KJToo

Today has thrown me for a bit of a loop. I was supposed to be working off-site all week: that has changed. I was supposed to have lunch with my soon-to-be-ex-boss: that didn’t happen. Things that were fine when I left the office in the middle of last week (I took two days off for Con on the Cob) are all sorts of not fine now. Needless to say, I didn’t get any writing done while I was scarfing down the two double cheeseburgers I picked up on the way back to the office from where I thought I’d be working all week.

Now I need to dash off to record this week’s Volcanicast at the PlanetRetcon remote studio, also known as Bob’s house. Speaking of upheaval, Wesley is out this week and possibly the following week and when we record on the 25th it’ll be at the new PlanetRetcon studio, also known as Wesley’s new apartment.

Given the status of things at work, I doubt very much I’ll be writing tomorrow at lunch time unless I find a dark corner and write longhand. There’s another write-in tomorrow at Morley Library, but will Laura kill me if I go out again? She might. She just might.

Gotta get this boat underway again somehow. Trouble is, the thing feels like an oil tanker and I’m standing on the poop deck with a broken paddle.

Posted November 12, 2007 Comments(2)

Hey, wasn’t I writing a novel or something? What happened to that, anyway?

Yeah, I took a few days off to attend Con on the Cob 2007 in lovely Akron, Ohio. I had a lot of fun, got to do some gaming, purchased some dice (nerd!) and a piece of artwork and pre-ordered a fantasy novel. I also interviewed some very interesting people, including legendary fantasy illustrator Larry Elmore.

But I didn’t write. Well, not my novel. I wrote about 1,800 words about a game of The Savage World of Solomon Kane one day and blogged at length about the convention, but unfortunately not a word of it counts toward the 50,000 I need to have written in just over two weeks.

This should be interesting.

Posted November 11, 2007 Comments(3)

I attended the first official Lake County NaNoWriMo Write-In last night at the Morley Library in Painesville, Ohio. There were seven people there, including myself, and everyone seemed to be having a good time and at least making an effort to get some writing done. And there were snacks: pretzels and tortilla chips and those rectangular wafer cookies with the frosting…yum.

Every year, I see at least one person writing their novel longhand with pen and paper, and sure enough two of the people at the write-in were busy writing in their notebooks when I arrived. On one hand, if they’re planning to upload their novel for official verification at the end of the month, this means they’ve essentially got to write it twice: once on paper and then a second time when they transcribe it to electronic format. That’s a lot of work. On the other hand, I’ve never seen a pad of paper run out of battery power after only about an hour of writing, and I doubt very much that anyone has ever spent twenty fruitless minutes (or more) trying to get their spiral-bound notebook to connect to a library’s wifi. The pen and paper may not be the most high-tech of noveling tools, but it’s very reliable and far more portable than even my laptop.

I did manage a meager 442 words before my laptop battery died (and me without a power supply), and would likely have gotten a lot more done had I not written myself into a bit of a sticky spot.

Chief Inspector Timothy Remington, Sergeant Michael Shaughnessey, Bannister Proulx and Emma Caldwell are all at the house on Ridgebury Lane. Emma, whose knowledge of human anatomy far surpasses that of Bannister Proulx, has finished her preliminary examination of the two murdered women. In reporting her findings to the Chief Inspector, Emma makes a fairly obvious observation: if the women were killed elsewhere in the house, the killer must have been strong enough to carry them to the bedroom. Chief Inspector Remington notes that it would be a simple matter for a strong man to do so and an even simpler matter for multiple men, at which point Bannister Proulx states that the murders are the work of a single person, acting alone. Remington, quite naturally, asks Proulx how he could possibly know this, especially since the detective had earlier suggested that the killings were done as ritual sacrifices, and rituals are often performed by groups of people.

That’s all well and good. Bannister is certainly correct: there is only one killer. The problem is that I don’t know how he knows. I’m sure he has some terribly logical explanation based on observations he has made since entering the house, but I don’t know what that explanation is.

So I finished typing the question, closed the quote, pressed Enter twice, opened a new quote…and stopped. I haven’t the faintest clue how Bannister knows what he knows, but I’m pretty sure he does. If he doesn’t…well, I’m not in editing mode, so there are no takebacks right now. Perhaps if I decide he doesn’t, I’ll have him explain his reasoning and then have Remington or Caldwell or, worse, Shaughnessey, point out the flaw in his logic. Wouldn’t that just get his goat?

But Bannister cannot know just because I know. I mean, I’m pretty sure he’s not writing the story…yet.

Posted November 7, 2007 Comments(2)

I wrote about 2,400 words yesterday, which would be fantastic were it not for the fact that the first 1,667 of them were supposed to have been written on Saturday. The allure of Arkham Horror was too much to resist, and so I spent several hours Saturday evening battling nameless horrors from realms beyond mankind’s understanding in a futile attempt to prevent the Ancient One from awakening and destroying Arkham, Massachusetts. Chris, Gus and I played two games. The first, against Shub-Niggurath, was a dismal failure; when the Great Old One awakened, we soon discovered that were were entirely unable to deal it any damage. The second game, against Yig, was much more successful, and I found that Sister Mary the nun kicked far more beastly ass than the gangster I was playing in the first game. Power of the Almighty, indeed.

Enough of that, let’s get to the meat of today’s post: the plot of my novel-in-progress, which involves neither nuns nor gangsters, nor slumbering horrors that will rip your sanity from you like so much plastic film off the top of a microwave dinner when they awaken. Well, not yet, anyway.

