Cage Dunn's Blog, page 67

A Storyteller’s Life

Here is a part-quote from a first reader about the new story (Not On The Cards):

I enjoyed the book. It read like a short story — very fast paced, very focused on plot.  I got caught up in Chiri’s desires. 

Isn’t that what every writer wants to hear? Thank you, M.

Ooh! And I got one on Goodreads: Fast-paced from the start; I was completely enthralled with her fears and journey. 

Thank you to everyone who enjoys the story. I know that won’t be everyone who reads it, but each story has the people who enjoy it, and those who look for something different. I like different. I like stories that are beyond what’s the current flavour, the expected, the norm. I like to be so involved in the story that if anyone disturbs me, I get [ummm, do I really have to admit to this?] cranky.

Story is important. Yes, it’s escapism, it’s entertainment, it’s not real life. But it is something more. It’s a moment when the mind can disengage from the worries and obligations; it’s a place to be someone or somewhere or somewhen different; it’s where the mind can imagine things so much more than what is everyday. It can be a place of safety, of fear, of learning how to cope.

When I was a kid, we used to tell stories. Yes, at night, in the dark, in the middle of ‘a dark and stormy night’ and scare the patooies out of each other. Okay, it was mainly me telling the stories – I couldn’t help it. Shrug. It’s what siblings do. Scare and enlighten, all at the same time. Stories about snakes, about bees, about landslides, about storm surges. About spiders lurking on the toilet seat of the outback, long-drop dunny. About strangers within the people we think we know.

Exciting things, scary things, normal things that have a darker side.

Story. Life is story.

And the next story, The Valki of Three Salt Springs (is that title too long? I may consider a slightly shorter version, so await, await the final draft) is under first review. It won’t be finished this week, or maybe even next week, but in the next few weeks, there will be a new story.

I can’t help it. I know the last one was finished only recently. I sat still for a day (okay, half a day) before I started in on it.

They call me, beg me to get their story out there. They do. I’m not mad. It’s those musae, who come in at the least opportune time and prod and poke and start whispering words of excitement and drama.

Stay tuned for the next story, a slightly darker story, a rural fantasy/horror set in a small town with three salt lakes that hold the monster in her lair.

Did I ever tell you I don’t plan these posts? I don’t. I plan stories; the posts are little dribbles that come out on the day of the schedule for adding to the blog. I’m not going to plan a post and a story. Why? What’s more important? A well-structured post, or a well-structured story?

Enjoy your Sunday!

Not On The Cards – Finally

I’m about to make some noise, so be prepared.

Trumpets blast the audio-waves into your mind, harps twinkle stardust into your eyes — ta-dah! Here it is!

The new story is ready, it’s available, and this is where you find it.

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A simple mistake, to fall in love.

Worse, to bear the child in secret.

Worst of all – her baby is stolen!

A mother will do anything, travel all worlds, through times and planes and dimensions, even beyond hell, for her child.

Chiri’s first concern should be the safety of her daughter, but as the Gate-Keeper responsible for the lives of millions, those who are now in grave peril due to her error, she must choose. What will she choose?

To sacrifice the search for her child in order to save her world, or

Abandon her obligations and continue the search for her daughter?

 

It’s only on Amazon, Kindle Unlimited, so one location only, and for a short time (3 months).

Arcane, Urban Fantasy, Soft Sci-fi (concepts), Melbourne (Australia).

Enjoy!

And if you’re one of my usual first readers and you didn’t get an email, let me know if you’d like a copy (epub without cover only, I’m afraid).

An update: I can’t access my right side-bar at the moment, so the categories and such have – whisper – gone! I’ll chase them up and add them as soon as I find where they hid out!

 

 

Not Today

It was supposed to be published today. Everything is ready. Truly. Even the pics for the covers.

I got all the stuff together, spent (wasted) the equivalent of a whole work day doing the formatting for the paperback version, uploaded and went on to the cover.

It loaded, stopped, error message. Suddenly, the day turned to disaster. Again.

It happens every time. Don’t look at me like that! It does. Every time the story is ready to publish (or published!) there is some type of disaster that … well, you know … turns it to frustration and temper and a total waste of time. This time? Something in the software is refusing to turn my pics into jpegs.

I found that out after about four hours – four hours! – of solid slogging that wasn’t related to writing, or publishing – of working backwards through the errors and issues.

Long story short – for once – Not On The Cards, due to be released today, will await some form of new software that saves my pics as jpegs.

If – and it’s a very big if – you see the pics here from the ones I created, this is what I plan to use as covers. If they display on this site, all may not be lost. If they don’t, the covers may change – because I have a delete, delete, delete crankiness for the stuff that fails me at the last moment.

