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Writer in Motion, Week 2: Exile (self-edit)

To catch you up, this month I’m taking part in #WriterInMotion, where I write a 1,000-word story and document my revision process. Last week, I posted my first draft, and since then, I’ve done a self-edit on it. As a reminder, here’s the photo prompt again:

Photo by Rahul Pandit on Unsplash

If you’ll recall, my first draft was almost 2,000 words, so I had a long way to go to get below 1,000. My revision started with printing it out and making a lot of edits in pen. It’s easier for me to make big cuts that way—character actions that don’t move the story forward, excess description, that sort of thing. After transcribing those changes, I still had about 600 more words to cut. Not a bad start, right?

Things got tougher from there, but I noticed a suggestion on Dan Koboldt’s post about using the Hemingway Editor, which I haven’t visited in a long while. I pasted my draft in there and found a few things that were easy to change—words to omit, places for a stronger verb instead of a verb/adverb combo. But I also had five sentences that were hard to read, and two that were very hard (according to the app, at least). I whittled away for a while longer until, finally, I reached 995 words. (When I pasted it into Word, though, it came in at 957 words, so I can only assume that Hemingway and Word count contractions differently.)

While I think this is a good exercise, I think Hemingway does make the writing sound… well, Hemingway-esque. But it’s an interesting to explore what a story can live without.

Without further ado…

Exile

Matt figured Doyle would be skittish once he found him. Now, he’s flat on the ground outside Doyle’s cabin while blaster shots sizzle the air above him.

The shots stop. In the silence that follows, Matt cranes his neck toward the cabin and shouts.

“Doyle. It’s me.”

A door creaks open. Heavy footsteps plod through the grass. When Matt looks up, a type B worker bot towers above him. It reaches down and grabs his wrist.

“Come with me. I am not to harm you unless you resist. Please comply.”

“Okay, I’m complying.”

Inside, the rustic little shack is clean, bright even: a bed in the corner, a couch and coffee table. A kitchen runs along the back wall. Steam curls from a pot on the stove. Doyle sits at a small table with two chairs, a bottle and two short glasses in front of him.

“You can let him go now, B.”

Doyle’s grown a beard. Matt likes it, and for a moment he imagines how it would feel against his cheek, or his belly.

“Have a seat.”

Matt sits. Doyle uncaps the bottle and pours. It smells like bourbon. Matt lets it wet his lips but doesn’t drink.

“You’re hard to find,” Matt says.

“You’re not.”

“I—what?”

Doyle smirks. He downs his drink, pours another. “You rented that flyer three days ago. Arrived planetside five days prior. Traveled to each major city before finally meeting someone who said they knew me. Spent two months on Azati before that. Should I continue?”

“I was there, thanks.”

“Why are you here, now? I thought you didn’t want anything to do with me.”

Matt looks down. He’s rehearsed all the different ways he could explain himself, why he should get another chance. He can’t remember a single damn one of them.

Something smells acrid. He looks up.

“Your dinner’s burning.”

The pot is bubbling over. Cursing, Doyle lurches to his feet. That’s when Matt notices his left hand—or rather, its absence.

“Doyle.” Matt moves toward him, only to find Doyle’s right hand at his neck. Matt tries not to blink. He’s seen what Doyle’s hands can do.

“Don’t move up like that on a man like me.”

“Sorry.” Matt tries to swallow. “For everything. I’m sorry.”

The hard set of Doyle’s mouth doesn’t change—but the eyes, they tell a different story. Doyle lets him go and turns back to the stove.

“You hungry? There’s plenty.”

“No, I’m—what happened to your hand?”

“It’s over there.” He cocks his head toward the bed. “I fell a couple months ago. Hasn’t worked right since. I’d get it fixed, but there aren’t a lot of techs around here.”

“Doyle,” Matt says, “what are you doing here?”

“Other than falling apart? Not much.”

He puts two bowls on the table, grabs two spoons, and they both sit. Matt eats a little—it’s gamey, a layer of grease floating on top—before setting his spoon down.

“I don’t see why my reaction would turn you into a hermit on this nowhere planet.”

Doyle drops his spoon in the bowl with a splat. “You think all this is about you? Because you reacted badly? Because I’m half machine from a parallel universe and you have the same face as my ex-husband?” He waits long enough for the silence to get uncomfortable. “You’d think the universe would be big enough, right? That I wouldn’t run into anyone who looks like someone I knew or cared about from my universe. But it kept happening, like I was some kind of magnet drawing them to me. I got sick of seeing ghosts everywhere. So don’t criticize my choices. D-don’t. D—”

Doyle’s head twitches, his eyes glaze, and his arm thumps the table. Electricity arcs around his forearm. Soon, all of him is twitching as he collapses to the floor.

Matt resists the urge to hold Doyle still and stop the seizure. He turns toward the couch.

“Bot, activate!” He’s not even sure it will respond to his voice commands, so it’s a relief when its eyes light up.

“Ready to receive—oh.” It looks toward its owner, convulsing on the floor, and moves toward him. It stands motionless over him for one, two seconds, then bends over and grasps Doyle’s forearm. The electrical current and Doyle’s convulsions stop, like flipping a switch. The bot lifts Doyle from the floor and carries him to the bed.

“Has this happened before?” Matt asks.

“It appears to be the same malfunction that occurred approximately one month ago.”

“Can you repair him?”

“Repairing cybernetic implants is not part of my program.”

“B’s aren’t supposed to be able to talk, either, but apparently your program’s been augmented.”

“Correct. I am still unable to repair him.”

Matt gets up. “I have a flyer about a mile from here. We can take him—”

“Mister Doyle does not wish to leave this place.”

“Did he command you to make sure he stayed here?”

The bot looks up. “Negative.”

“What’s your command protocol?”

“I am to look after Mister Doyle.”

“Are his injuries life threatening?”

“Probability of fatal outcome is seventy-four point two percent.”

“Is letting him die looking after him?”

The bot looks at Matt, then back at Doyle. If Doyle were conscious, Matt is almost certain he would order the bot to leave him there.

The bot leans over the bed and picks up Doyle again. “There is a technician in Callanish. I will carry Mister Doyle to your flyer.”

