Sarah's Stories

When the Chickens Roamed The Earth

2009-10-08T00:17:11Z

I won't even go into how I got into this, but it started with talking about a chicken's eyes. Then looking at chickens online. (Hey, like you don't look at stuff on line.  First stone, buddy, first stone.) Of course, I didn't need to look at chickens. I grew up with them (around. I mean, I wasn't literally in the hen house.) But the kids didn't and I wanted to show them the expression in chicken's eyes.

Why, you ask?  Oh, surely you can understand. If you've ever looked into a chicken's eyes, you surely have a clue what is happening there. It's as though every t-rex in the world is being reincarnated as a chicken over and over again.

In my head, this is what happens when one of us looks into a chicken's eyes:

H (for human):  mmmm fryer!
C (for chicken): Hey, hey, something is very wrong here!
H: Chicken soup!
C: I used to be much larger than your puny ancestors. They got caught in my teeth.
H: Chicken casserole!
C:In my dreams I still am. I stalk the world and your kind cowers.
H:Roast chicken.
C: Do you mind just lying down and letting me peck you to death?  Shouldn't take more than two hours, and it would do wonders for my self esteem.
H: What?
C: Not even for therapy?  You mean, evil, cold b*stard. In my dreams I'm crunching you right now...
H:Chicken soup will make you feel better.

Sarah Book Comes Out And Various

2009-10-03T15:47:26Z

Various first -- I have posted the winners of the last giveaway and I haven't familed the previous one, yet, because I was traveling. Workshop in Texas was lots of fun, but why didn't anyone tell me teaching took it out of you. I mean teaching writing. I've taught other stuff and it's not THAT bad. Anyway, more or less recovered now and back to work.

Came back to my contributor copies of Dipped, Stripped and Dead under nom de guerre (feels like it) of Elise Hyatt. In case no one remembers, Dipped starts like this:

One Woman’s Trash

When I was little, I was going to be a ballerina. This was a strange ambition for a five year old who could trip over both feet at the same time while standing still. As soon as that tragic fact dawned on me, I settled on the more attainable ambition of becoming a lion tamer. This, at least, seemed perfectly within my reach, since my cat always did exactly what I wanted her to – well, except when she balked at jumping through the lighted hoop. Which is just as well, since Mom didn’t exactly approve of my setting fire to her quilting frame. With the quilt in it.

In the aftermath of the fire-in-the-living-room incident and subsequent grounding, I’d regretfully dropped the lion taming ambition – probably good, since Fluffy wouldn’t come near me any more, though her fur did grow back – and with it all my hopes of a career in the performing arts.

A failure at the age of six, my ego crushed, I’d actually been weak enough to consider dad’s life-long ambition of having me grow up to become a private eye. Except that I wasn’t absolutely sure what a private eye was – it seemed to me you’d have to go around with your hands over your eyes to prevent anyone seeing them and...

Well, that also didn’t go well. And My Little Investigator’s Kit which Dad bought me, didn’t provide me with many clues. I spread the fingerprint powder over the cat, finger painted with the inking pad and used the magnifying lens to start a fire in the leaf pile in the backyard.

After the fire department had been by and we’d found Fluffy cowering under the azalea bushes at the far end, I thought that this private eye thing was by far too hazardous.

And this is how I never quite figured out what to be when I grew up.

Which probably explained why, at twenty nine years of age, I had parked at the edge of Goldport college campus and was rummaging through a dumpster.

Okay, it wasn’t exactly as dire as Mom had always said it would be. I wasn’t living on the streets. I still had all my teeth – even if there had been some doubt about that when I went flying from my bike at the age of eight, after riding down suicide hill with no hands – and I wasn’t looking for food.

Well, at least I wasn’t exactly looking for food, only for the stuff that allowed me to make a living. Because, after waffling through two years as an English major – until the words post modernism could put me to sleep like hypnotic suggestion – and a year as a teaching major – before I remembered another name for hell was school room full of kids – and a year in pre law, before I realized I just didn’t have the required forked tongue, I’d left college with a Mrs. degree.

And when that exploded in my face – worse than the quilting frame – I’d found myself as at a loss for what I wanted to do with my life as I had been at six, when my hopes of lion taming had been so cruelly dashed.

