One of the perks . . .

One of the perks of being an author is having our voices heard, though usually through the lens of our characters and not always understood or clear. And though it’s hard to see it in the text, I’m often working something out in my head and on the page at the same time.

I fully intended today to sit down and write a set of lyrics about Pike, a character I’m developing in THE RULE. He’s a magnificent, wild-card vampire who’s going to get Rachel in trouble, and I thought perhaps Takata, my song-writing oracle, might write something about him. I use all the tools in my box to develop characters, and music/lyrics is my hammer. It busts things open.

So I used my hammer, and Pike is not what came out on my paper. Oh, it started with Pike, but it ended with something far more real, something that I can’t bring out and work through in the Hollows simply because of the established universe I’m working in there. I’ve got another series sitting at rough draft that does, but no one will see it anytime soon because, well, it’s not the Hollows, and I’m seriously okay with that. Time changes all things, and I’ve not given up, just shelved the art in my process until my “art” is what is selling.

I only ask that you be kind and understand that it’s only a few hours old and it will likely be tweaked before chunks of it show up in AMERICAN DEMON or THE RULE. But now you can say you saw it in the raw, and maybe you’ll understand what I’m saying a smidgen more when it shows up between the covers.

It needs a title. I’m thinking BLACK COIN, but I’m open to suggestions.

I’m killing time, till time kills me

No one knows who will succeed

Wealth buys time, till time runs out

Whose to say what it’s all about

When you’re killing time,

     Killing time

     Killing time

     It’s killing time

Ten thousand years, is the price we pay

Black coin banked under shale and stone

We spent it all, on magic beans

But magic beans don’t grow

Pretty lies and fairy tales

Wrapped in soiled flags

Black coin seeps, like poison creeps

and balance found will fail

(Wake up!)

Species dying

Children crying

State fathers lying

Lobbyists buying

The earth is frying

Ten thousand years, is the price we pay

Corruption has no shame

Faceless, voiceless, nameless . . .

PAIN!

Peerless, fearless, short-list . . .

SHAME!

Can’t put it back–black coin ill-spent

Ten thousand years, at detriment

Down in the earth, buried deep

Down where the demons sleep

Down where God can’t speek

Black coin spent, our soul to keep

So as you sow, so shall you reap

So as you sow, your children weap

Just killing time, as black coin seeps

Just killing time

Killing time

Killing time

It’s killing time.

–Kim Harrison 9-22-19