Category: Writercraft

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NaNoWriMo 2017 prep – Day 9

I took yesterday off for various reasons, but back at it this evening!

  

Organization notes

  • Project: Hope is an overarching organization that many of the nahauli are involved in. It is a social justice and environmentalist organization with chapters across the country and around the world. While not all of its members are nahauli, many of them are and some others—though by no means all—know about the nahuali and sometimes work with them. Becca was a part of a small Project: Hope chapter in high school, but she fell out of working with the organization until she moved to New York.
  • New York is a unique location for organized supernatural activity. There are several known Order covens in the city and dozens of solitary practitioners; the Concordat in the city is not strong, but does claim several well-connected mages among its numbers. The vampires of the city are incredibly well-organized, with the city’s Primarch enjoying a great deal of power over the Brethren there, though not absolute power (some minor players, such as Cassidy Beckett, toe the line but remain inside the rules—for now—and have quietly begun to garner their own power in the city). The nahuali enclave in Central Park is much smaller than it used to be, with sister enclaves on Staten Island and on Long Island, but remains influential. The Hunters are still numerous in the city and have regained their previous footing in the years since the ascendance of the new General of New York. And then, of course, there’s UNSETIC—Brigid has been the regional lead in the city for roughly two years and has started to really settle into the role, supported by an increasingly close-knit team, some of whom worked with her while she was interim Midwest lead.
  • There are a few locations in the city that are generally considered neutral ground for the supernatural elements of the city. One is Ariel’s Grotto in Hell’s Kitchen, another is St. Malachy’s parish, and a third is the Meeting Place, Brigid’s bar in Spanish Harlem and the headquarters for UNSETIC in New York City.
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NaNoWriMo 2017 prep – Day 7

Today, a brief history on Becca Reid.

Becca Reid backstory/notes

Rebecca Ariel Reid (RA Reid professionally, Becca to her friends) was born 12 January, 1984, in northern Michigan, the daughter of Michael Reid, a storied and heroic elder of the Midwestern enclaves of nahuali, and his human Amelia Patterson, a teacher and environmental activist. Reid disappeared in 2000 and is presumed dead. Amelia died in 2004, reportedly from cancer, though there are some that have long suspected some kind of foul play involved in her death at a relatively young age. Becca was doing her undergraduate work at a public university in Michigan at the time. During her time as an undergraduate, Becca formed a friendship with fellow anthropology student Cassidy Beckett, someone who would remain her lifelong friend despite future events that would threaten to destroy their friendship. She graduated with her bachelor of arts in 2005 (anthropology) and then went on to study linguistics and liberal studies at the University of California, obtaining a Ph.D. in the latter and a master of arts in the former in May 2010. She moved to New York City in the summer of 2010 and by September had opened up a New Age bookstore in the city, Ariel’s Grotto, with Cassidy as her partner in the business. At the same time, while interviewing for various teaching jobs in the area, Becca got involved with the nahuali enclave in Central Park, then led by the enigmatic Lacey Talbertson, an elder nahuali of feline extraction, unlike many of her lupine allies in the city. It was in New York that Becca reunited with Taylor Ross and Henry Kuhn, friends from Michigan and California respectively, and through them met Ioan Griffon, alpha of one of the enclave’s leading packs. Becca ended up joining that pack, at first assisting as a researcher and later in the field when it became apparent that she wasn’t completely without supernatural gift—and that she was a better shot than anyone else in the pack. Her intervention proved life-saving on more than a few occasions and within six weeks, she was generally—if sometimes grudgingly—an accepted member of the pack. She was also becoming increasingly well-known in New York’s supernatural community through the shop and her involvement with not only the Central Park enclave, but also her close friendship with Cassidy, who had been brought across as a vampire by the almost-notorious Adrias Cross in 2005, shortly after both she and Becca graduated from their undergraduate program.

