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Today’s wordcount:5008
Current Hearts of Tabat wordcount: 95071
Total word count for the week: 5008
Total word count for this retreat: 22085
Worked on Hearts of Tabat, story “District of Brass”
Time spent on SFWA email, discussion boards, other stuff: 30 minutes
10263 steps, 67 flights of stairs
From today, the beginning of a Serendib story, “District of Brass”
In Serendib, there is the District of Brass, and there the traveler can find marvelous machines, made not just of that metal, but many of the lesser metals, like iron and aluminum and the first degree of steel. The tinkerers of the District of Brass can make any machine, but always after their fashion, which is cogs and gears and wheels within wheels, not the crystals and lights of other lands.
Once there was a tinkerer there, who had not come from elsewhere, but was native to the city, which meant that anything could happen with her. Her name was Pye and she was a clever girl, who loved to puzzle things out, and by the time she was six, she had created mechanisms that performed not only all her own chores, but those of her slower siblings. She was an innovator, and many disliked her intensely for her habit of looking at a design and saying, in the most reasonable of tones, “Yes, that’s clever enough, but what if you did it this way?” before pointing out any number of improvements.
This dislike was exacerbated by her main failing, which was that she was incapable of puzzling out people as expertly as she did machines ““ in fact, people were mysteries to her, always saying one thing and then acting another way. There were rules to existence, and they seemed to change so often, or at least be conditional and dependent to the point where there was no telling what to do at any given moment without standing and thinking for a good ten minutes about it.
While her family was fond enough of her, though most preferred not to spend too much time in her company, since the designs she was improving were so often their own, Pye had no friends, only acquaintances among her age-mates and other school friends, and the nurse who had raised her between the ages of eight and fourteen, and now lived in an elderquarter of a more advanced age, where the medical care was far better.
Pye would have liked to have said that she didn’t care about her lack of friends, but the truth is that she cared in two ways: one, she would have liked to have had friends, and two, she thought it an abnormality in herself not to have accumulated such things already.
...
Today’s wordcount:4006 (teaching day)
Current Hearts of Tabat wordcount: 92212
Total word count for the week: 17073
Total word count for this retreat: 17073
Worked on Hearts of Tabat, story “Days of Sweetness, Days of Want”
Time spent on SFWA email, discussion boards, other stuff: 30 minutes
Other stuff: Taught Character Building class, did some e-mailings
Steps: 6351
From today’s, part of Hearts of Tabat
The Red Moon’s Sugar Tea House had a flimsy and unfinished look to it “” one door had a (0 of tiles half laid around it, ending at a shoulder-high mark where either tiles or energy had given out. The tables were all-of-a-kind but second-hand, marked with stripes and weather stresses, but the chairs were a mismatched conglomeration that could, upon study, be sorted into four groups: a set once marked with a noble signet, all chiseled away; a few basket-woven chairs, looking flimsy but more comfortable than the rest; a set of plain chairs, crude in construction and made of pine planking, and one rocking chair, set in the corner. The floor underfoot was unfinished planking, marked with spills and splotches and a winter’s worth of grime in the grooves between the planking. The narrow windows were half-shuttered, their lower reaches clad in gray slats, while their naked uppers admitted winter’s chill light.
A fat-bellied stove sat cold in the back of the room, while chal steamed in a vast samovar/vat near the till. A skinny boy sat there, reading a penny-wide and paying no attention to the room whatsoever.
Sebastiano paid the boy a couple of copper skiffs and received a ceramic mug. The samovar smelled as though it had not been cleaned in a while, but the chal was hot and surprisingly peppery. Sebastiano chose not to contemplate what the spice might be masking. He found a basket-woven chair with a low table beside it that was cleaner than the rest of them and sank down into it with a sigh. It creaked and murmured under his weight but held.
No one else was in the tea house, which was not a good sign. It had the feeling of a stage set, of something erected more for show than for purpose, and it made his encounter in the flower shop seem all the odder, as though he’d been catapulted into the pages of a penny-wide, something lurid and full of spies and secret words.
