BAD ASS NEW BEGINNINGS

How do I start a post about starting over?  By telling you I'm not f**king starting over!  I'm just starting the start over, and over, and over.  I have over ten starts and I'm not over starting over and won't be over starting over until it's over being started!  Over and out! 
(I know, terrible...shut up!)

Anywho, here's my new beginning.  It's about new beginnings.  It's not a- happening at the same time for no apparent reason- thingy.

You will read?  You will relate?

Look...
down...
further...

Shall we?

     Nyk started this journey a thousand times.  Two thousand.  Ten thousand.  In his mind he completed it a million times.  In reality, never.  The never didn’t stop him from trying.  It was almost more important to attempt than to accomplish.  Each time he forged a little further.  Each time he broke new ground, he broke old doubt; external, and much more crippling, internal disbelief. 

     He could envision the bounty of success.  He dreamt about it; dreams supplied to him by the Kynoi itself.  Nyk’s reality had become overwhelming, unfulfilling.  The only escape was the pursuit, the seeking of answers, and his own response to the prophecy he had been given.  So Nyk started the journey again.  There, standing at the gate of the vast Urwald jungle, the deep canyons of his homeland, Octor Sulcus, at his back, he started again.

     The goal, the Legends Beyond the Urwald, seemed auxiliary at that point.  It was all about the means now, not the end.  The failed quests had become habitual.  The marsopod steeds he had killed, the physical and emotional wounds he had suffered at the hands of beasts foreign and domestic, and the repeated disappointment of providence denied all ushered him into lower level of existence.  A life where the only reward was regret.  He was finally ready. 

     And so, Nyk started again.  Where he always did, when he always did, thinking and saying what he always thought and said, he began.  He knew how the pilgrimage would commence, and thought he knew how it would conclude.  He did not know, however, this would be the last time he entered the Urwald from his mockingly familiar egress.  Yes, Nyk was finally ready, and the Kynoi finally ready for him.  In unison, they uttered two simple, misunderstood words to mark the beginning, and the end.

Shall we?

There you have it.  Hope you like it.  It will happen.  Halteres will be born again!

Now please, show yourself out.  I'm never ending the beginning of a book.













Hey, if that happened, this can happen!

BAD ASS IONIZATION

How do you turn a negative into a positive?  Supply negative particles with enough energy to free themselves?  Shed electrons through quantum tunneling? 

No.  You simply draw a line.  I'm ready to draw the line.

No, it's not easy.  You have to seek out opportunities for inspiration.  You have endure rejection and disappointment.  You have to get butt ass naked in front of the world.

I go to this Teen Science Fiction Talk and Book Signing at the Tattered Cover last night.  My cousin Lexxie was introducing the authors (great job and thank you!).  Before it started, I found myself staring at the science fiction/fantasy section.  I could imagine Halteres sitting up there in the shelves somewhere between William Gibson and Frank Herbert.  That...is my dream.  (interesting that Halteres and my last name start with Ha...Ha-Ha!)

So I listen to these authors speak, and again I imagine myself sitting alongside them.  Dream?  Prophecy.  There was one, a tatted up, Dave Grohl lookin', Aussie Bad Ass wearing this...

He instantly became my hero.  I bought his book and got it signed.  Then, feeling like a complete jackass, I gave him my card.  Not in the hopes that anything would come of it, but simply as a gesture to connect to someone I wish to emulate.  By the way, the term 'Bad Ass' was thrown around liberally at this event, especially by him.  I truly think the domain on my card made an impact.  I'm definitely on to something...

I left feeling pretty good, pretty overwhelmed, and pretty proud of what I've accomplished so far.  One of the authors said, "It's far easier to turn a bad book into a good book than to write a book in the first place." (paraphrase, of course).  So, my book may be bad (bad ass!), but it's better than nothing.  Hey, it's significantly better than nothing.

And so, I will position myself near cathodes, create a Townsend Avalanche to shed elections, and continue drawing lines whenever negativity arises.  I'm going to continue improving Halteres and use NaNoWriMo to rework my next novel. 

The difference between (-) and (+)?  One F**King line.

Anyway, until next time, don't negate me.  I'm ionizing a book.

Shut up.

HALTERES FORM AND FUNCTION

I forgot what I was going to say.  Oh yeah, form and function.  I've been thinking a lot about these things lately.  Let's analogize!

Form- the structure of something; anatomy
Function- the mechanism of something; physiology

We all know by now that the form of Halteres, singular, magnificent, elegant, leads to its function, the workshop of the Kynoi.  This construct, this element drives everything that happens in the novel.  Halteres is the form and function of...HALTERES!

Form and function have been popping up everywhere in and around this project.  Examples...

*I need to go back and make sure that everything of any significant form in Halteres has a corresponding function.  Characters, settings, action must all serve a purpose if they're taking up space in my book.  It's a lot like life.

* Rejection letters- Their form is, well, form.  No advice, no encouragement.  Just...'unfortunately'.  Their function must be to motivate, not deflate.  I must use them to drive and make Halteres better.

* My own form and function.  I'm a machine, right now not well oiled, that must produce Bad Ass Sci Fi.  Take better care of myself and become the vehicle of relentlessness.  Shut up.

* My work.  The form- something that is tolerable, makes me marginal amounts of money, and is somewhat flexible.  The function must be to take full advantage of the flexibility and ensure I don't have to keep doing it forever. 

Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to be allowed to do the things you do.

Aside-

No one gets there on their own
But the want is yours alone.