At the same time, her relationship with Ioan Griffon had begun to transform from one of grudging respect, to admiration, to affection and love. Both had initially tried to deny any attraction, but by Christmas 2010, it was clear to anyone associated with the pair that they were a couple, and one that was growing increasingly serious about each other. Both of them orphans from storied families, each had something to prove through their actions, legacies to live up to, albeit sometimes grudgingly. Ioan was often concerned by Becca’s lack of concern for her own personal safety, which was mirrored in Becca’s worries for him—as a pack alpha, he was typically the first into nasty situations and the last out, often the one taking the brunt of any beatings—or worse—meted out. Both took their responsibilities very seriously—Becca as one of the two healers for the pack and Ioan as its leader. In July 2011, the pair agreed to marry, and on September 1, 2011, they were married in Spiritscrossing, Alberta, Canada, with licensing and paperwork to be filed in both Alberta and in New York City.

Becca was reported missing by Cassidy Beckett on 11 September 2011, when she didn’t come home or contact the store in the five days after she was supposed to return from Canada. Her case was officially ruled a cold case a year later.

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NaNoWriMo 2017 prep – Day 6, upon which there is a change of plans…

So after talking to folks on Thursday night and stewing over it all night and all day…there’s been a change of plans.  Which is to say, there’s been a change in project for this year.  In writing notes for Universe, I’m not sure there’s enough there for a book.  There’s a lot of background.  There’s a lot of character.  But I’m not sure there’s a ton of coherent plot–at least not necessarily a coherent plot that I feel like exploring in less than a month.

There is, however, a lot of coherent plot for Becca Reid’s story, and it’s about time I get around to actually telling it, since Girl from a Brigadoon (intended to be her story) was originally supposed to be the first UNSETIC book (which clearly didn’t happen).

So…change of plans.  Enjoy the initial note-scribbles.

 

Day 6 – And then a different project rears its fair head

  • Rebecca Ariel Reid has been missing since 2011, disappeared during a trip to Alberta, Canada, with the werewolf pack led by her significant other, Ioan Adam Griffon (Stands-to-the-Last). She was one of the few non-shifters to run with a nahuali pack.
  • Becca was a business partner and longtime friend of Cassidy Beckett. The two opened a store together in Hell’s Kitchen—a New Age bookstore that was also a front for supplying New York’s supernatural community with necessary items.  The shop, Ariel’s Grotto, is also considered neutral ground.
    • Many of the nahuali avoided the place for a time after Becca’s disappearance. Some of them blamed Cassidy for the loss they suffered in Alberta.  Most of Becca’s pack has never resurfaced and an entire community, Spiritscrossing, was lost.
  • Becca is discovered unconscious in Spiritscrossing (a ‘brigadoon’ in UNSETIC and Order parlance) in 2027, by John McCullough, who is vacationing in the area with his niece, Roiya, and Adam “Decker” Ford, Jr., for the Labor Day weekend. He ships the two teenagers home while he calls in Seth Montgomery and an UNSETIC sweep team to determine what, exactly, is going on in the area.
  • Becca and Ioan were married in Canada before he took the rest of the pack on a mission to infiltrate a facility owned by a Bachman-Koch shell company and operated by an individual with ties to the Methuselah.

Ioan’s (and Becca’s) pack

Home base: Central Park, Manhattan, NY
Alpha: Ioan Adam Griffon
Beta: Taylor Ross
Members: Daisha Copeland (Rainsong), Yoshi Farragut, Padraig Graylan, Henry Kuhn, Orion Warner-Mills, Becca Reid

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NaNoWriMo 2017 prep – Day 4

  And then, there were more notes.

