NaNoWriMo and the Snowflake Method

November is known by many writers as the birth month of first drafts. National Novel Writing Month has always seemed like a very fun -- if not stressful -- idea to me. While I have often weighed the benefits of joining in, I've ended up skipping out on the event for the last two years. There's always been something else in the way. I've been too pressed with work, too bogged down. But this year will be different. I'm going to give it a shot. If you're running the gauntlet as well, be sure to add me to your friends, my user name is BradyBones.

Is this the first time you've heard about NaNoWriMo? Well, simply put, it's a writing event spanning the entire month of November. The goal is to write 50,000 words during that time. There are varying degrees of involvement you can subscribe to. Perhaps just knowing you are joining the cause along with countless other authors around the world is enough, maybe even all you have time for. But if you need to feel like part of a group, to get and give support to your comrades, you can participate in forums and even join regional groups. For some, this support network is the true spirit of NaNoWriMo, and the networking resources to be gained are worth the effort. And the writing? Icing on the cake.

What happens if you fail to produce 50,000 words by midnight on November 30th? Nothing. The world will not end. You won't be pointed out or ridiculed. In fact, you'll most likely get a pat on the back. Your 20 or 30,000 word effort will be yours to keep! And if you succeed, if you meet or surpass the milestone with your first draft intact? More of the same, really. The congratulations of your peers and the knowledge that you were able to meet your goals is yours for the taking. I can think of nothing short of publication that would fill a writer with more pride than setting a seemingly impossible goal and deadline and then rising to the task.

Does your novel have to cut off at 50,000 words? Not at all. In fact, 50,000 words is considered to be on the lower-end of the spectrum for novels. Some writers choose to omit minor scenes for their first draft, others opt to set their word goal without modifying the pretense of how long the piece should be. Either way, a finished draft that requires fattening up or a draft that is 50,000 out of 70,000 words is still an incredible milestone.

It's a good idea to start out your month of writing knowing where your novel is going and who your characters are. A tip from the leader of our now defunct Speculative Fiction writing group referred me to the Snowflake Method touted by novelist and theoretical physicist, Randy Ingermanson. Hey, I took physics in high school and Mr. Yahne's class was one of my favorites, so I'll bite.

The Snowflake Method is a way to develop the premise for your writing, work up the backgrounds for your characters, and expose the gears of how your story will unfold. It promotes character-based progression and helps to grease the gears of your plot to ensure that the engine of your novel will purr. In short, it is a method of outlining.

There are, of course, infinite methods of outlining and it may or may not be appealing to your style of writing. At the very least, I would recommend checking it out, even if you don't intend to work an outline into your routine. With the post-dating of this entry to my blog to mark the start of NaNoWriMo, it may be too late to go back and outline. But even today, two days before the event kicks off, I found it to be an illuminating read, one that I will likely refer to after my draft is complete to help organize my novel and give it more definition.

I will admit, I pulled up the page and intended to read it several times. But after working all day staring at a computer screen, I just couldn't convince myself to go through it. It wasn't until I finally printed it out and tucked it into my bag that I finally got around to giving it a read. Even then, it was on my second trip to the library as an intro into starting my writing. In the end, I'm glad I took the few minutes it took to read through it. What's more, aside from the paper and ink, it didn't cost me a thing!

Who knows... maybe I'll break it out a few times during November while I'm writing to remind myself just how much work I've already got done. I don't have an outline yet, and there isn't a whole lot of rhyme or reason to what I do have. But I've got my two very rough chapters, my notes, and the voice recordings I captured when my fingers didn't feel like typing out the waterfall of thoughts gushing out of my head. It may not be as intrinsically beautiful as a snowflake, but it's a start.

My Second Writing Day

For my second official "Writing Day" I spent a few hours at two different libraries. My wife and the kids were headed to a Halloween party so I had her drop me off at a smaller library on the way. Then, after the party, we headed up to the Pleasant Valley library in Ogden. I'm telling you, I think I'm falling in love with that place.

Imagine a library with a coffee shop, a sitting area with tables and booths galore, a large flat screen TV playing movies (with directional speakers that you can't hear unless you're sitting underneath them), a kid's area with computers and lounge chairs, and free wi-fi. The list goes on, but it turns out that this place is perfect for me to get some writing done.

