And then I ended up 4,000+ words over the top limit. Almost all of that lovely history and description was left on the cutting-room floor. Oh, the agony! But thank heavens for my two fantastic beta readers, who helped me make the cuts and strengthen the story — I couldn’t have done it by myself.

So now I’m tackling the edits on The Harrow Press‘s Day Terrors, which was in abeyance while I finished the C&C story — sorry! But I’m back on it now.

And I’m also contemplating participation in National Novel Writing Month. I missed it the last two years because I was working on other projects (a novel, Boys’ Love Manga), but other than DT, I have no pressing projects at the moment. So … maybe Clockwork Heart 3? I kick-started CH and its sequel during NaNoWriMo, and An Agreement with Hell. I find it a great way to get started on a novel. But it’s more stress and deadline pressure again. Hmmm…..

This is the Clockwork Heart sequel in the paper edit; chapter one. It’s going to take me the rest of the week to finish the editing process, I suspect, unless I can really power through on one of the days I don’t have to teach.

My newswriting students get their articles back looking like this and freak out. They don’t realize I’m just as strict with myself!

Whew!

So there it is — THE END — along with scribbled notes all over my chalkboard desk. The other side of the computer has sketches on it from my trying to figure out what certain objects needed to look like, but that photo would provide spoilers if I published it, so I’ll keep it off the blog for now….

If anyone knows a respectable, fantasy-steampunk-loving agent, let me know!

Yesterday I visited the library, promising myself that I’d only check out a few novels for the weekend, and ended up carrying home an armful, of course. This week my theme is “thinking,” with Why We Make Mistakes by Joseph T. Hallinan, How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer, and Blunder: Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions by Zachary Shore. I’ve read the first and am halfway through the second. The information in these first two books draws to a great extent on the same body of research, the same research I’ve read about in other books, like Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational — but I figure that re-reading that research will help embed it in my memory, and each book takes a slightly different slant on it.

What does this have to do with rail gauge changers?

One of the lessons in these books is that more information does not necessarily lead to better decision-making. In fact, a few pertinent data points lead to as good, if not better, decisions and predictions than a plethora of data. For example, Lehrer reports on stock investment experiments in which subjects who could only see share prices rise and fall made better investing decisions than subjects who could review all the financial information to which they could gain access; and on college counselors whose predictions of incoming students’ freshman grades were more accurate knowing only the students’ high-school GPAs and scores on one standardized test than college counselors who had access to student’s high-school transcripts, test scores, application essays, personality and vocational test scores, and personal interviews.

As Lehrer notes, quoting Herbert Simon: “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention” (p. 159).

I love the fact that I have the vast resources of the internet at my fingertips, and it’s a rush to find a real-life solution to my story problems, like the existence of rail gauge changers. However, sometimes I wonder if I wouldn’t have come up with that answer faster if I hadn’t stopped to research it. I spend an awful lot of time trying to find information online — how a Victorian-era airgun would work, how long it takes for steam engines to refuel, what doctors do about heavy blood loss when transfusions aren’t readily available — when it might be better for me just to write forward, making guesses or inventing things out of whole cloth, and save the fact-checking process for the second draft. After all, the first lesson in writing is to put words on the page.

Ah, well.  Now that my characters are where they need to be, I have a whole new area of research to conduct….

So I grumbled about it on Facebook, and a number of friends replied.  I appreciated the help; several sent me facts about steam engines, several suggested fantastic methods of fueling-on-the-run, and several reminded me that it’s my story, and steam engines should refuel just as often as the story requires, and no more. 

I gotta admit, sometimes I hit that realism barrier and forget that I can walk around it, if I really must.  Writers strive for a certain level of realism in their stories, even in fantasy. Doesn’t matter if your book is full of magic and monsters; you’ll probably still take the time to mention watering the horses or gathering wood for the fire, or any other little detail of day-to-day life that will make your world seem real, even though it’s purely imaginative. Those little realistic details help the reader accept the more outrageously fantastic parts of your story — “okay, other than the magic and the monsters, this world works pretty much the same as mine. Got it.”