Notes for Day 4

  • Elaine and Peter meet through Joslyn and Jason in the game. Elaine is fairly certain that Peter doesn’t think much of her, which isn’t the case at all, but continues to believe this until Jason sets her straight.
  • Peter’s condition flares up again—badly enough to warrant drastic action—after two years of relative quiet, right before the launch of their full-immersion gaming experiment. In a phone conversation with his brother Jason, he tells him to go on with everything as planned as if nothing is wrong.
  • As far as Peter’s concerned, their work on the Universe game is more important than his survival—the game and the technology they’ve developed to supplement it is their legacy for Jason’s someday family and for their niece, Wynter (and any additional children Marissa and Brannon may have).
  • Jason calls Marissa to let her know what’s going on. She’s torn between letting their parents know and keeping quiet about what’s happening. At the outset, she decides not to tell them. She does, however, call their Uncle Ezecaius.
  • Peter’s condition eventually deteriorates to the point where he’s placed in a medically induced coma as the doctors charged with his care work to scrape together what’s needed to treat him.
  • With the help of their uncle and Brannon, Marissa and Jason manage to get Peter into full immersion in the game during this period of time so he doesn’t suffer cognitive deterioration, a possibility that concerns some of his doctors—and his family.
  • They face some challenges before they’re allowed to do it, including arranging for Peter to be transferred to a private facility and a change to some of his medical team.
  • Peter’s family faces challenges from various quarters regarding the game itself—and the VR technology they’ve developed, as well as the predictive AI that Peter and Brannon programmed together.
  • The family faces some pressure to use the technology to help law enforcement and the Department of Defense in ways that they find morally questionable.
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UNSETIC Files: Lost and Found – Chapter 2 (original draft)

 When AJ McConaway picked up the phone on a February afternoon, she had no idea what she was in for. 

Two

Uncle Chris was climbing out of his SVU as I pulled up and into the circle drive in front of the house. He took one look at my face and came over to the driver’s side of my Jeep, his eyes narrowing.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’ll tell you inside. I have to pack.”

His brows lifted as I climbed out of my car and headed for the front door. He was wearing dress shoes. There must have been a board meeting or something today that I’d forgotten or that he hadn’t mentioned. “Pack?” my uncle echoed. “Where are you going now?”

“Virginia,” I said as we walked into the foyer. “I got a phone call today and I’ve got to get there tonight.”

“I can arrange—”

“I’m driving,” I said. “It’s going to take that long to get my head on straight.” I turned toward him, throat tightening around a lump. “Tim’s alive.”

“We knew that,” Chris said. “We knew that eighteen months ago after you and Kate came back.”

“He’s in Virginia, Uncle Chris. Brigid O’Connell called me and Tim was with her. He’s alive and he’s here, he’s back. I have to find out what’s going on.”

“He’s…” His voice trailed away and he stared blankly at a spot on the floor that was illuminated by the weak winter sunshine. “I’ll call Cath. She’s got to know something.”

Kathleen Catherine McCullough—still Cath Kingston to most of the men and women she’d served with before she became an ambassador’s wife—might have known something, but I doubted it. Something told me that if one of the founding forces behind UNSETIC had known something about my brother suddenly reappearing on Earth, my uncle would have been the first person she called. Clearly she hadn’t, which made me suspect that this news would be as much of a surprise to her as it had been to us.

“I don’t know what good that’s going to do, Uncle Chris.” I headed for the stairs. “I have to pack. Do you want to come with me?” Truth be told, I could have used company on the drive.

“Does Kate know?”

“Yeah.” I stopped on the stairs and turned back to look at him. “She can’t come with me, though. Stray bullet caught her in the arm so she’s getting that checked out before she comes. I can’t wait that long. I’m going tonight—leaving as soon as I can pack. Do you want to come or not?”

“I can’t. Meetings, things I can’t—they’d ask too many questions and I can’t—” His lips thinned and he blew out a frustrated breath. “I wish I could. I want to.”

“Maybe it’s better if you don’t,” I said softly. “If this turns out to be some awful, elaborate trick, only one of us is going to end up disappointed.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” He mounted the stairs and enfolded me in a hug so tight I thought he might crush the life out of me. For all of his wiry, slender build, my uncle was one of the strongest men I’d ever met. Even in middle age, he maintained the same level of fitness he’d cultivated during his days in the Navy.

“You be careful,” he murmured into my hair. “Call me the minute you get there and then call me after you’ve seen him. If Cath knows anything, I’ll let you know.”

