more stressful of late.  Been trying to complete a massive project and then roll it out.  It feels like every step forward is worthy of an epic war novel, something 10,000 pages long or more.  It has just been really difficult.  I know the reward will make it all worth it; having everything in its place and working and people loving it.  Just have to get there.

Which really brings me to Reason #2 I haven’t talked much about writing projects lately: I haven’t done a lot of actual writing.

I have Evermist, which I pulled out and dusted off because I really did need a distraction.  Sam Kane is my baby, a novel about a young woman who gets tossed into the hidden world of magic and has to come to terms with her own power and her place in this world she never knew existed.  It really is fantastic and lovely and heart wrenching, which means I want it to be it’s absolute best.  But I found myself ripping things apart that I loved just an hour or a day or a week before – and that’s not good.  I realized it was time to step back, shift my focus, distract myself so I could come back to it fresh, which is why I’m pushing Evermist right now.

I also have a dozen or so flash fiction pieces and a couple of short stories still hanging out there to play with.  As they become what I intend them to be, they’ll most likely be published here for you to check out.

So, having said all of that – my intention this weekend is to hook up the ol’ laptop, hunker down into the comfy chair, turn on some decent tunes and work on writing. I’m not sure yet if it will be Evermist (which has a little over 30 chapters already in the can) or Sam Kane (which has a complete 1st draft and a partial 2nd).

Whichever I choose, it will be time well spent.

~P

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#1 Sam Kane

Synopsis: Sam Kane is a detective with the Denver PD – it’s her first week as a Detective and she’s already screwed up. Her partner’s in [...]]]> I decided an update was in order on my various writing projects.  Woot, right?  I know you were really curious what’s been going on so here it is.

#1 Sam Kane

Synopsis: Sam Kane is a detective with the Denver PD – it’s her first week as a Detective and she’s already screwed up. Her partner’s in intensive care and her Captain is about to rip her a new ass when in walks Jack Mayfair, a mysterious man with transfer papers that will change her life forever…

Learning that you are a latent Wizard is one thing, beginning your training and being tossed head first into a world of supernatural surprises like vampires and werewolves is something altogether different. Sam has to cope with who she thought she was, who she’s becoming, and what’s just around the next corner.

Well, if you follow the blog or the podcast, you know that I finished up the rough draft of ‘Sam Kane’ a while ago.  Since then, I’ve been slowly going through and editing.  I should probably emphasize slowly.

It’s a little shy of 110k words right now, and I need to cut it down to 100k.  That was always my goal with this book and I want to stick to that number.  With that in mind, I’ve been doing a lot of tweaking to the book.  There were some very weak points that I knew were weak when I wrote them that I am either changing, rewriting or deleting altogether.  Has to be done.

There is also a couple of chapters that need to be totally ditched.  I wrote them, I felt good about them, but now in hindsight – it’s just too much.  Too long, too much crap, too much talking – it all has to go.  Sounding cryptic, aren’t I?  Okay – let me try to explain and I know it’s hard given that only one person other than me has actually read the entire piece front to back.  Still, I’ll try.

I’ve a character that I wanted to do more with, so I did more.  I wrote several chapters where it’s him basically telling a story – a long story (keep in mind that my chapters themselves aren’t very long).  I wanted to build him up as a stronger supporting character and I did that, but now I am realizing that it just doesn’t work.  The story he tells is too long.  The book itself is very fast paced and then you hit this section where this old man talks and talks and talks…  It doesn’t work.  I see that now.  So, the whole thing needs to be redone.

My intention with this book was to have it, despite being 100k words, feel like it goes by so fast (and the one person who has read it cover to cover said that it is very fast paced).  Everything happens rapidly over the course of a week (then it became two weeks and I need to get it back to being a single week).  I need to stick to that, which means I need to make changes and those are slow in coming.  My goal is to have the changes done and the manuscript’s 2nd draft/version ‘complete’  by late September.

Fingers crossed!

#2 Flash Fiction

I wanted to bring a new piece of Flash Fiction to the blog every week either on Tuesdays or Thursdays – I still haven’t made up my mind on that yet.  As you can probably tell, that hasn’t happened.  It’s not for lack of trying.

I’ve written a dozen or more pieces and few of them have found their way onto the blog.  The rest, I struggle with them.  I read them and I know I can do better, so I don’t publish them.  Which is probably stupid.  I should just put them out there for folks to read and get some feedback, but I tend to be a bit OCD on the subject.  It has to be worth your time!  It has to be perfect!

My favorite piece to date has been ‘Welcome to Solar City’.  If you haven’t read that yet, please click the link and check it out.

