Also new today is our latest release, the paranormal thriller Tori’s Row by Nancy Brauer (me!) and MCM. It’s a serialized novel in three acts, with a new chapter published every Monday. Here’s the blurb…

Tori McNulty has problems. As she’s putting her life back together, she’s attacked in Boston’s South End. She doesn’t remember much: mostly blood-drenched pavement and the crumpled body of her assailant. The good news is that she’s uninjured and not a murder suspect. The bad news is the obnoxious young man in 18th century dress shadowing her and confusing, violent flashbacks. Tori must figure out what happened that night before her stalker gets to her or she goes completely mad.

… and the trailer, which MCM whipped up with AfterEffects.

You can read the whole thing for free. However, if you’re itching to see what happens next, you can unlock the remaining chapters in the current act (there are nine chapters per act) for $1.99. You’ll have your choice of electronic formats for the download. When the story is complete the novel will be available for purchase in electronic (and eventually print) formats.

Two readers were kind enough to check out the first eight chapters of Tori’s Row and write spoiler-free reviews.

• Her Thoughts Were Red Thoughts: Tori’s Row by Alphabete
• review: Tori’s Row on 1889 Labs by A.M. Harte

MCM and I hope you enjoy Tori’s Row. If that’s not your cup of tea, check out our other books. They run the gamut. Cheers!

1. Make sure you have an internet connection while writing.
2. Listen to what the audience is saying. They’ll tell you if you’re being too obvious.  If you are, write something really confusing to throw them off the trail.
3. Find your Dispatchers and do what they tell you.  Give them whatever they need, because they are the ones that will cheer you on when you’re bloody exhausted and can’t imagine carrying on.
4. Never edit what you’ve already written, unless it’s just a really obnoxious typo and it doesn’t change the meaning of the story.  Remember that most of your readers are following in real-time, so adjusting what happened before is pointless.
5. If you forget to mention some critical detail in chapter 3 that plays out in chapter 9, and you only realize it in chapter 6, you have to work hard to blend it in from this point on.  Livewriting is not perfection. It’s all about adapting to miserable circumstances.
6. Enjoy the unpredictability.  It may screw up your plans to integrate some truly absurd suggestions, but at the same time, the truly absurd suggestions can end up being the best parts of your story.  How your characters react to the random information conveys more of their personality than how they react to what’s already established.
7. Don’t worry about short chapters.  But if you think you’re too light on content for the chapter, ask Twitter for a Topic Tag idea, and shoehorn it in.  Topic Tag can save anything if you let it.
8. Never take yourself seriously.  You can’t be writing Shakespeare under these circumstances, so don’t fret about how wrong everything’s going.  It’s a performance.  Half the drama is how you get from A to B.
9. Never, ever, under any circumstances… never write a blog post about how to livewrite when you have less than 15 minutes before the day starts and you haven’t finished inputting all the questions.  What are you, stupid?

… that is, if he can escape a scary man come to get him.

This is where YOU come in!  For the last 12 hours, people have been suggesting how Gare can escape.  I had my randomizer pick 3 entries, which are below.  You have until 4PM (EST) today to vote for your favourite option, and that will be what Gare does.  Vote well!  And hurry!

Update again: vote here instead. Doesn’t work as an embed, but it works.

I know a lot of you are wondering what this “livewriting” thing is, and how it works.  While a lot of it is made up on the fly, there are some basic elements that rarely change:

The Schedule often varies, but in this case we’re working from 4PM-8PM every weekday this week, and then from 12PM-6PM on Saturday (all times are EST).  Practically speaking, I’ll be writing starting at 3PM and posting the first chapter at 4, but you don’t need to join that early.

The Questions are the fun part.  For each chapter, I have a bunch of questions posted that will help shape the story.  They can be big questions or small questions, silly or significant (example: “Stop or Go?” was the most important question in Typhoon), and one answer is chosen at random.  I take the answers and blend them into the story (sometimes more successfully than others).  The objective of the questions is to HAVE FUN, so don’t try and stick to the story when you answer.  This is what makes livewriting fun, so do your best to entertain.

The Community is easily the best part of the experience.  Don’t just answer questions and keep quiet.  Go on Twitter, post on the Stream, write blog posts, whatever you like.  Be aware that I read as much of the chatter as I can, and I do my best to use it against you when writing… so the more you theorize, the more I know how to confuse.  Give me ammo!  Be verbose!