He sighed and slouched back a little in the chair, sipping at his mug. Was that the sort of story he had wanted for his life? He would prefer a love story, something simple and not too complicated, ending up happily in a way that promised for a good life, with love and family and friendship and at least moderate wealth.
That was, he thought, not the story he had told himself ten years ago, when he had first come to the College of Mages. That had been a younger man’s story, one of devoting himself to his craft, discovering things that no one had ever learned before, adding to the store of Human knowledge. That had been a worthy enough ambition but he was no longer sure that was what he wanted.
Surely this was not the normal state. Surely people usually knew what it was that they wanted of life “” everyone at the college of mages seemed to, at least.
Shadows flickered past the door as passersby went down the street. The boy turned a page and kept reading. His lips moved a little as he read, sounding out words.
Sebastiano felt dissatisfied, at odds with himself. Thoughts of the oread still rankled at him. Why had she thought he would do her harm? The thought came to him that she wished him harm, and that was why she had feared it from him, but he discarded it. Oreads were simple creatures, and no danger to Humans.
...
Words achieved today: 3045 (letting myself get away with less because it’s a teaching day, but maybe I’ll get in a few more tonight)
Current Hearts of Tabat wordcount: 87687
Total word count for the week: 13067
Total word count for this retreat: 13067
Worked on Hearts of Tabat, Exiles of Tabat, short story (“You Remind Me of Summer”)
Time spent on SFWA email, discussion boards, other stuff: 30 minutes, plus whatever I do tonight
Other stuff: Taught the first section of “Writing Your Way Into Your Novel”, prepped for Sunday’s class
Steps: 6410
From Hearts of Tabat:
Adelina paused by Serafina’s desk. She studied the secretary, who looked up. She wore her usual plainly cut clothes, one of the signs of a worshipper of the Moon Temples. That was, as far as Adelina could, Serafina’s only similarity with Eloquence, but most of what Adelina had ever known of the temples previously had been via the instruction or example of her secretary.
She asked now, “Serafina, how does the Temple handle marriages?”
“The priests arrange them, when people are ready,” Serafina said.
“How does the priest know when they are ready?”
“They come and ask the priest to find them someone, and they prove in conversation that they are ready to be with someone in that way, and to begin to raise a family.”
“Is that the point of the alliance, the family?” Adelina said, intrigued. “Are there Triad marriages, as there are among the merchants?”
She felt foolish as Serafina eyed her. I am treating her as though she were some sort of menagerie creature, she thought, and that is unkind. Shame twitched at her even harder when Serafina patiently said, “No, our marriages are not about economic alliances in the way that merchant marriages are. Such alliances would be reckoned a little sinful because they are apart from the norm, truth be told.”
“What is their purpose then?”
“To create children, who will spread the faith.”
“Should the faith not spread it, if it is good enough?” Adelina asked, fascinated, and realized her misstep when she saw Serafina’s frown. “I beg your pardon,” she said quickly. “It is only that”¦”
“It is only that the Moon Temples are not much regarded among the merchants and the nobles because it is a religion of the poor,” Serafina said frankly. “To speak of things that are not reckoned in profit or loss is thought a little shameful among the merchants, and the nobles do not like talk of doing good for its own sake.”
That startled a laugh out of Adelina, who had never heard her clerk be so cynical. “What has flushed all this truth from you, then?”
“You should not pay attention to Eloquence Seaborn,” Serafina said severely. “It is not a match the Temples would approve of, and he is a fine young man, with a good future in them ahead of him.”
“Is he to become a priest?”
Serafina shook her head, then nodded. “A layman’s priest, someone who does not live in the Temples and do as the Priests do, but lives among other people and acts as a go between and an example. That is a special role, and it is the one that has been prepared for Eloquence.”
It occurred to Adelina that the Temples were a relatively small gathering and so Serafina had known Eloquence and his family all her life. She said, “I am thinking of taking an apprentice, one of Eloquence’s sisters.”
“That,” Serafina said slowly, “could be a good or bad notion, depending on which you mean to do so with.”
“The youngest one. Perseverance.”
“Ah.” Serafina’s frown cleared a little. “She gets picked on by the rest of them, I think. To be out from under all of that would be a good thing for her, let her shine a little and come into her own. But I thought she was apprenticed to the tanner?”