“Okay,” I whispered, hugging him tight. “I have to pack if I’m going to make it to the Tristate before traffic gets any worse.”

“I’ll make you some coffee for the road.” He kissed my temple and released me, turning away quickly. He wasn’t quite fast enough to hide the tears that had gathered in his eyes.

I swallowed past the huge lump in my throat and ran up the stairs to my room before the waterworks really got started.

Once I made it to my room, I threw some clothes and toiletries into an overnight bag. I added my tablet to the mix and a spare clip for the lightweight semi-automatic that had lived in my desk drawer here at home since I’d joined the Portal Corps. I wrapped the gun in its holster and tucked that into the bag—just in case.

This could be a trap. I don’t think it’s a trap, but it’d be stupid of me to assume that it’s not.

Cabalists died like everyone else as long as the shot was good and they weren’t wearing too much body armor. I’d learned that over the past few years—we all had. Even if they hadn’t known where he was the last time Kate and I had one of them at our mercy, that didn’t mean they weren’t playing some kind of long game. The Cabal wanted us both but for different reasons—me because of the gifts I shared with my brother, her because she was important to him.

I stared at the bag for a few long moments, scrubbing away the few stray tears that had escaped despite my determination not to cry. I reached to zip it up, then stopped, turning abruptly and heading down the hall.

Tim’s room—the room he’d grown up in, the room he’d continued to use during his infrequent visits home after he’d joined the Air Force—was next to mine, the corner bedroom on the north side of the house. I eased open the door and slipped into the shadowed room—we’d kept the blinds mostly drawn in here for years, since he and Mat had gone missing—and snapped on the light. I rummaged in his drawers, untouched for two years, digging out an old high school swimming and diving tee, a pair of jeans I hoped might fit, a Northwestern hoodie, and four pairs of his favorite brand of athletic socks from a package that he’d tucked into the drawer but never opened. I leaned against his dresser and looked around the room, at the neatly made bed, the half-completed model of the original Starship Enterprise on his desk, still waiting patiently for his eventual return to finish it. My throat tightened again and I clutched the bundle of his clothes against my chest.

Too long, was all I could think. It’s been too long. Why hadn’t he come home?

Sucking in a breath, I spun on my heel and ducked back out into the hall, yanking Tim’s bedroom door behind me. Once I got back to my room, I shoved the bundle of clothes into my bag and zipped it up.

Time to go.

I left the bag near the front door and headed for the kitchen to say good-bye to my uncle. He was leaning against the counter, staring at the coffee pot like it was somehow about to give up a bunch of state secrets if he looked at it long and hard enough.

“I’m ready to go,” I said, wincing as he jumped at the sound of my voice.

My uncle scrambled to get a travel mug out for me. “Are you sure you won’t let me send you on the corporate charter?”

“I’m sure.” I came over to the counter and stood next to him, watching him. He seemed like he’d aged a decade in fifteen minutes. “The board would want to know why and we’d have to tell them. We need to keep this quiet until we know for sure. I don’t want to legally be the sole heir to the company yet.”

He managed to laugh, shaking his head as he set a huge travel mug on the countertop next to the coffeemaker. “You’re already the de facto sole heir.”

“Not if he’s back.” I kissed Chris’s cheek. “If he’s back, that changes everything.” It means we’re one step closer to normal. “I’ll be careful.”

“Good.” He filled the mug and screwed the lid on tight before he handed it to me. “Drive safe and call me when you get there. Hell. Call me when you stop for gas.”

“Even if it’s two in the morning?”

My uncle grinned. “Even if it’s two in the morning. Call.”

“Okay.” I hugged him again and headed for the front door. He drifted after me, watching as I threw my overnight bag over my shoulder and retrieved my keys and messenger bag. “I’ll see you,” I said.

He nodded.  “If it’s him, AJ…”

“I’ll tell him,” I said softly. “I’ll tell him whatever needs to be said and more.”

I hugged him again and ran out the door.

