Day 6, am, 8,868 total, 1621 this morning

If I can just actually sit down and write some additional time today, I will catch up and get ahead of the game.

It seems surprisingly easy to bang out a 1000 words at a sitting. And it also seems suprisingly difficult to bang out say, 2000 at a sitting. I guess because 1.5 to 2 hours is kind of the limit of my creative spark. It's like I have some pretty definite plot leanings when I sit down. I know where I want to go over the short haul, and I know what route to take. And so, I just sit and type almost non-stop for the whole hour and a half or so.

Then I run dry. I go away, and something must be clicking away in the back of my mind because when I sit down again, away I go. This is really fascinating.

Today's excerpt:

Chapter 2
Bruta, Ciega, Sordomuda

“Start a fire.” It was soft and reassuring, and it was a command. Sylk’s hands went through the motions of feeling for the tools of fire making in his kit. He located it, despite the dark and assembled from memory. A flat hard slightly hollowed length of wood was placed between his feet where he sat. A round and pointed stick was set to one side. Another length of stick, a bow really, with a loose lanyard, and a small hand sized piece of the same hard wood completed the kit. He unwound the lanyard from the stick, bent the stick and slid the free knotted end into a notch in the end. Digging around in his pack, he found some a skin with dry, crumbly wood, and set some of it in the flattened trough at his feet. He wound the lanyard around the pointed stick, and holding the bow in his right hand, inserted the pointed end into a rounded indentation at one end of the trough. He supported the blunt end of the stick with the smaller hardwood, and began to draw the bow back and forth.

He had learned long ago to just keep doing this regardless of how long it took. So, he kept no track of time, just fell into the rhythm of the movement, and shortly the heat ignited the small bits of crumbly wood. Moa’qi stood ready with some parched yerba and carefully place the slender grasses onto the trough. When they caught, the fire was carefully slid off the wooden trough onto the hard rock. Twigs and sticks were added until a merry little fire was burning. Again, Moa’qi added some sage and a pleasant aroma hung about them.

Sylk packed away his fire kit, relaxed onto his back and let out a long slow breath as he stared into the impenetrable black above him. He could hear his Master preparing the meal, and knew he should help him. But he just lay there another few moments. ‘What was that giant red thing? What was that green flash that dominated everything, then was gone so fast it was like it had never been?’ His mind whirling with questions and wild suppositions, he finally sat up, apologized for his laziness, and set in to assisting with the meal. Moa’qi was silent as he expertly cooked, prepared and served simple, nourishing fare. Sylk mostly kept the fire going, and tried to be handy while staying out of the way.

On the flat surface they were sitting on, with no visible horizon, and not trees or shrubbery, nothing in fact, to break the flat expanse, their little campfire lit a circle roughly three men in diameter. The effect was so weird. Sylk could see Moa’qi, the fire, their hiking kits, and some flat rock. Then, there was nothing. Anything could be out there, he realized, and he shuddered.

“So.” Moa’qi’s voice seemed extremely loud, and Sylk recoiled. Moa’qi laughed. It was such a reassuring laugh, and infectious. Sylk found himself joining in. The emotional toll of the surreal events of the climb, and the almost physical shock of the visions of red and green, ebbed away like a dream that you can’t quite remember. Sylk laughed until he stopped. Holding his sides, residual giggles would erupt now and then, followed by longer and longer silence. Finally, he straightened up and became alert. He sensed his enigmatic master was going to talk to him now, and he knew he must listen carefully.

Maybe, just maybe, I'll write some more later today! fb

Day 5, am, 7,247 words so far

Catching up a bit. Will post excerpt later.

See, here's an excerpt!

They walked in silence for two of the turn arounds. Sylk was beginning to get very interested in these staggered ledges. They were almost impossibly smooth. There was no tool or knowledge in his village that could have produced the seeming perfection of these ledges. At the last one, he has stopped and carefully felt the edge of one of the ledges. Gingerly, expecting almost to be cut, he ran his finger along the corner. He was not cut, but the corner was so smooth and polished. What, or who, could have cut this path in the rock?