Cleveland, Ohio. January of 1938. The city has a new mayor, elected to the office under dubious circumstances, and a killer roams the streets, able to slay young women with apparent impunity. Chief Inspector Timothy Remington enlists the aid of Bannister Proulx, a detective whose consultations have proven quite valuable to the constabulary in the past two years.

Unfortunately for Remington, the new mayor sees Proulx as a threat to the department of police and the city of Cleveland. The mayor demands that Remington turn over and and all police files pertaining to Bannister Proulx and suggests that some very influential people are concerned that Proulx’s involvement with high-profile murder investigations paints the constabulary in a poor light.

On the heels of this news comes another slaying, apparently the work of the elusive killer who has haunted the streets of the city for some four months. But it’s worse than Remington suspects; the killer he has been pursuing since autumn of the previous year is merely an imitator of the true menace, and the gruesome new slaying is more horrific and more puzzling than anything the Chief Inspector has ever seen.

Despite the mayor’s admonitions, Remington again calls upon the aid of Bannister Proulx and his partner, the young, attractive, and exceptionally intelligent Emma Caldwell. Proulx quickly confirms Remington’s darkest fears. The murder of a mother and her grown daughter on Ridgebury Lane is not the work of the same individual who has been terrorizing Cleveland since the previous September.

Proulx determines that this new killer is far more meticulous and exacting than his imitator and reveals a supernatural element at work. The mysterious symbols and diagrams written on the walls of the murder scene are familiar to the detective, who is no stranger to the arcane and the occult. While Proulx attempts to determine the exact nature and intent of the symbols, he encourages Remington to continue his pursuit of the copycat killer in hopes that catching the imitator might gain them valuable insight into the identity of the true menace.

During the course of his investigation, Proulx learns that the grisly murder on Ridgebury Lane is not unique to Cleveland. Similar incidents have occurred in the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and even Pittsburgh. Not only are the murders practically identical, they all took place on the same street in their respective cities: Ridgebury Lane.

While Remington races to find the copycat killer before he strikes again, Proulx and Emma Caldwell travel to New York City, where their investigation leads them to a secret society that has existed for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. This powerful group has influenced the architecture and infrastructure of every major city of the United States and western Europe, ensuring that certain elements—all but invisible to those who don’t what to look for—were included in the cities’ designs. Bannister learns that the presence of these elements, combined with the appropriate arcane knowledge, will allow near instantaneous transportation between any of these cities, and the thoroughfare connecting them all is Ridgebury Lane.

But who is using this arcane secret to commit gruesome murders from Cleveland to London, and why? The key to the mystery lies in finding the elusive copycat killer, but can Remington and Proulx find him before he, too, falls victim to the true terror of Ridgebury Lane?

Posted November 5, 2007 Comments(2)

Though the cast of my novel-in-progress is incomplete (Emma didn’t have a name, a personality or defined relationship with any of the characters but Bannister Proulx until this afternoon), I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the cast so far. The only character who had a name (or even a role) before I began writing is Bannister Proulx, and although he is mentioned by name in the first line I wrote, he does not appear until three or four scenes later. Some of the details about these characters could be considered spoilers.

Bannister Proulx is a detective who is respected for his ability to bring a fresh, if somewhat unusual perspective to cases that have proven troublesome for the Cleveland police. Proulx has only resided in the city for a handful of years, and details about his life prior taking residence at Number Eleven Wilmonton Boulevard are few and far between. I tend to think of Proulx as a hybrid of Sherlock Holmes and Fox Mulder (or perhaps Carl Kolchak); although he uses observation, logic and deductive reasoning to solve crimes, he is no stranger to mysticism, the occult and the supernatural. In addition to being a professional detective, Bannister is an amateur magician; he is particularly fond of so-called parlor tricks and quite adept at sleight-of-hand.

Proulx is the only character whose name I don’t plan on changing at some point. Most, if not all of the remaining characters have placeholder names while I’m writing the first draft.

Chief Inspector Timothy Remington1 is investigating a series of murders when the novel begins. He has enlisted the aid of Bannister Proulx in the hopes of solving the homicides before the killer strikes again. In the two years since Proulx arrived in Cleveland, Remington has employed the detective as a consultant on a number of investigations, each time with very good results.

Sergeant Michael Shaughnessey is a friend and subordinate of Chief Inspector Remington.

Thaddeus von Braunhoffen III is the newly-elected mayor of Cleveland. A man of considerable appetites and questionable allegiences, von Braunhoffer gained the office of the mayor under what many feel were extremely dubious circumstances. The mayor has recently begun pressuring the police to discontinue using Bannister Proulx as a consultant on murder investigations.

Emma Caldwell is Bannister Proulx’s assistant, protégé and partner. Someone (and I’m afraid I don’t recall who at the moment; probably Mick Bradley) requested that the “Scully” to my “Mulder” be a red-headed woman, so that’s how I’m writing her. I haven’t really decided whether she’ll be the skeptic or whether she’ll be as fascinated by all things supernatural as Proulx is. In an interesting development, it does seem that something about Miss Caldwell agitates Chief Inspector Remington, and not in an entirely unpleasant manner.

In addition to the named characters, there are a number of bit players, including Remington’s coachman, two constables who guard the house on Ridgebury Lane and the two murdered women in the house. The cast will be growing considerably in the days to come.

Tomorrow: Plot and background stuff.

1. For the moment, I’m utilizing the British system of police ranks, which may or may not have been used in Cleveland in the mid-nineteenth century. I don’t really plan on changing this; if I discover that it wasn’t common to use the British ranks, I’ll chalk it up to artistic license. It is possible that Remington’s rank may change in future drafts. [back]

Posted November 4, 2007 Comments(7)