I’ve been especially concerned with realism in Ondinium, because there isn’t any magic. Well, all right, lighter-than-air metal is technically “magical,” because it defies all the known laws of physics, but as far as the characters are concerned, it’s just another wondrous curiosity of nature to be exploited in the name of industrial development. And, other than that, I’ve tried to keep technology in the range of the possible for the late 19th and early 20th century.

Besides, I have a father who counts the bullets expended in movies and books and is quick to critique those amazing “infinity clips” so many heroes carry — I understand that readers who are experts in a field will be quick to comment if an author gets the details wrong!

However, my steam engine must travel without stopping, so even though I’m not sure how long an engine can go without refueling/rewatering in reality, it’s going to succeed in Ondinium. Chalk it up to superior manufacturing, if you must….

So now I’ve got my characters one last transfer away from their destination, but I’ve been momentarily stumped by difference in rail gauge between Ondinium and the surrounding countries, an important defense strategy that I set up earlier in the novel and now need to resolve within the necessities of the story. Doh! Trapped by my own precedent!

You can see my official NaNoWriMo page here, and my unofficial list of NaNoWriMo novels here, if you’d like to get an idea of my previous years’ attempts.

At 50,076 words, of course, Obstruction Currents is far from being complete — in fact, I’d hazard a guess that it’s maybe only a third, or perhaps a bit more than that, done right now. Clockwork Heart ran 119,827 words in the final, edited MS. Heck, I’ve only just got my characters back inside Ondinium, rather the worse for wear … they still have a crime to investigate and solve and, well, let’s just say a lot more to do, including another jaunt beyond the country’s borders.

So, here’s one last scene, explaining what I mean when I say “the worse for wear.” It contains spoilers if you haven’t read Clockwork Heart yet, and, of course, it’s very, very much a rough draft, so don’t get too invested in it. It could be radically changed or even vanish completely by the time I finish the manuscript….

The hands on her were cold, and so was the ground beneath her head and back. She turned her face away, trying to open her eyes, but something was gluing them shut. Whoever was touching her didn’t stop — she felt a rough grip running down her arms and legs, then pushing her ribs. She twisted away and gasped at the pain in her neck and back. Her head pounded as though it were going to split open.

Then the fingers were pushing her eyes open. Sticky, crusting blood peeled off her lids and eyelashes. She blinked as involuntary tears rose.

“Icarus.”  Flames danced off a bloody mask and the voice was rough and gravelly but familiar. She blinked again, feeling cold tracks running down her face as the tears overflowed, or maybe that was the ice rain. She tried to focus.  Pinpoints of light flared around the edge of her vision

“Am —”

“Can you fly?”

She stared at him, struggling to understand. His face and pale blond hair were black with blood and soot and there was something in his expression she had never seen before. His hands tightened on her shoulders and he pulled her up into a sitting position. She cried out as twisted and strained muscles protested.

“Can you fly, Icarus? We need help.”

This time the words registered, and so did his expression — desperation.  She crooked her head to one side, wincing at the effort.

He’d jammed a makeshift torch between two sheared-off edges of metal on the side of one of the overturned train cars. It lit several feet around them, and she saw broken glass glittering around them. Or maybe it was ice, because the ice rain still pounded around them, skittering off the torn metal and bouncing off Amcathra’s tattered and bloody uniform.

[...]

“Cris!” She lurched forward, grabbing Amcathra as she struggled to stand. He hissed in pain and collapsed, and she realized he’d been crouched with one leg stretched out, off-balance.  She ignored him, ignored the pulling sensation in her muscles as she got to her feet, ignored the way her vision blurred and darkened.  She drew in ragged breath.

Tears ran down her face, and she couldn’t seem to stop them. “Cris!”

“He lives,” Amcathra said, his voice tight as he grit his teeth. “Fly to the cable station. We need help.”

“Where is he?”

The lictor sat up and grabbed the armature buckles around her waist, yanking her backward. Taya staggered and stared down at him, ready to strike out — but something in his face stopped her.

“He was bleeding. I stopped it. But he needs help. Now.”

