Coming Full Circle

I'm gonna scam on another author's blog for a minute, but just because I've recently found it so incredibly useful.

First, the insanely helpful "Writing Resource" page at Cassandra Clare's website: http://www.cassandraclare.com/cms/writing#plot

and then, pulled from that page, the subject of today's blog: http://pbackwriter.blogspot.com/2007/09/novel-outlining-101.html

I'll start by admitting I never liked outlines. Writing always came easily and I was good enough to breeze through school assignments. Then I started writing the Areane Journals. I wrote the entire five book series (the first drafts) in under two years. I was truly, miraculously inspired. The plot was so intensely woven into my mind I didn't need an outline. It was one of those few moments authors dream about. I was a writing machine. I was in my groove.

I was spoiled.

Because my first attempts at writing went so quickly and relatively easily, I was shocked and frustrated when my most recent attempts at returning to YA Fantasy felt like letting blood. It wasn't that I was uninspired by the story, I just couldn't seem to make all the elements form a cohesive plot and that quickly made me frustrated.

That's when I stumbled upon Ms. Clare's website and the link about outlines. It was like a literal light bulb went off over my head. Two days later my entire book is outlined chapter by chapter and I'm ready to make another go at finishing it.

It's weird to me, looking over the outline and remembering how adamantly I refused to do them back in school. I feel like I might be the subject of a frustrated teacher's voodoo curse, but since the result of that curse is a love affair with a technique that will help my writing, I don't mind. :)

Which is my very wordy way of saying: Check out the website. You'll find everything you need to walk yourself through the process of finishing your novel.

Launa

Storytime Saturday 3: More Faeries!

Introduction: Alright, here's a short story I wrote recently that inspired my entire idea behind the angel/faerie book I shared an excerpt from a few weeks back. I'm going to rework this piece a bit soon, but I was still proud of it so I figured why not share it here? :D Enjoy!

Electric Reality

By Launa Sorensen

“When angels fell, some fell on the land, some on the sea. The former are the faeries....”

-- Orcadian saying

The city was alive. The deep hum of electrical blood vessels coursed through wire veins. Electra sped down the nearly empty, late-night streets, following the electricity to the heart; the deep, booming, throbbing beat of the underground nightclub “The Sidhe.”

She made a sharp left, her bike laying low against the concrete. She could feel the currents stream through the motorcycle, through her thick leather combat boots and into her skin, charging and powering her like a giant battery. It was a part of her, a part of the endless circuit. It made the neon studs in her ears glow and her eyes spark and flash gold, barely concealed behind the tinted eye guards over her helmet. She lived precariously, along a knife's edge of control. A moment of lost focus and the machine would explode. But she needed that extra energy tonight. It could keep her alive.

A streetlight above her head flickered and suddenly died. She pursed her lips. She hadn't made it go out. Were they following her? She gripped the handlebars tighter. The others would have no problem destroying her bike. Her love of all things electric was abomination. Her kind were too new. A mutation. If blowing her engine killed her, no one would lose any sleep.

She pushed faster. Suddenly, the trash can to her right exploded in a ball of fire. She swerved hard, nearly rolling the bike. Her muscles tightened and she clenched her jaw. So it wasn't the other faeries.

She looked over her shoulder, searching for any sign of her attacker but there was nothing. There rarely was. The ground in front of her bike cracked open. She sped around it and, for an instant, caught a glimpse of a shimmering, red light running in time with her motorcycle. She loosened her grip on one handlebar and glanced up. Four streetlights exploded over her head, showering her in glass and sparks. She felt the electricity buzz in her palm, boiling her blood and igniting between her fingers. She threw her hand to the side, a bolt of electricity bursting from her skin, making her hair stand on end. She screamed as the energy burned her hands and sent shocks cracking through her body. For an instant her heart stopped and her eyes rolled into the back of her head. It would heal almost instantly. Her ancestors had been created for this. But her blood wasn't as pure.

