It is Wednesday Storytime again. Last week, we were introduced to two new characters Alexis and Ben. We learned they are college kids and friends with a sexual past on hold. Alexis mentions some complexity that has forced sex into the background. We left them as they agreed to meet at Alexis’ house to study and watch a movie. Ben is just getting there now. Let’s join them.
“Hi, how are you doing?”
“Ya mean since sixty minutes ago?”
“Um, that did sound a little dumb right?”
“Not dumb Ben just automatic. You know how I hate rhetorical questions.”
“I know Alexis. I know. You gonna invite me in?”
“Come in. Did you get the chips and soda?”
“Sure did. Got some dip as well.”
“You da man Ben. Dip is the short way to my heart.”
“Who wants heart?”
“What?”
“Nothing. Just a snide comment.”
“You better get off that physical stuff, or you’ll study alone.”
“Yeah okay. Man, you are like a grumpasaurus.”
“And you are like a rutasaurus.”
“Truce.”
“Truce. Grumpasaurus was pretty good. Put that stuff on the counter.”
“Rutasaurus was pretty good too. You want a soda? I didn’t get root beer. Got a lot of flack at the store over root beer.”
“I’m not surprised. Let’s order a pizza. I’ll have a soda with it. After I order, we need to get to work.”
“Good. What work we gonna do?”
“Whatya mean. What work?”
“School work or the other?”
“We need to get the other squared away. So how about we spend tonight on it and then tomorrow on school.”
“I brought the blueprints.”
“Great let me order and then let’s see ’em.”
“I’ll unroll them on the table.”
“You okay with white sauce and veggie.”
“Yeah good. Hmm, this building has a lot of floors.”
“Okay, I ordered. The guy said thirty minutes. What are you saying about the floors?”
“I didn’t think the building had so many floors.”
“What does that mean?”
“When this sucker blows there is going to be a huge brick pile.”
When the mischievous and random Goddess of Chaos gets angry, all of Windemere becomes her plaything.
It all starts with a collection of toys that have taken the populace by storm. People of all races flood the marketplaces to gather figurines of the champions whose adventures are starting to spread across the land. Stemming from the flying city of Nevra Coil, these toys bring with them a terrible curse: Fame. Every town becomes a mob of fans that hound their new idols and the delay is bringing the world closer to the hands of Baron Kernaghan. Perhaps worst of all, the creator of these toys forgot to include a certain exiled deity who is now out to earn herself a figurine.
Who would have thought a bunch of toys could cause so much trouble and lead to the breaking of a champion’s confidence?
A screeching alarm goes off inside the vessel, signaling for everyone to pay attention to the pilot. Jo flicks a few switches above her head, amplifying her voice so everyone can clearly hear her. “We’re coming to Nevra Coil. Get ready for docking at Inspiration Tower instead of one of the Ring Houses. If you want to see the city then come to the front, but you better not complain while I’m giving the tour. I’ll be going too fast to repeat myself. We’re starting with the bottom, so don’t be scared. There hasn’t been a crash in a month. Two months since a fatality.”
The champions gather around Jo’s chair and watch as the clouds part to reveal the underside of the flying city. The steel gray earth has several narrow tubes of yellow crystal spread along its gleaming surface, the enchanted objects creating a spiral that leads to a red, metal rod. An occasional spark falls from the central pole and dissipates into the clouds, giving the illusion of lightning. Jo has the vessel steadily rise to give everyone a clear view and she taps her ear to silently get her passengers to listen. Beneath the sounds of the ship’s rotors, the champions hear a dull hum whenever they pass close to a crystal. Those with keen eyes can see a sapphire orb that flickers like a flame inside the yellow tube’s core, but the strange object is definitely solid like a rock.
“The flight crystals are designed to push off and ride the waves of the ocean. The outer tube is the reflector and the ice gem is the controller,” Jo explains as they flip around the far side of Nevra Coil. She scowls at the whimpering gypsy and begrudgingly slows the vessel down. “The central rod is what keeps us in a small area as we spin like a very slow top. Without that, we’d be floating all over Windemere’s oceans. You’ll feel the rotation at first, but the awkwardness will pass within a few hours. Before you ask, the system does nothing to the ocean below. We keep ourselves at a great height to prevent that and we turn off the crystals if we have to drop. That’s only in case of severe damage, so they would probably be malfunctioning in such an event anyway. Our backup system is a small army of pedaling stone golems that we activate in the core of Nevra Coil. Let’s get to the real event. Hey! Watch where you’re going, you son of an oil slick!”