Taya felt a roaring in her ears. Cristof bleeding? In danger?

“Where is he?”

The lieutenant fought back to his knees, grimacing, and clutched his injured leg a moment. Sweat or melted ice ran down his face. He caught his breath and lifted his arm to point.

She turned around. Cristof wasn’t there, but her wings were visible, half-caught in an open window, still locked down.

“No, no … where is he?”

“Now, Icarus!”

“Oh, Lady,” she whispered, staggering toward them and fumbling for the key to the locks with blood-covered fingers. “Oh, Lady, don’t. Not yet.”

She tried to climb up the bent side of the car, slid back down, screamed with frustration, and tried again.  Ice and blood made her hands slip on the cold metal. She threw herself against it, feeling cramps in her neck and shoulders, and dug her nails into the splintered decorative wood paneling that bore the train’s name and the car’s number. Her grip held and she dragged herself forward until she was flat on the tilted side-turned-roof.  Still laying flat, she reached down and groped for the locks.

The key fell from her numb fingers into the darkness below.

She shouted oaths and pounded her fist on the side of the car, then looked out at Amcathra. The lictor had pulled himself back up to his feet and was holding up the torchto give her more light. His face was drawn and horrible to behold [...].

(Caveat: Anything I write during National Novel Writing Month is subject to significant change or deletion during the longer editing phase to follow! So don’t get too invested in any scene I quote here … this is “rough draft” at its roughest!

… Also, if you haven’t read Clockwork Heart, the text below contains SPOILERS.) 

Clouds of ash-imbued steam billowed from the locomotive, coating the platform and everything and everyone on it in light gray soot. Uniformed porters bellowed to each other as they loaded the delegation’s traveling trunks into the ambassador’s special car at the back of the line and dodged the rest of the train’s passengers as they stretched their legs or disembarked. A brass band was playing, the engine was rumbling, other passengers were milling back and forth to take advantage of the stop and crane their necks at the formal-looking group at the back of the platform, and rain pounded on the glass-and-iron canopy that covered the small, open-sided Grimaucourt Station.

Taya had left her husband with Lt. Amcathra and Lord Pomeroy and the rest of the formal farewell party.  Lord Pomeroy’s translator could handle things there; her job was to watch as her wings and the chest containing her ondium counterweights were loaded into the car and locked to heavy rings that had been bolted to the walls. Rikard stood next to her, one hand casually resting on his air rifle, which hung from his shoulder by a leather strap. The Mareauxan porters looked askance at the forbidding young lictor as they worked.

“Are you glad to go?” Rikard asked in Ondinium as the metal tips of the wings tapped against the painted fabric that covered the ceiling inside the private carriage.

“I’ll be glad to be able to fly again,” she said, looking outside with regret. The rain would keep her inside today. She’d hoped she might be able to fly out with the train and land on top a few miles later, before it had gotten up to full speed. But flying in the rain was miserable to begin with, and the winds would be against her, blowing south off the Corundiel inland sea. Landing on a moving object was something best done in clear, calm weather; and even so, it was a daredevil’s trick. She hadn’t admitted to Cristof quite how difficult it was, when he’d first expressed his worries about her trying it on the way out.

Rikard looked out the window, as well.

“There’s somebody shouting out there,” he said, swiveling his rifle around. He frowned. “It’s the inspector.”

“What does he want?”

“A ‘Missus Forlore’? Does he mean the exalted?”

“Forgefire!” Exasperated, Taya turned and leaned out the door of the passenger car. Inspector Gifford stood there, breathing hard, his oilcloth coat streaming water and creating great, murky puddles of ash on the platform by the stairs. He carried a leather suitcase, as if he were going with them.

She carefully picked up her Mareaux-style skirts and stepped down to the platform to talk to him, manuevering well away from the puddles.

“Inspector,” she said, holding out a hand. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Um, Missus Forlore?” He took it more awkwardly now than he had last time.

“Just Taya, please. Icarii don’t use last names.”

“I’m sorry.” He looked uncomfortable. “I’m not used to calling a nobleman’s wife by her first name.”