Matt follows the bot to the door. “If he wakes up before we get there, he might want you to bring him back here.”

“The likelihood of that is ninety-nine percent,” the bot says. “We should move quickly.”

The post Writer in Motion, Week 2: Exile (self-edit) appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.

Writer in Motion Week 1: Exile

Yes, I still have a novel to finish revising. And yes, I have a novella I’m working on releasing myself (more on that later). And yes, the monthly Flash Fiction Challenge run by Cait Gordon is due on Monday.

So what am I doing? Writing another story for a different challenge.

I never said my choices make sense.

In this case, it’s a challenge called Writer in Motion that I found out about via Dan Koboldt on Twitter. He’s the author of Putting the Science in Fiction and also founder of the #SFFpit event. The goal of this is to write and revise a 1,000-word story over the course of a month and document your process. Along the way, you read and share feedback on others’ stories.

The story is based on a photo prompt, which is below:

Photo by Rahul Pandit on Unsplash

Pretty, right?

I wound up writing a story that is a sequel of sorts to another story… which I also haven’t quite finished yet. Do you sense a pattern emerging?

Anyway, without further ado, below is the completely unedited very rough draft. It’s also about twice as long as it’s supposed to be.

Exile

Go away, Doyle’s cabin practically shouts at Matt as he tramples through the brush and the weeds. He’s been walking for hours; he figured landing his flyer right outside Doyle’s front door wouldn’t be received well. Besides, it’s a rental; if Doyle’s still packing the same kind of heat he had when they met, Matt can’t afford to pay for damages.

Once he gets to the top of the hill, Matt stops, taking in the view. It’s really beautiful. The sky is just beginning to go purple with dusk, and the green mountains in the distance are misty. If he didn’t know the cabin’s sole occupant was a half-cyborg secret agent from a parallel universe, he might even say it looks peaceful.

Might.

He can’t see a door, but as he pauses to take in the view, his attention is drawn to a window. A light is on somewhere in the cabin, and he sees someone moving inside.

Doyle’s grown a beard. Or maybe he’s just let his personal grooming go. Matt likes it, though, and for a moment lets himself imagine how it would feel against his cheek, or maybe his belly.

He shakes his head. Not what he’s here for.

It becomes obvious from his motions that Doyle’s cutting something with a knife; maybe he’s making dinner. He can’t tell for sure, but Matt guesses there’s a sink in front of the window. Doyle’s rinsing something off when he looks up.

There’s one, maybe two seconds when they just stare at each other. Matt sees the flash from the blaster’s barrel a millisecond before the bolt zings past his left ear. By then he’s dropping flat to the ground and stays there while another volley of shots sizzles the air over his head. In the silence that follows, he cranes his neck toward the cabin and shouts.

“Doyle, Doyle. It’s me. Matt.” Maybe Doyle shot at him because he recognized him.

It occurs to him that Doyle may just keep shooting. What he hears next is a door creak open. Heavy footsteps plod rhythmically through the grass. When Matt looks up, a type B worker bot towers above him. It reaches one of its three spindly arms toward him and grabs him by the wrist.

“I have been instructed to bring you to the cabin,” it says, which surprises Matt. They talk? “I have also been instructed not to harm you unless you refuse to comply. Please comply.”

“Okay, I’m complying.” Matt gets to his feet and allows the bot to lead him by the hand toward the cabin. It would look almost motherly if the thing weren’t capable of ripping him in half.

Matt was expecting rustic—okay, squalid—but the inside of the cabin is clean, bright even. The bed in the corner is made, and the sheets and blanket look clean. There’s a couch with a low table in front of it. A kitchen area runs along the back wall where Matt saw Doyle through the window. Steam curls up from a pot on the stove. There’s a small table with four chairs. Doyle sits in one of them, a bottle and two short glasses in front of him.

“You can let him go now, B,” Doyle says. His voice sounds scratchy; from disuse? The bot’s fingers retract, and Matt shakes out his wrist. Doyle nods toward a chair. “Have a seat.”

Matt glances behind him. The bot is staring off into the distance. He wonders what would happen if he bolted for the door, though he’s not about to. He’s been trying to get to this moment for well over a year.

Why is it no surprise that it’s not going like he’d expected?

After Matt sits, Doyle uncaps the bottle and pours them each a drink. He taps his glass against Matt’s where it sits on the table and takes a sip before Matt even picks up his own. It smells like bourbon. Matt lets it wet his lips but doesn’t actually take a drink.

“You’re a hard man to find,” Matt says.

“You’re not.”

“I—what?”

Doyle smirks, as if to say gotcha. He downs the rest of his drink, starts pouring another. “You rented that flyer three days ago. Arrived planetside five days before that. Traveled to each of the three major cities before finally meeting someone who said they knew me. Spent two months on Azati before that, doing not much of anything. Want me to outline your movements for the thirteen months prior to that?”

Matt shakes his head. “I was there, thanks.” He takes a real sip from his glass, his eyes flicking to the bot, which still stands in the middle of the room. “Is it just going to stand there all night?”

“B, go sit down on the couch and enter standby mode.”

The bot’s head swivels toward Doyle and nods almost imperceptibly. “Yes, Mister Doyle.”

“Nice friend you have there,” Matt says once the bot is situated in the middle of the couch and its eyes dim. “Where did you pick him up?”

Doyle shakes his head, as if to say that’s the wrong question. “Why are you here? I thought you didn’t want anything to do with me.”

Matt looks down at the table, turns the glass and pretends to think, but his mind is a blank. He’s rehearsed all the different ways he could explain himself, try to outline why he was wrong and why he should be given another chance, and he can’t remember a single damn one of them.

Something smells acrid. He looks up.

“Your dinner’s burning.”

Doyle glances behind. The pot on the stove is bubbling over, the liquid sizzles and burns as it hits the hot surface. Cursing, Doyle shoves his chair back and lurches to his feet. That’s when Matt notices his hand. Or rather, his arm. Doyle’s left hand is gone.

“Doyle.” Matt moves toward him, only to find Doyle’s right hand at his neck. Matt doesn’t move, tries not to even blink. He’s seen what Doyle’s hands can do.