She recovered just in time to swerve back into her own lane. She had split a tree in half and downed an electrical wire. She heard the otherworldly howl of her attacker, screeching like a windstorm mixed with a baby's cry. She had hit it. But it wasn't dead. Now it was just angry.

The motorcycle shuddered beneath her and without warning toppled forward as if flipped like a toy by an invisible giant. She flew, the weight of the bike hard against her back, threatening to crush her beneath it, but at the last moment she felt someone grab the collar of her jacket and literally lift her away from the machine and throw her across the road. She rebounded off a parked car and landed on her chest, the wind completely knocked from her lungs.

She groaned and struggled to get up. The crash would have killed a human. Her helmet was crushed in on the right side, her leather jacket ripped and tossed across the street, the collar missing. Her motorcycle lay on its side, gushing electric blood. Her leathers had taken the bulk of the damage, but she could feel a couple potentially broken ribs and a severely sprained right wrist. She couldn't run like this. She may not be human, but a broken rib puncturing her lung would still kill her.

She pressed her hand against the car she'd hit and drew electricity directly from the battery. She groaned and tried to breathe as the power healed the worst of her damage, snapping bones back into place and pulling sprains from her muscles. It only took a few seconds, but before she could finish the demon rushed her, tackling her back to the ground. She grabbed blindly for its invisible limbs, trying to find a weakness or sense of shape. She reached back, pulling the wild electricity from her dead bike and shot it directly at her attacker. It howled and pulled her up by her face, slamming her head back into the ground. She tasted blood as dark circles swam across her eyes.

Suddenly, a blinding flash of light burst through the air not six feet above her head. Hot, wet blood that stung like acid spilled down on her. The hand on her face slackened and a great crash filed the air as the demon tipped to the side, dead, and a moment later disappeared into a mist of moonlight and static electricity.

“Not even at the Sidhe and you're already picking fights, Gizmo?”

She looked up, barely able to see through the pain. The white light vanished and a warm hand touched her brow. A feather-soft sensation of healing flooded from the top of her head and down her body, so different than the brutal healing of absorbing electricity.

“I didn't start it,” she argued weakly as she regained feeling in her mouth.

“No one ever does with demons.”

Soon she was able to see clearly again. Her rescuer leaned over her, still touching her head. His glamour had vanished, broken when he'd used his sword to save her. He was unnaturally striking, sharp and ethereal. His skin glowed like moonlight, so bright she felt she could almost see through him. Raven hair fell almost to his shoulders like a cascade of silk. His blue eyes were hard and multifaceted, shining like vibrant sapphires. He glowed as he healed her.

He hadn't changed at all in the last year.

He stood as the tips of her toes tingled with the last of his magic and glanced to the sky with all the beauty of the angels of old. Her heart ached at the sight. She glanced away.

He bent down to help her stand and she was relieved that the hand that reached for her looked human again, the skin solid, slightly rough from work. The glamour was a good one. He looked entirely normal, save for his eyes which no glamour could hide. You could always tell a high-Seelie by their eyes. Even at night he carried sunglasses.

She stood and wiped the dust off her pants and stretched her arms, waiting to feel the tug of a pulled muscle or the ache of an unhealed cut or bruise but none came.

“What are you doing here, Michael? I thought you joined the Hunt.”

He pulled the end of a wallet chain from the pocket of his loose jeans. The metallic shine of a dogtag glittered at the end.

“It's been a year. We all promised...” his words trailed off, his eyes cast with memory, soft with sadness and a touch of fear.

“You have a new family now,” she whispered and turned away to see if there was anything salvageable about her motorcycle. She picked up her wrecked leather jacket, sadly fingering the ripped collar as she applied a glamour to hide the demon's bloodstains on her clothing. She wondered what excuse the humans would come up with to explain the wrecked street. An earthquake no one felt? A drive-by shooting that could somehow take down a powerline? Freak thunderstorm?

“Just because I joined the Hunt doesn't mean I've abandoned you,” he called. She spun around, her hands on her hips, the electricity in her eyes flashing with her mood.

“Where do you live, Michael? In the streets like Kai or Todd? Maybe you couch surf like Kyle or move from job to job like Naima? Do you know what it feels like to run? To have to hide?”