Only it no longer was a career a matter of keeping myself amused, or even of feeling I was a productive member of a society. No. My marriage with Alex – All-ex, completely ex, he couldn’t be more ex if I killed him, something I was tempted to do twice a week and four times on Sundays or whenever we had any interaction – Mahr while otherwise completely unproductive, had left me with a child.

Enoch – his father had chosen the name because he thought it sounded solid. I called him E because I hoped to save on therapy bills when he grew up -- had been one when his father and I got divorced. His primary interests in life had been attempting to stuff all his fingers in his mouth at once and finding ever more interesting bugs to eat.

He was still interested in gastronomic entomology at two and a half. But he didn’t look at all like All-ex – or like me, though he had the blond hair and blue eyes I’d had till three, before both had turned pitch black – and he showed some signs of, through some amazing genetic mutation, growing up to be someone worthwhile. Which would be thwarted if I let him starve to death or even – forbid the thought – if I allowed his father full custody.

My working retail would have supported us – sort of – but I’d have had to leave E with someone. Mom and Dad weren’t an option. They worked all day in Remembered Murder, the mystery bookstore they owned and where Fluffy – whom I believed remained alive on the hopes I’d die first – was store cat. And Fluffy started twitching whenever she saw me, or E.

This left me with the one skill I’d more or less inadvertently picked up while furnishing my first home. I’d taken a course in furniture restoration and refinishing at the community college. Back then I’d done it to fit furnishing a house within the scant budget All-ex would allot to it.

On my own -- after some experimentation -- I found that picking up old, beat up and abused furniture, refinishing it or fixing it or giving it a total make over, and selling it – under the business name of Daring Finds -- made just about enough money to keep me and E in three meals a day and a roof over our heads.

Said roof was rented and in an area of town that made my friend Ben cringe and the meals might run to pancakes a lot, but it beat the alternative. Homeless shelters struck me as a terrible place to take a kid who liked to sample bugs.

And so I was at the corner of the college, on a bright Saturday in late May, looking at a bulky green dumpster.

You see, while real antiques go for exorbitant sums in Colorado, they sell at those prices because they are hard to get. Very few people have an attic full of grandmama’s break front dresser or great great grandmama’s Duncan Phyfe dining set that they would be willing to sell at a garage sale for mere pennies and which could be made radiant by a simple wiping with oil.

No. I heard of such things from other people who came from places out East, but I figured on the way to Colorado by covered wagon, most people had ditched their grandma’s carved walnut chairs halfway across Kansas, possibly with Grandma still clinging to them.

What could be got – in various states of disrepair --were twentieth century knock offs and good, solid furniture of forties and fifties vintage, made in factories, but capable of looking quite good once one had scraped off the twenty coats of paint, including the two inevitable metallic coats applied in the sixties by someone who had found truly interesting mushrooms.

Oh, sometimes, rarely, in a thrift shop or a garage sale, I’d come across a good piece, which I refinished and took to Denver to leave for consignment at Shabby Chic. But for the greatest part, I cleaned and fixed and varnished, then put the pieces up at the local flea market where they made a modest profit just barely enough for our daily pancakes.

Which brought me to cost-cutting.

"Bah, bah, bah, bah!" E said from the strapped-in safety of his child seat in the back of my fifth hand blue Volvo station wagon. I looked over to see him glaring at me, his face scrunched intently, as he clutched the top of the half-lowered window with his chubby spit-covered fingers. "Bah!"

Since he could say quite a few words and even the occasional sentence, I assumed "bah" was his view of the situation.

I looked over to the dumpster, overflowing with black trash bags. Though it was still too early in the morning for it to be really hot, there was a distinct smell of spoiled meat coming off the container. "Undoubtedly," I told E. "On the other hand, look, there is something there that looks like a gracefully curved table leg. Painted white, but a table leg."

"Bah!" E said.

Which was probably true. I frowned up at the maybe-table-leg.

Yeah, it was definitely wood and it looked gracefully curved. But the way my luck was running, lately, it was probably just the leg, which some student had broken off the long-discarded table and used for years as an ersatz remote control to turn the tv on and off without getting up.

On the other hand, I’d learned in my year and a half in this business that end of term at the college was the absolutely best time to pick up real antiques – the type of thing I could restore and sell for enough to keep me in rent and food for a month. I figured parents back east gave the kids whatever had been kicking around the family for a few decades and the kids – not really caring for it – discarded it when they graduated. So it was worth a try. Though I would admit the way things were piled in that dumpster, it was likely to all collapse on me as I tried to look through it.