“Don’t move up like that on a man who’s been trained like me.”

“Sorry.” Matt tries to swallow but Doyle’s grip is too hard for that. “For everything, Doyle. I’m sorry.”

The hard set of Doyle’s mouth doesn’t change—but the eyes, they tell a different story. Doyle lets him go and turns back to the stove.

“Let me clean this up.”

He moves the pot to a back burner and turns off the front element. Once the flames die out, he takes a rag and runs it under the faucet, then wipes up the mess.

“Are you hungry? I made plenty.”

“No, I’m—what happened to your hand?”

Doyle looks down as if he’s just noticed that his left arm ends in an empty sleeve. “It’s over there.” He cocks his head in the general direction of the bed, but Matt doesn’t see it lying out in plain sight. “I fell a couple months ago. Hasn’t worked right since. It was interfering with all my touch sensors so I took it off. I’d get it fixed, but you may have noticed there aren’t a lot of cybertechs around here.”

“Doyle,” Matt says, softly, “what are you doing here?”

Doyle laughs. “Other than falling apart? Not much.”

He puts one bowl of stew on the table, then another. Grabs two spoons from a drawer and they both sit. Matt eats a little—it’s gamey, a layer of grease floating on top—before setting his spoon down.

“I don’t see how you go from me reacting badly to turning your life into a hermit’s existence on this nowhere planet with a whopping three major cities in the entire world.”

Doyle has been working through his bowl with workmanlike dedication. Not gusto, just something he has to do in order to get on to the next thing. Now, he looks up his spoon hovering above the bowl. He takes the bite before dropping the spoon in the bowl with a splat.

“Oh, I see. You think all this,” he waves his hand around the cabin, “is just about you and your reaction to finding out I was half machine from a parallel universe and the little fact that you have the same face as my ex-husband’s?”

He waits long enough for the silence to get uncomfortable. In the face of Matt’s silence, he goes on.

“You’d think the universe would be big enough that I’d be safe from running into anyone who looks like people I knew or cared about from back home, right? But it kept happening, one right after the other. It was like, like I was some kind of magnet drawing them to me. And I got sick of seeing ghosts every time I turned around. So don’t criticize my choices. Don’t. D-don’t. Don’t—”

Doyle’s head twitches, his eyes go a little blank, and his arm thumps against the table. Electricity arcs around his forearm. Soon, all of Doyle is twitching. He slides off his seat and collapses to the floor, his body shaking and jerking.

Matt’s chair topples when he leaps from it. It takes conscious effort to back away from Doyle when he really wants to hold him still and stop the seizure. He turns toward the couch.

“Maintenance bot, activate!” He’s not even sure it will respond to his voice commands, so it’s a relief when its eyes light up and it rises to its feet.

“Ready to receive—oh.” It looks toward its owner, convulsing on the floor, and moves toward him. It stands motionless over him for one, maybe two seconds. Matt wants to scream do something. Before he can, the bot bends over and grasps Doyle’s forearm. The electrical current slithers up the bot’s own arm and then abruptly stops. Doyle’s convulsions stop, like flipping a switch. Gingerly, the bot lifts Doyle from the floor and carries him to the bed, where it lays him down before sitting on the edge of the bed itself. The mattress sags precipitously under its weight.

“Has this happened before?” Matt asks.

“It has not,” the bot replies. “It appears to be the same malfunction that occurred in Mister Doyle’s hand approximately one month ago.”

“Can you repair him?”

“I am a model SC class B maintenance bot. I am designed to conduct maintenance and repair on heavy FTL drive cooling systems. Repairing cybernetic implants is not part of my program.”

“B’s aren’t supposed to be able to talk, either, but apparently your program’s been augmented.”

“That is correct. I am still unable to repair him.”

Matt gets up. “I have a flyer about a mile from here. We can take him—”

“Mister Doyle has expressed a desire not to leave this place.”

“Did he command you to make sure he stayed here?”

The bot looks up. “He did not.”

“What is your command protocol?”

It looks back toward the figure lying on the bed. “I am to look after Mister Doyle.”

“Are his injuries life threatening?”

“Probability of fatal outcome if left unrepaired is approximately seventy-four point two percent.”

“Is letting him die looking after him?”

The bot looks up at Matt, then back at Doyle. If Doyle were conscious, Matt is almost certain he would order the bot to leave him there and let him die.

The bot gets up, leans over the bed, and picks up Doyle again. “There is a cybernetic technician in Callanish. I will carry Mister Doyle to your flyer.”

Matt follows the bot to the door, where it turns the knob with its third arm. “If he wakes up before we get to the flyer, he might want you to bring him back here.”

“The likelihood of that is approximately ninety-nine percent,” the bot says. “Let us move quickly.”

The post Writer in Motion Week 1: Exile appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.

Listen to “And Never Mind the Watching Ones” by Keffy R. M. Kehrli

I don’t know about you, but for the most part, I haven’t had much luck with focused reading lately. So far I’ve only finished five books since January (update: I just finished reading book #6 this week, Sourdough by Robin Sloan, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, probably because I’ve been baking a lot of sourdough over the past few years). Also, one of the books I read was a novella, so while it still totally counts, it was relatively easy to finish reading it in a day.

What about reading short stories? you may ask. And that’s a good suggestion. But, if you saw the pileup of New Yorkers and One-Storys in the basket next to my reading chair—to say nothing of the Firesides and FIYAHs and more in my e-reading apps—you’d get a pretty good idea of how well I’m doing with that. (Answer: not very.) I seem to be having trouble sitting still and focusing on the printed page (or screen) for any sustained period of time. If I’m honest, which I try to be, this was a problem for me even before this year of plague began. However, it has only gotten worse since I started staying home 99% of the time. You would think the opposite would be the case, and yet….

So, what’s the answer? Podcasts.

Yes, I’ve listened to the New Yorker fiction podcasts for a long while now, but I hadn’t ventured too far from that into other fiction podcasts besides Welcome to Nightvale. But then I stumbled across PodCastle and have been listening to it for a while now—it’s a fantasy fiction podcast—and that was so enjoyable that I started backing their Patreon, Escape Artists. Just recently began downloading their science fiction sibling podcast, Escape Pod. I have no idea why it took me so long to get on that one, especially since I tend to read (and write) science fiction more often than fantasy, but I’m glad I finally did.