“That's not fair, Electra. I'm doing good work, keeping all of you safe.” He dropped her nickname for her given name in a tone that reminded her too much of her parents. She clenched her teeth.

“Is it? You live in an enchanted manor with your high-blood friends, hunting demons. You don't have to worry about the cops or the bounty hunters. You picked up and left your past behind.”

“None of you have to run. The court could protect you, take you in...”

“Really?” she interrupted. Her lips formed a tight line and his face paled. “All of us?”

“Giz... not everyone supports that law, social opinion is changing--”

“Bull, Michael. Gremlins aren't allowed in the Seelie Court. I've got bad blood, my kind has evolved and mutated to the point that we don't even have dreams of Heaven anymore. Your Seelie friends expect me to fight but refuse to legally admit my right to exist. I'm not even allowed to marry within the faerie world because my children could be even less angelic than I am.”

“Not everyone is like that.”

“But they don't fight it, either. You couldn't help me. And the others won't go with you out of principle. You sold out.”

He pulled the dogtag off his wallet chain and held it up. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the faint bloodstain on one corner. “Don't tell me what I feel. I remember what happened to us as well as you do. I was probed and stabbed and tested just the same as you. I remember the straight jackets, the medication that made me feel like my head was going to explode, the sedatives that trapped me in my body as my powers developed and nearly destroyed me from the inside out. I remember it every single day. I took four bullets keeping you and Naima safe. I have dedicated my entire life to making sure you stay safe. You're my family. I know where I came from.”

She turned away, her eyes closed, running her fingertips over the beaded chain that carried her dogtag, hidden low beneath her tee shirt. She tried to push the memories away. Her parents declaring her unmanageable and mentally disturbed when they could no longer write off her emerging powers as coincidence. The tall metal gates around the institution. The nurses and doctors with their needles and masks. The screaming of the others, some genuinely insane, others, like herself, kept as experiments. Prisoners. They had known exactly who and what she was. All she knew about them was that she had to get as far away as possible.

Michael cautiously touched her shoulder. “Come on, little sister.”

She felt tears in her eyes and she shrugged his hand away. Still, her shoulders drooped and she nodded. He slipped his sunglasses over his eyes and they walked past her ruined bike, the frame twisted and burned beyond recognition. No one would be able to trace it back to her. It wasn't registered anyway.

It wasn't long before she could feel the ground tremble beneath her feet as they passed over the nightclub, looking for the glamoured door that would take them below. She couldn't help but smile as Michael touched a stone wall and it gave way to a flight of stairs. The sidhe was not allied with either the Seelie or Unseelie court. They didn't care what type of faerie she was, where she was going or who she was meeting. If she paid her tab and kept out of trouble on club property, she was just as welcome as anyone else.

She could see the strobes and lasers before reaching the bottom of the stairs. The club was dimly lit, magic candles and orbs burned in every corner, casting the plush booths and couches in uneven, dancing shadows. Faeries were everywhere, lounging on the couches, drinking at the tables, dancing and weaving together on the dance floor. Some wore glamours, many did not.

The club was dotted with humans. She didn't look at them long. Most were curled like dogs on their faerie's lap or dancing with wide, wild eyes. They looked half-dead. Trapped. Some had been lured into the club by faeries. Most found it on their own. They were lost souls, people who gave up their lives to the faerie world, bargaining away their independence for a taste of magic and what they thought was love.

The music, an electronic remix of old-world rhhythms and live, ethereal singing was intoxicating. She glanced at the stage. A beautiful woman tossed her golden hair, the lights rippling off each strand and along her deep brown, feathered wings. Nothing drew a crowd like hosting a siren.

Michael nodded to a far corner of the room. She followed his gaze to three women sitting at a private table. At least one was a selkie, her brown leather jacket shining almost like silk under the laser lights. They were huntswomen. They nodded to Michael and eyed her with distrust then turned to whisper to each other. She clenched her jaw and let out a slow breath.