Well, I thought, dubiously, as I shoved my hands in the pocket of my denim coveralls, donned for the occasion. And if that happened, I would remove the coveralls and shove them in the trunk of my car to wash when I got back home. "Tell you what," I told E. "I’ll give it a quick look, and if there’s no sign of anything interesting, we’ll go back home and have some nice pancakes."

E looked offended, probably because we had eaten pancakes for the last three meals in a row, and said, "Bah!"

"Okay, fine. Just a quick look." As I spoke, I pulled out the extra-thick, chemical-resistant gloves I kept in the pocket, I slipped them on. I’d added the gloves to my getup about six months ago, when I put my hand on something so disgusting even E wouldn’t put it in his mouth. I started climbing up the side of the metal container.

There is a technique to climbing dumpsters. I’m as sure of it as I’m sure there is a technique to lion taming. Unfortunately I don’t know either.

What I did was to try to clamber up the little metal ridge on the side of the dumpster, the one where the claws of the trash truck grab when they tip it, and trying to touch the piled up bags as little as humanly possible, while I took a look at the contents. If justified, I would then map my acquisition of the pieces that were worth getting.

A hand here, a hand there, a hand on the plastic bag, and another hand reaching up for the table leg. So far so good. To be honest, my greatest fear when doing this was that I’d get my hand stuck on a used needle. I didn’t think the gloves would hold up to it.

Precariously perched on the mass of trash, I grabbed at the table leg and pulled. It was held up on something, which meant that it just might be an intact table. Also, from the look of it, up closer, it deserved investigation. You can tell real wood because it is lighter, and the edges of any carving are sharper – even under multiple layers of paint – than pressed conglomerate board.

Of course, this wasn’t a guarantee that the rest of the piece was antique or even real wood. Because legs are hard to make of pressboard, they are usually real wood – often cheap pine – even in trash modern pieces.

I pulled at it again. It didn’t feel heavy enough to be pressboard, but it was definitely caught on something.

One more pull, and it came lose. And then I did. There was that moment of confusion that comes before any accident – the moment before you go flying off your bike and mouth meets ground, at the bottom of Suicide Hill. The moment you will replay over and over again in your mind, thinking if only you’d done something, if only you’d reacted in some specific way, you could have averted the whole mess.

The truth was, it was already too late.

As I pulled, the table gave – the whole coming loose and leaving me to overbalance and fall backward through space and land with a thud on the asphalt of the parking lot, while bags of trash, a chair and what looked like a piece of a drawer rained all around me.

As soon as my brain stopped rattling in my head, I thought that something had made the dumpster explode. But as I blinked and looked around, I realized nothing had been fragmented as such.

Now, I don’t have much experience of explosions. The closest I ever came was when I had filled a flask with gasoline, and thrown it at the garden shed. I was twelve and I’d just read about this in a book. Look, NOTHING would have happened, if Mom hadn’t been warming up the grill at the time and if I weren’t such a bad shot.

But the fragments of the grill – and the oak tree, bits of which had somehow managed to end up embedded in our back door – hadn’t looked as whole as these bags did.

The bags must have been holding the table top down, and I’d pulled hard enough to bring down all the bags atop the overloaded dumpster. I groaned, realizing that now I would have to pick up each one of these bags and throw them in. At least the table seemed to be a real prize – the top too thin to be any kind of pressboard, and the little downturn on the edge speaking of at least reasonable quality, if not age.

"Oooh oh," E said, from the car his face contracting into a distasteful frown. "Phew."

The phew was justified. I realized the miasma of rotting meat had just grown exponentially stronger. Presumably the rotting burgers were in one of the bags. "Yeah, ew," I told E, as I opened the back of the car and put the table in, before looking back at the bags. "Right, I’ll put them back in, and then we’ll go home, okay."

"Yay."

It was universal. Okay. There might be other furniture in the dumpster, but I didn’t feel looking with that smell. Nope. I was going to put the bags back and go home.

So I grabbed the nearest couple of bags, which felt quite light, as though they were filled with clothes, and headed for the dumpster. I’d taken the whole accumulation of bags off the top, and I could probably fling these into the dumpster without climbing it. Except that with my luck they’d fall on my head again.