“And Never Mind the Watching Ones” by Keffy R.M. Kehrli is a recent standout story. It’s told in two parts, and it’s a wonderfully strange story told from multiple points of view about, among other things, otherworldly frogs. It originally appeared in Uncanny magazine, which is also close to my heart (and I have a lot of issues of that to catch up on in my e-reading apps too).

Listen to (or read) part one here. And then, listen to part two here.

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June Flash Fiction Draw: The Valkyrie

So, I missed Cait Gordon’s Flash Fiction Draw last month—that is to say, I started it but didn’t have time to finish it. And I’ve got to admit, it would have been a fun one: an action adventure set at a fandom gathering and featuring a silk garment. My entry would have been titled “The Parade of Leias” and would have featured someone dressed as General Leia getting kidnapped at a ComiCon, but alas, life intervened. Maybe I’ll go back and finish it eventually.

Yeah, I know. Right.

But anyway. I did manage to work on something for June’s challenge—and like Cait, I feel kind of weird writing this frivolous bit of throwaway fun in the midst of a global pandemic and a nationwide upheaval against racial injustice. And I don’t want to make this bit of fun sound like anything more important than a bit of fun, but if reading about a time-traveling drag queen meeting a certain woman in World War II Washington, D.C., amuses you for a little bit (you can read more about her adventures here), well then, mission accomplished. And then get back to the important work of changing the world.

Also, I may be slightly over the 1,000-word limit. But then I never was very good at following rules.

The Valkyrie

Miss Vida emerged from the time cabinet first, grateful to be released from the vessel’s cramped confines. She was convinced it was actually smaller on the inside than it was on the outside. Herbert stumbled out after her, accompanied by a plume of smoke, and waved a handkerchief about.

“Are you all right, my dear?” he asked.

“Perfectly fine, darling.” She’d extracted her own handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her forehead. Clearly, they’d arrived in summer, wherever they were, and they weren’t dressed for it. “Do you happen to know what year it is?”

Herbert shook his head and wiped the sweat from his face. “Hotter than the fourth of July though, by the feel of it.”

Miss Vida frowned. She’d never liked Independence Day celebrations. Far too much noise and explosions. They frightened her cat.

She took in their surroundings. The time cabinet had landed in what appeared to be a narrow side alley between two tall stone buildings. The shade provided some relief against the heat, and she was in no hurry to venture beyond it. And yet…

“Dearest,” she said, “why are we here?”

Herbert hemmed and hawed a bit before sparing a backward glance at the cabinet. “Honestly, heart, I don’t know. I calibrated the temporal actuators to take us back to 1904 St. Louis, but—“

His words were cut off by a cacophony from the street just beyond the alley. Miss Vida gaped in awe as a monstrous contraption lurched passed on the roadway, a sound like a siren blaring. She took a step back and stumbled into Herbert.

“Good heavens, what was that?”

Herbert had removed his monocle from his waistcoat pocket and scurried past her, peering around the corner in the direction the thing had gone. “If I’m not mistaken, it looks like a newfangled version of Mister Ford’s Model T.”

“So we’re in the future,” she said.

He nodded. “And yet, it seems not quite as—is future-fied a word?”

Miss Vida smiled indulgently. Futuristic, perhaps?”

“That’s it! As futuristic as our friend Master Jake’s time period.”

“So, not 1904, but not 2018. I suppose that narrows it down a bit, but…”

Herbert looked the other way down the street and, gasping, pointed. “My dear! We’re in the capital!”

“We’re in Jefferson City?” She came to stand by his side and looked in the same direction. On the other side of the street, up ahead, loomed what might have been the most famous home in all of America.

“Ah, the District of Columbia.” Miss Vida clutched his sleeve. “Herbert! We’ve traveled in time as well as space! This is at least a thousand miles from St. Louis, and all in a matter of seconds! Truly extraordinary.”

“But when is still the question.”

As they ventured further out of the alley, Miss Vida took note of the people they passed and how they were dressed: many people wearing uniforms of sorts, and the women’s skirts were scandalously tight—and barely covered their knees! She almost blushed to look at them, but she had to admit they were a most flattering cut.

Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who noticed, either. She slapped Herbert’s arm. “Propriety, Herbert.”

“Ahem, yes, of course.” He made a show of looking anywhere but at the passersby, and his gaze settled on a poster that had been plastered against the brick wall of one of the buildings along the sidewalk. “What do you think they mean by ‘Buy War Bonds’?”

“War bonds? Is America at war?” Miss Vida pressed her handkerchief to her forehead and her other hand to her bosom. “Jake said nothing of wars. You’d think he would have mentioned something as important as that, surely.”

“Perhaps there’s been more than one conflict between our era and his, dearest,” Herbert said, not unsympathetically.

“But, how could that be possible? Surely—oh!”

Miss Vida cried out as a young, uniformed woman rushed past her into the alley where the cabinet was. She was slender, but tall, and wore overly large spectacles and her hair pulled back severely. And she clipped Vida in the elbow as she passed, sending her spinning and tumbling to the sidewalk. Herbert exclaimed and knelt next to her, helping her up to a sitting position. Miss Vida touched the back of her head gingerly.

“First spiders, now this. Clearly, this is not my day.”

She opened her purse and pulled out a pill bottle. Jake had given her some of the most astonishing analgesics after her run-in with the arachnid, and she felt like now would be a good time to take one, even if she didn’t have any tea to wash it down. Meanwhile, Herbert helped her to her feet and they followed the woman into the alley.

And found themselves standing face to face with a Valkyrie.

Where there had been a tall but mousey young thing there was now a formidable-looking warrior, her leather outfit in bright colors and even more revealing than the other woman’s skirt. No spectacles and no harsh bun, this woman glared at them from beneath a bronze tiara, and her hair flowed freely to her shoulders. Bracelets of polished chrome extended from her elbows to her fists, and in those fists she clutched a glowing yellow rope.

“Who are you?” she demanded. She cocked her head toward the time cabinet behind her. “What is that?”

“It’s…” Herbert trailed off. “It’s ours.”

