I’m back from headquarters. Mozhi and I sat under the bamboo, drank espresso, listened to the blackbirds, and worked out the designs for Boggle and Sneak, Pismo, The Derby Ram and Dirty Northern Book. Happy neurons!
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Tag Archives: Derby Ram
Busted Novel Repair Month
The whole world knows November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), but I’m at a juncture where I don’t need another month’s worth of first draft. On the other hand, I really could use some time to fix all my busted-ass first drafts and get them ready for publication. I therefore declare November to be my own personal Busted Novel Repair Month (BuNoReMo).
I’ve got baling wire, elbow grease and gaffer tape all lined up on my bench in the woodshed. Wish me success!
Here’s what I’ve got up on blocks:
Boggle and Sneak
This story was formerly known as Troll Story, but the Folklore Enforcers tell me the eight-inch-tall creatures in the story most closely resemble imps or bogles (which is a bit of a disappointment: I was sort of hoping to be able to call them boggarts). They bust into houses and bogotify stuff, i.e. leave stuff on the fritz.
This is really coming together (thanks to incisive reads by Ryeon Corsi, Josh Ferguson and the Bisco Kid) and may just need a push over the finish line.
Pismo
A family of compulsives tries to escape certain death in a car that only turns left.
This is mouldering in manuscript. Once I type it, somebody can read it and let me know how it looks.
Lime (That’s the working title because that’s what’s written on the cover of the first notebook in the stack.)
The CIA’s Directorate of Operations is outsourced to a reality show.
This has a beginning and a middle, but no end.
The Derby Ram
On a visit to the Minnesota State Fair, ten-year-old Al runs off from her parents. Lost, she wanders into the Coliseum, where she discovers a twenty-foot-tall ram about to be slaughtered before a roaring crowd. She frees the ram and the two of them make a run for it– following the Burlington Northern tracks west-northwest toward the mountains, pursued by the furious Butcher and his thirsty knife.
Again: A beginning and a middle, but no end.
Over the River (a ghost story for October)
It is the hottest night of the summer. Nick is parked at Porky’s Drive-In on University Avenue, pretending to tune his 1928 Model A Roadster Pickup (which doesn’t need tuning). Suddenly a rangy, weather-beaten woman rides up on an impossibly-cherry 1914 Michaelson Big Twin, grabs him by the penis, and drags him across the Mississippi to the Underworld.
October spilling into November.
Green Glow
I’m sitting by a window with my notebook. It’s raining. Most of the leaves outside the window haven’t yet changed color. For some reason, most of today’s rain fell out of quite a bright sky, so the whole day has been charged with a beautiful green glow I can’t recall ever seeing before. My story’s protagonist is on the moon at this point, wrapped in its (quite different, I imagine) glow, trying to prevent the killing of any more of the Man in the Moon’s dairy goats. She has just crossed over to the Dark Side, following the goat-killer’s tracks. And as far as the Dark Side goes, the sun here has finally yielded to the rain clouds, and the glow is gone. I want it back.
Herb Spot
An unknown number of local teenagers likes to hide out in our yard and smoke dope. The smoke drifts in our windows, and eventually one of our daughters says, “What’s that smell?” Then I have to go out and stalk around sniffing the air and listening for giggling from the bushes. When I do this, I look EXACTLY like Mr. Wilson from Dennis the Menace, right down to the weird mustache.
I spent a chunk of the day reading about sword making and sago processing, for use in the Srivijaya section of the Derby Ram story. I now know the difference between cast iron and wrought iron, I can tell you how to produce several types of crucible steel, and I know how to make pempek. Mmm, pempek.
The Derby Ram
My kids are off at the State Fair with my parents, so it’s fitting that I’m working on the outline for September’s story, which starts there:
On a visit to the Minnesota State Fair, ten-year-old Al runs off from her parents. Lost, she wanders into the Coliseum, where she discovers a twenty-foot-tall ram about to be slaughtered before a roaring crowd. She frees the ram and the two of them make a run for it– following the Burlington Northern tracks west-northwest toward the mountains, pursued by the furious Butcher and his thirsty knife.
Near Frazee, she escapes by climbing up the ram’s horn until she reaches the moon, where she finds that the Man in the Moon and his dairy herd are being menaced by a deadly shadow.
Near Surrey, she climbs down the ram’s fleece until she reaches the center of the Earth, and she will be forced to remain there forever unless she can fetch the Devil a glass of ice water.
Near Bainville, she flees by running around the ram until she reaches the kingdom of Srivijaya*. There she catches a glimpse of the Butcher, who is there himself on a dark errand.
On the bank of the Two Medicine River just outside Browning, she and the Butcher will fight a final battle for ram’s life– and her own.
*I took a globe, stuck my finger on Bainville, spun the globe 180 degrees, ran down into the southern hemisphere, and found that I hit Palembang, Sumatra. A quick Googling showed that Palembang was once the capital of the Tantric Buddhist maritime empire of Srivijaya… and that sounded like good fairy-tale fodder to me, so I grabbed it.