In preparation for NaNoWriMo, I wrote three blog posts, including this one, that will be post-dated to help clear my table for my novel-writing efforts. I also managed to get a bit more work done on my short story, "The Viability of a Seed". It's really coming along and I should have the first draft done soon.

I am really enjoying my Friday writing time, and I think that it's really going to end up being a life saver when it comes to getting my NaNoWriMo writing done. I'm definitely not going to use Friday's as an excuse to skip out on my writing during the week, but I'm a realist. I know there's going to be at least a few days where I'm going to end up being too mentally exhausted to do much of anything once I get off work. I have thought about waking up earlier to try to get my writing done before I start in the morning, perhaps I should think about that a little more seriously. I'm not a morning person by any stretch of the definition, but sometimes writing is about making things work - because that's what we need to do.

I'm also happy to report that I recently bought a book for my wife that seems to be an incredible hit. I haven't read it yet, but I took my netbook with me to the store when I bought it and read several raving reviews. Boneshaker is a Steampunk novel based in the civil war era in Seattle, Washington. My wife really seems to like it, too, which is awesome! There's nothing like the joy of finding a book for someone and finding out that they enjoy it, well... unless it's writing a book for someone and seeing that they love it, but that's another story altogether.

Starting a Writing Critique Group

I would like to start this post off by sharing a youtube video of a song I recently caught on the radio. If you have a few minutes, check it out. It might not be your thing, but you never know.



This song is called Firefles, it's by Owl City, and I like it. I like it in the way I want people to enjoy my writing. I can only imagine someone reading one of my stories or a book of mine and immediately thinking, "Whoa, I want to read that again."

We can dream, right?

But let's talk about now and the path from here to there, shall we? I've been kicking around the idea of starting up a critique group. I was thinking something along the lines of an email based group where you send a sample of writing for critique by a certain date every month and get feedback from the other members. In return, you offer constructive feedback on their pieces.

I don't have a whole lot of time where I just sit around waiting for something to happen, so I figure that I'll need to keep the group to a manageable size. I've got 3 other people lined up so far, but I was thinking that maybe 2 or 3 more people would be fine. Absolutely no more than that or we'd all spend as much or more time reading than actually writing.

So, what are some other considerations that I should keep in mind?

Submission Length - Having a max length specification would ensure that people don't get too bogged down with one author's work. So what should be the max? 2,000 words? 4000 words? Probably no more than that. 4,000 words x 6 members (excluding self) = 24,000 words + the time it takes to write sincere feedback for each. (Yeah, 7 people is definitely the max for a critique group.)

Date Specifications - If everyone is going to be emailing their work for feedback each month, there are going to have to be some specifications. Such as, when pieces will be emailed, and when feedback should be given by.

Content Guidelines - To keep people from being offended, it won't do to have sexually graphic or overly violent pieces submitted to the group for review. Besides, are you really going to get a thorough review if someone is too focused on the controversy?

Now that I think about it, people tend to like to send out emails they receive to people in their address book. I suppose some sort of rule should be set as to what is and isn't acceptable to send out. For example, I might enjoy a good post about plot design or rewriting techniques, but I really do hate those chain emails and hoaxes telling me that IBM and AOL have teamed up with Microsoft to send me money for every time I pester everyone with an email address that I know. I suppose that's one of the issues with having email-based submissions. A forum might be better, but what forum solutions are there? I've only ever ran a forum from a site I had hosting for.

Anyway, while I'm pondering over the specifics, would any of you be interested? I only ask that you volunteer if you can submit at least one piece per month and offer constructive feedback for other writers. What you stand to gain is a group of writers of various skill levels that can help you focus and shape your writing, rejoice in your successes, and comfort you in your moments of defeat.

Have any lessons you would like to share from your previous experiences? Feel free to chime in!

Hunting the Muse: My First "Writing Day".

Today was definitely a case of hunting the muse as I set about the task of dedicated myself to working on my writing. Funny enough, the muse struck in quite an unexpected way -- I found myself resisting at first, but then I just let go and went with it.

My intention was to spend time on finishing up my short stories and maybe working on my novel. Can I call it that? My novel? Sure, why not. (NaNoWriMo is right around the corner and I've been thinking about joining in this year, so I guess that would qualify my project as a novel rather than the ambiguous term of "book-length project"...) But as fate would have it, I ended up writing several articles instead. I think the total number for the day was about 10. The minimum number of words for each was 400, but I wrote at least 500 words on most and some went over 1,000. Even at 500 words a pop, however, that's still at least 5,000 words for the day, which isn't a bad shake by any account. Granted it isn't fiction, but it's still paying work.