“It’s some kind of machine, isn’t it?”

Miss Vida stepped forward, her hands on her hips. The Valkyrie may have been almost as tall as her, but Miss Vida’s hairdo and millinery at least gave her the illusion of several additional inches of height. “And what if it is? Are we breaking any local ordinances by leaving it here?”

“No, but you will answer my question.”

Suddenly, Miss Vida found herself encircled by the glowing rope. She gasped at the flare of heat that seemed to emanate from the golden lariat—and at the overwhelming urge to speak that welled up from inside her, even as Herbert pulled at the rope.

“Herbert, don’t. It’s all right.” Miss Vida smiled at the woman. “Yes, it’s a machine. It’s a temporal accelerator, but we’ve decided to call it a time cabinet. Sounds much less stuffy, don’t you think?”

Herbert practically bared his teeth at the Valkyrie. “Release her. She’s done nothing to you!”

Holding the lariat with one hand, the Valkyrie placed her other hand gently on Herbert’s forearm. “I will not hurt her. You have no need to fear.”

“What happened to the young woman in the black uniform who came down this alley a moment ago?” Miss Vida asked. She narrowed her eyes and peered at the Valkyrie, scrutinizing her features. “She’s… she’s you, isn’t she?”

Now it was the Valkyrie’s turn to gasp. “How did you…”

Miss Vida chuckled and placed her hands on the golden cord, gently loosening its hold on her. “Darling, rest assured I recognize a good drag performance. As the saying goes, it takes one to know one.”

The post June Flash Fiction Draw: The Valkyrie appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.

What can you do to fight racism? Maybe more than you think.

May you live in interesting times, the curse goes. Well, here we are. Welcome. Pull up a chair.

If you’re like me, you may be feeling a lot of anxiety and depression surrounding the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and far too many others, and the police brutality in response to protests. If you’re also white, like me, I hope you can appreciate, at least intellectually, that this anxiety and depression is a daily fact of life for Black people in our country, except it’s dialed up a few (thousand) notches in their case.

You may also be feeling helpless. If so, I have wonderful news: you’re not. You can do things.

Educate yourself.

Don’t expect your Black friends to teach you what our education system has failed to teach us about our country’s history of racism and oppression and why things are the way they are. They have enough on their minds and hearts right now, don’t you think? Luckily, we live in an age where we have vast repositories of knowledge available at our fingertips, if we just go looking for it (and spend time discerning useful knowledge from propaganda, which is not always easy).

bit.ly/junejustice is a document that allows you to determine how much time you can devote to becoming a more informed ally to the Black community. Ten minutes a day—you can spare at least that much, right? It takes at least that long for my coffee to brew in the morning. It’s not enough, but it’s a start.

You may have seen lots of anti-racist reading lists on social media. Reading is right up my alley. I’ve reserved Between the World and Me at the library and am buying something from this list of anti-racist books curated by EyeSeeMe, an African American children’s bookstore here in the suburb of University City that I didn’t even know about (the bookstore, I mean—I knew about the suburb, but… okay, anyway, let’s move on). I also found this list of Black-owned bookstores in the United States that you can check out, as well as a list of Black-owned bookstores where you can buy books by Black queer authors. Maybe one of these bookstores is in your own hometown.

Spend your dollars.

blacklivesmatter.carrd.co is a resource full of actions you can take, including places to donate to bail funds and other organizations fighting for equality and justice.

On a more mundane level, put your dollars to work in your local community by supporting Black-owned businesses wherever you can. In addition to sending my business to EyeSeeMe, I probably enthuse way too much on Instagram about SweetArt, a Black-owned, woman-owned, all vegetarian/vegan café that is literally just blocks from my house. Actually, there is no way to enthuse too much about what chef Reine Bayoc has done for our neighborhood. There are lots of other businesses like hers, I have no doubt, and I need to seek them out.

Act local.

I live in St. Louis, and our mayor is ineffectual at best and incompetent at worst. (There’s lots of reasons I didn’t vote for her.) This graphic, posted by ArchCityDefenders on Twitter, outlines steps our city can take to begin moving toward real change. Tell your elected officials to support measure like these, and make them aware that your vote is contingent on their support.

And that brings me to the next thing.

For gods’ sake, vote.

If you’re registered, make sure you’re registered (this link is for the Missouri Secretary of State site where you can do that). If you’re not, get registered (again, that’s a Missouri link). And then go vote. Not just on Nov. 3, but in every local election. Get to know who your representatives are.

Your vote can make a difference. Ferguson, Missouri, just elected the city’s first African American and first woman mayor, Ella Jones. Change is possible, but it will require work.

Lastly…

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.

Look, I live my life in a constant state of fear of doing the wrong thing: misgendering someone, pronouncing a name wrong because I don’t know any better, inadvertently dismissing someone’s beliefs or value system (except the one I was raised in and around, which can completely get fucked). That fear is something I need to get over. An honest mistake is better than holding back in fear.

I know I’ve made quite a few stinkers in my own time. And by “my own time” I mean “this week” and “today.” You’ll trip, you’ll put your foot in your mouth, but if you’re lucky, some kind soul will say “here, lean on me while you get your foot out of your mouth so I can ask you what on earth you were thinking.”

Accept the mistake, remember the lesson.

But don’t shy away from having tense and awkward family confrontations with your racist brother-in-law or aunt. Me, I’ve always been willing to burn bridges where my family is concerned—probably because I’ve never had to. As we’ve gotten older, we’ve all gotten more liberal, if that’s possible. (My mother? Oh my lord, when she talks about That Man in the White House I fear for her safety.) But, you never know which niece or nephew or cousin is listening and thinking about what you’re saying. You might reach people you don’t realize.

I don’t have all the answers. Hell, I don’t have any of the answers. All I’ve done here is compile the things I’ve found in the past week or so that I’m using to try and be less of an idiot. Which is probably going to take the rest of my life. But the things worth doing are never easy, or quick, are they?

The post What can you do to fight racism? Maybe more than you think. appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.

Coronavirus Diary, Entry the Fourth

Well, this clearly didn’t become a habit.