“And, what general truth do you suppose you have learned regarding effort?” Moa’qi’s question startled Sylk. “If, as you say, your effort to do something becomes the thing you successfully do, is there a principle there that is applicable across a wide spectrum of experience?”

“What?” The question was out of Sylk’s mouth before he could stop it.

Moai’qi just burst out laughing. Gales of laughter erupted from him, and he walked along merrily.

Sylk was extraordinarily confused at this point. He set the question aside for later consideration, and focused on walking. The path was beginning an incline, and walking was becoming an… effort. Sylk also realized the light time was drawing to an end, and he worried they would spend dark time on the path. Moa’qi’s pace had quickened, and he seemed very intent to reach the top. The failing light enhanced the optical illusion used to conceal the cunning path beneath their feet, and at time Sylk suffered from the abrupt sensation that he was about to step out into thin air.

He was looking deliberately at his feet, watching them hit the ground, carefully negotiating yet another series of stacked ledges when he ran into his Master.
Startled, he blurted out a partial apology, which died away at the vista before him.

They were at the top of Flat Rock. He reeled in his tracks, and Moa’qi put a steadying hand on his shoulder, protecting him. “Here, lets step away from the edge.”
Sylk mutely followed. He was higher up in the sky than he had ever been. His lungs felt different, like they couldn’t quite catch enough air. Not the same really as after running a race. Just that there did not seem to be enough air to breathe. He had been feeling that for a while, but had set it aside, attributing it to the climb. He knew now, that, while the climb no doubt contributed, their really was something different about the air. It did not fill his lungs, despite his efforts.

“It will pass.” Moa’qi was looking at his apprentice. “Just relax. You will be breathing normally before you know it. Your lungs are being stressed at the moment, no?”

“Yes!”

“It will pass. Sit for a few minutes. Relax. We have a few minutes before we get to what I want you to see. And you have to be able to be still and concentrate, or you will miss it, and we will spend another light and dark time on this rock.”

This caught Sylk’s imagination, and he sat and deliberately relaxed. Very soon, his lungs seemed to make some kind of adjustment, and the effort of his breathing became -- breathing. He smiled to himself. “What about the air up here?” he asked his Master.

“It is actually what you feel. The air is thinner up here. What do you think about that?”

“I don’t know. Air is air, I thought. Evidently, air can change. I can’t begin to imagine why.”

“No, I’m sure you can’t. There is too much basic information lacking, no? Well, you are about to see something that only two others in our tribe have seen. It will give you much to think about in the days to come. Are you ready to walk?”

“Yes.”

“Come.”

They set off toward a kind of brightness in the sky. Sylk found this very interesting. Where they lived in the village, trees and surrounding hills obscured something he had noticed in the wild. In the village, it was light, then it was dark. The eddying, not quite featureless grey of the sky would be bright, then it would be black/dark. In the wild, he had noticed the light and dark would sweep across the sky. It was like a large bowl over his head, across which a shadow would pass and it would be dark, then the shadow would move on and it would be light. It always seemed to move in the same direction, and it seemed to move at the same speed.

Up on Flat Rock, the effect was magnified. The bowl of the sky was more pronounced. He voiced his thoughts to his Master, and then asked, “If the sky is a bowl, then where does it touch down on the ground, and what is on the other side?”

“Those are good questions. Too bad they are meaningless.”

Sylk stopped short in his tracks. “What?” he blurted for the second time. Moa’qi just laughed again. “Come, see.”

They approached the edge of Flat Rock that most directly faced the brightest part of the sky. Sylk realized that the path had deposited them close to where they needed to be. If they had ended up on the other side, they could not have made it to this side in time.

“Look!” Moa’qi commanded. “Watch carefully.”

Sylk obeyed, staring at the disappearing brightness, and wondering what to expect.
“Son, don’t think. Observe. Like when waiting for the gato to enter the trap. Wait and be ready, don’t be distracted.”