“Then don’t think of me as the exalted’s wife, if that makes it easier. Marriage doesn’t make as much of a political difference in Ondinium as it does in Mareaux.” It had social repercussions, of course, but she didn’t think that foreigners needed to hear about her nation’s caste prejudices.

“I, ah, yes. Things are much more complicated there, aren’t they?”

“Are they?” Taya wondered what he meant. Ondinium seemed very well-organized and rational, to her; it was countries like Mareaux, with their labyrinthine inheritance laws and multitude of confusing, ever-shifting social ranks, that challenged her ability to keep things straight. “How may I help you, Inspector? If you’re looking for — oh, no, you aren’t, are you?”

“No … I know he’s up there.” Gifford glanced toward the front of the platform, then back at her. “I was looking for you. This is a bit difficult, but I didn’t know whom else I could ask — Lt. Amcathra’s busy, and I don’t know the other members of your delegation very well….”

Intriguing.

“You can ask me whatever you want, Inspector. My official role here is to act as the exalted’s liaison with the public, after all.”

He nodded, looking like he still harbored reservations.

“Maybe you can tell me, then … are Ondinium and Mareaux going to be at war?”

Surprised, Taya started at him, then looked around to see if anyone else were listening. Nobody was paying attention in the noise and bustle of the travel preparations.

“No, not as far as we’re concerned.”

“Really?” He studied her intently. “People are saying someone tried to assassinate the exalted, and his sudden departure means war.”

Taya glanced around again, then stepped closer to lower her voice.

“There were a few suspicious mishaps, yes. But I don’t think the Council will declare war with one of its strongest political and economic allies, not over a few failed attacks.  Certainly Exalted Forlore doesn’t want that. He’s leaving because he has to; Ondinium has security protocols that demand his withdrawal if his life is endangered. Besides, he has to send a message that this kind of thing can’t be tolerated. But that’s just diplomatic gamesmanship — it doesn’t mean we want war. I hope you’ll let people know that.”

“They say that you’re taking one of our balloons so you can study it, make more, and turn them against us — that the trade delegation didn’t go well, and that’s why you’d want to attack, to annex more land and increase your power.”

“‘They’ have an active imagination.” Taya sighed. ‘They’ did in Ondinium, too. “Inspector, Ondinium prizes itself on rational governance. It wouldn’t go to war without calculating all the pros and cons and modeling about a dozen alternative strategies, first.  Even if Cr — if the exalted went back demanding vengeance, unless the Great Engine calculated that a war was in our best economic interest, the Council would ignore him. Besides, it would be stupid of us to attack Mareaux — you’d immediately ally with Alzana and we’d have to fight on two fronts.”

Gifford slowly nodded.

“You sound convincing.”

“The truth should sound convincing.” She looked down at the suitcase sitting on the dirty platform next to him. “I hope telling you that hasn’t put a crimp in your plans to defect to Ondinium.”

“Defect?” He looked down at the case and then laughed. “Is that what you thought?”

“Well, or try to convince me to run away with you.” Taya smiled as he laughed again. “Now I’m insulted.”

“I’m sorry, Mis — Icarus. I don’t think my wife would approve, though.”

“No, and my husband wouldn’t, either. So, why are you carrying around a suitcase?”

(Caveat: Anything I write during National Novel Writing Month is subject to significant change or deletion during the longer editing phase to follow! So don’t get too invested in any scene I quote here … this is “rough draft” at its roughest!

… Also, if you haven’t read Clockwork Heart, the text below contains SPOILERS.) 

“Your husband is leaving with Lt. Amcathra,” Rikard said, stepping inside at Taya’s call.

Taya looked up from the book she’d promised Cassie and registered the young lictor’s scarf and gloves, as well as the air rifle slung over his back.

“Where’s he going?” she asked, carefully marking her place and closing the volume. She made a mental note to tuck it away before Cristof visited her suite. She wasn’t sure what his reaction would be if he picked it up and read a few pages, but she had a feeling it wouldn’t be good for his delicate constitution.