I’ve started writing this post I can’t remember how many times, and deleted most of it almost as many times. It’s been a challenge to build new routines now that my usual ones have been upended or just plain eliminated. Maybe we’re all having that. My sleep routines have gone haywire, and some nights I’ll go to bed at 9 o’clock and others I’ll look up and it’s midnight and wonder what the hell happened.

What day is it? I’ll ask myself, and sometimes I won’t know the answer.

Today, at least, I’m pretty sure it’s Friday. (No, do not ask how many times I’ve had to scroll up and change that.) It’s the Fifteenth of May (don’t ask how many times I’ve had to update that, either), and I finished teaching my creative writing class last week. I’m taking off from teaching for the fall, because in mid-August I’ll start a yoga teacher training program. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for years, and I finally decided, well, if not now then when.

Planning for the future seems like a positive thing to do in the middle of so much uncertainty. 

That leaves me the summer to do with as I please, and that means I’m going to try and read more, and I’m going to work on finishing this novel revision. It is moving slowly, as you might have guessed.

Speaking of planning for the future, I’m also working on putting out a science fiction novella myself. I may have mentioned this before, but if I haven’t, well, here you go. It’s been edited and a cover design is in process, and so far, it looks pretty damn amazing.

Oh wait, I did mention this before, didn’t I? I may have said that it was inspired by this animated GIF:

Animated GIF from the 1980s soap opera DYNASTY of Krystle Carrington tackling Alexis Morell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan into a reflecting pool.

How do we get from a cat fight in 1980s Denver to a barren world under siege on the other side of the galaxy? Stay tuned to find out.

Like everyone else living under self-quarantine, I’ve also been baking a lot more than usual. I swear by the book Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish, but I’d really only made a couple different loaves from the book before now. But since sourdough has become the thing that people are occupying their time with, and because it’s been a long time since I’ve sustained a levain (the fancy French word because we fancy), I now have a colony of hungry yeasts chilling in my fridge and I’ve made a number of things, including this, perhaps my most aesthetically pleasing loaf.

St. Louis, where I live, eases its quarantine order on Monday, and I’m honestly still leery about going, well, anywhere. I plan to keep having groceries delivered. I’m not going to get my hair cut (and I’m looking pretty shaggy, let’s be honest, because it’s been about three months since my last haircut). I’m still going to be working from home for a while, and when I must return to the office… well, as my mother is fond of saying, we’ll fall off that bridge when we come to it.

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April Flash Fiction Draw: Have Cupboard, Will Travel

Sneaking in just under the wire with this one. As you may recall, every month, Cait Gordon gives a flash fiction challenge based on luck of the draw. On the first Monday, she chooses at random from a deck of cards and gives a prompt with a genre, setting, and item. This month, she chose steampunk, an apothecary, and a spider.

For some reason, this put me in mind of a flash fiction draw post I wrote in 2018, when ’Nathan was in charge of the challenge. So, I decided to check in with Miss Vida Greenleaf, the time-traveling drag queen, and see what she was up to.

I’ll admit, I kind of cheated with this one. How? Well, I went way over the word count. As for the rest, you’ll have to read on to figure that out, won’t you? And you can check out what other folks wrote as well.

This was loads of fun. Thanks, Cait!

So, without further ado….

Have Cupboard, Will Travel

Miss Vida Greenleaf was worried.

It was not in her nature to worry, and she couldn’t say she liked it. She did like Jake’s apartment, though: on the top floor of a Washington Avenue loft that, if she wasn’t mistaken, used to be the Ely and Walker Dry Goods building. Who knew those drafty old warehouses would one day be turned into such cozy homes?

And the kitchen! The oven was electric, and it even had an electric stove, and a cabinet where he put dirty dishes that magically came out clean. And an electric ice box! That no one had to haul blocks of ice up seven flights for! If only Herbert could see—

That thought sent her into a decline, and she ventured aimlessly toward the window while Jake made her tea. The apartment offered a view south toward Union Station, although the trains didn’t run any longer.

She sighed and turned away from the window and the view. She’d been in the future a day already, and that was one day longer than she’d anticipated in the first place. Herbert’s temporal accelerator had sent her forward in time one hundred fourteen years from 1904, and the longer she waited for him to reverse the process, the more she wondered if he could.

Or maybe this time, his machine had finally overloaded and blown up the Union Electric plant.

Miss Vida shook her head and sat on the sofa, and Jake brought over a mug—just the mug, no teapot — with a tag attached to a string dangling over the side. She held it up curiously.

“Young man, just what is this?”

He frowned and looked perplexed, which Miss Vida had to admit was an expression that favored him. “It’s tea,” he said.

“No. I mean,” she fingered the tag, “what is this?”

“The teabag?”

“The what?” She peered into the mug and noticed the triangular sachet at the end of the string. Amber swirls radiated of it, and when she sniffed the mug—sure enough, it was tea. She pulled at the string and lifted the bag just above the water to confirm her suspicion.

“What a genius invention! Did you create this?”

“Teabags?” Jake laughed. “No, they’ve been around since—well, always, I guess.”

“I can assure you they most certainly have not been.” She sipped from the mug—Earl Grey, with a hint of lavender. She took a deeper drink and then reclined on the sofa. “I can’t thank you enough for your kindness and your hospitality, but I really must be going after I’ve finished my tea.”

Jake sat down in the armchair opposite the sofa. “Go? Where would you go? You’re from a hundred fourteen years in the past.”

She set her mug on the coffee table and sat up a little straighter. “A lady never wears out her welcome, young man. Besides, surely there must be boarding houses in this day and age still, where a lady could procure accommodation.”

Jake truly looked puzzled. “Well, you could just stay here.”

She gasped and raised a hand to her bosom. “The very idea. I’m already straining the bounds of propriety by calling unaccompanied.” She shook her head. “No, I’m decided. You’ve been very kind, but I’ll trouble you no further.”

She rose from the sofa—and then floor seemed to tilt beneath her feet. Was the building collapsing? The walls swayed, and she plummeted backwards into darkness.

*

Something nearby buzzed and beeped. It was dark, and after a moment, Miss Vida realized that was because her eyes were closed. She opened them to find herself still in Jake’s apartment, lying on his sofa, and they had been joined by several other people, in uniforms of a sort, and surrounded by myriad devices that, in another context, she might have mistaken for instruments of torture.