Sylk was comforted by the tone of his Master’s voice, and the reference to something that he knew how to do. He calmed himself and relaxed into patient-hunt.
The vista from this side of Flat Rock was across a verdant flat expanse. There were some rolling hills that disappeared into the distance. Sylk recognized them, and realized that the edge of the sky bowl was much, much further away then he had imagined. The greyness was deepening to black, and he wondered what he could possibly be looking for. Soon it would be impentrable dark, and they would have to feel about to make camp. Or, he thought foolishly, they would make fire and do it by firelight. He grinned absently then stopped. ‘What is that?’ he thought.

Until tonight, or tomorrow. Who knows. fb

Day 4, am, 5475 words, 1,347 this morning

Those pesky elections! They continue to cut into my writing time, due to my weakness as a human, and my need for sleep.

I intended to catch up last night, but was unable to as I fell asleep looking at the idiot box. Now, in fairness to me, I did not get home last night until 9:15 pm, and was working on three hours of sleep.

So, I got up at 4:30, and typed up 1,347 words.

Here is an excerpt from yesterday:

“When”, he asked, “do we return to the village?”

“Nicely phrased. Why do you ask that question?”

“Because, that is what I really want to know. It seems we are walking in the wrong direction. This could be on purpose, or perhaps you are lost, Master. Or perhaps, the trial is not over. It occurred to me that while there were many possible questions, what I really wanted to know was when do we get back to the village. So, I avoided all questions that did not seem to lead directly to the answer I wanted.”

“And so, do you think you are now clever?”

“No. I think I am now wondering when we will return to the village. The trial, as I understand such things, is over. In my memory, the next phase is the return to the village. But, some things are already different in my experience than what I had been taught. I am already apprenticed. Things are different. I feel it best to not make assumptions, but rather to hunt information.”

“Hunt?”

“Yes.”

“Good. We return to the village when we are through.”

Sylk started to ask when that would be, then just didn’t. He really did not know why he stopped, except he began to sense he was not going to be told. Or, perhaps, he had been told the only answer that made sense in the current context. Things were becoming interesting.

They walked on, and Sylk began to suspect something. He scanned the horizon. Yes! There it was, still a good two hours walk. Flat Rock. They were going to Flat Rock! He was almost giddy, as he realized his apprenticeship was going to begin in earnest, while he was still in trial.

Moa’qi sensed his apprentice’ excitement. Again, he could feel it in his soles. ‘Good’, he thought. ‘He knows where we go. He will learn things to shake his core on flat rock.’ Moa’qi smiled again. It dawned on him that he had smiled more today than in the past several months since assimilating his knew knowledge. This apprenticeship was good. It was grounding him again. Some of the hollowness was being filled by positive action. They would go to Flat Rock.

Along the way they encountered a nearly dry stream bed and changed course to follow it. The bed seemed to flow from Flat Rock. Sylk was perplexed. He had heard of streams of course. They were kind of lore. Mention was made of them as possible sources for water when the usual sources dried up. But a stream meant some kind of water source, and he could not comprehend a water source. All water came from the daily morning dews. The shift from the wet season to the dry season was marked by the change in amounts of dew precipitation. This affected tribal duties some, because more of the dew basins had to be placed, and this involved more work from the tribe each morning of the dry season. And of course, there were the sources he had used during his trial. The plants that acted as natural dew basins could keep one man alive. As could the drippings from the dangerous but slow Bruta that roamed the plains. Their waxy hair caused water to simply drain off them each morning. And, then of course there was their own clothing, made from their domesticated herd animals. This had to be squeezed out in the morning, but required filtering to be potable.

And here is an excerpt from this morning! A two-fer! Aren't we all so lucky?!

He gave a long slow whistle of amazement, forgetting for the moment that Sylk was following. Misunderstanding, Sylk whistled back. Moa’qi smiled, and they fell into one of the ground eating, energy conserving whistle marches used on long hunts. Perhaps coincidentally, it was the Bountiful Return March. It seemed strangely appropriate to Moa’qi. He couldn’t quite explain his feeling. So, he just enjoyed it.

