It’s doubly funny because we were over at a friends house over the weekend and Kore and I were both talking about the writing that we do. Kore’s actually taking several writing workshops in summer school, and I was saying that I’m not having much luck with the whole novel thing at the moment, and she said that she had been meaning to suggest writing short stories for a while to me, and that she was going to do some of that herself, because she knows that she doesn’t have enough time to get something done consistently and I have even less time on a day than she tends to.

So, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m not sure if I’m going to be working on the werewolf story or “Too Deep” for the time being; but I will be doing the little snippets. Right now it should in theory be a little easier to work on the werewolf story because I’m working on a short game based off that “universe” which has things narrowed down a bit better once more; but at the same time vignettes come more easily to the “Too Deep” story because of the way I’m writing it, as an interview.

He said he had wondered based on certain descriptions of the character, particularly the joke about them not having hair anywhere except their head and the fact that they’d never use prototype 37c on themselves, and the lack of hangovers they experienced despite the amount of drinking that they did.

I said it makes a lot of other things make sense, but that while they had these genny traits they would have experienced them through their bloodline given they weren’t specifically engineered, they were born, but their family would have been gennies, either one or both parents.

These are those things that characters tell you though. I had started out the story, and the various iterations I had no idea that this character was a genny though the traits were there, always, in his character. I was as much a revelation to me as it will be to him in the story.

I have to wonder if rapid detox would be common place, and if it would be a viable thing. Part of what I thought might happen is that while they’re treating him in the hospital they would replace his liver and kidneys and anything else, but then logically if they can just do that, why stop drinking? They could just do it again. He’d have to get to the route of what the alcohol does for him and what could be done instead of just numbing and drinking. I don’t see that happening if he’s just dried out and has his organs replaced. It would be so easy to just go back to filling the void when no work has been done to heal the cause of the abuse.

There’s also the fact that this future has the uber drug “Juice” which I consider to be at least 5x worse than meth in terms of addictive nature, but at least slightly better on your health, given they want their workers to actually be able to work while on it. How do you wean someone off of that? These are all things I’ll have to think about.