The Site is where it all happens.  There are two ways to play: one is to just use Twitter and compose your hashtags appropriately.  Add #6D1D for anything related to the story, and when answering questions, write #c1q3, which would be for Chapter 1, Question 3.  The questions will be posted to Twitter with the hashtags included, so you can just copy and paste.

On the other hand, you can also sign in to 1889.ca (it’s free and easy!) and get access to the question submitter HERE, which is significantly easier to use.  Just type your answer into the appropriate field and hit the little button and it submits.  You can answer as many times as you like, so go wild.

You can write comments in the Stream and they’ll appear on-site, or you can write on Twitter and have them appear both on Twitter and on-site (as long as you include #6D1D).  And if you write something somewhere else, please be sure to post a link to Twitter so everyone else can see.

Spreading the word would be greatly appreciated, because the more people that play, the better.  I’m going to be doing video interviews with the fabulous Jan Oda all this week, but I can do others as well if you know somebody

What is #6D1D? It stands for 6 Days, 1 Draft.  It helps glue this all together.  Never forget it.  It’s your ticket to the madhouse.

Writing starts soon!  Submit your answers and tell everyone you know to do the same!  Let’s have some fun!

“Nutella,” said she, “I decree, is the greatest substance in the world.”

I thought a moment…

… what to say?

“Ha!” said I, and walked away.

Visit the site and click on the package in the bottom left corner of the screen to see the progress, and get participating!  It’s the only way to unlock the hints!

Before Smith hit the ground, Waldgrave had made up his mind.  He burrowed his hands in his pockets and strode directly to Walters, prodding the collapsed Enforcer with his shoe.

“We are leaving,” he said to no one in particular.  Walters didn’t reply.  The blood had stopped flowing from his ears, but he had not regained consciousness.

Waldgrave turned to Smith.

“Mister Smith,” he said, “you will assume command.  Get us out of here.”

Smith nodded, wincing as he got to his feet.  The air was filling with the sound of angry yelling, popping, a roaring… Smith grit his teeth and tried to move them… but nothing happened.

“Mr Smith…” Waldgave warned.  His face remained calm, but the mere fact that he repeated himself betrayed rising anxiety.  “Quickly, if you please.”

Smith caught his breath, tried to filter out the mind-numbing agony in his groin without much luck.  He glanced over at the unconscious Ada, Jackson, Walters… and…

A moment later, he was catching his footing on a rocking boat, sea air jolting him awake.  Smith smiled at the sensation… for all of two seconds, before a powerful electric charge shot him clear across the deck.

“Holy crapcakes,” said a voice from behind.  “That was awesome!”

Waldgrave turned to see a collection of onlookers, dressed in antiquated costumes, their mouths hanging open at the steaming wreck of Smith against the railing.  Floating at the front of the group was a fish bowl, and inside, a very excited fish.

“Dude!” said the fish, “Hold still!  I’ll do you next!”

Waldgrave looked around for some sign of Ada or Walters, but saw only water, stretching out to the horizon—

“Man overboard!” came a voice from the distance, and the whole deck raced to the edge of the boat, women crying out and men muttering to each other in poorly-hushed voices.  Waldgrave ignored them all, made his way to Smith, sitting him up and grabbing him by the chin.

“Mr Smith,” he said.  “Answer me.”

Smith said nothing.  His head fell to the side.  Waldgrave touched his mind gently, felt it was still there, and settled him on his side once more.  He reached for his watch, but stopped himself midway, remembering its absence.

“Wow,” said the fish, now at Waldgrave’s shoulder, “he looks toasty.  Do… do you think…”

“He is alive,” said Waldgrave.

“No, I was gonna ask if you think he’d be willing to do it again.”

Waldgrave glared at the fish.   The fish glared back, but only by default.

“You are an unusual fish,” said Waldgrave, getting to his feet.  “Who designed you?”

“I’m a self-made man!” said the fish.  “And by ‘man’, I mean ‘fish.’  And by ‘self-made’, I mean a quack zapped me with an electric cattle prod.”

“Fascinating,” said Waldgrave.

“Thanks!  Finally, some respect!”

“Your mind appears to be completely empty.”

“I… hey!”

A hand touched Waldgrave’s arm, and he lashed out quickly, reducing the deck hand to a slobbering shell of a man, weeping in a puddle of his own excrement.  A second deck hand, a short ways off, stopped dead in his tracks.

“Pardon the intrusion, sir,” he said.  “Is that your friend?”

Waldgrave looked down at Smith, nodded.