“Ma’am, I need you to stay lying down, please,” one of the men said as she struggled to lift herself into a seated position.

“That’s ‘miss,’ if you please. And I don’t think I should be—“

“Oh for goodness’ sake, Vee, don’t give the man what-for when he’s trying to save your life.”

That voice! Now she really did sit up, consequences be damned, and looked around expectantly. Jake stepped inside the circle of uniformed men surrounding her—in other circumstances, she would have relished such attention—and right behind Jake was Herbert.

“Dearest.” She reached out to him and he rushed forward, stooping to one knee and kissing the back of her hands, each in rapid succession. He leaned back and press his hat to his chest. His face was flushed, his mustache glistened, and he was practically smashing the crown of his bowler against him. “Are you all right? They said you were bitten by a spider.”

“Left ankle,” one of the uniformed men said.

“A spider?” she asked.

Jake held up a tiny, see-through bag which contained the remains of a small brown arachnid. “It’s these old buildings,” he said. “Hard to keep them out.”

As the men—EMTs, Jake had called them—began packing up their gear and heading for the door, something else occurred to her. “Herbert, you got it working again, didn’t you?”

He nodded and gestured toward the far corner of Jake’s living room. There was a tall, lacquered cabinet, a plume of steam curling out of a pipe in its ceiling.

“Darling,” she said, “isn’t that the cupboard from the apothecary shop down the street?”

“No. Well, yes. In a way. Of course, it’s not down the street in this time period. But that’s not the most important thing.” He drew himself up proudly. “I’ve been to the future, Vee.”

She leveled a humoring gaze at him. “Yes, darling. I think that’s evident.”

Herbert shook his head. “No no, not this future, I mean a hundred years hence.”

That got Jake’s attention. “Wait, you mean the future? My future? Ours?”

“Precisely, my boy!” Herbert swept an arm toward the cupboard. “And while I was there, I built this.”

“An apothecary cupboard,” she deadpanned.

“No, no, no. It’s the temporal accelerator, but now it does more than just open gateways. It allows us to travel through them and get back, or go forward further if we so desire.”

She braced herself against the arm of the sofa and stood, Jake and Herbert both rushing to prop her up. But she waved them off and tested her weight on her left foot. The ankle throbbed a little, but she was able to lean against her parasol and gingerly make her way to the cupboard. It was warm beneath her hand when she touched the glossy surface, and a shallow thrumming hum radiated from it into her fingertips. Closer now, she could see the back of the cupboard was a maze of piping and wires, and a small receptacle that contained something radiant and bubbling.

“It’s very impressive, darling,” she said after a moment. She pulled a door handle and peered inside. “And quite compact. Is it a single-person capsule?”

“Big enough for two, although it may be a bit… snug.”

If she wasn’t mistaken, there was a bit of a twinkle in his eye now. She smiled. “I dare say that won’t be a problem for us. Now, did you say you built this while you were in the future? Exactly how long were you gone?”

“Twenty-seven days. Long enough to perfect my techniques and make a few enhancements. Thus….” He gestured to the cupboard again.

Jake ventured closer, trepidation carving divots in his brow. “You mean that people from the future actually gave you advanced technology to take with you to the past? Won’t that completely corrupt our timeline?”

Herbert raised an eyebrow. “‘Gave’ me? My boy, they had no clue about the principles of my device. I was the one who gave them the advanced technology. They just… spruced it up a bit. Gave it a spit and polish. Made it portable.”

Pride and admiration swelled in her, and she clutched her parasol to her tightly. “Simply magnificent, darling. Wait until Mister Wells hears about this.”

Herbert pulled the other door open and bowed to her. “Speaking of, shall we take our leave and return home?”

“Wait!” Jake said. “You can’t just—”

Miss Vida smiled at him. “Can’t just what, young man?”

“I mean….” He sighed. “It was nice to meet you both.”

Herbert tipped his hat, which he’d uncrushed and returned to its proper place on his head. Miss Vida patted Jake’s face with one gloved hand before leaning in and kissing him on the cheek. “A lady couldn’t have asked for a more charming chaperone.”

Jake blushed. Herbert offered Miss Vida his hand, and escorted her into the cabinet. Before he stepped inside himself, he shook Jake’s hand and held out an envelope.

“Something tells me you might be able to make use of this,” he said.

Then they were off. The pipe at the top of the cabinet chugged out a fog bank of steam, and the air split around the cabinet, swallowing it whole and zipping shut behind it. All that remained was a whiff of smoke.

And the envelope. Jake opened it and took out a folded sheet of blue paper. He unfolded it, and unfolded it again, and again, until he held in his outstretched hands a massive diagram of Herbert’s temporal accelerator.

Jake smiled, even though he couldn’t decipher at least half of what was written on the blueprints. He had time to figure it out.

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Coronavirus Diary, Entry the Third

The other day, I was making a cup of afternoon tea. That has become a habit since I’ve been staying at home. I’ve pulled out the fancy loose-leaf teas only to find most are years old and taste either bland or spoiled—into the compost they go. So, yesterday was just a plain old orange spice teabag.

Anyway, the kettle whistled, I filled my mug, set the kettle right back down on the still-hot burner, and turned away to return to the dining room. When the kettle inevitably started whistling again, I couldn’t believe how annoyed I was. Not at myself, for putting it back on a hot burner, but at the kettle.

It’s easier to be angry at external objects than it is at ourselves for the actions we’ve taken. And by “we” I mean “I.”

I went walking (interspersed with some lackadaisical running) the last two mornings in a row, and both times I walked past these two signs:

The first time I saw them, I found them heartening and reassuring. The second time, though, I thought, “Well, there’s a meaningless platitude,” which I think is probably unfair and that the person who put them up meant them sincerely. Are we not alone, though, in some way? Is it something we’re talking ourselves in order to convince ourselves that being by ourselves in our homes, we’re still part of a collective experience with a sense of belonging?

And are you expecting me to go full-on Carrie Bradshaw here and write, “I couldn’t help but wonder, am I the one giving up?” But let’s not go full-on Carrie.