I looked over my shoulder and saw E looking intently at me, like he expected me to do something interesting. Right. I wasn’t in the mood to gratify his expectations. I’d climb the side of the dumpster, and PUT the bags on top.

Joining action to thought, I climbed up the side of the dumpster again, carefully balancing with a bag in each hand. Balancing, I stretched my hand to put the right bag inside.

And then I made a terrible mistake. I looked in the dumpster. I swallowed hard – my body reacting to the stench before I could figure out what I was looking at. It was quite odd.

There was wood. What looked like another chair that matched the one that had fallen off lay at cross angles to what appeared to have been – once – a lovely little dresser, possibly of French restoration vintage or a good imitation. But in the middle of it there was...

At first I thought it was a plastic mannequin that someone had put in the fire and which had partially melted. An art project? But why did it smell like that? It didn’t smell like melting plastic. It smelled... like rotting meat.

I stared at the distorted, gelatinous looking features which led down to a distorted, gelatinous body and I swallowed hard. My stomach, sending burning bile up to my throat, was trying to tell me something I was simply not ready to accept.

And then I realized that mannequin had ... well, the top of it, from the forehead up, was undeniably the top of a very human forehead, and there was blond hair cut short, frosted and coiffed into those little peaks I always wandered how people managed. It wasn’t melted, and it wasn’t – had never been -- a plastic mannequin.

I felt like I’d been looking at one of those weird pictures, with an area in black and one in white, that look like one thing, until you blink and they look like another completely different thing.

Realizing that the... thing had been human made me see that it was a body. Torso, two legs, arms. All of it distorted as if it had been turned into wax and held up to heat till it melted. Or perhaps it had been thrown into acid. I didn’t know what could make a human look like this and I didn’t want to know.

Some places, like the nearest knee, shining wetly, was still a recognizable shape, but the rest of the body was such a taffy-pulled shape that I couldn’t even tell what gender the person might have been.

I felt the bags I’d been holding fall from nerveless hands, while my stomach clutched and did a flip-flop and the smell rose worse, more penetrating, as though it were entering not just through my nostrils, but through my eyes and ears and my all-too porous skin.

Slowly, very slowly, afraid that I was going to fall, I stepped down, climbing my way down from the dumpster and to the asphalt of the parking lot.

There was a buzzing from my ears, like the sound of the sea or the sound of an accelerating fan. Through it, I vaguely heard E say, "Mom?"

I shook my head at him, wanting to get in the car and drive him away from all this. Drive him away fast.

But this was real life, and I was no longer six years old. One didn’t run and hide when something went wrong and one didn't drive away from an accident, much less from something like this.

An inner voice encouraged me to just run. After all, it said, I was wearing gloves. There would be no fingerprints.

But someone might have seen the car. And besides, I watched TV. I knew the police had ways of figuring out things these days, even without fingerprints.

Right. I swallowed hard, because some bitter fluid was trying to make its way up from my throat.

I opened my car door deliberately, as though each movement might cause an explosion. Which it very well might. It might cause me to throw up and that would be explosion enough.

With relief I dropped to sitting on the driver’s side and reached over to the floor on the passenger side, where I’d left my purse. I grabbed the cell phone, turned it on. Realized that Ben had called me twice without my answering. This would lead to a lecture about actually carrying your cell phone on your person at all times. Right at that moment, I’d welcome a lecture from Ben. But I was not twelve, and I would not call Ben to come and save me from the scary discovery.

I swallowed again, and instead of dialing him back, dialed 911. I heard my own voice, thickened and strange, "Police," I said. "I want to report a murder."

And Sarah gives away yet more stuff

2009-09-13T16:57:01Z

Come one, come all -- going to the one who amuses me most with his/her description of the need for this book, the Writers' Digest "Twenty Master Plots and how to build them."

You have a week or till someone strikes my funny bone.

I have about twenty books on plot and most of them repeat themselves. Partly because when I first got published I couldn't find a plot with two hands, a cane and a seeing eye dog!

Okay -- leans back -- amuse me.

Wherein Sarah Gives Away Stuff

2009-09-02T02:44:42Z

Remember sometime back I told you I'd be giving away some of the writers' books cluttering my shelf?

The first up is Writing Dialogue by Tom Chiarella.

Tell me why you'd deserve it and amuse me. I'll notify the winner via LJ message, and he/she can then send me address and postage.

Going once, going twice...