“Yes,” he said.  “He will be taking a short—”

“Not ‘im,” said the deck hand.  “The other one!”

Waldgrave followed the man’s finger and leaned over the edge of the boat.  Being hoisted out of the water was Walters, unconscious, his face stained red with blood.  Waldgrave’s jaw cracked into a new position.

He parted the crowd and knelt over the drenched Walters, checking his pulse briefly before slapping him across the face.  Walters coughed up water, gasped for breath, and then gasped in a whole other way when he saw Waldgrave’s expression.

“Where—”

“Off-target,” said Waldgrave.  “Smith is unconscious.  We are behind schedule, Mr Walters.”

“Did we recover—”

“Yes,” said Waldgrave, “but only just.  We do not have room for further error, do you understand me?”

“Yes sir,” said Walters, getting to his feet, wiping his brow.  “Fully understood.  Where are Jackson and Ada?”

Waldgrave looked out to sea, squinting at the setting sun.  He inhaled, let the breath out slowly.

“Smith set us down in the wrong time, the wrong place.  I can only guess they materialized far off the port bow.”

“Could they—”

“They’re drowned, Walters.  Do not dwell on it.”

“No sir,” nodded Walters, stumbling through the dumbfounded crowd.

“The mission is not over,” said Waldgrave. “We will have to make do with yourself and Smith, if we can force him to wake…”

Waldgrave paused, frowning at the empty spot where Smith once lay.

***

Smith blinked back tears as he came to, every breath a sharp jolt of pain.  The room was dark, musty, and smelled of oysters.  Rotten oysters.  He squinted, tried to make out his surroundings, but all he could see was a strange apparition of a fishbowl floating in the air.

“Dude,” said the fish, “we can take this act on the road.”

Smith found the thought of a talking fish far too funny, and he started laughing.  He hadn’t felt so giddy for a long time.

“You’re a fish,” he said.

“And you’re brain damaged,” said the fish, “so careful about name-calling, sparky.  Now listen: I dunno what you’re earning now, but I can double it if you agree to get zapped five days a week, twice on Saturdays.”

“I’m…” said Smith, head swaying sideways.  “Why do I feel so… good?”

“Uh… look! Dancing mushrooms!” said the fish, and Smith found himself urgently trying to catch a glimpse of something his brain told him couldn’t exist.  It was then that he noticed he was strapped to the chair.

“Who are you?” he asked, his suspicion tainted by jovial apathy.  “What have you done to me?”

“My name’s Finley,” said the fish, “and I’m just tryin’ to—”

“Hello, Fishy-Fish!” said an old Chinese man, shuffling into the room with a box filled with lanterns and opium, “Here is rest of delivery for friend!”

If Finley could have whistled, he would have been whistling nonchalantly.

“Did you drug me?” asked Smith, laughing again.

“‘Drug’ is such a dirty word,” said Finley.  “I prefer to think of it as liberating your sense of self from the shackles of—”

“Smith!” barked Walters, pushing into the room, Waldgrave close behind.  “What’s going on here?”

Smith started giggling.  “Your ears are bleeding,” he said.

Walters began to untie his Enforcer, while Waldgrave paused next to Finley, hands crossed at his back.  They watched the scene for a moment, in silence.

“I’ll give you two-fifty for him,” said Finley.

“He is not for sale.”

“Five hundred,” said Finley, “and a box of opium.”

“No thank you.”

“Two boxes.”

“I decline.”

Finley turned to Waldgrave, eyes narrowing.

“You’re suffocating him,” said Finley.  “You’re overbearing, manipulative, and I don’t think he really trusts you.”

“He’s been drugged!” said Walters, unable to get Smith to his feet.

Waldgrave glared at Finley.

“At least I’m upfront about my manipulating.”

“We are going now,” said Waldgrave, and tried to step towards Smith.  Finley got in the way.

“Listen,” he said in a quiet voice.  “Leave him with me, or there’ll be trouble.”

Waldgrave smiled at Finley.

“And what kind of trouble can a tiny fish like you—”

Just then, Walters flew straight up in the air, head cracking against the metal ceiling.  Then he dropped onto the floor in a heap, groaning.

Waldgrave’s eyes narrowed.

“I could dissect you without—”

Walters flew up into the ceiling again, but this time kept slamming up, and up, and up, until his grunts became yelps of pain.

“It’s like a meaty yo-yo,” said Finley.  “And I can keep going all day long…”

Waldgrave lifted a hand in concession, and Finley paused Walters’ torture.