“She is, but she says she hates it. I found her crying over it.”
Serafina pursed her lips. “It is not for the child to determine her own apprenticeship. That is for her elders to do, with the Temples’ advice, in order to place her where she will be best prepared for life.”
“But at the time she was apprenticed to the tanner, this opportunity was not available to her for the Temples or her elders to know about,” Adelina pointed out.
“That is true.” Serafina wavered. “You should consult her brother,” she said finally.
“I will,” Adelina said. She did not mention her earlier conversation with Perseverance or the fact that she had already promised the girl an apprenticeship. There was no need for Serafina to know the exact timeline.
...
To keep myself honest, I’ll be posting word count and WIP excerpts.
So, yesterday:
Word count – 5k
Hearts of Tabat current word count – 82184
SFWA time – hour and a half on call plus e-mail plus skim thru discussion boards
From Hearts of Tabat, an early chapter, still in rough draft form.
This is what a riot looked like. Pink velvet darkened to plum by spilled punch, and flickers of angry firelight glistening on the sticky surface. Two shattered windows, broken glass spiderwbs in reverse, light from the aetheric lamps hanging over the street outside washing in, acitinic blue white over the parquet floor that had been Benarda’s pride, two hundred and thirty different kinds of wood, each dedicated to a different Trade God, zebra-striped bits of southern wood like dappled petals around her boots, as though she trod on clots of dirt-streaked snow, chips of mammoth ivory salting the petals in tiny white freckles.
A punch bowl, shattered by the first brick that had come in, landing soundly in the middle beside the overturned table, sending punch and bits of curved luster-glass everywhere, a great puddle of liquid changing the colors of the woods beneath them, tinting them dark and rose.
Two paintings askew on the walls, others lying on the floor in a jumble that drew the eye as much as their subject matter, impious and arresting, the torches that had set the rioters outside afire. Someone must have known what the paintings would be like, must have tipped people off, organized the crowd.
There. Marta’s eyes, glittering hate at Adelina across the room. Gods, even now the woman would rather hold her grudge against Bella rather than worry about keeping herself alive.
This is what a riot sounded like: angry shouts coming in through the windows, drowning out the frightened whispers all around Adelina (“Was that Bella Kanto who just went out? Of course I knew she’d be here.) Benarda somewhere behind the scenes, ordering someone else to do something, it was unclear what. The woman’s best chances of keeping her gallery further intact had just walked out the door in order to stand down the crowd, which had grown from the few dozen that had been here when she and Bella had first arrived, immediately after the now-absent Duke’s speech
This is what a riot smelled like: smoke and sweat and alcohol and all the mingled pomades and perfumes ““ who was still wearing vetiver, that went out last season? And what was that intriguing cinnamon and musk blend, was that an actual edge of rum in it or some remnant of the punch?
That was what a riot felt like: Leona’s small fingers in Adelina’s own, Bella’s tiny cousin and the center of all this clamor breathing hard, the gasps and gulps of air she took in when stressed.
Adelina’s own pulse beat fists against the hollow of her throat, pressed tight fingers behind her brows every time the streetlight struck her eyes, hammered at the pit of her belly, unnerving her.
...
“Arriving in Tabat: A Visitor’s Guide,” being Pamphlet #12 of the second series of A Visitor’s Guide to Tabat, Spinner Press, author unknown.
No traveler notices the same thing about the city of Tabat when they first see it. For one, it may be the sparkle of sunlight on the harbor and the way the great ship’s shadows glide beside them in the water. For another it may be the lines of the Great Tram and its companions, the vast iron baskets that, suspended from cables, carry passengers up and down the city’s terraces. Or the tiles that adorn most of the roof, a vague gray purple or green in color, made from clay from the marshes to the east of the city.
But how you enter the city will affect your view. You may come by ship, from the Old Continent or the Southern Isles, or even farther aboard, and your first view will be the city’s terraces, sloping down to the harbor’s protected bowl.
If you come from the opposite side, traveling down the Northstretch River and arriving at the river docs, you’ll see the terraces from above, marked with the silver lines of the trams and the green stripe of the Heart Garden cutting across them.