I suppose by some standards that means that I was a professional writer for my first scheduled "Writing Day" and that's nothing to frown about. At the very least it means that I spent my day as a Freelancer, even if the pay isn't the best. Some of those articles, however, were worth an upfront payment of two dollars, plus whatever residual ad revenue they bring in. To put that into perspective, prior to writing these new articles, I'd already made $1.61 for the month. Yeah, it's not much, but it didn't take any extra effort to make that buck sixty-one either. My highest paying article to date has made a paltry $4.18 USD, but it continues to pull in a little extra every single month.

The important thing, though, is that I did spend my day attached to the keyboard and I spent that time working on my writing. That's definitely a step in the right direction! With my monthly article submission goal met, perhaps I'll be able to focus my next session on my fiction work.

Now, as far as what I've learned lately about my writing, well... it's been a rough to realize how "purple" my recent prose has been. I've also developed a lazy "as" problem. My writing has been saturated with it, and it really is a nasty habit that does more damage than it does good. I'm going to try not to get hung up on it while throwing down my initial draft, I'd hate to stop the flow of words, but it is definitely something that needs to be fixed in the first revision.

I've also decided that posting first drafts of my work is generally a bad idea. As such, I will work to run my draft through at least one revision before posting it, taking special care to refine any overly purple sections and killing my "as" infractions. The last thing we need is for this blog to turn into a bloody "as"-tray.

Also, I have started to wonder... What is it that you all come here for? In other words, what content would you like me to provide? Thus far this blog has been a recording of my hunt for the illusive muse, my journey toward becoming the published author that I've dreamed of being. Is that enough for you? At one point in time I was naive enough to think that I had what it takes to offer writing advice, but the further I progressed, the more I realized that this is a journey and that I can only teach my own experiences. As of yet, I can't really consider myself a professional. My writing resume is paltry and scant. To pretend I had any inkling of professional advice to offer would turn me into nothing more than a fraud. So, I present you with this question: What is it that you would like to read about when you visit this blog of mine? Are my experiences dealing with my writing journey enough, or do you expect to see something else? Help me help you to help me -- or something like that.

Developing a Writing Schedule

As writers, many of us struggle to find to time actually sit down and write. There are full-time jobs that gobble up at least 40 hours a week, and for those of us that are married, loving spouses that require more attention than an electronic tamagotchi pet. But we love you, we really do, and we didn't just compare you to an electronic toy that pleads for affection -- I promise!

So how do we make time for it all, and still manage to work on our writing projects? Because that's what it's like to be a writer for many of us, isn't it? We don't just work on one piece to completion, no that would be far too reasonable... Many of us dabble. We start projects, and switch up our creative endeavors to avoid boredom and resentment or to scratch a new creative itch that threatens to drive us insane if we don't acknowledge it. The muse comes as it will and does not take kindly to being asked to wait.

Of course, I'm no exception. I've been quite busy with my non-fiction writing lately, and I've added a fair decent number of articles to my online inventory. Some of my more notable articles dealing with writing are book reviews for writing advice books, The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman and On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. Since I already have these books in my collection, it was rather easy to put the reviews together. It does make it easier when you get some use out of a book. I imagine that a responsibly written 'bad review' is a bit harder to write. It also made me realize just how many of these types of books I've got on the shelf, which is one part sad and one part opportunity to write more reviews, most of which will not be recommendations for purchase. I also put together some quick articles based on our experience with the Disney Land and Sea vacation we took back in May to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. I plan on expanding my articles on this topic as well, since it is an area of broad interest and I wish we'd had some of the information I've got locked in my head before we'd made our travel arrangements. That has to be useful to a fair amount of people planning their vacations, so why not? If there's an audience... might as well sing. Here are two of my 'songs' err -- articles -- Review: Our Disney Cruise and What You Can Expect on a Disney Cruise.

The short stories I've got in the works are both on an 'as-I-get-time' status, though I do feel quite compelled to finish them. For those of you who have been with me for a while, the titles I've still got 'in-play' are "The Viability of a Seed" and "Chlorophyllium 9".