(I must clear the bookshelves.)

So You Want GOOD e-reads?

2009-09-01T00:20:13Z

Well, one of them at least is very good. Go to http://savethedragons.nu/ where my friend Dave Freer is posting chapter by chapter of his novel Save the Dragons. The impetus for doing it right now is that he's moving from South Africa to Australia and needs money to take his several animalia along. Those of you who have pets, think how it would feel to abandon them as you face a totally strange country. And besides the novel is worth it.

Then there is this:

Order Now
http://www.webscription.net/p-1112-darkship-thieves-arc.aspx

Baen is selling the earc of my Space Opera Darkship Thieves. I don't know if it's very good, (lousy evaluator of my own stuff) but I had more fun writing it than just about anything else, and the next one is already in my head and demanding I type as fast as I can...

One

I never wanted to go to space. Never wanted see the eerie glow of the Powerpods. Never wanted to visit Circum Terra. Never had any interest in discovering the truth about the darkships. You always get what you don’t ask for.

Which was why I woke up in the dark of shipnight, within the greater night of space in my father’s space cruiser.

Before full consciousness, I knew there was an intruder in my cabin. Once awake, I couldn’t figure out how I knew it. The air smelled as it always did on shipboard, as it had for the week I’d spent here – stale, with the odd tang given by the recycling.

The engines, below me, hummed steadily. We had just detached from Circum Terra – a maneuver that involved some effort, to avoid accidentally ramming the station or the ship. Shortly we’d be Earth bound, though slowing down and reentry let alone landing, for a ship this size, would take close to a week.

My head felt a little light, my stomach a little queasy, from the artificial grav. Yes, I know. Scientists say that’s impossible. They say artificial gravity is just like true gravity to the senses. You don’t feel a thing. They are wrong. Artificial grav always made me feel a little out of balance, like a couple of shots of whiskey on an empty stomach.

Even before waking fully, I’d tallied all this. There was nothing out of the ordinary. And yet there was a stranger in my cabin.

Years in reformatories, boarding schools and mental hospitals, had taught me that the feeling I woke up with was often the right one. Something had awakened me – a door closing, a step on the polished floor.

Now, why? Knowing the why determined how I dealt with it.

Three reasons that came to mind immediately. Theft, rape, murder.

Father’s Daughter

You Might Be A Writer If

2009-08-27T23:08:04Z

*This was the work of a post meeting party for my writers' group round about 2000. Because people came and went from the group I don't remember the quorum that afternoon, though I can swear to my husband, Dan Hoyt and to Rebecca and Alan Lickiss, as well as Jennifer Roberts and Barbara Nickless. I'd forgotten all about this till I found it in my hard drive while looking for something else.*

You Might Be A Writer If...

...you have knock-down, drag-out arguments with your significant other over verb tenses.

...you pay big bucks for a babysitter so you can go out on a date ... in order to have some time to plot a story.

...revelatory conversations that start with "That's it; I know exactly what to do with Lord Raven!" don't mean you're having an affair.

...you find nothing wrong with foregoing food, sleep and sanitary facilities for three days running in order to get those last three chapters done.

...you talk to walls on a regular basis, but only because your characters refuse to come out into the middle of the big, unprotected room where their enemies might make an attempt on their lives.

...you talk to yourself. Do not! Do too! Do not! Don't listen to him; he doesn't even know how to hold a sword properly!

... conversations that start, "Have you decided how to kill him yet?" don't indicate that you are about to become a felon.

... hearing that you have no clue isn't necessarily a personal remark.

... if a story isn’t accepted, happiness is a detailed personal rejection.

... and then you brag to all your friends about being rejected.

... your computer is three generations old, but your printer is a top of the line, twenty pages per minute model.

... you have to think to remember which of your friends are real, and which are characters in your stories.

... your characters have definite opinions about your friends, hairdos and sex life.

... while plotting a novel you drive your car across a median, barely avoid a stream of oncoming traffic, climb the berm, cross a parking lot, stop against a small tree, and don’t realize you’ve done anything out of the ordinary.

... You ever pumped a total stranger for details of his last illness, so you could use it in a book.

... Often have trouble remembering what day, week, month, year or century you live in.

... Are afraid to park a large car but routinely discuss the mechanics of space travel.

... you have definite opinions about the merits of historical personages so obscure no one else ever heard of them.