Oh, yeah.  I finally figured out how Halteres Minor's days work and why it can't sustain life!  Due to its vertical spin on the ecliptic plane, it has two cycles of daylight for each horizontal rotation of Halteres General.  Brilliant.  Genius.  Obvious.  Shut up.

Anywho, out.  I'm forming the function of a book.

HALTERES' DOUBT BAD ASS-ASS-ASS-IN

doubt

verb (used with object)

1.  to be uncertain about; consider questionable or unlikely; hesitate to believe.

2.  to distrust.

3.  Archaic. to fear; be apprehensive about.

 

verb (used without object)

4.  to be uncertain about something; be undecided in opinion or belief.

 

noun

5.  a feeling of uncertainty about the truth, reality, or nature of something.

6.  distrust.

7.  a state of affairs such as to occasion uncertainty.

8.  Obsolete. fear; dread.

 

I have been truly humbled by this process, this journey of pursuing my dreams.  Did I know I was going to try and do this my whole life?  No.  It was more a process of elimination.  I tried some other stuff for awhile.  I didn't try some other stuff for no-while.  This is what I was left with; stranded on Halteres.

 

I personally love it here.  I wish I could live here forever.  Unfortunately (by the way, unfortunately is a word I've grown to loathe and vow to never use again) anyway, unfortunately, life goes on...real life.  I have to earn some semblance of a living.  It's hard to do when you're not passionate about anything...but writing.  What if I find out I'm not really good at what I aspire to do?  What then, I ask you?  What then?  Shut up?

 

Doubt.  It's all fine and well to use your dreams to motivate you through the mundane interim.  Doubt.  You can always find strength from within, but I fear I'm past peak production.  Doubt.  It's always going to be there...until it isn't.  

 

It's funny they say fear as a definition for doubt is obsolete.  It's definitely a precursor.  Doubt will lead you to fear, and fear will exacerbate doubt.  It's like a spinny wheely thingy that goes faster and faster until it falls of the bikey forky whatnot.  Not that this will do any good, but...

 

F**K DOUBT!

F**K FEAR!

 

Anyway, f**k off.  I'm doubting doubting a book.

 

 

 

HALTERES QUERIES & SYNOPSES

Hey there!  Just wanted to let you know I'm still working!  Here's the latest revision of my synopsis.

Let me know what you think!

Halteres

Synopsis

Welcome to HALTERES; a planet of astonishing form and function.  You’re just in time to participate in its rebirth.  Of course, for anything to be reborn, it first has to die.  Enjoy!

Halteres, a conjoined binary system unlike any other in the known universe, provides the perfect testing ground for an entity of almost unlimited power and ambition; the KYNOI.  As the next planetary alignment approaches, the Kynoi prepares to return.  The Nexus; an event no being on Halteres will ever forget, or live to remember.

In order to complete the Nexus, however, the Kynoi needs some of the very souls it seeks to destroy.  Its energy courses through every organism on the planet, but a blessed few will be recruited to assist in its return; chief among them, NYK.  For those who inherit this connection, their lives, their paths now belong to the Atosentient Lord.

Nyk forsakes his family, clan, and most loyal friend, BRIMS, to follow the call of his bio-ethereal shepherd.  The rewards will be great.  He is shown Halteres’ true structure and the magnitude of power he shares with her and the Kynoi.  His extraordinary symbiosis with the planet’s organic circuitry network, the ARCA TROCHIA, is growing. 

Unfortunately, the consequences will be greater.  He has just set the Nexus in motion.  The Kynoi’s presence magnifies throughout the planet.  And soon, the Kynoi will deliver Nyk to the doorstep of evil.

DROLOS, Sovereign Lord of Halteres Minor and the Mendax, has been waiting.  He shares no mystical bond with the Kynoi, cannot be embellished or controlled by it, but he has something just as powerful.  He has knowledge.  He knows what the Kynoi will bring and what is required to bring it.  Now he has the last piece needed to set his own plan in motion.  The Kynoi has just given him Nyk. 

With Nyk within Drolos’ grasp, the Kynoi maneuvers its other disciples.  The COMRADES OF THE KYNOI begin to coalesce.  The multi-species troupe of gifted misfits is unaware the entity that makes them special and gives them purpose has far more nefarious plans.  Little do they know their very destinies may destroy the planet.  

THYSIA; a broken and condemned Mendax refugee escapes certain death to continue her search for justice.  VINCO; a dishonored Ratnik warrior embarks on an extraordinary pilgrimage to find his strength.  Brims leaves her homeland to look for Nyk.  E; a conflicted Mendax sentry retrieves Nyk and struggles with his loyalties.  FOURS; an anger-driven hover-lith pilot defies authority to find her voice.  PHYQUAE; the genius inventor of the Kynoi containment device, the SCATHE, hopes for wisdom.

Soon their paths and plights will join.  Each has an inexorable tie to the Kynoi.  Each must discover that their power lies not only with it, but with them.  Together, they must overcome monumental peril to rescue Nyk from Drolos and uncover the secrets of the Kynoi.  Together, they must decide whether the Kynoi brings enlightenment or apocalypse.

As the Syzygy approaches, the Kynoi’s commands intensify.  It will not be denied.  Drolos begins executing his scheme to secure the Nexus.  He will not fail.  The Comrades begin to discover the Kynoi is not to be trusted.  They must fight back.  Nyk realizes he has more power than ever imagined.  He alone must choose; embrace providence, or destroy it.

Alright then.  Until next time, don't bugger me!  I'm synopsizing a book!