There's so much that I feel I need to do and only so much that I can tackle at any one time. Life is demanding more attention from me as well. We're half-way through painting the basement, which must be done before the workers can come back and finish the rest. Of course, taking a queue from Jim's ( The Truth About Lies ) recent comment to my blog, I'm putting a little extra effort to personalize the paint job in my office to help create the perfect writing atmosphere. It's going well so far, and I'll be sure to add pictures soon, but the process is time consuming.

Working 10 hour shifts and getting off at 6:30 PM has also put a bit of a strain on a recent goal to write something non-work related every day. I get off work, spend a few minutes trying to get my mind right, then it's time for dinner and I try to spend a little time with the kids before they go to bed and then the night just seems to melt away before I realize what's happened. So last night I decided that writing every single day may not be the best approach right now. I'll only beat myself up if I miss a day and that doesn't help the writing process in the slightest.

What I need is a workable writing schedule, a set block of time where I do nothing but write. Any other writing I may be able to churn out at other times during the week is bonus. I've decided that Friday is a good day for me to carve out time for my writing, and that will work for me. What type of writing schedule works for you?

If I'd have been asked that question when I first began writing, I would have scoffed at you. How can you schedule time to write? How can you expect to tame the wayward muse? The concept would have been insulting. Yet now, mellowed by time and experience, I know that a schedule is the only thing that can guarantee that I will sit down and write, and to not write seems a crime against the very core of who I am.

That begs the question: Who are you? As a writer, as a person, as someone with dreams, what will it take for you to accomplish the tasks you feel drawn toward? These are questions you will need to answer when it comes to balancing your creativity and your responsibilities. The great test has been laid before you, what tools will you use to ensure you pass? A writing schedule may not be the razor-bladed sword of a mighty hero, but a sword must be wielded to be a legend and a hero must do something heroic to be a hero made. So too must a writer write. Will you schedule your time on the battlefield to hone your abilities for the battle to come, or will you allow life to schedule your practice for you?

Are Creative Endeavors a Product of Pain?

During my mid-teen years, arguably some of the hardest in my life, I was prone to expressing myself through creative means. I made up little ditties such as The Poppy Seed Muffin Song on the spot, a brainchild of improvisation. Of course, this song, and many others like it that I have long forgot, made me an instant hit with a lot of the girls my age and, unsurprisingly, instilled some resentment with some of the more physically expressive guys looking for their share of attention. The truth of the matter was that my antics were a product of the pain I felt inside and an effort to bridge the gap that I felt between myself and the rest of the world. The outcome, however, was quite unfortunate: I found that despite all of my efforts, I only seemed to amass a large amount of fair-weather-friends. These friends were happy to have me around, just so long as I didn't allow my pain to show through the grand charade. Always being quite intuitive, I picked up on this fact early on, but couldn't help but play along... some contact, however shallow and trivial, was better than none at all. Making people laugh made me happy.

The writing I did during this earlier period was mostly just letters and notes. The majority of my time was spent reading. How could I not? On most days my life consisted of going to school, coming home, and spending the rest of the night hidden away in my room except for phone calls and dinner. My only friends after school were my animals. To be lounging around the house during those years was dangerous for me. I couldn't just head off to my friend's houses, we lived out away from the subdivisions and I was often denied my requests for parole - though my siblings had an easier time of it. My mother felt that she was losing her relationship with my father, and he blamed me for destroying their marriage. No, I wasn't an only child, I was just the only one that they didn't really get along with. It's a long story, and one I don't feel like delving into for this post.

It is no real surprise, then, that I took so readily to writing as a form of expression. My poems and short stories were a hit, yet here too I encountered resentment. Even though my stories and poems were the hit of my Creative Writing and Advanced Creative Writing classes, I was turned down for publication in the school literary journal during both my sophomore and junior years in high school. I'm not sure if I finally made it during my senior year or not, but the rejection cut quite deep at the time. In each case, one of the Creative Writing teachers told me that they had really tried to convince the student committee in charge of selecting the pieces for publication that my submission belonged, and both years the outcome was the same. Apparently being on the committee was a sure-fire way to get your work in the publication, and though I did consider joining for that sole purpose, I just couldn't stand the idea that my writing had been published for that reason alone.

I can't imagine that all writers are hurting, or have a history of pain in their lives, though I am sure there are a fair number with their own demons to bear. Whether the majority of writing is the product of pain or just a form of expression that some people are drawn to, I can't say. Perhaps for me it was more an avenue of escape; one that was replaced with overt responsibility when I joined the military, and washed over with the countless hours I spent playing video games to ease the burden of a choice I made to give my wife and my little girl a better life. After all those years I want that avenue back, not so much to escape anything, but because I feel like it is a part of me that I have denied for too long.

