“…or both…” the third 200-word request, for @Inventrix

Apr27

There was a hole in the universe. Autumn stared at it, curious and a little bit horrified. Sometimes the strands split a little bit, letting things leak through from one world to another, but this was a genuine hole, visible not just in the stranding, but to mundane sight.

This couldn’t be good. And yet, it could be very interesting. She eyed the edges of the portal thoughtfully. It was just a bit wider than her shoulder-span, maybe three feet tall, and glowing blue around the edges. She could step through it easily. (Anyone could step through it easily; it was hanging out there plain as day).

She ought to call a weaver to seal it. And she would, right? She grinned wickedly to herself, feeling more wild than she had in years, as she stepped through the portal.

She had been standing in a hayfield; she tripped as she stepped through onto a mountainous cliff. Strange; the world-holes she’d stepped through before had been mirror-worlds, not all that different in the broad details. This didn’t even feel like home; the strands were different, the air was different. She took a steadying step forward.

Ahead of her, a proud-looking woman hailed her in an unfamiliar language. She was, it seemed, astride a very tall, broad-backed, saddled… goat?

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10-minute fiction: Holiday – Rin & Girey

Apr26

From [community profile] dailyprompt: “Mandatory Holiday.”

Rin & Girey/Reiassan, to [personal profile] inventrix‘s request 2. Written in 10 minutes on Write-or-Die, with distractions.

After Heroics and before View-Point.

“This really is gorgeous.” They sat overlooking a long valley as the sun rose orange-and-pink, the clouds tiny fluffy things stained as pink as the sky. Breakfast was sweetened with a recent purchase of honey, and their tea was hot and fresh. “I haven’t seen anything like this since I went on vacation with my parents, when I was a boy.”

“There haven’t been any holidays since then?” Rin sipped her tea and watched her prisoner thoughtfully. He was loosening up; she wondered how long that would last.

“Nothing like that. State trips. Visits to other cities. And then war came again, and that was everything. And then you.” Girey looked at her sidelong, smiling.

“And then me,” she agreed, but she couldn’t help but return his smile. His face looked better that way, younger, and she was surprised to find that he had dimples. “It’s been a while for me, too.”

“The war?” he asked sympathetically. “Your people grow really good tea.”

“The war, among other things. But now…”

“Now we have tea and honey,” he teased, “and beautiful sunrises.”

“I guess we can think of it as a mandatory holiday,” she joked.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/37622.html. You can comment here or there.

15-minutes of Fiction: Fertility (trigger warnings)

Apr24

From [community profile] dailyprompt: “ancient fertility rite.”

Warning: implied sexual violence. Also? Weird. Written in 15 minutes on Write-or-Die, with distractions.

“Come on, Jen,” Isaiah coaxed, tugging her hand, trying to urge her up the strangely symmetrical hill. “It’s an ancient fertility rite.”

“Do you really think we need fertility?” she complained, even as she gave in to his tugging. The path seemed to spiral the hill, though it looked, upon closer inspection, to be circular paths joined by short stairways. Everything looked ancient, like Isaiah’s mythical fertility rite, and yet nothing was falling down, the stairs were level, the paths smooth.

“Well, we’ve been trying,” he pointed out, “and trying, and trying…”

It had only been three months, but, instead of getting into it (again), she put on her best teasing expression. “I thought you were having fun with the ‘trying, and trying, and trying?'” And, just in case he thought she was complaining, she added, “I know I was. Am… are we going to try again here?”

“Something like that.”

She eyed him thoughtfully; over the last four weeks, he had been getting increasingly weird, squirrely, hiding things from her. At first, she’d thought it was another woman, or that, since he’d been complaining so much, the “pressure” of having a baby. Not that there ought to be pressure; she was only twenty-four. Time was not exactly running out.

“Ise, let’s just go home, please?” she tried. “It looks like it’s going to storm any moment now.” The stairs were getting steeper, and this was a lot more real exercise than the treadmill at the complex’s gym.

