Whew!

I haven't written anything for 2 days. Must fix that today. (Ha! I typed toady first! Am I a sycophant or a faerie pretending to be a reptile?)

Wednesday I attended the Kauffman FastTrac mixer with Russ and made some really cool connections with some people. It was a great time.

Yesterday was spent recovering mostly.

Today I shall write. Oh, yeah, and look for a job.

Hello Summer

Nice to see you again. Walking may require me to start getting up with Av and exercising around 6am. Whew.
Let's see if I can get a few words on the screen during what is turning out to be a busy day.

My First Submittal

I just sent off a story to an erotica anthology for the very first time.
It was easier than I thought. I don't even care if it makes it or not, the first hurdle has finally been passed.
Go me.

Evening update:
It was denied, not for content, but for length, but since it is a poem, it is the length it needs to be. I am not disappointed and I'm glad I did it.

Right now I am writing something ridiculously romantic and I can't help myself.

Progress

Over the last 4 or 5 days I have turned the very, very bad original Chapter 1 into four much, much better chapters. I am very pleased with myself. The next task is to take the current Chapter 5 and fix it. This is where my heroine wakes up in a dungeon and the story really starts.

My problem now is remembering to actually look for a job as well. I'm having too much fun being unemployed. Starting to think about Kickstarter, but I don't know if I want to make that heavy of a commitment yet.

First Chapter Teaser!

Chapter 1

Captured

The battle raged around her, but from her position on foot it was impossible to tell which side was gaining ground. Her horse had been shot out from under her and she had been separated from most of her bodyguard. Only her Champion, the drow elf paladin Naramon with his soul-stealing sword stood by her side. They were surrounded by the enemy with no apparent way of getting out of this alive. But Excalibur was singing its war-song, filling her with joyous battle lust, driving her and her companion onward. In her escasty she fought her way further from her troops, deeper into enemy lines. She heard Naramon calling her name, but only responded with a laugh. She cut down enemy after enemy; her weapon seeming to have a life of its own. The sound of screams and the smell of blood and excrement surrounded her. She had been trained to fight these creatures and she figured that if she was killed, then it was at least doing what she knew how to do, kill orcs. 

But OMG not like this! Too quick, too roughly written, not enough reason for why everyone is there, or why they left the battle! What the hell was I thinking? I take a bite from my toaster pastry and a sip of jasmine tea. Get her to the battlefield with a little background. This entire chapter needs to be rewritten.

Chapter 1

Captured

In Which the Battle Begins

Athren Pendragon sat quietly, eyes closed, listening to the discussions around her, one finger gently massaging the point of pain that had formed between her eyebrows. She had never been meant for a battle leader and wished, not for the first time, that her mother had not kept the circumstances of her birth such a secret. If she had known she was destined to become the heir to the legendary Arthur Pendragon she would have done some things differently, leaned more about strategy, troop movements, battlement defenses, so much more. Rangers had different skills; woodcraft, hand-to-hand combat, ambushing, moving silently, hunting, nothing that was of real help in a pitched battle situation. She could pick a raven from the sky with one shot, track a deer, a goblin, or a man across stony wastes in the dark, survive on less food and water than a small child for days on end, but this, this was completely outside of her experience. For Goddess’ sake, she wasn’t even very good at chess.

The black tower had appeared in the plain outside of the city at dawn the day before and panic had filled the streets. Over a day’s ride away, it loomed over the plain like a gangrenous finger, seeming to absorb any and all light that came near. According to the scout reports it was completely featureless: no windows, walkways, battlements or crenellations marred the smooth, matte surface, only a single broad gate that faced the city gate square on. Frightened refugees had been flooding into the city since yesterday afternoon, fleeing the unknown threat.

I know what I had been thinking; I had thought originally that I was going to write the entire story of Athren, from her inception to this point in her story. But too many years have passed, I’ve forgotten too much. I can’t even remember the names of all of the original party members. But between what I can remember and what I have saved as campaign notes, I can put in as her memories, flashbacks, knowledge already gained.

The city state of Aradia had a small regular army for protection from the occasional invasion by goblins and neighboring countries or brigands, quite sufficient for the needs of the mostly agrarian society. The lords of outlying lands had small bands of soldiers of their own to protect themselves from the same sort of things, including each other from time to time, on a smaller scale. The city itself was protected by a city guard that patrolled the walls and streets, but they were usually men and women who had retired from active military service or were pensioned off from one of the lord’s private forces. There were perhaps 10,000 soldiers in the armed forces stationed around the realm, 1000 city guards on either active or reserve duty and each of the 12 Aradian lords and ladies who had been in the city for the coronation had sworn half of their private forces to any defense that might be required, adding approximately 2400 more trained troops to the total.

