Some day I expect I’ll need to overcome my fear of being here with the rest of you in a world so crammed with differentness and stories that speculative fiction seems fool’s errand, but for now I enjoy making believe.

Day 376

Morning wind kept the smoke from their abandonned campfires low to the ground.  Generations ago we hunters may have worried about upwinding prey or having been detected before arrival, not so now.  Thermals peppered my semlam one signature for each for the small trees, pairs for the larger trunks.

I brushed away the semlam’s meta regarding radial poz-prox and again the mean trunk diameters for both groups.  Those data aid targeting but they don’t assist me…much.  Since position and proximity calculations are easy and relevant to our suits’ general elimination directive they complete and appear first.  Once those two lamina cleared, bio meta faded in.  These I could use.  These better describe the character and readiness of the encountered aboriginals.  Each enco’s heart rate percolated onto the semlam and hovered above their thermals.

“Foster?”

:Where’s our cake?: crawled across the bottom of my semlam.

Moore, Leathers, and Hisey’s me2s chased off Foster’s question.  Heart rates weren’t high enough on average to indicate fear as much as readiness.  We’d caught the encos off guard, no question of that, so it couldn’t be an ambush.  Surprised or not, these enco’s were more or less waiting on us.

“Place your bets.”  Four win-place-show thermal rankings appeared on my semlam.  As ‘gram leader—having first access to our computer’s results—I abstained.  When I released the meta I knew Leathers had a shit-eating grin and Moore was pissed.  Moore contributed most of the logic used to determine the likely ranking of encountered aboriginals—who to shoot first and who to ask questions of afterward.

Day 375

Morning wind kept the smoke from their abandoned campfires low to the ground.  Generations ago hunters may have worried about upwinding prey or having been detected before arrival, not so now.  Thermals peppered my semlam one signature for each for the small trees, pairs for the larger trunks.

I brushed away the semlam’s meta regarding radial poz-prox and again with mean trunk diameters for both groups.  Those data aid targeting but they don’t assist me…much.  Since calculating position and proximity are easy and relevant to our suits’ general elimination directive they appear first.  Bio meta faded in.  These I could use.  These meta describe the character of the encountered aboriginals.  This encounter was supposed to be cake but I now knew it wouldn’t be.

Day 374

“Daddy.  Daddy.  Daddy, can I go ou’side?” she asked.

“Daddy, can I go ouTside?” her Father repeated back to her.  He’d been doing this more and more lately.  At first Suza thought he was asking her the question which confused her because she knew she wasn’t ‘Daddy’, but she usually told him yes anyway or whatever answer she wanted.  He explained to her that he wanted her to correct how she asked the question.  She should just say what he said the way he’d said it.

“Can I go oudside?”

“Yes, Sweetie.  You can go ouTside.”

Her Father almost never said no to going outside so it seemed like an awful lot of work just to get out the door, but once Suza swung into the sky on her swing it was worth the effort.

“Will you come swing me?” she asked before closing the door all the way—another important thing to do.

“Yes but in a minute.  I need to finish reading this letter.”

“OK.”

Day 373

I didn’t mention the other day that I wanted to use a female protagonist.  I left this constraint out partly because I didn’t want to publicly box myself in and partly because I didn’t know why I wanted to use a woman.  My first inclination lighted on Tritti in the Pilgrim thread of my Shanty writing.  My second on the four bell-hunters.  And my third on a thread I’m doubtful I’ll find quickly that essentially transposed my daughters into and alternate reality and aged them to young women.  I hoped that leaving my requirement unwritten would give the instinctual reason behind it to coalesce into a conscience one.

The reason seems need more time than I’ve provided to fully solidify but I’ve got a few thoughts so far.  Because I have daughters I’d like to write characters with whom they can identify when I’m published.  I’d like to write smart, funny, tough, loving characters because I’d like them to become people with those qualities.  Also I’d like to work on getting out of my maleness as a narrator to see if I can find a distinct feminine one—or at least one echoing feminity.  Still not sure why.  Maybe it’s the daughters again.

Need to map stuff out on paper.

Day 371

I’ll be using this time to write toward my goal because need to get this 1kd caterpillar into it’s cocoon for some purposeful overhauling.  However, I’ll only contribute to that goal when I am writing not speculating and only when I have something to write.  I won’t be fluffing here unless it’s traditional 1kd fluff.

My first thought was to turn the Tritti stuff from way back when because I’d like to work with a female protagonist, but I’m not set.  I’ll be reading back through my work to uncover a character I can work with.

Day 370

As an added twist to this goal I’ll also work on a comic book script.

“What the hell?” you ask. Well, the hell, having a secondary project to parallel the first will give me a fallback when I’m stuck rolling forward on the primary story. A technique for keeping me focused on something I’ve decided to be focused on rather than formlessness.

I need to give thought to when this focused writing will occur. Part of me would like to slot it in here in the morning where I’ve been doing the 1kd thing, but that conflicts with my unwritten guidelines regarding 1kd content. An update on my decision tomorrow.

I should find out what the typical short story length and outlets are. To the Internets!

Day 369

“Mother fucker, dude.  Never do that again.”

“¿Qué?” Hrenik asked.

“For starters you’re in my face.  Too close.” Ed measured the short distance from his chest to Hrenik’s with his finger like an angry clock pedulum.  “And your eyes are ridiculously fucking huge.  I don’t even know why the fuck that is.  Are you part fucking fish?”

Hrenik stepped back.  And started to say, “Yo no…”

“I know you’re not a fish.”  Ed’s freakout anger cooled quickly with the extra space.  “Sorry dude.  I’m just…just tired…you know?”

Hrenik cocked his head in an avian way to indicate the group of beings with them in the woods outside of Kansas City.  “Lo sé. Estamos todos cansados”.

“Dude.”  Ed reached to click the knob on Hrenik’s translator.  “I’m American.  Not fucking Mexican.”

“Lo sient…orry.”

“Gracias,” Ed said.

Day 368

“You’ve never convinced me that’s true,” he said

Steffan baited hooks with plump wriggling worms like this for Mark nearly each time we gathered.  Mark lapped them up like a crappie short breakfast and dinner the night before.  Being third to the cul-de-sac at first I determined Steffan was just a bit of a dick and Mark too desperate for a friend to care all that much.  But, as that first summer spanned into this second, I changed my mind. I began to think Steffan thought he was teaching Mark about arguing and language and how to gracefully disengage from his shell.

Mark never wound up to worked up.  He’d start exasperated and frothy to match the incredulity of whatever dumb-ass thing Steffan said then wind down to sensible and calm.  No matter what, these conversations entertained me for that reason alone.  Though, above all the other nuances I read into their exchanges, it was possible putting on a show was their singular purpose after all.  This time Mark’s delayed response made me wonder if he had a doosey of a reply or if he’d even connected Steffan’s remark to the thread of the conversation we’d had last Saturday evening watching fireflies—and drinking.

“Fortunately it is true.  No convincing to be done,” Mark said.

I laughed and sipped at the same time.  Shiner erupted from the bottle up my nose and all over the ground.  Of all the red-faced sputtering replies I prepared for, measured and cool produced the best reaction.

Day 367

Copeland knew things.

Yep.  That’s all I wrote yesterday.  The brevity of it highlights how good I’ve become over the past year’s worth of days of writing.  How I can compact so much stuff into such a small space.  Tell me you didn’t laugh when you realized the twist ending.

Day 366