The vessel swerves out of the way of a small, windowless craft that is powered by a pedaling gnome. Once their heads stop spinning, the champions get their first look at the city of Nevra Coil. Glistening towers are everywhere with a vast collection of flying devices and beasts moving among them. Several structures are missing pieces, revealing metal beams and hardworking gnomes who are trying to finish the construction. The city is a beautiful creation of metal, stone, and glass with nothing on the earthy ground besides several colonies of orange slimes. The burbling creatures feast on the garbage that falls out of hatches, which are built into the lower floors of every tower. Compared to the enormous buildings, Jo’s vessel feels like a rowboat as it weaves among the chaos. Several times they come close to hitting another ship, their skilled pilot meeting each encounter with a slew of insults and curses. They hover when a claxon goes off and the circular tower ahead opens one of its floors to reveal another ring-shaped ship.
“This is where we would normally dock, but you’re wanted on the one-hundred and eighty-sixth and a half floor of Inspiration Tower,” Jo says while waving to the other ship. She waits for them to leave before rising to the higher sky lanes where there is more space. “If you look to the right, you’ll see the Lizard. It’s used by those of us who don’t have a flying device due to no interest, accidents, revoked license, or whatever else can go wrong. I’ll swing by to give you a better look, but don’t stare directly into the golem’s eye. You never know if it’s going to be friendly or . . . churlish.”
Dipping toward a metallic rail, the ship comes alongside a green-scaled reptile with seats grown into its wide back. A throbbing bubble covers the sitting area, the oily membrane protecting riders from the elements until the transport comes to a stop. Gnomes are comfortably sitting in the chairs, most of them reading notes or sleeping. The creature’s tail is merged with the track to prevent it from falling off while it pulls itself along using powerful front legs. A driver on its head opens a hatch in the top of its long nose to drop in a shovelful of screeching beetles. The Lizard slows down while everyone hears the insects getting crunched in the construct’s mouth. When the strange transport hisses at the ship, Jo pulls away and heads for where a trio of metallic birds are sitting on a windowless tower.
Charles Yallowitz was born and raised on Long Island, NY, but he has spent most of his life wandering his own imagination in a blissful haze. Occasionally, he would return from this world for the necessities such as food, showers, and Saturday morning cartoons. One day he returned from his imagination and decided he would share his stories with the world. After his wife decided that she was tired of hearing the same stories repeatedly, she convinced him that it would make more sense to follow his dream of being a fantasy author. So, locked within the house under orders to shut up and get to work, Charles brings you Legends of Windemere. He looks forward to sharing all of his stories with you, and his wife is happy he finally has someone else to play with.
As you may know, I have become enamored by the talent of Keith Channing. He has a weekly prompt named Kreative Kue, which runs on Mondays. Here are the instructions from Keith for the prompt. “Using this photo as inspiration, write a short story, flash fiction, scene, poem; anything, really; and either put it (or a link to it) in a comment or email it to me at keithkreates@channing.fr before 6pm on Sunday (if you aren’t sure what the time is where I live, this link will tell you). If you post it on your blog or site, a link to this page would be appreciated.”
His advice. “Go on. You know you want to. Let your creativity and imagination soar. I shall display the entries, with links to your blog or website, next Monday.” Here is the photo.
In honor of Labor Day and since I’m currently out-of-town I’ve decided to boil the top ten list down t the most important items. Let’s all remember those who make our lives easier and more pleasant. The remembrance includes we authors.
Top Ten Things Not to do on Labor Day
10 through 1
On Labor Day have fun but do not drink and drive. If you do, at best you are a fool. At worst, you could hurt or kill an innocent person not to mention your guilty self.
I have to confess that I’m out-of-town, and this photo was taken Friday morning instead of the regular Saturday morning.
The beach is unusually quiet for a holiday weekend. The lack of people, cars, tents, and mayhem is mostly because most parents cannot get to the beach before the kids are out of school. I expect a change later. Hopefully, I will be back in time to get a photo of what the scene looks like which I will publish next week. Have a great Labor day.
It is Stream of Consciousness Saturday and this week’s prompt is “Light.” Linda Hill says we can do whatever we want with it. (Hmm causes one to wonder a bit) If you would like to participate, visit Linda and find out the rules. (Almost none) Here is the link. http://lindaghill.com/2015/09/04/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-515/
I am very pleased to be interviewed today by Sacha Black at her place.