“Allow me to say good-bye to my agent,” said Waldgrave serenely.

Finley dropped Walters on the floor and moved aside.

“Okay,” he said cautiously.  “But no kiss good-bye.  It ain’t that kinda party down here, know what I mean?”

“Party?” said the Chinese man.  “I go find more boxes!  You sit tighty!”

Waldgrave leaned close to Smith, touched his hand gently, and looked straight into his eyes.  The pupils, once dilated and off-kilter, came into sharp focus, the drugs purged from his system.

“Sorry, sir,” said Smith.

“Get us on track,” said Waldgrave, and a moment later, the three men disappeared.

Finley stared at the empty chair, the ropes on the floor, the box of opium, and sighed.

“Back to electrocuting the old-fashioned way,” he muttered.  “Disposable Italians it is.  Goddamn garlic breath…”

***

Ada’s eyes shot open and she rolled to her knees, ready to pounce.  A rush of adrenaline helped her catch up instantly: Waldgrave, Walters and Smith were gone.

… and she was alone in the park.

Surrounded.

It was hard to think of what to say.

“Can such a thing exist?” I ventured.

“It can, and does!”

I thought of how to continue.

“So I’m a god?”

“Yes.”

“Of sex scenes.”

“Unwritten sex scenes. Your written ones suck.”

“True,” I admitted.

“Unwritten sex scenes,” she continued. “Involving scissors.”

Fingers hovered over keys, cautious.

“How does that work, exactly?” I asked.

No reply, so I added: “What are you doing with your stationery over there?”

A minute later, she replied “Ohhh, paperclips!” and logged off for the night.

This Topic Tag was purchased by @am_harte, who thinks she’s pretty funny.

Rodrigo stepped over the body once more, trying to see it in a different light.  There were very few lights to see by.

“I still don’t understand,” he said, his thick Spanish accent faltering in the moment.  “How did he do this?”

“You said to put pantyhose over our heads, right?” said Biff, sitting in the corner, looking more than a little sheepish.  “He didn’t wanna be seen buyin’ pantyhose.  Girly stuff.  He’s a butch guy, so…”

“He put a sock over his face.”

“A left one, yeah.”

Rodrigo checked his watch, squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the reality-bending stupidity of the world around him.  Sadly, the world around him was filled with mouth-breathing asthmatic imbeciles.

“And so then—”

“So then he starts itchin’, right?  And we look at the package, and sees it says they’re polyester, and he says all like ‘Oh no, I’m allergic to polyester!’”

“I see,” said Rodrigo.

“And so by the time we figures this all out, his face is so swollen, we can’t pull the sock off no more.”

“Naturally.”

“And so he gets his knife and he tries to cut the sock off.  Which if you ask me was not a bad idea.  I mean, all things considered.  Not a bad idea, right?”

Rodrigo said nothing.  Biff waited expectantly, blinking exactly five times every ten seconds.  Coupled with the mouth-breathing, it was enough to make you want to stab your own jugular with a knife.  Twice.

“We’re late,” said Rodrigo.  “The guards will change shifts in ten minutes.  Can you do this alone, or do we need to abort?”

Biff looked down at his friend, the pool of blood creeping ever outward.

“Who gets his cut?” he asked.

“I do.”

“But—”

“I will have to dispose of the body, cover up loose ends, and all the risks associated therewith.  That is worth at least as much as his cut.”

“But his wife—”

“Should be glad he only killed himself.  I can just imagine he was the kind of person to light a match in a gas leak.”  Rodrigo pulled on his ski mask, checked his guns, and headed for the exit.  “Now come on!  We only have nine minutes before—”

There was a knock at the door.

Neither man spoke for a moment.  Rodrigo turned slowly, motioned for Biff to stay quiet.  He kept his gun ready, slithered to the side of the door, listening.

Another knock.

“Hello?” called a voice from the hall.  “Did somebody call 911?”

Rodrigo glared at Biff, whose expression changed to relief as his brain churned a memory to the front.  He motioned to himself, as if to say ‘I called 911.  That was me!’

“Hello?” asked the voice outside.  “Are you okay in there?”

Rodrigo inhaled slowly, then switched his Spanish for Bronx.  “It’s okay!” he called.  “Sorry for wastin’ yer time!  False alarm!”

“Yeah, he’s dead already!” added Biff loudly.  “Thanks for coming, though!”

This topic tag was bought by a.m. harte using her points (check the console! you can do it too!)  The topic was, of course, “left socks.”  I know, right?