A few come on foot across the marshes on Tabat’s eastern edge, but they are haunted by water-horses and crocodiles, and dangerous for any who do not know the tricks of surviving there.
Of late, experiments with demon-powered dirigibles have provided a new vista to the city, although available only to those who hold the Duke’s favor. Who knows what new sights the city will present from that angle?
But no matter how it looks to you, know that you have come to Tabat, the most wonderful city in the world.
***
Love this world and want to spend longer in it? Check out Hearts of Tabat, the latest Tabat novel! Or get sneak peeks, behind the scenes looks, snippets of work in progres, and more via Cat’s Patreon.
#sfwapro
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Now available at Tasteweet’s Emporium: Seventeen Varieties of Fairy Honey, including the following:
Tastesweet’s Midwinter Amber: Comes with the traditional drowned Fairy preserved in the jar and a scattering of midwinter spices. Five gold galleons per household jar.
Tastesweet’s Invigorating Infusion: Spiced with spectral peppers from the Southern Isles, Frenzy Fairy honey of a most delicious flavor will rekindle affections of the flesh and revivify even the most winter-jaded appetite. One golden galleon per gill.
Tastesweet’s Calming Mixture: Equal parts of high-grade Fairy honey and Dryad sap are infused with soothing herbs, this mixture is identical to the one employed by Physicians for invalids and the habitually nervous. Three silver galleons per gill.
Tastesweet’s Occult Lozenges: Fairy honey mingles with two parts blood of Oracular Pigs (guaranteed not culls) to create a blend famous for enhancing lucky instincts and premonitions. As used at the Fuchsia and Heron, where it is a favorite of poets, musicians, and actors. One golden galleon per household jar.
Tastesweet’s Traditional Syrup: Suitable for the frugal household, this sweetener consists of one part Smallholder Grade Fairy honey to fourteen parts cane syrup and is used by commercial establishments throughout Tabat. Three silver skiffs per household jar.
Included with each purchase free and gratis as a token of gratitude for your patronage! Two noughts, each valid in trade for a Tastesweet’s Secret Recipe Honey Candy!
***
Love this world and want to spend longer in it? Check out Hearts of Tabat, the latest Tabat novel! Or get sneak peeks, behind the scenes looks, snippets of work in progres, and more via Cat’s Patreon.
#sfwapro
...
An Instructive Listing of the Pests of Tabat, being Pamphlet #2 of the fifth series of “A Visitor’s Guide to Tabat,” Spinner Press, author unknown.
The newcomer to Tabat will find the pests they are accustomed to: fleas, lice, and rats are no strangers to the city. But several creatures indigenous to the area may cause the unwary traveler distress.
In late summer nights, the gold and orange wings of phoenix moths will be visible in their mating swarms. Despite the beauty of the phenomenon, the creatures are destroyed whenever possible, for the flames created when they deposit their eggs and immolate themselves in order to harden the casings can lead to larger fires.
Marsh flies are prevalent on the city’s eastern side when the wind is from that quarter. The fierce bites of these insects have been known to drive even the most placid creature to the brink of madness. Citronella and other scented candles and lamp oils are the most popular remedy for these creatures, along with bed netting in the summer months.
Parasitic Fairies have, for the most part, been eradicated, but clusters of the minute Fairies known as slavemakers still exist in the farmlands. While they rarely if ever make their way into the city, those traveling in the areas directly around Tabat should be aware of the danger they pose.
Mandrakes are neither animal nor Beast, but rather a plantlike intelligence found only on this continent and capable of ambulation in their early stages. Mandrakes kill larger mammals, using the corpse as a plant in which to root themselves and propagate and are, like parasitic Fairies, only a danger to those venturing outside the main city.
Due to Tabat’s damp weather, a myriad of molds thrive in untended corners. Scarlet mold, toxic to animal and human, may appear and is invariably accompanied by black mold worms, whose bite produces severe hallucinations.
***
Love the world of Tabat and want to spend longer in it? Check out Hearts of Tabat, the latest Tabat novel! Or get sneak peeks, behind the scenes looks, snippets of work in progres, and more via Cat’s Patreon.