So, after the little tanty, here’s the pic for the new novel, which was due out today, but will be here sometime over the next week. Do NOT look behind my back at those crossed fingers!

An update (we’ll see what happens, shall we?)

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Wow! Thanks Jim – you saved my bacon (and the above was ‘fixed’ with GIMP).

 

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See, corrupted. Deep breath. Go away and do something else. Come back after a nice refreshing pot of mint and sage tea – with honey, of course. Garden. With a sledgehammer. Get calm. Come back. It will work out.

IT WILL, or ….

 

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Searching for Answers

 

Not On The Cards – Scene 5

For the previous scenes: Scene 1, Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4

Scene 5

“When do we leave?” he asked.

“Are you in a hurry now?” but she reached out her hand, palm upwards. “Let me see if I can sense what happened to the keys first, and if we find them I’ll take you to the congruence. Deal?” It was only a small lie, in the big scheme, but she had to do it.

He put his hand over hers and clasped.

All the air left her body. If he hadn’t grabbed her, Chiri would’ve fallen. Her mouth fell open and her stomach lurched into spasms. She looked down.

A dark chasm spread from their joined energies and spread out and up and down. The five paths of the congruence were what she wanted for this purpose. She focussed her sight to one line, followed a single path as it shone with goo and slime — a warning, but it was the path that would lead her to the upper plane. This path would take her to where she’d be able to see beyond the moment and into the past — or the future. To see many paths at the same time within the movement of all times on the joined planes.

The path led to the art deco building. Or at least the sense and vision of it when it was real in this plane. The shape at the front v-section, nose-first to the congruence, rose into stark relief. She’d never seen the full shape of it before. A gorgon was engraved onto the block-work. A bloody gorgon. Not Medusa; this one had wings on her head, wings with fangs. Chiri couldn’t remember which of the other two it was, but at least it was only one and not all three guarding the Way. It did highlight the risk of the wrong path, the consequences of the wrong choice.

No wonder it was always so difficult to find her way to the access points. A guardian. Why? Against what? Or who?

She shook her head. It wasn’t time to ask these things, to learn of the Way. It wasn’t what she sought.

The keys. Where were the keys? That was the thought she kept repeating as she led them through the time-scape and dimensions of the icosahedron, up into the folds of the world of latticed knots and shapes within the ether. It wasn’t an illusion, it was real, but not on the same plane as the one her feet stood upon in the carpark.

The world around them began to soften, glow in abstracts of pastel shades. Music hummed from below, shimmered in her bones until her body trembled.

She searched the lines of energy for the sense of the thief, the feel of holding things not owned, not belonging.

Nothing. No sense of a thief. No sense of a key.

Where else to look?

Chiri held out her other hand, turned it over to show the cards. One rose from the pack, but didn’t show the face, only the silver void of the back. It rose, slowly wafting upwards as if it drew a shape.

The pattern repeated. It was real. The silhouette of a young woman, a shadow rather than a ghost. A shadow of a different timeline; was it there to speak for the cards? It opened its mouth, but no sound came out. The blurred visage made it impossible to read meaning from the movement of lips and eyes.

Chiri stepped closer as the shape filled with semi-solid colours, swirled, and oozed into other hues and sensations. It reminded her of something, someone. Was it … could it be … Saffo? She took another step, almost slid off the pathway and into the void between.

The vision faded as she heard one wisp of sound. ‘Not.’

If she could’ve stretched closer, if she could just touch her essence, Chiri was sure she’d be able to hear the message. The shape faded, the reality drained until she could see bits of the Camberwell world through the outer layers of the slow triple revolution of the icosahedron. Chiri could see through the insubstantial mists of the woman-shape.

Her head crushed against her chest with the weight of it; Chiri fell to the ground. Was it Saffo? Her eyes followed the dissipation of the sense of it; she tried to see where it led, where the woman went, if it led anywhere, if it left a hint, a clue, any indication of where to go. Anything.

The grip on her hand changed; her skin went cold.

Chiri opened her eyes. Her hand was empty of his. He’d moved away. In the centre of his outstretched palm, red and sweaty, was a shape, black and deep, tattooed in a dark outline against his blotchy dark skin.

It was a curlicue-rounded end, in shapes that matched the mathematical patterns and static representation of the Way. The long handle led to a closed cage of bars, so similar to the geo-fractal portals within the dimensions. The end-bracket was held closed by an animal shape, one with a tail. A possum? The shape as a whole … it looked like … a key.

The key? He had it all the time?