“If we do it right, it will do more than storm,” he murmured. Really frightened now, Jen tried to pull away, but his grip was implacable, and he’d gotten to full-out yanking when she dug her feet in. “Come on, Jen, don’t get stupid now, of all times.”

“Of all times? Ise, what are you talking about?” She let him yank her to the top of the hill, where the conical shape leveled into a slight depression, with a smaller cone of stone protruding from the top. That obelisk was maybe six feet tall, if one could gauge from the height of the frightened girls tied to either side of it. “Isaiah!”

But he was throwing her down on the ground, on a spot where, from the way the ground was indented, others had done the same, and the storm was beginning to open up as he pushed her legs open. “I’m sorry, Jen,” he muttered, “but I really, really, need that baby now.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/36499.html. You can comment here or there.

My dreams are awfully derivative…

Apr22

So that was a strange dream-fragment. Not a story option as presented, because it stole heavily from other things, including my own settings, Star Wars, Wen Spencer, and a Sherri Tepper book, but interesting.

Just a vignette. A tall white-skinned woman with a physical resemblance to Ventress,but with hair (more on that later) was walking with another person, mentioning that “I think, when I head home, we’ll just raid some men from another colony who might have some spine…”

Background “known” by the viewer:
* As in the Wen Spencer’s A Brother’s Price, there was a very high woman-to-man ratio; the dream said 12:1, and the “men” were, as in my Tir Na Cali and to paraphrase a David Brin novel pallid sires who father a pallid race. Pampered, spoiled pets.

I think that, as in Sherri Tepper’s Sideshow, the white-skinned women with their pampered bois lived in one settlement on a planet that had several different subspecies of humanity, and that they were going to raid men from one of those… not certain, though.

The hair thing was neat: the women had black head hair which grew in essentially giraffe spots; some women in their clan-sister arrangements shaved it short, to show the white lines between the black fuzz, while others grew it long and braided each spot individually in long thick braids. I don’t know if the men had spots.

Links, and then a few more links: E-books & Business

Apr21

IdeaTrash: the Business of Writing – a good all-purpose article on said topic.

HaikuJaugar on E-book Stats
And Killer Chicks on E-book stats (via R.S. Bohn)
And more, from Jim Hines, via Eseme

HaikuJaguar’s open letter to Smashwords, a must-read
Cory Doctorow on CreateSpace, again via Eseme

John Scalzi on revenue streams, also via Eseme

HaikuJaguar again, a page of writing links.

This is a fraction of my e-publishing links, but they seem to go together well. Thanks, [personal profile] eseme, et al!

Crossposted to [community profile] ebooks

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/35557.html. You can comment here or there.

Hey, A Boundary, Volume II!

Apr20

Please don’t make definitive statements about who/how I am. You’re probably wrong, and, in the meantime, you’ll upset me.

I’m talking about “you like to do this. You’re this sort of person.” Not “You’re tall.”

Modifiers are your friend. “It seems like; it looks like…” those things make me really happy. “It seems like you like this?”

State of the Panda ;-)

Apr20

It hasn’t been the most productive 5-or-6 days writing-wise for me, but it was an awesome weekend.

Went shopping with mother-woman on Friday for birthday-type stuff, and fit into a size 8 capri!… albeit a bit snugly, but this is New York, I have another three weeks at least before I’ll need short pants.

(“Fit into a size 8 comfortably” is a weight loss goal)

E.Mc & Kris came to visit in the middle of a power outage Saturday-Sunday. We got very wet, had some awesome Thai, some awesome wine, and some awesome brandy. There were also birthday gifts… which I love! I have Shirley’s new book and two of Elizabeth Bear’s and we have a terrarium! It is shaped like a mushroom!!

Monday we drove up to my parents’ house to give them some leftover Christmas gift 😉 (That’s a 2-hour drive) and then for a bridesmaid’s-dress fitting, then home. It was a fun time, hanging out with my husband.

And then back to work!!

How was your weekend?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/34690.html. You can comment here or there.