#sfwapro
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The book will be available at Emerald City Comicon — find me there at one of my panels, or stop by the Wordfire Press table, which is where I’ll be hanging out when not stalking John Barrowman.
Those panels will be:
Friday, March 27: Fueling Creativity: Sci-Fi and Fantasy Authors on Ideas
Room: Hall B (WSCC 602-603)
Time: 3:30PM – 4:20PM
Moderator: David Hulton
Guest(s): Cat Rambo, Greg Bear, Ramez Naam, Jason M. Hough, Myke Cole
Authors often dread the interview question “where did you get the idea for this book?” because the answer is never simple. There’s rarely a single moment where an entire plot or world comes to mind. This panel is an exploration of why that’s such a difficult question to answer. Our panel of novelists will discuss the many ways they find inspiration for their work. In addition, they’ll talk about the wonderful and often strange ways an idea will find its way into a novel.
Sunday, March 29: Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations
Room: Hall B (WSCC 602-603)
Time: 10:30AM – 11:20AM
Moderator: Anna Alexander
Guest(s): Cat Rambo, Garth Reasby
Diversity in entertainment is both vital and challenging. This panel of novelists will cover how to effectively write compelling characters who are different than you and how to deal with critics of who you are versus your work. Panelists include Anna Alexander, Jamie Ford, Cat Rambo, Aaron Duran, J.R. Terrel, Garth Reasby, and Sarah Remy.
I’ll also be appearing at ICFA March 18-22, and will be leading an informational meeting about SFWA there.
Plenty of stuff is lined up for the blog over the next two months, including:
I will not be teaching or taking on any new editing projects in March; I will be mailing out soon about April and May classes.
#sfwapro
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BEASTS OF TABAT is coming out on March 27, 2015, at Emerald City ComicCon, which is very exciting, but also blindingly fast. If you want to get news about the book and other projects, please sign up for my mailing list:
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Meanwhile, I’m working away on two book projects, one a YA novel, the other Book 2 of the Tabat Quartet, HEARTS OF TABAT. It picks up halfway through BEASTS OF TABAT and involves three of the secondary characters. Book 3, EXILES OF TABAT, will take up the characters from BEASTS OF TABAT again at the point where BEASTS leaves off. Book 4, GODS OF TABAT, is plotted but I’m still figuring out the viewpoint stuff.
...
As some of you know, I have a novel that is the first volume of a fantasy quartet that I’ve been shopping around for a while. It’s a great pleasure to be able to announce that BEASTS OF TABAT will appear this year from Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta’s stellar Wordfire Press. Now that I have some confidence that the books will appear, I’m finding that words on the second book, HEARTS OF TABAT, are flowing much much MUCH more easily, and that’s been my primary focus this week.
But! I have additional great news, which is that Hydra House will be publishing a second two-sided collection from me, this time full of fantasy stories. NEITHER HERE NOR THERE will also be appearing in 2015, which makes this a great year so far and we’re only halfway through month one.
Because I am insane and always taking on too many things, here’s a new one I’m involved with, a Seattle area event calendar/blog for speculative fiction, Supernatural Seattle. If you’re interested in helping out with that project, drop me a line.
I’ve also updated my About page with the appearances that I know of so far in 2015. I think I will be in Oklahoma in early May, but am still nailing that appearance down. In any case, it looks like it will be a fun year, and one thing that I’m particularly looking forward to are the Nebula Awards, which take place in early June in Chicago.
Reminder: this weekend I’ve got an online class coming up, Editing 101, that focuses on revision and rewriting. Sign up and learn how to make your sentences sing. If you can’t make it but want to make sure you get news of upcoming classes, sign up for my mailing list.
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Want access to a lively community of writers and readers, free writing classes, co-working sessions, special speakers, weekly writing games, random pictures and MORE for as little as $2? Check out Cat’s Patreon campaign.
"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
(science fiction, flash story) We have seen you come before. We have always resisted. We will always resist. The first aliens came as conquerors, ready to crush us, ready to destroy us. We went to ground, we hid. We fought. We picked away at them, bit by bit.
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