“What is that?” she stepped closer to him, fisted his shirt with her free hand, lifted until a button popped and flew off. A few pings, then silence. She waited for two breaths, then punched him in the chest. Hard.

“What?” he gasped, as she let go. “Why did you do that?”

She put one hand in the pocket of her skirt, to hold the cards, and grabbed his hand, opened it. Glared at the bare skin.

“How did you do that?” she screamed. “Bring it back. What did you do with it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” his head was tilted back and the voice was pitched high.

She looked up at him, but he wasn’t watching her. His sight was focussed on the representation of a doorway. Not one of Chiri’s making. Within the door was the shadow-shape of a possum. It was attached to the arm of a young woman in silhouette, who wasn’t a ghost but wasn’t real. Her glowing blue eyes didn’t seem to see them at all, and her mouth was moving but nothing aural made it into the world of Chiri and the Key-Holder.

“Is she …?” Chiri swallowed. “Is that my daughter?”

“I don’t know. The way is blocked. What blocks it? Why can’t I get past?” He shoved at the gelatinous air in an attempt to get closer. His right hand reached towards the possum — no, its tail, which held the ring of keys. There was no key tattoo in His palm now.

Did Chiri imagine it the first time? Was she mad?

He turned back to her, glared at her hand, at the cards she held firm. Why did she take them out? Did they have an answer for her?

“You need to get rid of them!” he snarled. “Now!”

Chiri stepped back, pulled the cards close to her chest.

“They block the Way. They stop me — us — getting through.” His eyes softened from black to brown. “Give them to me, and I’ll … I’ll deal with them.”

“I can’t,” Chiri took another step backward. “They lead me, advise me, offer comfort in the search for … home.”

“Rubbish,” he stepped closer, still with his hand out. “They block you. Give you false comfort. It is a barrier to passage from this place.” His free arm swung in a wide circle, encompassing the complete structure, of which they stood only upon a tiny section of the whole. There was no sign of the car-park now. They were wholly in the pathways of the perpetually-revolving time-helixes. “Give them to me and release yourself from your reliance on false comfort, from the lies and obfuscation they impart.”

Chiri shook her head. She closed the link to the shape with a snap of her fingers. Opened her senses to the carpark markets, now empty but for a few wandering souls.

He was gone. Not even the smell remained.

She was alone. But she still had the cards.

A single tear burned down her cheek.

Copyright Cage Dunn 2018 – Due for publication March 2018 (touch wood).

 

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Image from Pixabay

Read an E-Book Week

Because it’s Read an Ebook Week 2018

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My Smashwords page – three novels reduced by 50%. One week only.

Who Will Rule Magic – A fantasy allegory. If you have a green bent, or you enjoy the style of Animal Farm, this is for you – and it’s Australian.

Agoness – A young man’s story; a soldier who fights for what we all fight for.

Equine Neophyte – A desert, a dream. A young woman with no attachments seeks freedom.

facebook – Now, I don’t have a FB, but this is the one for RAEB.

Enjoy!

The Soap Box

Remember them? Well, this is the new version. I’m going to do a rant. Why? The Word of the Daily Post is Messy.

It brings to mind all the incredibly senseless rhetoric out there about ‘improving our lives’ while doing nothing about keeping our world clean and sustainable.

We are filthy creatures. We flush our excrement into the oceans and then eat the fish (and other products of the sea) and call it healthy.

We flush our chemicals into the fresh-water rivers and then pump that water to the dams that pipe water into our homes.

We dispose of garbage at a rate that will overflow the planet – or blow it up with the levels of methane it produces – within a foreseeable future.

We dispose of perfectly good food when it doesn’t meet the $ bottom line for production or distribution, or the needs of the market. It makes me sick.

I don’t really care about the words that bring apoplexy to politicians and multi-nationals. I don’t care about the words green-house or climate change or any of the other words used in the fight.

What do you think I care about?

This planet is our home. It’s all we have. Even if we (species, human beings) manage to find a way to get to a new planet, if there is a planet to be found, if, if, if – it won’t be the you and me people, the ordinary people who keep lining the pockets of the uber-rich, getting on those transporters. It won’t, will it?

And that’s why the rant.

The problem doesn’t belong to someone else, somewhere else. It’s on our doorstep, it’s our children and their children who suffer the consequences of this lack of vision and action.

We already have hindsight. Look behind, only a few years or a few hundred, maybe even a couple of thousand. Ask the questions.

After the Romans destroyed [how many?] cultures, how long did it take to recover? Why did we have to go through that? The answer is greed. You know it. Rule the world, be powerful. The Roman empire ended, but their damage is still felt.