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DNRS 2015 – February 18, 2015 – The odyssey of getting to Phoenix in one piece

For the third year in a row, I’ve headed out to Arizona State University for the Desert Nights, Rising Stars conference. This is the only writing-focused conference I regularly attend (though I do have intentions of attending more in the future). It’s always an adventure and a lot of fun–and a good excuse to be out of the office and out of state in the middle of February.

February 18, 2015 – Wednesday, departure day, T-1 day to the opening of DNRS 2015

It’s not like my day started out inauspiciously. I got up at 5 to grab a shower before heading out to Detroit Metro (my father drove). I watched a little bit of WXYZ’s morning news with my mother before we headed out. Dad and I listened to NPR on the way to the airport, like we usually do in the morning. Lots of ISIS/ISIL in the news (as usual). I chattered about how the only thing I was really worried about was making sure that my luggage made it from Plane A to Plane B, since this is the first time I’ve flown and had to change planes–most of my flights in the past have been direct, or have been instances where I’ve never had to get off the plane.

My flight of out Metro was scheduled to leave at 8:10 AM eastern, and I made it to Metro by 6:45–plenty of time to check my suitcase and make it through security. I was worried about the latter–the lines looked pretty long when I walked in and headed to check my bag, so I asked a Delta staff member if the screening checkpoints downstairs in McNamara terminal were open (they were, but only for TSA pre-screened passengers, which I’m not).

This having been said, guess who was directed to go through the TSA pre-screened line anyway? This chick. It’s kind of nice not to have to drag everything out of your bags and not have to take off your shoes.

Of course, it was after that when things started to go wrong in my day.

I went hunting for a cup of coffee and instead of the Starbucks I was expecting to see dead center on concourse A, all I ended up finding was a Caribou Coffee–no big deal, just not what I was expecting. I grabbed a froofy drink and headed for my gate, thinking that I’d get there and only have to wait for maybe ten or fifteen minutes before the boarding cattle call started.

Oh how ridiculously wrong I was.

The plane was late getting into Metro for starters, so they were still deplaning the passengers from the last flight when we were supposed to start boarding. Okay, no big deal–I was scheduled to get on a flight at LAX about 45 minutes after our scheduled landing time there, so I figured I was okay. They cleaned our plane, got all 200-some passengers on board, and pulled away from the gate maybe fifteen or twenty minutes later than intended.

Of course, it’s snowing in Detroit and absolutely freezing, so we head off to get sprayed down with de-icing fluid.

Then the captain gets on the intercom and tells us that they have a weird indicator light going on in the cockpit, so we’re going to have to go back to the gate to have maintenance check it out–just to make sure we’re okay to fly.

Long story short, my flight that was supposed to leave Detroit at 8:10 didn’t leave until 10:10.

Needless to say, I missed my connection at LAX. Delta was originally going to re-route me to Seattle and then to Phoenix from there (with me arriving in Phoenix a little before 10PM local time), but after trekking from Terminal 6 to Terminal 5 and finding a Delta ticket agent, I managed to snag a guaranteed direct flight from LAX to Phoenix for 7:45 this evening and I’m on standby for a flight leaving at 3:40 this afternoon.

Cross your fingers for me–I’d like to be in Phoenix this evening rather than late tonight, but we’ll see what happens.

Conference starts tomorrow.

Update: I was able to get a seat on the 3:40 flight and have safely made it to my hotel. On the shuttle ride from Skyharbor, I met another conference attendee, one who’s come from farther than I did! Louis flew in from Hong Kong for the conference; it’s his first time. Fingers crossed that he enjoys his time here as much as I have for the past few years.

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Prompt for December 31, 2014 – Day 365

I hope you’ve enjoyed this year’s series of writing prompts.  I leave you today with one last photo prompt, one I took on Christmas Eve this year of my sister-in-law and my niece, who will turn 1 just shy of two weeks from now.

Prompt Type: Image prompt

Prompt:

Photo by Erin M. Klitzke
Photo by Erin M. Klitzke

Thank you for staying with me through the year.  Feel free to leave a comment or email me at emklitzke (at) gmail (dot) com.