Kris Bowser's Blog, page 5

June 9, 2020





“What do you despise? By this are you truly known.”

...





“What do you despise? By this are you truly known.”





When I first read that quotation in Dune twenty years ago, it struck me as something true and profound. It’s been incorporated into my worldview so long and so thoroughly that I don’t always notice the words themselves, even if they’re there at the back of my mind.





It’s one metric by which I judge others and myself, and it’s something that’s been in my head a lot lately not only because I am re-reading Dune and realizing what a formative book it was for me, but also because of everything going on in the world right now.





We live in an age of militant, polarized opinions. Some people share their opinions online; others go out to protest. Either way, this is always the question I ask.

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Published on June 09, 2020 14:55

Knowing Better Isn’t Doing Better

I started posting excerpts of Stars Fall Out when I was halfway through the draft. As a result, I haven’t posted excerpts of a lot of the early action that defines the book, including the main character’s use of a magic vial that allows travel from one place to another via a natural body of water.





If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life, it’s that knowing better isn’t the same as doing better. I like stories with intelligent characters, but I also like characters who fuck everything up and get in their own way.





I don’t think these things are mutually exclusive.





This post is the third excerpt in a sequence that I’ve posted over the last two weeks. Here’s the first and second, which involve stealing the vial and discovering that it’s damn uncomfortable to use.





You’d think I would be smarter this time. That I would bind up a change of clothes so they wouldn’t get wet. That I would pack money and bread. That I would bring a map or compass.





Instead, I was less smart. I packed none of those things, and I barely even concealed myself. “I’ll take it from here,” I had told Tirsan when we came in sight of my home. “You’re tired.”





Then I had waited half-behind a tree, and watched as Tirsan walked away, the limp still present in his step after all these months.





I ran almost to the bridge, then slowed to a stroll so I wouldn’t draw attention to myself. But when I made it to the water, when I filled the vial and chugged it down, I practically dove in.





Water swept me down and crushed me, squeezed my rib cage, until I washed up elsewhere, free of the city, free of all of it.





Infinity, was what I thought when I looked at the beach.










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Published on June 09, 2020 14:11

June 2, 2020

That Awkward Moment When Your Stolen Magic Vial Actually Works

Last week, I posted a short excerpt from Stars Fall Out in which my main character runs like hell after stealing a magic vial from her sister’s professor. All she knows about the vial is that it’s supposed to allow travel from place to place if one uses it to consume water from a natural body. She doesn’t know the finer points of how this works or how to choose the place you go to.





She also doesn’t know that it’s going to be uncomfortable as hell.





Darkness.





Darkness rushed around me, and water burned wrongly in my nose. I flipped, but stayed perfectly still. Or the world flipped, and gravity—





The rushing-water-darkness thrashed me up and away from it. Gravity and ash hit me at the same time.





Ash. I couldn’t see it, but the sensation of it had come to me immediately, plugging my nose. And my forearms were buried in it. My legs floated uselessly behind me, while my arms and upper body were buried in the cold, crumbling remains of a campfire. My fingers crawled around, breaking pieces of old wood as I dragged myself fully onto the shore and collapsed on my belly directly over the pile of coals. Pale hints of light came from somewhere, and my eyes tracked to them automatically.





I blew my nose onto my sleeve, messy and childlike, and wondered, stupidly, if anyone had seen. Still on my belly with my hands and elbows in the burned out fire, I gave myself to the count of twelve, and then rolled onto my back.





This was not my home.










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Published on June 02, 2020 16:11





It’s been two or three years since I last did the Ind...





It’s been two or three years since I last did the Index-Card-a-Day challenge, but since I’ve been meaning to do more watercolor sketching, I decided to try it this year with time limits on how long I spend per card.

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Published on June 02, 2020 15:46

I’m not a car person, so I can only describe what passed ...

I’m not a car person, so I can only describe what passed by me on my walk in my rural New England town as a retro-future, cyberpunk Indy 500 car with strips of neon green lights blinking along its edges.





It was blasting not the synthy industrial action music that is its birthright by genre, but one of the more emotional Goo Goo Dolls songs.

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Published on June 02, 2020 14:28

May 28, 2020

There’s a saying about dressing for the job you want, not...

There’s a saying about dressing for the job you want, not the job you have. It sounds suspiciously like the kind of thing a high-end suit manufacturer might have come up with.





Anyway, I’ve accumulated quite a few outfits that make me look like a sci-fi character, so I’ve been following that dubious piece of advice either way.

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Published on May 28, 2020 15:09

May 26, 2020

That Awkward Moment When Someone Catches You Stealing a Magic Vial From Your Sister’s Professor

It’s tough to find a good first draft excerpt. Something that isn’t too clunky, too spoilery, or too rife with notes-to-self and bracketed terms I need to research. After starting to post excerpts at the halfway point of Stars Fall Out, I went back and found a few from earlier in the book. That took care of the “spoilery” bit of the problem.





I’m still self-conscious about most of the excerpts I’ve posted. There’s a lot that’s lost by taking words out of the context of the scene, and since they’re rough draft, that clunkiness is still there.





Anyway. I think we can all relate to sneaking into a lab at the top of a tower with an almost infinite number of stairs to steal a magic vial from our sister’s professor. So here’s more about that:





The light came near me again, and I dove to a crouch, stumbling at the edge of the archway, and again losing momentum as I tried to pivot and rise to my feet out of view. In that third moment of stillness, my legs shook with fear. They would fail me the next time I tried them.





I wouldn’t make it to the stairs, let alone down.





But they worked on their own, somehow, somehow, thank the gods, thank the spirits, thank reflex and terror, and I dashed down the stairs, skipping them two and three at a time, stumbling around corners and knocking into walls.





I didn’t hear my pursuer, or even know for sure if they were indeed pursuing me. I lost track of how many flights I had gone down, and so there was no halfway point to acknowledge, but again, stairs, landing, fireglass.





Stairs, landing, fireglass.





Stairs, landing, fireglass.





Door.





I pushed it open with all my strength in opposition to a powerful winter wind blowing it shut.





And then I burst out onto the university campus, and onto the streets of Nirsuathu.














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Published on May 26, 2020 16:00

May 21, 2020





Research rabbit holes: I had to look up the name of a...





Research rabbit holes: I had to look up the name of a mapmaking tool for a character who is an amateur cartographer, and now I, too, am an amateur cartographer.

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Published on May 21, 2020 16:14

May 18, 2020

One of the unexpected consequences of COVID-19 in my life...

One of the unexpected consequences of COVID-19 in my life is that I’ve turned into a snuggle-on-the-couch with-a-blanket kind of person, when before I was always a sit-upright-on-floor-pillows kind of person.





I guess it’s a comfort thing, but it makes it harder to go to bed in good time. If I can no longer sit upright on the floor, that usually means I’m tired enough to go to bed. But the couch? I just stay on the couch. And I watch Deep Space Nine.

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Published on May 18, 2020 17:54

May 17, 2020





One of my rewards to myself for finishing Stars Fall ...





One of my rewards to myself for finishing Stars Fall Out (and also an early birthday present) was a box set of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.





Best Star Trek ever, and best show ever.





I should’ve bought it ages ago on whatever flimsy excuse I could come up with.

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Published on May 17, 2020 16:48