I’ve tried to explain it before and sometimes I do a decent job and sometimes I don’t, but I’ve always had this notion in my head of ‘The New Universe’.  This is the place where my stories take place.  There is a past, a present and a future to this universe.  Most of it is still in my head, but it’s really clear in my head if that makes a difference.  The different things I write, they fit into the grand scheme of things.  ‘Welcome to Solar City’ is part of the future.  I hope to visit there often (I have ideas..).  Lots of tales to tell in that city (Oh, yes, I have ideas…).

#3 Short Stories

I’ve found that when I get an idea, I have to put it down on paper (electronic paper).  Too many times, I’ve had a fantastic idea that I didn’t write down and then lost it because other things came up and it got pushed out of my brain, which frustrates me to no end.

I have two such ideas at the moment and I’ve put both down on paper, as it were.  The first is something with a working title of ‘Stargazing’.  It’s set on a world from that future I mentioned above and could be considered a prequel to a novel I have planned at some point.

The second has a working title of ‘Witchcraft & Satrys’.  It’s…different.   I like my comedy and this has some in it.  This is further along than the first idea mentioned above.

The third are my boys, ‘Malachi and Madrighan’.  They are almost always my comic relief, sort of a throwback to the old sword and sorcery movies of the 80’s that were just so terrible you had to watch them.  They are brothers born of different fathers who have been assured by their mother that they are, in fact, twins.  They are better than fair with a sword so they travel the world getting into trouble, selling their swords to whoever can pay which rarely ever works out well for them.  But they’re together and having fun, which is all that really matters to them.  Well, that and getting paid.  And eating.

This story, with a working title of ‘The Business with the Troll’, is the closest to being ready for publication here on the blog.

Any of the short stories that get published will most likely be serialized.  Keep an eye out on twitter or here cuz I hope to be publishing ‘The Business with the Troll’ in a week or two.

#4 Podcast

I know, I know – haven’t done one in a couple weeks.  Truth told, I’m still pissed at PodBean.  I don’t know what I’m going to do yet.  As soon as I know, you’ll know.

Well – that’s it for this little update.  Hope it whet your appetite for some new fiction coming down the pipe soonish…

~P

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Now comes the fun part.

I call this a draft but honestly, I’ve already done a lot of editing for it.  [...]]]> Well, I’ve completed my draft manuscript for ‘Sam Kane’, my novel set in my ‘new universe’.  I was almost light headed as I typed ‘The End’ and realized that I did it; I completed the story.

Now comes the fun part.

I call this a draft but honestly, I’ve already done a lot of editing for it.  The last bits I worked on over the weekend are certainly rough and need to be polished up, but the rest of it, I hope, is very close to being ready for prime time.  I owe that to my style of writing, which is to write a bit, go back through it and do some edits, write a bit more, go back again, rinse, repeat over and over again.  When I hit slow spots or ‘blocks’ where I can’t seem to get new stuff to flow out through my fingertips, I take that time set aside to write to instead edit.  As I said, it’s my hope that this style means I’m closer to a polished piece than I think I am.

My sense of accomplishment is pretty high right now.  I had a story to tell and I told it.  There is only one other person in the world who has read it all so far, and she gave me a thumbs up.  I hope she will continue to think about the story and come back with some feedback on what works and what doesn’t from her perspective, and I’ve got a couple other people tapped to do the same for me once I send them the completed piece.  From there, I hope that I have captured lightning in a bottle and can take this to press.

I still haven’t decided which path I’m going to take; self publishing or traditional.  Both have pros and cons, both are appealing to me.  The control freak wants to go the self publishing route via an Amazon model because it means I own it from start to finish.  The pragmatist tells me the only way to be successful in this is to have a publishing house behind you, guiding you, marketing you.  The part of my brain that wants people to pay attention to me wants to see my books on the shelf of the local bookstore.

I still have some time to make that decision.  And who knows, perhaps I can attempt the traditional route and if it doesn’t look like there is any interest, I can always fall back on the self publishing model.

Lot’s to think about.

~P

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At the same time, I know where I went wrong.

When last I updated the blog as to where my novel [...]]]> As I look back on my weekend that was intended to be a writing marathon push to complete my novel tentatively titled ‘Sam Kane: A Novel of the New Universe’, I wonder where I went wrong.

At the same time, I know where I went wrong.

When last I updated the blog as to where my novel stood, I was at 89K words.  As of last night I am at 91,770 words, which is not where I intended to be following the 3-day weekend.

Don’t get me wrong, I had some very productive spurts over the weekend and that 91,770 includes a lot of rewriting, deleting, editing, new writing, rewriting, etc and so on.  But I feel that I could’ve been a lot more productive.