I need better numbers for troop counts. I don’t know how big my area is and I don’t realistically know how many troops it takes to defend it. But let’s press on, shall we?

13,400 troops, Athren thought to herself. No, fewer than that, she amended. Much of the regular army would have to come in from the outlying garrisons, there were only approximately 5000 stationed within a few days travel. We will be able to pull maybe 3 times that from the population as volunteers, but untrained, under supplied, soft city folk and unorganized farmers. It was now her duty to lead these people that she barely knew into the unknown. And they didn’t even know who, or what the threat was. She could only suppose that it was the enemy that had been pursuing them for so long, but she had no way to be sure.

“My Queen,” said Duke Llewellyn, gaining her attention through her musings. “How long should we keep the gates open for refugees?” Although his red-orange hair was still bright as polished brass, the captain of the newly christened Queen’s Guard was growing stout in his middle years, and wrinkles of time etched his face and grey of age frosted his beard and bushy eyebrows. “As much as we want and need to protect your subjects, there is only so much room for them.”

“Can we send them to the valley?” she asked. The city sat on the edge of a high cliff that overlooked a vast river valley to the West that extended as far as the eye could see in any direction. It was a fertile, prosperous land that fulfilled the role of breadbasket to the neighboring realms to the East of the mountains that surrounding them atop the cliff. Aradia’s borders extended to the river’s edge that glittered just at the edge of normal sight. “There is safety there, correct?” The city was connected to the valley below by two long, winding roads that had been cut into the cliff-side in ancient times. Perfectly symmetrical, some said they had been crafted from elven magic long before humans had come. The roads terminated at gates cut into the sheer city walls, inaccessible from the plateau on either side. They were the only way, save magic, to get to the valley below.

(“Surely these folks have withstood sieges in the past,” Athren said irritably to Dorian later that night as they prepared for bed. “Why ask me questions that they already know the answer to?”

“Because, my love, you are their queen now and all decisions must be approved by you and in this case, appear to come from you. It reassures the people that you are taking action and making decisions that will protect them.”

“I know all that,” she took him in her arms and kissed him. “It doesn’t mean it can’t make me cranky.”

“Well, let me make a decision for you so you don’t have to trouble your pretty little brain,” he replied, grinning, and scooping her up he carried her to the bed while she struggled playfully before submitting to his decisive actions. Even in the midst of uncertainty and the unknown, she still found joy in her love’s arms.)

“Yes,” he said hesitantly, thinking. “If we funnel the refugees down one road and the supplies up the other, it will help avoid bottlenecks. The only other ways are through paths that only the mountain folk know and are many days from here. Lady Menonne will know more about that than I,” and he made a little bow to the sturdy, plainly dressed woman across from him. “If that is your order my queen, I shall carry it out immediately.”

“It is, my lord,” she said, trying to hide her exasperation. Being the leader of a band of adventurers who had minds and ideas of their own didn’t really give her much experience dealing with courtiers and the formal processes of law and custom. The elven society she had grown up in hadn’t been at war since long before she had been born and she had never been witness to her queen mother as the leader of warriors. This was not something she had ever thought she would be doing.

Llewellyn left immediately, only pausing at the door to bow as if he just remembered that there was a queen in the room.

The rest of the meeting was short. Lady Menonne confirmed that there were no other ways down to the valley that were not known and guarded at all times. Those ways were too small for any sort of invasion force and took winding ways through and under the mountains. If ground troops planned on attacking the poorly guarded valley they would have to come through the city first. The Lord General of the army, Gavin Lord Atwater, confirmed that messages had already been sent to the garrisons, and provisions were starting to come into the city as the populous prepared for the worst. No one knew how much worse it would become. And the black tower in the plain was still dark and quiet.

After a break for dinner, Athren gathered her companions together in the large sitting room that opened onto a rooftop garden and provided an impressive view of the mountain range to the east. The setting sun illuminated the distant snowy peaks with orange flames as the forested bases dulled to a hazy purple the color of a new bruise. The evening breeze brought the scent of the last summer flowers into the quiet room.

“I don’t know who we can truly trust here,” Dorian said glumly, strumming his lute so softly that she could barely hear it. “We all know what that tower means, it means he found us.”

“Of a certainty,” Sheelba’s voice agreed. The shadowy figure of the mage could just be seen hovering near the fireplace. “And if I follow your thought, my lord bard, it means that he could already have agents here plotting against us, but there is no way to tell who it may be.”