Moa’qi began to weave the Flora/Fauna game into the March. Spying some plant, he would whistle the identifier along with directional information. Sylk missed the first two times, failing to give the acknowledgment whistle. The third time, Moa’qi stopped walking, and repeated the whistle while looking directly at Sylk. He then turned and continued the march. To his credit, Sylk needed no further prompting. In fact, he greatly surprised Moa’qi by setting reference patterns that effectively went back to the first two plants, giving rough distance and direction approximations. Impressed, Moa’qi began to add in the more complex animal rhythms. These required not only a three dimensional marker, but a fourth as well, if they were on the move. Sylk kept up, slowly at first, then with increasing fluidity. They had identified three types of birds, their direction and number, and 18 varieties of plant life. Suddenly, they were at the base of Flat Rock.

Sylk was brought up short. He had lost sense of time, and had been so focused on the Flora/Fauna game, and the intricacies of weaving it into the Bountiful Return March, that he had again lost sense of time. He stood breathing deeply and feeling the pleasant pounding in his chest. The walk and whistle were effective aerobic exercise, and he felt relaxed and energized despite the distance traveled.

“We refresh ourselves for the climb,” said Moa’qi as he laid out simple travel fare.

Sylk looked at the now dry streambed. He had been aware almost subconsciously that the bed had grown in width and depth. But, he could not understand the water sign in the earth here at the base of Flat Rock. The ground had been chewed up and pushed aside. It was very deep towards the middle of an area that looked like it had been deliberately pushed aside and rounded. In his 30 seasons, he had not seen anything like this, and could not explain it.

“What is this?” he asked his Master.

“Eat.”

Sylk looked at his Master. Moa’qi’s tone was clear. Eat. He would be answering no questions. He was not usually like this, and it unsettled Sylk. So, he ate.

They finished their silent meal, and packed thing up. Then Moa’qi had Sylk re-pack, leaving non-essentials behind. He explained they were lightening their load for the climb. “What climb?” Sylk asked.

“We climb to the top of Flat Rock.” This was met with a moment of silence.

“To the top?”

“Yes.”

“What”, Sylk asked, “is up there?”

“The top.”

Toodles! fb

Day 3, am, 4128 words so far. 978 this morning

The elections kept me from writing last night. And I was up until 2:30 and did not get up early enough go catch up. I will have to hit 3000 words today, which means just over 2000 tonight, to get back on track.

I'm not really worried though. I am in an interesting place, at least for me. We are at the base of Flat Rock, and will begin the climb tonight!

I'll post an excerpt tonight. Now, I must go to work.
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Day 2, am. 3150 total words. 1,123 words this morning

This plan of trying to hit a thousand words in the morning and a thousand more in the evening is working well so far. I am writing roughly 900 words per hour, and am not stressed about it.

Now, I have re-read some of what I wrote, and it is ponderous prose indeed, in some places. Not very good. Some is really bad. But then, this whole endeavour is really about getting a first draft done in a month. Leastways, that's how I'm looking at it. I see no way for it to be a finished product.

I have to continue to just forge ahead. The only concession I am making regarding editing what I have wrote is to add in information to earlier parts of the story, if the story development requires. Which is OK because that just adds to the word count ;-)

This mornings excerpt:

He rolled back over to ask Moa’qi his question, and was startled to find himself soaked in the heavy morning dew. His Master was sitting across from him, as if he had never moved, and appeared positively amused. Sylk sat up and looked around. Brushing off the heavy dew, he looked about, a tad disoriented. It was day, and he was refreshed and relaxed. The question he meant to ask was forgotten. Instead he just looked at Moa’qi.

“You have had the benefit of your first true sleep. How does it feel?”

Sylk took inventory. “Remarkable!” He paused, “What happened?”

“Sleep is little understood. Did you know that physically you can almost go forever? The muscles will recover with 10 or 15 minutes of rest. The mind must sleep. There are theories, but no one truly knows why.”

Sylk considered this. “But, this was different. I rolled over, thought of something to ask, and rolled back over. I have no sense of time passing. None. Yet, either the laws of the universe have changed, or several hours passed. Always before I knew I had been asleep. How can this happen?”