How about you? Whether you write, paint, knit, sculpt, or carve: why do you feel compelled to create?

I am a Published Author

I have spent the last year and a half debating whether or not I can call myself a writer or if I should more readily accept the term 'writing enthusiast', but today I have better news. I was asked several months ago if I would like to participate in an inspirational book with writings of bloggers from all around the world. For my contribution, I offered one of my short stories that I felt very close to. In fact, I pulled it from consideration with a magazine that I had submitted it to in order to use it for this publication.

At first, I will admit, I was not sure about whether I should join the efforts. Many years ago I submitted a poem of mine to a poetry contest that I saw in the back of a writing magazine. Imagine how excited I was when I was notified that my poem, one that I had a special connection with, was selected for their anthology. As the time for publication drew near, I noticed that I was starting to receive a lot more promotional mail concerning things that I could buy from the company. After a while it really started to get ridiculous.

I can't remember how much I paid for the anthology, for the honor of seeing myself in print, but I think it was anywhere from 20-30 dollars. That was a lot for me back then. I cannot explain to you in words the agony I felt when the book finally arrived. The best I might offer you is an enraged howling or a demonstration of fingernails on a chalkboard. My poem had been mangled, severely. It was not done so in a manner of editorial improvement, something that I may have understood on some level. No, the edit was clearly to better fit it into the page as the book itself could be compared to a flimsy tin can teeming with sardines. And that was it, my poem, the bleeding of my heart, was turned into nothing more than a sardine.

This time around, I am receiving a contributor's copy for the donation of my story and any money earned beyond the cost of producing the book is to be distributed equally among the authors. Have I really come this far? Can I finally let go of that experience being burned so many years ago? Sometimes it seems like we want to hold on to the pain. Is it because it makes us remember our failures so that we do not repeat them? Is it because we have some kind of delusion that pain somehow makes us human or that it makes us better writers? I'm not sure, but I can tell you this, if ever I was a hoarder of anything, it would be my agony that I hold onto most.

So here's to a new day, a new beginning. In celebration of this event, I would like to share with you the poem that broke my heart. I was young, and so the writing may also seem young, but with it came my heart -- as unrefined as it may have been. As a bit of a warning, it was eight days before my 17th birthday when I wrote this:

The Healing

Lives lived in simplicity
Are simply things we'll never see.
For a man will sow just what he reaps,
And in his heart those things he keeps.

So with heart in hand he walks to you
And gives those things in plainest view.
When he then does speak a word,
He's bruised and beaten and never heard.

After that he pulls away,
Even if you wish he'd stay.
For mortal wound his heart acquire,
And your hate becomes a blazing fire.

With head hung low he starts to leave,
And sees again he is naive.
But now he holds his broken heart,
So once again the healing starts.

-Brady Frost © 1997

Now, if you wouldn't mind, would you check out the book and at least consider if it is something you might be interested in? There is no obligation to buy, just take a look and comment back to offer your support. If you decide to buy a copy, make sure you do so because it's what you want to do and not because you feel like you need to buy one to make me happy. Just let me know you're proud of my accomplishment.

The story that I submitted is called "The Boy in the Window". It is a story about a boy who discovers that he is not alone and finds his path through hardship with the help of an old man on the other side of a window. Here's the link.

The New Internet Dilemma and Writing.

It's been boiling to the surface over the last few years, this new internet dilemma. The world wide web has been known as a place for both spiders and flies for well over a decade now, with problems ranging from copyright theft and infringement, piracy, and of course the no-holds-barred realm of the electronic red light district with any palette satisfied, yet left darkly desiring more, legal or otherwise -- to name just a few. But I've recently realized another problem, one that even I have participated in and will likely perpetuate for some time to come.

Do you ever stop and take a good look at the people around you? What do you see? What is your impression of what and how people learn in the post-educational environment of work forces and every day life? Newspapers, Radio, Television, and even libraries have long been major sources of information - some truth and some propaganda most assuredly.

One observation, felt personally by many writers and the industry that currently supports the majority of the professionals in the sector, is that print medias are waning in today's society. Less people take the newspaper, visit libraries, and/or buy books. Therefore, the ever-evolving writer, and publisher, must look to new electronic means of publication: the internet.