“Well, we weren’t exactly hiding. I wish I knew what he wanted,” Athren said, putting down her untasted wine and pacing to the open doors to the garden, looking beyond the city walls to the plain at the foot of the mountains. The colorless void that was the tower absorbed the last of the day’s light. “We don’t have the weapon; we don’t even know where we were when we found it the first time. Our forces are apparently equally matched. Without that power, we can’t defeat him and he can’t defeat us. What else could he possibly be doing?”

“He may not know that we can’t retrieve the weapon again,” Chryssa broke in helpfully. “We did come here initially to do some research at the Academy.”

“Perhaps so, perhaps not. Until he makes a move all we can do is wait, and continue to search.”

“Speaking of that, my queen,” broke in Amathon. “I have been unsuccessful in my research so far. The scholars are very helpful, but the archives are quite large. I will continue looking of course.”

“I’ll help,” added Chryssa. “I have nothing better to do.”

“Every bit helps, my lady,” the tall elf bowed and smiled. “Perhaps my lord Dorian may be able to add some insights from his stores of histories and stories he carries in his head.”

“Sure. Be glad to. War preparation is not my forte.”

Just then there came a frantic knock at the door. Naramon opened it a crack then allowed the messenger inside. The boy started in surprise at the nearness of the huge drow warrior, but sped to Athren’s side and knelt, offering a leather scroll case.

“My queen, this was dropped on the parapet above the gate by a bird of some sort. It is addressed to you. General Atwater sent me first, but he is on his way.”

“Did he try to open it?”

“I don’t think he could, my lady.”

Athren took the scroll case with trembling hands and dismissed the boy. The texture of the black leather was strange and knobby, like bird skin, but by the size of the feather follicles, of a size of bird she had never before seen. It made her skin crawl.

“It does not appear to be warded, my lady,” Amathon said quietly.

She hadn’t thought of that and thanked him for his foresight in checking for magic. There was indeed a small tag on one end that read “Queen Athren Pendragon” in elvish. The script was beautifully rendered, equal to some of the most calligraphic texts in her mother’s library, but if a piece of calligraphy could have an evil edge, then this one did. There was a certain sharpness or firmness to the font that sent a shiver through her.

The silver end cap came off easily and she slid out a piece of fine parchment, so thin and perfectly white that only a master papermaker would have been able to accomplish it. The ink that the message was written with was a lovely shade of purple-blue that reminded her of the deepest colored sapphires she had ever seen. If she had thought about it, she would have noticed that it was the same color as her own eyes. Instead she read the text of the short note.

Most Gracious Majesty,

In three days time I will present myself at your gate to offer you my hand in marriage.

Your rejection will bring disaster.

I am your most humble servant.

There was no signature, only a seal pressed into a small blotch of red wax, a capital P from the elvish alphabet.

“It is a declaration of war,” she said as the message slipped from her nerveless hand.

So much better! My biggest problem right now is remembering names! I am very pleased with my day’s labors. I wish I didn’t have to stop, but life and family obligations call.

Letting Go

Today's task is to learn to let go of old story concepts, old character descriptions and old ideas and incorporate them into something that works and is less limited by what I remember. I will be in love with my words, but am willing to let them go so I can move forward. I am going to re-write my entire first chapter.

I also have a new narrative concept to try. Let's see what happens. I may occasionally post teasers.

This is exciting.

Why I Want to Write

Holy cow! Last time I posted I was unemployed, and now here I am again, unemployed.

I just wrote this. Russ, you will be pleased, because once something is said, it can't be unsaid, right?

Warning! What you are about to read is about sex. Kinky sex. The kind of sexual content that may cause you to see me in a different light. So if you are a relative or are a friend who followed me here from Facebook and have some sort of aversion to things that may be about hard-core kinky sex, you may want to stop reading now. I'm not kidding.

But it is also about writing, and why I want to do it in a way. Do it as in write. I want to write.






I want to write a novel. Not any old novel, a High Fantasy novel with magic and fighting and quests to be followed. And sex. Lots of graphic, BDSM heavy, rapey sex. I even have a heroine, Athren Pendragon, daughter of Arthur Pendragon and Maeve, queen of the Northern Elves.

Athren Northtree (the Pendragon would come later) was created from my imagination in 1984 as a character in an AD&D campaign run by my high school sweetheart, Kenneth. Ken and I would spend hours writing little stories about her and her companions/lovers Chryssa, Dorian and Dyvim Von Storm, her One True Love. Both in and out of gaming time, during classes at school, passing notes back and forth full of sex and longing and orgasms and the side quests that formed her character background. But no real BDSM stuff, not really. I tried, really I did; with my words I tried leading him into situations only to have him back out again and take me down a different path.