“Who knows the purpose of sleep? Who knows the mechanics? Sleep is sleep, no?”

“Before today, I would have agreed. Today, I don’t agree. My senses tell me that you are speaking a fallacy.”

Moa’qi had a mischievous look. “What, those senses that fail you now?”

Now Sylk began to get irritated. “Did you drug me?”

“Do you sense that you are drugged?”

“You just mocked my senses. What can I rely on to answer your question? What else can I do but attempt to find an answer through inquiry?”

Moa’qi smiled beatifically and said no more. Instead, he began to prepare light morning fare. He was content with the progress of his apprentice. Months of ground had been covered in just a few short hours. Now it was time to pace his learning, allowing his synapses to grow the necessary new connections. Sylk would need some fats and proteins, and sleep would take him again. They must break camp, and prepare to return to the village. But first, there would be a delay, and a detour. He had decided to augment and expand the trial.

Sylk was mildly irritated by the abrupt halt in conversation, but recognized that his Master was done for the moment. He rose, lithe and comfortable. He considered for a moment the lack of any stiffness, the lack of normal early morning lethargy. Reveling in his sense of relaxed health, he focused on the breaking of camp. As apprentice, it was his job to drain the dew gatherers into the water skins. He went to the first rounded bowl, and wondered again what it was made of. There was nothing else in his village that was remotely similar. These glossy smooth grey vessels were smooth and utterly slippery. While the daily morning dew would always precipitate and cling to everything around, it just slipped down the side of these bowls. He watched with some fascination as he poured the water into the skins. The water acted like it was one solid amorphous mass, seemingly inseparable. If anyone in the tribe new the secret construction techniques used in making these bowls, it had never been discussed around Sylk.

That's all for now. See ya this evening! fb

Day 1, pm. Total word count today, 2027

Evening writing time was different. I typed an hour without hardly noticing. My coffee is cold. No sign of Carpal Tunnel yet. Hah.

This evening's excerpt:

Barely discernible on the horizon, the image wavering in the dancing heat, the new man walked sure and steady, and directly toward him. Moa’qi, whose eyesight was as fresh and clear as a youth’s, had seen the new man almost as soon as his head broke the plane of the horizon. Nearly 6 miles by the formula. He could tell as the new man came over the horizon, that he had been exactly on track, without visual clues. So, the first verifiable trial was passed. He would learn the status of the other trials during the ritual meal when the new man arrived. But, Moa’qi already knew the result. The fact of the new man’s unerring orientation directly on him told him all that he really needed to know.

Moa’qi busied himself preparing for the ceremonial meal, and running through the ritual in his mind. He mouthed all the lies he once held so dear, occasionally marveling at the truth still held within them. He contemplated that one model of the universe was being replaced by another more accurate model, and thought it strange that he could not see the provision for passing on the truths he held within the new system. This conundrum occupied his mind thoroughly while he made his preparations. He did not bother to check on the progress of the new man. Moa’qi knew when he would arrive, and he would have everything ready and timed just for that arrival.

He could just hear him now. The bare feet padding softly on the hard earth. Actually, he had felt him through the soil before he heard him. The vibration was as readily understood by him as was a book. Many thought he was prescient, since, try as they might, no one had ever surprised him. He had kept the secret to himself, but would now pass it on to Sylk, his favorite youth.

Sylk should be hungry, as the wasteland was not filled with edibles. But, if he was truly a new man, he should not be starving, either. Carefully the simple, yet tasty fare was laid out. Sweet cakes. Thick cardamom coffee. Spiced meat. Water, chilled and filtered. Rose water to wash off the dust and please the senses. Pillows to arrange how one wished. A luxurious picnic.

Moa’qi started a small fire, threw on some sage, and arranged the spiced meat near by. The fire would cause the meat to heat up in its casing, and fill the surrounding area with an aroma designed to trigger salivary response.