After the bomb – you know the one – how long will it take to recover? Why did we go through that? The answer was speed. Destroy the axis of evil so we can go back to work to be great nations (okay, I lied. The answer was greed).

After we run out of oil – it is a finite resource – how long will it take to consider using whales again to ‘top up’? Please don’t think it won’t happen. It will. Why? Because it’s so much quicker and easier than finding a way to do it right. Cheaper, because it’s always a matter of the bottom line. Cheaper and easier than doing the research now to ensure a smooth transition.

I’ve lived an interesting life. Some people might say that was a curse, and in some ways, they’d be right, but … big but … I’ve learned things. To find the best way to do something to save time and money and effort – it takes a lot of work. It does. Trials show ‘it’ will work, but at a cost. Update, amend, alter a piece of the process or procedure. Trial it again. Yes, it’s called something. Scientists do it. All of them.

Do politicians do it? In a sense, but to them the only thing that counts is the numbers, the ratings, the things that get them to the top. Once there, the words become hot air, wind that adds to the problem. Wind with words like money, business, economics, terms of trade. Nothing to do with what the world will be like in two generations. Nothing to do with the real issues, taking the long road to get the right solutions.

We, the people, especially the young of this world, are starting to feel the power. The young ones. They are smart, they are educated, they have communication channels. They have opinions and they want to have a future. Do the current politicians of the world think the young of the world are going to fall for the ‘fake’ words? The other stuff?

Not me. I know these people. I applaud them. One day they will become leaders. Even politicians.

Politicians are the people we (WE) pay to represent our views, to make our world/country accountable. The only way to ensure we don’t get the stooges (another word for puppet – see who stands behind them?) is to get involved, make sure the greed and ease of the bottom line doesn’t contaminate our home, our planet to the point of destruction.

Oh, and you.

Find the best way to do something, even if it takes your whole life. Be a benefit to those whose lives are yet to come.

Be real. Take care of your home. Our home. It’s in your hands.

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image from Pixabay.

The Wednesday Word

Today was the day. It was. It was on the calendar, marked as a definite ending. The new novel to be published this day. It didn’t happen. Now, I could say I had a premonition it would be this way, but it wasn’t anything to do with that. Nor with the injury that’s slowed me down.

The story wasn’t ready. There are truths about writing (chuck wendig, so be warned). You can plan it, you can pursue it, you can do it. But it will never be the same for each one. Either we learn more with each story, or we go on producing [the other stuff].

Not on the Cards isn’t finished. It’s close. But during the Review – Revise process, I’ve found some really good moments to expand on, some very, very, very powerful ‘results’ to aim for, and some changes needed to be made. Why? Because I want a good story, well told. And I’d like to do it and get it finished and move on to the next one.

A good story is fun, it’s exciting, it’s even exhilarating, but there’s more than one story waiting in line (37 at last count, one in completed first draft stage). I don’t have time (time, time, time) to waste.

But that’s not how story happens. Regardless of what I want, how much planning and strategy goes into it, the story has the last say. And the last say in this story has become so much better than the original planning indicated. One of the benefits of planning is the flexibility the writer gets from it. Plan A for Not on the Cards was written out, a beat sheet for each main character, a scene outline for all four parts (the three disasters were a bit soft at this stage, but I always know it’s going to ‘get there’ eventually).

I wrote the first quarter, found a very powerful first disaster (well, I think so anyway). What happened in the first quarter meant a few changes to be made to amend the style and direction of the second quarter. Done. Found a very powerful mid-point (same proviso).

When I got to the end of the final quarter, I looked back at the third quarter. It was a bit weak. It didn’t quite sing.

It’s a common thing for me to go back on the first review and delete huge chunks. I did. 25% delete, delete, delete (after a new revision was created, of course). I rewrote it. Reviewed. Revised. Reviewed. Revised. Reviewed. Revised. Stopped. Thought about it. Struggled to get to the computer, so I thought and thought and pondered and – whammo! – there, that’s it! The very, very, very moment of the end of the third quarter.

Now to rewrite the fourth quarter, but as I’m going, I see a new end. This new end wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t listened to the story. It would have been as planned. It would have been less than it could have been. Less than it now is.

Because if it’s not planned, if the obvious and cliche and standard isn’t dealt with, then that’s all that happens. The story ends up with the obvious and cliche and standard. But having written all those things down, it’s easier to see exactly what they are, how much less than what is required to make this a good story, well told.

It’s important to listen to the needs of the story, and the characters within.

Next scheduled publish date: 14 March 2018 (and then I’ll look at getting the Ghost story completed).

And no, no cover design yet.

 

Sunday

One of those days where I consider options. Choose this, go there, plan that, wing something else. Consult the charts, do a reading, remember a dream.