“I'm going to get a drink. Find the others?” She had to shout to be heard over the music. Michael nodded and disappeared into the crowd.

“How's your grandmother?” the bartender was talking to a tall, pale man with platinum blond hair and a Russian accent.

“Good enough, I suppose. She refuses to remove the chicken feet from her house, even though I tell her it will raise questions from the humans.”

“Yeah, the older they are, the harder they are to change. You still working the noon shift?”

She reached the bar and the bartender smiled.

“Hey Gizmo, long time no see, girl!”

“My usual, Sam.”

The bartender laughed, a forked tongue snaking once between his lips as he mixed her a blend of teas and magical herbs that would ease her tension. “But it's past midnight, Giz! Don't want you spawning.”

She took her drink, nearly crushing it in her grip. “Ha ha, very funny. Never heard that one before.” she took a long sip and let out a soft breath as her shoulders began to loosen. “You seen my family?”

“I think I saw Kyle a bit ago on the dancefloor. Raidne and Lorelei have been tearing it up out there all night. Even the chicks are going crazy.”

“Yeah, well, Kyle always did like the musical enchantresses.”

The bartender laughed again and she couldn't help but smile.

“Giz! Over here!”

She turned as Kai leapt into the air, sending up flares of cold fire and waving her to the other side of the club. She grabbed her drink and wove through the crowd, careful not to bump into the zombie-like humans pushing to get closer to the stage.

Naima nearly tackled her in a tight hug as she reached the table, the end of her long, white skirt damp as usual, her once long hair cropped short. Gizmo ran her fingers through Naima's hair and smiled. She shrugged and rolled her eyes with a smile.

“You couldn't have waited another five minutes, girl? I was getting serious game out there.” Kyle reached the table, stretching across one of the chairs, tossing her dark blond mane of hair back, making the braids and beads strung through her locks clink and dance.

“Pixie magic doesn't work on sirens, Kyle. She's stronger than you are,” Todd announced, a small light flickering in his eyes. A laser swirled across his arm, lighting the tattoo of a series of numbers on his shoulder. He had been at the institution so long he had never received an ID. They had permanently labeled him.

Kyle leaned across the table, her low-cut, layered tank tops scrunching and dipping, her eyes flashing mischief and danger as she looked through her bangs and came an inch off Todd's face. “Oh, I got a whole lot of magic that has nothing to do with being a pixie, baby.” She lingered a moment, her lips a hair's breadth off his, then she arched back into her chair and laughed. Todd's dark skin colored and he turned away with an angry grunt, barely concealing the quiver in his voice.

“Play nice,” Michael intoned.

Kyle's brow furrowed. “And you are?”

“Lay off him, Kyle,” Kai cut in.

Kyle opened her mouth but whatever she planned to say was cut short as all the lights in the club turned crimson red. Everyone fell instantly silent. The music cut off. The room shimmered as glamours were reapplied. The huntswomen in the corner stood, their hands on their swords. Strangers were coming.

“Cops.” Sam's voice echoed the word faintly in her mind. She glanced at her friends and knew they had heard it, too. In an instant they raced to the back of the club, pulling the false wall panelings aside, revealing a small safe room. They squeezed in and replaced the wall just as two policemen entered the club, shining flashlights, their hands already on their guns.

“Nobody move!” one shouted as the other walked to the bar and spoke to the bartender. Sam's face paled. A moment later the cop turned back to the crowd.

“We need everyone's full cooperation. A year ago a group of young mental patients escaped the Forest Lake institution and we have reason to believe at least one of them is here tonight. She is extremely dangerous. We will need to see all of your IDs and then ask you to vacate the premises immediately while we conduct a full search.”

“They don't know the truth,” Michael whispered as he peered out the tiny holes in the wall, his gem-eyes glowing even behind his sunglasses as he read them. “They're blind.”