My first day, and I exceeded my goal of 2000 words. I have to resist the urge to go back and edit and re-write. There'll be time enough for that in December, I guess. Meanwhile, I think I shall need to take my lunch hour and brainstorm additional ideas and concepts.

I don't know how anyone else writes, but I mostly type from the hip, with just bare concepts in my head that are fleshed out as they flow from my finger tips. It is working so far.
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Day 1, am, 1116 words

My plan is working! Hah. My early youthful exuberance! The plan: write 2000 words per day. Up early in the morning (4:30 ish), go for 1000 words. Home from work in the evening, after 9 pm, another 1000.

This morning: 1,116 words.

OK, here is an excerpt from the prolog:

After two weeks of various orbits, the results came in. The planet not only could sustain life, it was currently doing so. But, the precursors to intelligent life, as understood by the ship, were also there. A dead-end.

They were preparing to leave orbit, when the maintenance biologist and the maintenance geologist asked to see the captain of this cycle. This was not unusual. Often the crew wanted a shot, just for the sake of staying near a planet, and not sliding through featureless space. Maq and Jenzi were allowed an audience, as Hedly really didn’t want to head back into space either.

Hedly allowed an audience. Maq and Jenzi came in, visibly excited. Jenzi was the maintenance geologist, responsible for the equipment that mapped the topology, and conducted the tomography that revealed what was occurring beneath the surface. “Captain!”, she began, “please look at these calculations.”

Hedly just looked at her instead. An easy thing to do, given her loose fitting toga. After staring for a moment, he said “Just tell me. You know I can’t understand all that.”

Maq interrupted. “Hedly, you were maintenance geologist last cycle, and maintenance biologist before that. So, we know you can read these. You need to look at them; you are the only one that can authorize a revisit.”

Now, this piqued his interest. Revisits were rare. “Whaddya got?”

He leaned forward and began to absorb the information, finally seeing it. He then asked for the biology projections. After 20 minutes of silence, he leaned back, clasped his hands behind his head, and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling.

“OK. We’ve got a month planet side to verify these projections. Shore leave for everyone!” Maq and Jenzi gave whoops of excitement and pride. “Very good job”, said Hedly. “That took some smarts, and some imagination. But its there for sure.” They left the captain’s cabin elbowing each other and beaming.

Hedly sat back again. The tomography was subtle, and there was nothing sure yet. But, if the projections were correct, the magma and solid core patterns of movement were moving toward a chaotic period which would be followed by periods of intense geologic activity, and ultimately the poles would shift. If the shift were abrupt enough, the planet would tilt dramatically, and most of the life on this planet would disappear in of those mass die-offs some planets were prone to in their early formation.

Which would make this planet a seed planet.

So, that is the prolog. Next we have an excerpt from Chapter One, Cielo sin Sol:

He stood on the plain, improbably tall and nearly as thin as his spear. His spear was ready and easy at his side, an accessory, or accouterment, not a burden.
Listening to the sounds of ancestral drums in his mind, he pondered the fact they were gone. Gone in more ways than one. They were gone in the most irreversible manner possible. They had, in fact, never been.
Never been. An eyebrow raised incrementally. Never been. He felt hollowed out, like the non-existent drums. Hollowed out, skin taut on his frame. Stretched and tied. Waiting. Someone was to come and play him. Not a musician. Not anyone that understood the music. But, he would be played, nonetheless. It appeared he had been made for just this dance. He knew the music that he would make. It would spill from him regardless of his new knowledge.
Odd, how this new fact of existence, this new knowledge, which had negated everything he knew to be true, made the lessons learned from this fake knowledge, even more true and more relevant. ‘Ahhh, the world is an amazing place, holding surprises for even one such as me’, he thought. He calmed himself, quieted his mind, and prepared for the new man that would come from the plain before him. Into the wilderness a youth. Out from the wilderness a man. That was the way it had been for generations. It should continue, regardless of new knowledge. Moa’qi could see no reason for the traditions to change.

OK. Perhaps it is crap, perhaps it is snot.

Regardless, I've hit 1116 words on the first morning. We shall see what the night shall bring!
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