This past weekend, I mowed the lawn. (Does this seem like a random collection of anecdotes? Probably because it is. I don’t know whether there’s a thread tying them together other than the fact that I’m writing them now.) It was the first time this season that the grass needed cutting, although if I’m honest, it probably needed it a week ago. In any case, I was almost done when I ran the mower across a bumpy patch of yard and boom. Baby rabbits went running everywhere. Or at least, it seemed like everywhere. In reality, there were only three; one went left, one went right, and the other just lay there turning itself over again and again. I didn’t know what to do, but my first instinct was to see if it was bleeding, so I picked it up. Probably, this is exactly what you’re not supposed to do with a wild animal, but my instincts are frequently incorrect.

It was so small. My gloves dwarfed it; one would have held it easily. It wasn’t bleeding; this was a relief to me, although not by much, since it was clearly in distress I couldn’t imagine. I held onto it until it seemed to calm down, and after I finished mowing the lawn, I returned it to the little hole that was lined with fur and leaves.

Later, I found the other two rabbits on opposite sides of the yard, sheltering against the fence. I left them alone. When I went out later that evening, I couldn’t find a trace of them. When I checked the rabbit in the nest, I knew I wouldn’t find it alive. If I had to guess—they’re fragile things—it probably was scared to death. That is, I scared it to death.

I don’t know what this has to do with getting angry at a tea kettle or overthinking random neighborhood signs, but three anecdotes seems like a good place to stop, but not give up.

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Coronavirus Diary, Entry the Second

(What? I never said this was going to be a daily diary. You think I’m that organized, focused, and able to maximize my free time? Oh, child.)

I’m still trying to find my bearings and settle into a routine. Let’s just say that is not exactly my strongest suit. Normally, I go to the gym in the morning, which is obviously not on. I’ve been doing yoga at home, and we have some decent workout equipment, but huffing and puffing in the basement is perhaps not a hundred percent ideal.

So, today I put on my running shoes and left the house at five in the morning and went to Tower Grove Park. Exercising in city parks is one of the things that’s allowed under current stay-at-home orders, as well as walking your dog and going to get groceries. (Me, I’m planning to have those delivered, although not everyone can do that, of course. I figure my best move is to be as out of the way as possible right now.)

Anyway, the park at five in the morning is peaceful, and I practically had the entire place to myself. I suppose I could have taken a picture to prove I was there, but it was five in the morning, so mostly the picture would have been darkness and a couple streetlights. You get the idea. But here’s a photo of it in the daytime if you like:

Regardless, it was what I needed, and as I was heading out of the park, I heard an owl. That wasn’t a big surprise—I hear owls in the park all the time—but it was reassuring in its familiarity.

To be honest, my run wasn’t much of a run—I walked most of the way until I got to the exit, then I started running, through the neighborhood streets and under the interstate to the road that leads back to the house. I don’t know why I started running then—I hadn’t intended to, but maybe I did it simply because I could. Odd, to be running to get back to the place I’ve felt cooped up for the last week. Maybe next time I’ll run away from the house and walk back.

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Coronavirus Diary, Entry the First

All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.

Earlier today, I was thinking to myself:

“Self,” I thought, “you should start keeping your journal again.”

“That’s a great idea,” Self replied. “Think you’ll stick with it?”

“Doubt it. But it’s worth a shot, hey?”

So, here I am, giving it a shot.

I’ve got nothing to sell or promote right now; no books, no stories, no nuthin’. But, inspired by the lovely Seth Fischer, whom I met during the Lambda Literary Fellowship in 2014, I’ve decided to keep a plague diary. I started a blog back around—gosh, was it 1998? It was on Geocities, if that gives you any idea how long ago it was, and I coded everything by hand. It was a way to teach myself HTML, and that wound up helping me get a job. More than that, it also helped me connect with people who are still friends today. So, I’m going a little old school and just writing down quotidian things and average thoughts. Whether anyone reads it doesn’t matter all that much. I’ll write them down anyway, and maybe someone will relate.

Maintaining connections in isolation is going to be important, I think.

Waving my geek flag a little: That line at the top is from Battlestar Galactica, from a religious text that stated a belief in the Cycle of Time, “that we are all playing our part in a story that is told again and again and again throughout eternity.” Basically, I’m saying all of this feels familiar.

Growing up queer in the 1980s, I thought I was doomed in one of two ways: either I’d die in a nuclear war, or I’d die of AIDS. I watched and read how the government failed us, mocked us, and basically wished we would die quietly and quickly. AIDS was “killing all the right people,” as a character on Designing Women said. (Right before Julia Sugarbaker told her, “I’m terribly sorry, Imogene, but I’m going to have to ask you to move your car.” “Why?” “Because you’re leaving!”)

Now I’m watching another Republican administration bumble and fail its way through another health crisis. It makes me want to say to all those people who are shocked and disappointed, “Shoulda paid attention to us fags all that time ago, huh, motherfucker?”

Oh, content warning: a lot of cussing. Sorry.

I don’t remember the context, but recently I said, “Lasting change only comes through great pain.” I can’t imagine how things will change as a result of this crisis, but I can’t imagine that they won’t, either. Whether that change is for better or worse remains to be seen. I found this article at Politico an interesting one on that topic.

Yesterday, finally tired of being cooped up in the house, I went for a run in Tower Grove Park. It’s a lovely Victorian-era walking park in South St. Louis. There were lots of people walking their dogs, out for a run themselves, or just soaking in the sunshine that’s been rare lately. Everyone kept their distance—I veered off the path and ran through the grass in several places, and the ground is still soaked and squelching from all the rain we’ve had. But, we were all together, in a way. And that felt good.

Tomorrow, St. Louis starts mandatory stay-at-home orders. That means going out only for groceries or food, medical needs, or to walk dogs or exercise in a park. I live within sight of Interstate 44, which more or less follows the path of the old Route 66 through St. Louis. If I look out the window, mostly what I see now are tractor trailers. Granted, today’s Sunday, so traffic is usually light, anyway. I wonder if this global pause will be helpful for the environment. Maybe it will shake people into realizing we can make changes for the better.

I hope so. I prefer hope over fear, don’t you?

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