“Good.” Todd pushed forward and bent down to see into the club. He started to glow and his eyes became twin sheets of pale gold light. He raised one hand and the cops fell silent and still. Two small orbs the same color as Todd's eyes danced silently in front of them. They watched the balls of light, transfixed. Slowly, the lights began to move. The cops followed without question. They were led back up the stairs and she knew Todd had taken them to the street. She didn't have to see what happened next. The balls exploded in twin rays of light, momentarily blinding the policemen, wiping their memory of the club and the people they were searching for. They would be dazed and bewildered, but unharmed.

Todd removed the wall panel and they stepped back into the club. The music started to play again. The patrons were unphased. It was as if nothing had happened.

“You've gotten stronger,” Naima stated. “I didn't know Will-o-whisp had such range.”

“It only works on people who don't know the truth,” Todd commented. “The more they don't want to see, the easier they are to dupe.”

“That's just about the entire world. Everyone has something they don't want to see,” Kyle remarked as she sat back at their table. Her hair parted slightly, revealing her ID tag, plaited deep in her hair. “Better to make up your own reality than face the truth.”

Sam walked over and set a tray of fizzing, lime green drinks on the table, a silent thank you for removing the policemen peacefully. There was a strict non-violence rule at The Sidhe, but that wouldn't have stopped some of the more aggressive trickster faeries from causing trouble for the cops.

“I'd rather know exactly what I'm dealing with. Ignorance is dangerous,” Michael rebutted.

“Yet sometimes it's beautiful,” Naima responded, touching her ID tag which was woven into a bracelet on her left wrist. “There are a few things I wish I knew nothing about.”

They each took one of the glasses, watching glamours melt off many of the faeries dancing around them, reshaping the crowd as wings and tails, hooves and extra limbs appeared.

They raised their glasses and Electra fingered her ID tag. Here's to the lucky blind, she thought as they toasted a year of freedom. But as she took a deep drink, throwing her head back as the liquid bubbled and slid down her throat, she grinned. But I'd rather live in reality.

Storytime Saturday Part 2!

Alright, folks. Today's story is one I wrote for "Immortal Waking" in the Mardi Gras 3000 Player Handbook (available as a free download here.) It's for one of my very favorite Mardi Gras 3000 characters, Chariklo. Enjoy!

Chariklo (From "Immortal Waking")

The spotlights flared to life, blinding him, shattering the world. He closed his eyes. He spread his arms wide ... and dropped. He heard exclamations as the audience realized he had no safety line, no net. He continued to drop, a flash of white, even in his Human morph. He hit the ground and instantly morphed into his Intimate Form at the point of impact, bursting into the air in a cloud of mist like moonshine. The audience gasped collectively. Chariklo surveyed the crowd for a moment as he sank beneath the flooring, memorizing faces. Searching. Finding nothing.

:::Why do we see your Intimate Form every night but never your Ornate?::: Nue groused.

:::He doesn’t see his Intimate Form as private,::: Eshu cast with a shrug. His fingers flew through the air with his thoughts. The Humans considered him a kind of mime. They didn’t realize he didn’t know how to speak aloud.

Chariklo fastened the pearl mask over his eyes and fixed the collar of the costume he had hidden backstage. Neither Nue or Eshu understood why Chariklo insisted on living in his Human morph. The circus performers were masked, so he could present in Ornate Form, even when the rest of the crew were Human.

White One. Child Moon!

Chariklo ran his fingers through his white, straight, shoulder-length hair. His morph was albino. White, like his Ornate Form. All white.

Like his mother.

“Presenting … The Amazing Nue!” The ringmaster’s voice trembled. He pretended not to be afraid of Nue, but couldn’t mask the fear that sometimes crept into his voice.

:::Good luck, Nue,::: Mamitu cast as she walked backstage. Her Ornate Form looked like a circus costume, all sparkle and feathers. She was from Lhanor. Or Bei-Sel? Chariklo could never keep the Provinces straight. He only knew three of them, after all.

:::You could stop Nue’s grumbling, you know,::: Eshu cast.

Chariklo didn’t respond. Discomfort flashed across Eshu’s masklike face.

:::He is just curious about your Ornate Form. We all are, a bit. Why do you keep it hidden?:::

Chariklo turned to leave.