House’s set up is…well it’s like Zenith to Nadir compared to Chambers in some ways. Everything is neat and orderly and buried and sealed. I can walk four times as far from one side to the other than we could with Chambers, but at the same time it sucks. I keep hoping for some way to get shot of here which doesn’t involve actually getting shot, because twice now and it doesn’t get any more fun.
We go under House’s office and up into the main area, where the infirmary is and the coffee lounge and the Sunday come to meeting house. I about pissed myself when I realized all those damn times they made us tromp over to church to sing praises and make nice we were actually doing all that while Chambers networked with his contacts and traded info back and forth.
Mr. G. to his credit cottons on pretty quick that it’s in his best interests to put on the clothes that I’m offering him. To the opposite of that he is not good to look at without his clothes on. At least I have a new thing to think on when I’m trying to de-horn.
“I’m not sure what House told you about me,” I tell him, “but here’s some rules that you need to remember good, okay?”
He nods.
I turn away toward the clothes racks so I don’t have to look at him, “Okay, good ’cause if you want to come back with your delicate supplies you have to follow to the letter.”
“Okay,” he says, sounding exasperated.
“You stay close. You don’t look around and gawk at everything like you never seen it before. That makes you a mark. You don’t ask for directions. I know anywhere you could possibly want to go. If I make this with my hands,” I sign back and forwards with two fingers, “we’re going that way because there’s at least three people we don’t want to tangle with. I’m not saying I can’t tangle, but can you?”
“I’ve defended myself before,” he says, tying the cord his pants came with.
“Tuck that inside,” I tell him, “Hm, you’ve defended yourself from a gang of twikes hopped up on juice?”
He swallows, “Can’t say I have no.”
“Well, then you move when I say. If we see people wandering they might not be deadly but you can’t tell. We just keep talking normal we don’t move fast. If I say something about ‘rabbits’ or ‘beaks’ then we move. I’ll signal somehow which way or you just follow me best you can. If someone asks you if you’re thirsty before we get to the market ignore ‘em or say ‘no thanks’ don’t make eye contact, if someone asks if you want juice or have juice ignore ‘em we’ll get out fast. If someone comes crying up to you saying they’re hurt or got robbed or mugged or whatever ignore ‘em.”
He looks at me at that point.
“No, I’m serious. If you get mugged over there you don’t get left alive. Reapers don’t play that, they’re not called the Robbers. They either trade you at the mine or they just do you and go. If someone’s pulling that shit they want to do you.”
“Okay,” he says, slowly. He picks up the gun he had taken off while he was changing, “am I allowed to carry this?” he asks.
“So long as you don’t show it off,” I tell him, “People show their guns they’re trying to prove something. Good way to get–”
“I get it.”
“Do you?” I ask him. I look him up and down. He’s getting on, I suppose, probably a bit older than House is or Chambers…was…definitely an Earther from the way he moves, “I mean, I figure you know more on it than someone fresh off the port given you’re in with these guys, but still…you don’t show what you’ve got. I mean, look at me, do you see any tech on me?” I turn around, give him the full view.
“You’ve got something strapped to your arm,” he says, “and you have to have something on your back there.”
I move the jacket slightly down, “Just my hair, but was the arm a guess or do I have to adjust something?” I look down at my wrist.
“It just made sense,” he says.
“I have knives, sure,” I tell him, “and that’s mostly all I carry, shitton of knives and some picks. Shoes, legs, arms, sides, hair,” I point, “but you gotta be careful with that. You got something you could just be giving your opposition something. Wise man taught me there’s all kindsa shit you can throw at someone or do to someone. Mother Nadir is fulla weapons and shit. So, maybe best if we get ‘bushed you duck and cover and I do for them.”
He sighs, “You don’t want to take me.”
“House says you need this stuff. Must be damned important to our plans for mayhem. I’m gonna take you. I just don’t like it.”
“Noted,” he says, checking his gun several times and then hiding it under his shirt and then under the big heavy reinforced jacket we’ve given him, “I’ll do my best to survive.”
“Hm,” I say, “Let’s get going.”

Anyway, my point was that I’ve been writing quite a bit (phew) about Max/Sam/Dan and his adventures in “Too Deep” (that’s a story not a place). The title comes from the fact that often times when I’m writing his stuff this one lyric comes into my head, “’cause I’m in too deep, and I’m trying to keep, up above in my head, instead of going under.” (Apparently they’re by Sum41). I’m not sure what it’ll be called when I’m done with it but “Too Deep” works for now as I have a file name on my computer rather than maxdansamnadirzenithlunarwarstory.docx.

So, I’ve been writing quite a bit of that stuff and it’s proving interesting because of the way his voice comes across, several of my friends who have been privy to this early drafts for editing help have commented that they can hear an accent on the words when they’re reading, so I’m figuring that’s good. The main character has a “definite voice” woo!

Here’s a little bit of him as I’m being all braggy and hyper right now.

Swipe a cred stick from two people I pass there’s a bit of “OMG are you okay?” “I’m fine. I’m going for my boyfriend, we’ll go to the MPs, no really it’s okay,” one good thing about most Zen siders is they’re quick to forget you if they don’t really care and are just playing polite.

I buy some dark comfy things at the mall, and some bandages, gauze and ‘septic. Remember the first time I came back all beat up and Chambers was all put this on it and we’ll tape it and I’m all WTF is that? and he’s all it’ll stop the wound getting ‘fected and I was all…whu? We used to put water on it. I mean not water like over here, Sol used to call it Rooskywater burned like Hell but–Chambers thought that was real funny. He’s all, that’ll work in a pinch but ‘septic is…’septic is…better…yeah.

So, I was up and patch up. Then I buy new lighters, cigs, aspirin other mini-med things and stuff I can trade with over on night side, food that won’t go bad real quick, can openers for that food, blankets, clothes that’ll last. It takes a bit of time in the bathroom to pack it all nice and tight. I put Helena’s tag on the other chain I found and put it under my shirt. Then I take the done for cred sticks and wrap ‘em in my clothes and throw ‘em in a ‘cinerator by the casino before going for the border.