The thing is, writing isn’t hard – it’s just difficult.  And there’s always something to distract you.  If you’re going to write, they say, then write.  Sit down at the computer/typewriter/device of your choice and write – it’s the only way you’re going to get any better at it and the only way you’re ever going to get anything accomplished.

My problem is that I am my own worst enemy.  I think about what it is I need to write – specifically, I’m working on the end bits, the climax, the end of the emotional roller coaster that has been this novel and there’s still a few twists and turns and they’re proving difficult to pen correctly (in my mind) and do the characters justice.  I hem.  I haw.  I walk around the computer, staring at it.  I do laundry.  I tweet on twitter.  I cook.  I clean.  I go through my closet and make clothes donation bags and stack them in the hallway.  I look at movie trailers online.  I play video games.

In short, I do everything except what I should be doing which is: WRITE.

I don’t know that this is any sort of revelation for anyone reading this, or even for me as I’m writing it.  I know that I’m my own worst enemy and if you’re a writer, you probably do similar things to procrastinate.  But if everyone were like me, nothing would ever be published and we’d all be reading the sides of cereal boxes and wondering whatever happened to those squarish things we used to pick up and read – what were they called?  Blogs?  Blocks?

~P

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First off: Why the BBC and SciFi should make a deal to air Doctor Who in a -timely- fashion in the states, no more of this year later bull crap.  In brief: BECAUSE I WANT IT!

Sheesh.

Fringe – love it.  Want more.  Give me [...]]]> A few quick bits going around in my head today, April 15th, 2009.

First off: Why the BBC and SciFi should make a deal to air Doctor Who in a -timely- fashion in the states, no more of this year later bull crap.  In brief: BECAUSE I WANT IT!

Sheesh.

Fringe – love it.  Want more.  Give me more.  It’s like X-Files without all the sunflower seeds and porn…  (if they could get the Lone Gunmen to appear on the show I’d flip out…)

Taxes suck.

Tea parties.  I think we should be doing a little teabagging on the senators, governors, congressmen, etc. and so on, not just throwing tea parties.  Teabagging em might actually get their attention.

I’m itching to go to a comic book store or a con.  This is not good.  The last thing I need is to revisit that old habit of spending way too much money plus where the hell would I put the stuff?  I’d need a house.  A big one.  Why are you staring at my DVD collection?  I don’t have a problem!  Seriously!! …um.  Cough.

Back to reading the Harry Dresden novels from Jim Butcher.  Took a break with something like four novels left to get all caught up (and I need to read his full blown fantasy epics that I bought too – ‘fires of’ something or other).  Now I’m back and they are still so much fun.  You move through them and so much happens before you even realize, and you’re halfway through going, “Wait – NOOOO!!!  IT’S ALMOST OVER!!!  DAMMIT!”  Harry’s getting darker.  He doesn’t want to, it’s just happening.  He feels himself slipping and he wants help but he doesn’t know how to ask for it or who he would ask if he did.  It’s getting really, really good.  I’m loving the arc that this character has taken over the course of the books.  I can see now why so many people bitched about the ‘lite’ tv show (which I still like).

Picked up the 1st season of ‘Supernatural’ because I’d heard good things about it and the couple of episodes I’d seen looked good.  I have to say, I’m really impressed with the series.  It’s really well done.  I’m about halfway through the 1st season and I hope that the following seasons hold up as well.

I’m at a point where I prefer, really, really prefer, to buy my tv on DVD when it’s on sale (HUGE point there – I want to pay $20 for a season, not $50 – thank you SamsClub…).  I can watch a whole season when I want to watch it and I don’t have to wait a week for the next episode, which rocks.  (…I don’t have a problem!  …cough.)

I also picked up ‘Spaced’ from the BBC.  I didn’t really know what this was all about.  I remembered the hoopla when it was released, with the cast and crew hitting American cons to promote the release.  Wasn’t sure if it was SciFi or what – turns out that it’s as good if not better than the other BBC series that I really liked, ‘The IT Crowd’ (also out on DVD now).  Twenty something slackers living together in a 3 story house, tons of geekish references and nods to movies, comics and tv shows (Matrix, Star Wars, etc.).  Really funny stuff.  But like most BBC shows, it leaves me wanting more when I know there will probably be no more.  Sigh.

Writing is going well, managed several chapters, then wrote myself into a corner and spent a few days trying to figure out how to get myself out again – which meant a rewrite, but that’s okay because I like the rewrite better anyway.  Really focused on the ‘Kane’ project, which is good.  Have another project for the weekend, but I should still be able to get in some quality writing time.

That’s it for today.

~P

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