“Lt. Amcathra has made inquiries in Grimaucourt and discovered that a man was murdered the night before you were poisoned. He informed the exalted that he was going to the morgue to inspect the body. The exalted insisted upon accompanying him.”

“Insisted?” Taya blew out a resigned breath. Cristof had been itching to leave the mansion since yesterday, even though Lord Pomeroy’s physician was insisting they rest. “I’ll bet your uncle was thrilled by that.”

“My uncle asked if perhaps the entire delegation would like to join them.”

Taya smiled, hearing Amcathra’s sour expression in Rikard’s words.

“What did Cris say?”

“The exalted said he believed the mercates were still in conference, but he thought you might be interested.”

“A trip to the morgue. How could I resist?” Still, Taya threw off her blanket with a sense of eagerness. Staying cooped up in the delegation’s wing of the mansion hadn’t been keeping her amused, either, now that she was starting to feel a little more steady on her feet. She padded across the room in her socks and opened the wardrobe. No dress for the morgue. She pulled out her flight suit and boots. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Rikard nodded and stepped outside. Taya dressed with practiced speed, then paused and laid a hand longingly on the metal wings and armature that floated next to the wardrobe. The tips of the wings lightly touched the plaster ceiling, but heavy iron chains and fetters had been wrapped around the arm struts and keel bars, locking the armature to the heavy furniture around it.

“Soon,” she promised herself, then grabbed her own scarf and gloves and hurried out, locking the door behind her. A lictor had been stationed at the hall entrance ever since she’d fallen ill two days ago. She wouldn’t need to find someone to guard the room in her absence.

The wind in the courtyard was cold and sharp, but the sky was clear and the sun bright. Cristof was already in the carriage, masked, the gold thread and jewels in his robes glittering. Taya slid inside next to him. Amcathra swung in on the opposite seat. Rikard closed the door and Taya heard him climbing up to sit next to the driver.

She checked to make sure the curtains were closed as Cristof fumbled for his mask, and then untied it for him.

“I’m glad you decided to join us,” he exclaimed, leaning over to kiss her as soon as the mask was off. “I don’t know if the hospital workers speak Ondinium.”

“Oh, is that why you asked?” She pulled away and gave him a withering look. “I thought you wanted my company.”

He blinked, then colored. “Well, of course. That, ah, goes without saying.”

“Apparently.” She dropped the mask in his lap to indicate her displeasure.

… Also, if you haven’t read Clockwork Heart, the text below contains SPOILERS.) 

Taya’s eye was caught by two cloaked and hooded people standing across the street, looking at the window where she was sitting. The taller figure was leaning over as the smaller one spoke, gesturing. She frowned, Amcathra’s warnings whispering through her mind. Were they looking at her? “Do you see those two people out there?”

Rikard looked outside, one hand dropping to the airgun holstered at his side.

The tall figure straightened, one hand resting on the smaller figure’s shoulder, and was led away. For a moment Taya watched his overly correct movements, puzzled, and then she leaped to her feet.

Long black hair, perfect posture, and the stiff walk of the uncomfortably blind —

“Alister!” she cried.

Rikard drew his needle gun, but Taya was already scrambling out from behind the table. She dodged a waiter balancing a heavy tray and threw the teahouse doors open, running out into the street.

“Alister! Alister!”

Rain soaked her face and hair and began to trickle down the collar of her leather flight suit. She dodged an oncoming coach and ran several yards in the direction the pair had gone, peering around in vain for them.

“Hello? Alister?”

At any rate, so on Saturday all I wrote was part of a first scene.  I’ve adopted the working title Obstruction Currents, although I expect that will change eventually. However, I did find a neat image while I was hunting around for some background information for the scene — see below!

Sunday is always Chore Day for me — do the laundry, water the plants, vacuum and sweep the floors, and take care of whatever else needs to be taken care of in my much-neglected apartment. So, in between puttering around, I hope to get several thou more words written today. When I get something worth excerpting written, I’ll post it here!

Off the computer and on to work….

How did they fill hydrogen balloons in the 1700s?

Natural Philosophy for Schools By Dionysius Lardner, T. Olver Harding