So, here’s hoping I can pick the thread back up once we get back from all our errands today.

These sorts of things always start me thinking then. Would the people of Nadir know about acne remedies? I’ve got to imagine that they would have very bad skin living with poor nutrition and hardly any light, none natural just a vague blue hue.

It has to wreak havoc on not just your mood but your whole well being. I’ve already figured that there are certain abnormalities that most people from the moon experience, but skin and things like that are not something that I really thought of beyond “wow, they’re going to need a lot of sunscreen” once they get to Earth, of course, there’s a chance that they haven’t been entirely without light, the Nadir side has day and night built in to their system on the standard cycle that is on Earth, using unnatural light if they’re on the dark side at that time.

These are all things to take into account. I’m going to have to do research on malnourishment and lack of daylight. I think I’ll be looking at what happens to those in the far North of Alaska and Russia.

For some people it would be testosterone booster or estrogen, others would make them more charismatic by “perfecting” their features and allowing them perhaps to exude pheromones which make people view them more pleasantly. For others gills so they can breathe underwater or modifications to process airborne toxins or other poisons. Then there’s modifications that make them stronger, more agile, lighter on their feet, smarter, and the purely cosmetic things to make sure that a child has a certain hair, eye or skin color.

As the stories progress I’m looking into the idea that I’ve seen in several places of gene splicing rather than engineering which would be grafting animal or alien DNA in with a person’s genotype.

During part of the game several characters hooked up with each other, or hooked up with NPCs, and then two of the main NPCs helping out the player characters were already engaged and got married during part of the in game down time. So, you have a werewolf marrying someone of were-raven blood, a werewolf marrying an actual were-raven and then possibly a werewolf marrying a cyborg if they could ever get their act together; and also the possibility of the reincarnated equivalent of King Arthur hooking up with one of the werewolf’s cousins who can’t shift.

All sorts of intriguing things. I’m trying to stay away from so much of that in the actual story. There are relationships during the course of the novel most notably the previously mentioned werewolf/were-raven one, but at the same time most of the other characters are more focused on other things, there are hints and crushes and desires but not so much acted upon because there are so many other things going on.

I try to steer away from romance in stories but at the same time through talking with several friends I’ve realized and accepted that given romance and even just “hooking up” is integral to our day to day existence I shouldn’t avoid it like the plague, instead I should embrace it as a sidebar as something which would strengthen many of the characters’ drive and need to actually complete the plot because they do so for caring about their family, their significant others and their future family.

On the one hand I know what you definitely do NOT give a werewolf groomsman: anything silver!

Plotting things for the werewolf story is a little more different. They live out in a very rural area of Scotland and the initial mark of the story was that it takes place in the late 80s early 90s, at least for the start so technology is very low in comparison to now especially because around that time in the UK technology took a while to filter through, especially to somewhere out in the moors, so they would have landlines, *might* have computers but they wouldn’t be very super-powered. They wouldn’t understand DVDs or possibly even CDs.

It’s hard to think back to how things were in the 80s though; so I wonder if I should just move the story forward to now, but then I have to project forward from now into the future only a few years which could easily make things very dated, very quickly.

It’s interesting when inspiration strikes though with regards that. I was listening to someone give me spiel about free insurance quotes and I suddenly realized that I could bring differences in werewolves into it, the stigma between being born a werewolf or being made a werewolf. Those known as cursed wolves who can only change at the whim of the curse rather than when they wish it and things like that.

At the same time last night I hit on a different way to work with ‘Too Deep’ and to properly get across the issues of Nadir and it’s social structure (such as it is) and also a better more organic way to tell the story because while going chronologically from beginning to end is a way to tell it, given the story centers around an extended conversation and re-telling much the way of “How I Met Your Mother” it’s not going to be told entirely chronologically things get missed and have to be come back to or are just inferred. You still tell the significant points but there’s certain times where it’s like, “Oh! Wait I didn’t tell you about that, okay, when I was living with X this happened and now I can go on and tell you the rest of it.”