WHO IS SACHA BLACK?
They say night owls stay up late. But in the depths of midnight, Sacha isn’t just awake. She’s hunting. A nightwalker carefully treading the line between light and dark, strange and unusual. A hunter desperately pursuing the right words to chronicle the tales of The Netherworld.
Keepers, the first in the Fallon trilogy which is set in The Netherworld, is currently boiling in the cauldron of her mind, the first draft of Keepers is almost finished.
Sacha was always meant to write, she was the girl who spent her lunch break tucked away in the corner of the school library, head buried in a pile of books pencil in hand, weaving stories onto the page. But she grew up, stumbled and fell forgetting her dream. She spent a while lost in a dark and twisted place. Then, one day she sat in front of her laptop and started to write. She remembered that all she’d ever wanted to do was write stories in far away places filled with curious creatures and magical happenings. Characters started to talk to her, fill her brain with incessant chatter and demanded their stories be told. And so, The Netherworld was created, and Eden’s story began.
Sacha is a wanderer at heart. A thinker, and ponderer on anything unusual or controversial which you can see in her Weekend Wonders series. She finds inspiration in the beauty of imperfection and is enthralled by evocative questions.
She’s loud, but it’s mostly a mask, preferring instead to take sanctuary through travelling the world, particularly New York or Asia having spent time in Nepal and the Himalayas Trekking up to Everest Base Camp. But she also finds peace through shoving her nose deep in a book, through haunting songs or a filthy dirty base beat!
Sacha has a fascination with writing, but particularly with deconstructing the writing process. She shares the trials, tribulations and lessons she learns trying to write the stories of the Netherworld and eventually become a published author.
Sacha is also a mother to a toddler and wife to a beautiful woman. When she’s not writing, she can be found working in the public sector, doing gel nails or occasionally baking cupcakes.
Friday again. It has been an interesting week pretty much filled with catch-up work for me. I’m getting ready to publish the sequel to My GRL and have decided to self-publish this time around. As most of you self-published authors know there is a lot to do before the book is ready. I am waiting for the final editor proofread and will then do the formatting. I have done some formatting so I think I can handle this part of the exercise. I plan to do a paperback and a Kindle edition so I will need to get the proper formats for each. My GRL was published by Martin Sisters Publishing, and they did all the work, so this is all new to me. Hopefully, I won’t blow a gasket in getting it done.
With the launch of My GRL, I had no control over price, timing, cover, or the internal appearance. This time will be different. I have control over all of these things. One thing I wished I could have done with My GRL was to get it into the hands of reviewers before publication. After the formatting is complete, I plan on putting it into the hands of those reviewers who will graciously agree to review and then publish the book with a more organized launch. I’m not sure it will make any difference, but it can’t hurt. This week’s JohnKU is about timing. Hope you like it.
Author C. S. Boyack has a new novel The Experimental Notebook of C. S. Boyack on preorder for release September 15th. The book is a collection of short stories and a price of only 99¢. That is a big value since it includes a dozen or so stories at that price.Here is the Amazon Link. Here is the cover that was designed by fellow blogger Rachel Carrera.
A little about C. S. Boyack.
I was born in a town called Elko, Nevada. I like to tell everyone I was born in a small town in the 1940s. I’m not quite that old, but Elko has always been a little behind the times. This gives me a unique perspective of earlier times, and other waysMore about C. S. Boyack
This weekend my wife and I were able to attend our friends’ wedding. I thought I would share a couple of the photographs from the reception.
The first is a photo of the event venue. As you can see, the reception was held on the beach. The wedding itself was in a church in town. The guest arrived at the reception welcomed by drinks and raw seafood bar. There was music and to the left you can see an assortment of palm trees (brought in by the caterer) and Adirondack chairs for lounging. The sun is setting in the West but casting a pink glow to the East.
Here is a closer view of the chairs around a fire with torch accents. The full moon is beginning to rise over the Gulf.
A closer view of the palms which became the border for the dancing area. You can see the DJ to the right. He played well into the night. The food was terrific and the night was magical courtesy of the beach, the moon and, of course, the happy couple.
I did try to get a nice shot of the moon reflecting off the Gulf but was only a little lucky. My wife Molly, on the other hand, was very successful. (Photo Credit; Molly D. McCormick) Those lights in the background are freighters waiting to enter the ship’s channel to pick up or unload their cargo.