Yours is a story unbroken, repeated like the seasons. Like seed to husk.

:::You are so mysterious, Chariklo. We are your compeer.:::

Chariklo stopped for a moment and turned to face Eshu. The Celestial was not a child, but he had never seen the Grail. None of them had. Eshu, Nue, Mamitu. They had been Missionaries and teachers, torn from their lives to become soldiers. They had been trained to search for Xie’eln, but had never even seen It. Yet Eshu’s mask-like face reflected his determination. His hope.

Without replying, Chariklo walked away.

~*~

He was swimming in time again.

:::We could stay here, Eliena. We could start a family.:::

Chariklo watched them sitting together in the cool autumn air, running the fingers of their Human morphs through the soft sand. The sun was setting, the sky a brilliant swath of orange, red and purple. He wanted to reach out, touch them, but he couldn’t. He did not exist there.

:::Lynor... réian, he will find us. If we do not jump, he will catch us. It will never be safe to—:::

:::Eliena.::: His mother, the one of earth and sea, with a voice persuasive as magic. :::The trade was one jump gate for our firstborn, all-white child. In seven generations—perhaps more—the Elders had not known another such as you...::: He watched as Lynor tenderly ran her hand through Eliena’s hair and down her back. He yearned for that gentle touch. A mother’s touch. :::You are unique, perfect and rare as starfall on Katorr or moonless nights on Evareev. What are the chances we will have a child as rare as you?:::

His other mother, the white one, the one like him, watched the sea. She was a poet, a deep and passionate lover and thinker.

:::It is unlikely, but possible. And possible is risk enough.:::

Lynor shifted toward Intimate Form and Eliena followed her réian until they seemed no more than mist on the sand. Chariklo felt grief, familiar and heavy, like a stone in his chest. Lynor’s devotion, her belief in herself, in the two of them, would turn the tide of Eliena’s doubt. In another moment, Lynor would speak again and the cycle would begin anew. :::Why did we risk everything if not to live? To love?:::

Lynor’s words swept over Chariklo as they had a thousand times before. He never tired of being here, despite what Eliena’s answer would bring—the loss of everything he cherished and longed for in this world and any other.

The wheel of time was turning again, spinning with flashes of memory, of what was and what was yet to be. It was a gift, he knew, to see time this way. A gift from Eliena, the only other Celestial in seven generations to be all white, bone-white, moon-white—

Something was pulling at the edge of his consciousness, something distracting. No, he thought. I want to stay here …. Mist rolled in and engulfed him like an icy fist. On hands and knees, the wood beneath him pitched and rolled. Sea water sliced across the deck. Someone was screaming. Not here, he cried. Anywhere but here….

:::It is coming!::: Mamitu’s casting was pained and powerful. Chariklo’s gaze focused slowly on the room around him. Mamitu, doubled over in her dressing room chair, struggled to rise and move out into the open. He felt it now, a roiling, hurtling thing, ripping open the sky.

:::Chariklo!::: Eshu’s shout rocked Chariklo, throwing him out of the timestream. The red drapes of the tent swayed with the psychic energy of Eshu’s excitement and fear.

Chariklo stood and walked slowly toward entrance of the tent.

Mamitu zipped past him, a blur of color and motion, to ricochet from tent rope to tent top and then away.

The Terrapyres had already arrived. Nue was fighting fiercely, and he glowed with determination and rage. Eshu joined him. :::Chariklo!::: he cast, :::We need you!:::

Chariklo looked up. He knew what would happen. Which Terrapyres would die. What injuries his compeer would sustain. He took in the chaos around him as Eshu cast, :::Help me, Chariklo!:::

Chariklo looked up dispassionately at the Grail shining above them. It was much smaller than he’d imagined. Emotions washed over him from the warriors and the crowd: Fury, desire, fear.

:::Chariklo!::: Eshu’s cry was desperate now.

:::This is not my battle,::: Chariklo cast.

Then he turned his back, walked into the tent and knelt on the ground. He closed his eyes and willed himself to that seashore once more, as Nue’s screams, both emotional and audible, rent the air.