Frustrated, I started writing fan fiction about my own character, putting her in a captive situation that involved the enemy they were fighting, The Dark Prince. At the time he was a shadowy figure, never really filled out during the game except as the ultimate evil that must be fought. I gave him a personality of a sort, the kind of evil glamour that makes the bad guys so desirable in movies and bodice rippers. I presented it to Ken as a dream sequence in the game. He read it and liked it, but considered it as just a story that had no bearing on the game. Fair enough, I suppose. I can’t always have things my way. So alongside the actual game, I created an alternate world where my heroine suffered the Perils of Pauline over and over again, purely for my own pleasure.

Ken played along for a time, and we made up stories together, but other campaigns came and other characters were created and found to be more interesting and I moved on. But I never forgot Athren Pendragon. I still have the majority of those notes, even the transcription of the early works written in Ken’s beautiful, flowing script. It always makes me smile to see them and I remember how much fun we had together and how much we both like to fuck like bunnies.

But I digress. A few years later I came across the box of notes about the alternate timeline (In the game the evil mage was defeated and Athren lived happily ever after as the queen of her new land surrounded by her friends and loved ones) and began putting them together into an actual story. Ack! I was a horrible writer then! To this day I can barely read them without being embarrassed for poor 19yo me, but I must say, most of it is better than 90% of the amateur BDSM erotica posted on the internet today. So in the early 90’s I started writing what would have happened to Athren if she had been kidnapped during the final battle instead of victorious over evil.

Once again, this was purely for my own pleasure. I envisioned a cruel, manipulative, sadistic Prince who was madly in love with the beautiful, sexually exciting Athren. I nibbled at it off and on for the next 15 years or so, usually just pulling it out when I wanted to titillate myself with my own cleverness and kinkiness.

In those early days (before the internet!), I was strongly influenced by Anne Rice’s Beauty series, as many people were, as well as random stories and images from porn magazines and what kinky movies I could find. I have been fascinated with abduction, ravishment and rape for nearly as long as I can remember and had quite the imagination, and since that was what turned me on, it is what I wrote about. From time to time I would try to organize the vignettes into some semblance of order, taking out pieces that didn’t work with the almost-narrative, adding new pieces as they occurred to me, until eventually I realized that I was trying to write a book. But it was a book that couldn’t really share with my friends, and certainly not my family! So for over 25 years I continued to write just for myself. I was afraid to share it, afraid of all of the things that writers and artists are afraid of; being judged and found not worthy, sharing too much of my secret desires, and most unfairly, believing that my grown-up friends would be appalled and offended and needed to be protected from my inner thoughts. That last one is particularly egotistical and downright stupid. It is not my place to protect other people’s experiences and perceptions.

So I didn’t share, and I stopped working on it for a long, long time. I’ve written other things than that, other things that I have only shared with a few people as me, and with the internet as a whole under a pseudonym that won’t fool anyone who knows me. But when I get bored and restless and horny, I pull Athren out of her nest of bits and bytes and tweek her a little this way, and tweek her a little that way. No one has read the entirety of the unfinished novel. Well, no one else but one person.

Professor Mike showed up on Fetlife and drew me in with his intelligence and wit. A professor of law, he was used to reading students’ crappy output and helping them become better at expressing themselves, and he asked me to share Athren with him after I told him about my writing. So I did. And he was impressed and had kind, supportive criticism for me. And I am grateful because it prompted me to start to fix the mess of a narrative and decide what I really wanted to do with the characters in the story.

In recent years, erotica in mainstream non-fiction has become commonplace; Diana Gabaldon and George R.R. Martin are some of my most recent influences, not because they write long, detail ridden stories that take volumes to complete, but because they are not afraid to write about anything. Rape and torture, love and lust are all part of their stories. I even have to tip my hat to E.L. James and Fifty Shade of Grey for opening up the world to the concept of a best-seller that is about an abusive BDSM relationship (that apparently pretends it is about love, but since I have never read the trilogy, I cannot comment on the content really).

It is my goal to write and publish without being afraid. It is my goal to allow others to read my thoughts and desires and fears without internalizing their experiences myself. It is my goal to stop obsessing over form and worry about content. It is my goal to unashamedly fall in love with my own words. It is my goal to be a writer, a dream I’ve had for nearly my entire life.

I can do this and Queen Athren Pendragon can help me.