That’s a good one. Remember a dream. A dream I’ve had all my life, pops up about every six or eight weeks.

I fly over the Murchison River. It’s a beautiful stretch, near the cliffs that hide it, not far inland from the outlet to the ocean.

An astral form floats over the scene. I see as if from that form. So high, but everything so clear. That lizard (and do I wonder why a lizard would be out, that the world appears to be in daylight when I know I’m dreaming? No.) sunning itself on a ledge part-way down. The colours in the striations, how they glow in the diminishing light – or is it in the ascending light? It doesn’t matter. The magic is there, in what I see, how I see it, and what I feel there.

It’s like a safe place. A dream to hide in, to be at peace. Solace. A moment of solace on the dream-trails.

That’s where I’ll be this Sunday.

And that’s all you get because the chair isn’t being friendly, I can’t sit at the desk with my legs in that position, and I’m cranky because I can see how my garden is wilting from lack of care.

Murchison River, from on high. Be there.

Below is the picture, and here is the link: Murchison

 

This photo of Kalbarri National Park is courtesy of TripAdvisor

The 2018 Interview Series Featuring Cage Dunn

Author Don Massenzio

Welcome to the 2018 author interview series. Author interviews will be posted every Friday throughout the year.

I am honored to continue this series with author Cage Dunn.

For those of you that have read my interviews in the past, you’ll find a new set of questions in this series. You can catch up with all of my past author interviews (nearly 200) on my Author Directory page.

If you’re an author interested in being interviewed in this series, I still have limited spots available for 2018. You can email me at don@donmassenzio.com

Now, please enjoy this interview with Cage Dunn:

Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?

Original isn’t the goal. Nor is expectation. There’s a story idea, a germ or seed that wants to grow. It’s my job to find the best position for that seed, to give it the…

View original post 1,184 more words

When the Going Gets Tough …

We give up. No?

But we do. As we should. At the moment, and for the last week, I’ve been reviewing and revising the first draft of Not on the Cards (Title subject to change, but I still like this one), and I did it again. I deleted a great big chunk (in the newly created version of course). Only 25% this time. Usually it’s 50%. Signs of improvement (maybe).

Nice words, nice feel, but not good enough. And I wasted a week doing this and doing that and going back to the plan and pacing it out (tough to do in a wheelchair with minimum sized doorways – and dangerous for the dog!).

It got too much. I gave up. Threw the hands up in the air and rolled the eyes and lamented the journey of a writer. ‘Bloomin’ idiot’ are the words that float around like sparrow-sized mozzies ready for a bit of blood.

This is the state of mind I took to bed last night. Give up, start again, give up, do something new – on and on, around and around, until eventually, the mind relaxes and almost drops into the zed spot.

A few little words popped into my head. Not a picture, not an idea, just a few words. A bit of dialogue.

“You didn’t know, did you?”

Just those few words and I knew how to play it out. I leapt out of bed – whoops, fell out of bed, because I’m not allowed on my feet yet, and my back is braced so it can’t move. So, even though in my head I leapt out of bed, my body lay there, blowing smoke and oil and noise emanating like a blown valve in a motor at full revs.

What to do?

I’ve been disallowed from having a notebook and pen on the bed-stand, but I did slip the nubs – those bits of pencil too short for any useful purpose – into the top drawer, behind the two current reads – but, did I put something in there to write on? No. There are two books, written by someone else. I can’t bring myself to write on published works, which meant I had nothing to write the piece of dialogue on, as a reminder to the brain when fully awake again.

How to remember those words? Rack the brain, wriggle, try to find a method.

Slaps head (only in mind though, can’t wake anyone up). Of course. The mantra, the repetition of things a specific number of times to ensure recall.

Seven times? Three? Twenty-one?

It’s important. Sing it 21 times (now, I can’t sing and am tone-deaf, but in my head, in that safe space, I can sing opera as well as the best: Pavarotti, Nellie Melba, even. No kidding).  21 times in a variety of tones and tunes. Done!

Am I sure it will work? What if it doesn’t? Is there another technique?

Chant, 21 times. Over and over again – was that 21? Do it again, just to be sure. Must remember. Must, must, must remember.

The words were there this morning, as you saw above. There was something else though. As I re-spoke those words, as I wrote them onto my notes and into the mss, only those words, in the background was the picture that played the whole scenario. The body language, the tone of voice, the setting. All there, and from a few tiny little bits of dialogue.

All I have to do now is try to find an hour at a time to get the work Done! So, off I go into the den of rewriting the second half of Act 2. Again.

See you Sunday!

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pic from Pixabay (fantasy-2437944_1920).