I was just thinking to myself the other day that I really need to write more Triond, Helium, and Hubpages articles. So far I think I've done the best with Triond's passive article income generation, as it doesn't require star ratings for writing and rating other articles nor does it necessitate massive promotion or social networking in-site. All that aside, I started thinking about the nature of the articles on these sites and how it all comes together. I blame Helium the most for this, since they make you rate articles in order to get paid your share of the advertising revenue, and thus exposed me to a lot of the content that gets posted that I wouldn't normally read.

Ladies and gentlemen, this may or may not come as a big surprise to you, but there is a large amount of utter crap that gets published on the internet and passed off as an information resource these days. Anyone can be an expert on anything, regardless of their actual expertise. This kind of bothers me. Not in a holier-than-thou kind of way, because I know I'm guilty of perpetuating it as well, but as a conceptual whole. It's one thing if you take what you read with a grain of salt, but it just seems like so many people take things at face value and that's just plain dangerous.

While rating some of those Helium articles, I just couldn't stop myself from feeling a great sense of loss. Now, theoretically these articles would be rated down by the masses, but in truth, I've started to wonder just how accurate the ratings system is. Either something is amiss on some of these articles (usually submitted by channel stewards) or people are really starting to get dumber. But it isn't just Helium. Everyone these days has to have a voice, and the internet is humming with conversation. Ppl tlk lk dis on da w3b nd smehw it ok. That just makes my brain hurt... I spend more time trying to decipher what the heck that says and by the time I put it together I really don't care about what you may or may not have meant by it. Can we blame cell phones and texting for that? Probably. But the thing is that many of those people don't shift gears when they sit in front of a keyboard. Nope, it the sme ol gme ya no?

The sad thing is that I start to wonder, if people are growing too lazy to check facts when they write or too lazy to write in actual words, what does that mean for the effort it takes to read? How long will it be before there is no more intellectual reading, only opinions expressed in quasi-syllables and grunts?

/rant off.

A Glimpse of the Storm

**Edit: This is a snippet of my current Fantasy novel project. The scene that takes place below belongs a couple of chapters into the story. As this segment pertains to a blog post, there is a bit more mystery here than in context, but just because you don't have some of the background that has unfolded before this point. Regardless, I hope you enjoy this insight into my project and that you find its merits worthy of a standalone piece. **

The storm raged low in the sky, menacing and sinister. Thunder crackled and boomed and the rafters of the small cottages on either side of the lane trembled. Flashes of spidery lightning crawled across the boiling surface of the angry clouds, piercing the darkness and illuminating silhouettes of the buildings and the rain-soaked cobbles of the street below.

Ethan stepped out from the shelter of the eave and into the pelting rain. The stinging drops were bitter cold as they struck the exposed skin of his cheeks and hands. With the sound of the storm raging around them there was no real need for complete discretion, but he took to the shadows out of instinct. He could only catch snippets of what the two men were saying, without solid evidence he could do nothing. He had to get closer, but being closer, even in the midst of a storm such as this, meant the possibility of exposing himself. With everything at risk, the capture of the man who had betrayed all of Darion, Ethan took a deep breath and crept through the torrential rain, stalking his elusive prey.

"When will the next supply convoy depart?" The fat watchman asked the cloaked figure.

"They expect to depart the capital city two nights hence, with enemy forces gathering near Gildaes it could be months before they arrive."

"That's unacceptable!" The watchman bellowed before his words were muffled out by the sudden vice-like grip of his mysterious companion.

His hands reached instinctively toward his neck as he struggled for air, then his limbs shuddered and quaked as he was lifted from the ground with a strength that did not seem at all natural. His chubby fingers turned white as he gripped his companion's arms, trying to alleviate the agony without success.

After a few short moments the man dropped him, gasping, to the hard cobbles and landed a swift kick to his mid-section. Whoever this hooded man was, he had no patience for ill-founded demands.

"You delivered your end of the bargain, Watchman Simms, for that I will not kill you for this insolence tonight. But nothing you say or do will make that caravan travel any faster through a land besieged by those... creatures. Your payment will depart in two days, whether it reaches you in time or not, I can not and will not guarantee."

Simms sobbed. Unable to look his assailant in the eye, he picked himself up and stumbled backwards. A loud crash of thunder set him further off edge and he landed hard on the cold, wet cobblestones.

