The Blue Candle Society

There was another crack at the door, then a rumble of thunder overhead that drowned out the sound of the next blow as the door burst open, falling half-off the hinges and letting in a waft of cool air. The thing that came through the narrow doorway pushed the remains of the door aside as it squeezed between the edges of the frame. It came forward on two stumpy legs, casting before it with a single trunk-like limb. Its wet flesh was gray and spongy-looking, but it had sharp, jagged protrusions at the end of the arm. It had two horrible eyes above a lipless slash of a mouth.

“Israel, dammit,” JT said. She brought her own shotgun up as Israel finally shook off his torpor and bent to pick up his own.

The Old One’s mouth opened, and JT brought the Winchester to her shoulder. Then something happened, and she found herself staggering to one side as the whole room seemed to tilt and a blinding spike of pain stabbed into her brain. She lurched sideways drunkenly, mouth open in a scream she couldn’t hear. Continue reading ‘Serial Saturday: Road Trip, Part 19’

Posted in Serials

I hear, now and again, that “heavy punctuation” is old-fashioned, and that the trend these days is toward “light punctuation” that flits along, unencumbered by the commas that would otherwise create drag and slow down the reading experience.  This makes me feel like a bit of a fuddy-duddy at times, as I rather favor heavy punctuation.  Now, I’m tempted to just point out that light punctuation is apparently favored by lawyers, and leave it at that so I can return to my nap.

The author, contemplating puncuation on his porch

But then I think of the fact that my writing tends to be a bit light on stodgy old semicolons, and heavier on the trendier em-dash (so I’d be more likely to write JT noticed that Clarance’s head was sitting on the ground next to him–it could have been an accident, but she didn’t think so than JT noticed that Clarance’s head was sitting on the ground next to him; it could have been an accident, but she didn’t think so).  So maybe it isn’t an all or nothing thing (actually, I might just break those into two sentences each anyway).

Personally, I just want to have the flexibility to make the prose flow however I like it, and I don’t want to limit myself with a bunch of random rules, which is sort of the point of this post an Language Log, I think.  Obviously, Cormac McCarthy is well-known for hardly using commas at all (or any punctuation with a curve to it, for that matter), but if I were to write a sentence with “Cormac McCarthy”, “punctuation”, and “excellent writing” in it, I think you’d be more likely to see “in spite of” in there than “because of”–I’m forever having to pause and figure out who the hell just said what when I read his books.  I feel as though “heavy punctuation” often just makes more sense, in fiction anyway, because the author is trying to point out how a given sentence is supposed to flow; indicating nuance in dialogue and so on.  Oh well, perhaps Cormac McCarthy will present his opinions in the comments.

Posted in General writing things, Grammar Gripery

First, my desk, now my chair.

The good news is that her weight loss regimen has gotten her sprightly enough that she will now come all the way upstairs to torment me.

Posted in Uncategorized

The smell was worse inside the cabin, a thick, nostril-clogging miasma made worse by the stifling heat. JT glanced around. Most of the area of the cabin seemed to be taken up by the large room they were in, a sitting area she guessed, although it had hardly any furniture. There were other things in the room, though, in the dim corners or under a large rough-hewn table. They were things that tried to draw her eye, things she thought might have something to do with the smell, strange assemblages of what looked like dried meat and bone at a glance. Continue reading ‘Serial Saturday: Road Trip, Part 18’

Posted in Serials

I sort of think the author of this piece in the Guardian misses the point in a few places, particularly in regards to the “James Franco character” in 127 Hours (psst!  Joe!  That was a real guy who tragically did not have a handy cell phone – it really happened and everything).  But it is a real, and annoying, issue for the likes of me.  The cell phone, in particular, causes me no end of trouble when I want to have a character just be off and out of contact somewhere for a while, or unable to summon help, and it is hard to do plausibly.  Mind you, I often don’t have my cell phone on me and when I do it is dead half the time.  But I’m just not believable as a fictional character.  Just last night, in fact, I was driving along and happened upon someone who’d just hit a deer with his car.  Neither of us had a cell phone with which to call the police, or the deer police, or whomever one is supposed to call under those circumstances, but try to get that past a beta reader.

Posted in General writing things

Two interesting articles that have me doing searches on my manuscripts:

Novel Jargon

Authorial throat-clearing

But of course, without things like this, how will people know they’re reading a novel?

Posted in General writing things

“Israel,” JT said. There was another rumble of thunder, closer now, and the trees shook with a gust of wind. Some of the breeze reached them through the timber, and it was cool in a way that presaged an impressive turn in the weather coming.

“Not right,” Israel murmured, starting toward the cabin.

“Dammit, Israel,” JT said. “What the fuck is going on?”

Israel turned, a faraway look in his eye, then gestured toward the tin-roofed shack. “The sugar shack was here, back when we…”

JT looked at the shack. It was maybe thirty feet on a side, gray boards with a few gaps. There was a window on the side facing them, with a single shard of glass still clinging to it. The thing hanging from a tree next to it moved again with a clink.

“Back when you what, Israel?”

Israel’s head was cocked to one side in that way he had that was already familiar to JT, and he was staring off into space. Continue reading ‘Serial Saturday: Road Trip, Part 17’

Posted in Serials

So why bother?

After the jump, the terrible consequences of trying to move her Continue reading ‘This Is What Happens When I Clean off My Desk’

Posted in Uncategorized

For anyone reading this blog who has been waiting to run out and buy (or continuing to sit at their computer and buy) a copy of Arcane magazine until they could just see a small taste to make sure it is worth your money, here you go.  There are also excerpts from other authors, so go take a look.

Posted in General writing things

JT shifted in the motel room’s uncomfortable chair, making the shotgun in her lap rattle against the arms of the thing. The TV was on with the volume muted so Israel could take his turn at sleeping, and she was trying half-heartedly to decipher the closed-captioning on Road House, which for some reason was playing at four AM. Whoever had transcribed the dialogue seemed to have been drunk, or at least twitchy, not that it mattered much. In the chair, she could feel every bruise that she’d acquired in the fight the previous evening, but she was afraid that if she moved to her bed she might fall asleep. At least her hair was finally dry. She and Israel had each used up a lot of time taking long showers earlier, and when she’d gotten up to take over the watch, JT had taken another. She hadn’t gotten much sleep anyway–Israel had kept her awake for a while muttering at Lucien, demanding to know why he hadn’t warned them about what had been in the trunk of the car. It wasn’t the volume of the muttering that had bothered her so much as the idea of falling asleep near someone holding a shotgun and arguing with himself. Even when she had finally drifted off she’d been snapped awake almost immediately by nightmares. Finally, she’d just given up and told Israel to go to sleep. Continue reading ‘Serial Saturday: Road Trip, Part 16’

Posted in Serials