"So what will it be, Simms, have you any other secrets of Darion that you would like to sell to the Empire?" The man asked with venom in his eyes and a playful smile dancing across his lips.

The watchman slithered back into the shadows of the alleyway and the man took a step in his direction before stopping and looking back at the cleft where Ethan stood. A sudden crash of alley debris brought his attention back to the fleeing watchman and his grin widened as he turned to pursue his informant.

"On second thought, I'm not at all convinced that this relationship of ours will remain beneficial much longer," he laughed.

The muscles in Ethan's arms and legs bunched as he prepared to launch himself at the mysterious agent of the Empire. Whoever this man was, he would bring wave upon wave of the arachnid armies down upon the city state of Darion. They would amass like a shadow outside the gates, clicking and gnashing their great fangs until the night held nothing but nightmares for even the boldest of soldiers manning the defenses. Then, once all hope had been extinguished, they would tear the walls apart stone by stone.

Gritting his teeth, he felt the energy surge within him. The muscles in his back rippled and quaked and his eyes gleamed in the darkness with the ethereal madness that washed over him. Bellowing his battle cry, he burst from the shadows like a fiery dart aimed at the silhouette of the man now standing over the limp body of Watchman Simms.

Out of nowhere a large, muscled hand clamped down on his shoulder, suspending him in the air like a broken marionette. The untamed rage that pulsed through his veins surged anew and he watched with dismay as the man turned to face him. The element of surprise was lost, but the energy flowed through him now and would not let go. It would be a fight to the death.

A distant flash of lightning lit the small courtyard long enough for Ethan to make out the blood-tinted stream flowing from where Simms lay. The watchman was dead, which meant that before he killed this man, he'd have to make him talk. This secret of Darion, it was their undoing, yet it could be their only hope. And now this man, this agent of darkness, was the only one who could tell him what he needed to know.

The sky itself seemed to cry in agony as a bright light made its jagged descent, arcing and tearing downward. He felt the air around him buzz and crackle as he struggled against the restraining arm on his shoulder and a blinding flash banished the shadows. An immediate explosion of sound followed, pinning him to the ground. When the light faded, he looked up to where the man had stood. All that remained was the smoldering remains of Watchman Simms. The cobblestones were shattered and etched in ash and the man, the key to Darion's survival, was gone.

"No!" Ethan screamed into the night, trembling as the ethereal energy drained from his limbs.

He could have had him. He could have saved countless lives, if only... And then he remembered the hand that had stopped him, that had cut short his attack and ruined the element of surprise. Whoever it was that had followed him into this storm had ruined everything. He spun around to face the man now standing behind him and felt his heart sink as he recognized the worn, muscled palms of the hands raised up in peace.

"What have you done?" he whispered, his tears mixing with the pouring rain. "Why?"

If These Walls Could Talk

We're in the process of having our basement finished; two more bedrooms and a bathroom. One of the rooms will be for my wife, which she'll use for her craft room and as base command for homeschooling our kids. The other room will be my office.

Over the last few weeks we've watched these rooms take shape and have been eagerly anticipating the day that we can finally move in and get settled, finally able to seize our aspirations for this once empty space and make each newly defined area mold to our imaginations. It's been hard at times, looking at the rough sheet rock job and then watching the nicks and dings melt away as the surface is refined with tape and mud.

We started this project a year ago with framing the walls and fixing a lot of the crude flaws left by the builder. After several months of schedule conflicts, we decided that it was time to collect bids and have the job contracted out. There were still a few things that we decided we could do on our own, of course. With my prior experience in Comm while in the military, I decided I would run the wiring for the phone and internet for both rooms and tie it all together in the new furnace room. It basically allows me to have computers and multimedia devices connected throughout the house without relying too heavily on wireless or stringing internet cables all over the place. That was my brainchild, but my wife had a much better one.

Once the workers had installed the insulation, my wife suggested that we take the opportunity to participate in a tradition from the Victorian era that she'd heard of. Sometimes families would write letters or tuck trinkets or other things into the walls of their homes while they were being built. These priceless treasures would stay hidden and forgotten for many years; some were found, others were not.

The idea struck me as particularly brilliant and I decided to print out one of my short stories and quietly snuck down to the basement and slid it behind the insulation in my new office. I figure, this is going to be the new home of my writing endeavors once it's finished, why not set the mood?

I know, in a way it sounds kind of dorky. But if those walls could talk, they'd have a story to tell.