... Read Machiavelli’s The Prince on an interstate flight.

... Your four-year-old thinks "editor" is a bad swear word.

... in highschool you used to wander off from parties to research a plot point in the nearest library.

... your writing has ruined more than two serious relationships.

... Your prayers often involve a critique of the divine plot.

... Cleaning is what you do while suffering from the block. And only then.

... Some of the leftovers in your refrigerator have acquired life and are on the verge of sentience. You can’t wait to write about it.

... you have to be a writer, otherwise someone would realize you’re insane.

... you think coffee, donuts and pizza are a complete diet.

... when you were little, your main contribution to the playgroup was making up the "scripts" for playtime.

... your kids talk in hushed tones about your "coming down with a novel."

... Don’t know what the nearest crossroad to your house is, but can tell with certainty what type of carriage was used in 1456 in Wales.

... When a friend asks "what’s new" you give him a synopsis of your latest book.

... Have one or more times scared a late-night diner waitress with a conversation that started with: "now I need to figure out where to hide the body."

... A social life is another name for getting together with other writers and discussing plots.

... While being administered the last rites you think, "dang, I’m too woozy to remember this, and I need it for my mystery novel."

... Love to write, but hate every minute of the writing business.

And yet more kitten

2009-06-27T02:27:39Z

Valeria sitting on my husband. As you see her training as a writer's cat continues. :) Advanced shoulder sitting while writer reads, in this case.

The kitty progresses

2009-06-26T02:05:43Z

Her name is Valeria Victrix -- Val, for short, and also Brownie :) -- after the little girl character in Operation Chaos. this is from Yesterday and our friend Charles, who would like to keep her, is holding her. We'll see if he DESERVES her.

Our vet said about three weeks. Not eating yet, nursing well but the night feedings are killing me. Her right eye is almost okay today. I'll take picture later. She climbs all over me and caught on to "writer surpervisor is my job" by sitting on the keyboard shelf and watching my fingers.

In which I stuff my bra

2009-06-23T20:09:16Z

Orphan kitten. girl. Very young Sleeping in my bra.
Send good thoughts. She's very young.

Light a candle

2009-06-23T15:52:02Z

In the nineteen eighties when Solidarity looked like they had a chance against the government of Poland, the first significant crack behind the iron curtain since the Prague spring, a whisper went around "Light a candle."

I lived in Portugal then and our media assured us it was all very complicated and we just couldn't know what to do. We knew exactly what to do. We lit candles. Real ones, on my parents' cement and stone balcony, electrical ones in the windows of those houses that didn't have a balcony.

Did it help? I don't know. The media didn't make much of it -- if they mentioned it at all -- but these things have a way of being known and when entire villages in Europe glowed at night with candles in the windows and on balconies... well... I figure if word got back to Poland, the bad buys knew we were watching. And we weren't amused.

Governments need to take in account all sorts of things. Like, will they have to negotiate with the bastards if something happens requiring such? Also, one of the rules I learned early in writing was never criticize an editor to another editor -- no matter how much they hate each other, they still project. They'll think "if she says that about so and so, what will she say about me?" Even if it's a joke about how badly your book was copyedited. In the same way governments tend to support others that have the power right now, or at least not attack them, unless provoked beyond endurance, because, well "It could be me next."

We the people have no such restrictions and SHOULD have no moral confusion. What's going on in Iran is evil. Is the guy the opposition could install only marginally less evil? Perhaps. But even if movement toward freedom is incremental, it should be encouraged.

Light a candle. Light one today.

As for me, a candle will burn on my balcony from today until the people of Iran are free from the tyranny that has stomped them since 79. If for a week or the rest of my life, I don't know. And I don't care. I'll stand with those willing to fight and die on the streets for their freedom.

Solidarity is more than a union in Poland.

Blogging today at MGC

2009-06-10T21:11:52Z

*Considering how most of my days are still being devoted to sleeping -- I think this grief thing is more difficult than I thought! -- I don't know how coherent it is, but...*

http://madgeniusclub.blogspot.com/

A French Polished Murder

2009-06-10T01:22:31Z

*This is the novel I'm trying to finish, slightly hampered by fact I'm NOT in a funny mood just now. Ah well, maybe tomorrow.*

A French Polished Murder

By Elise Hyatt

The Fast And the Electrically Furious

We were thirty years old – and, in his case, a couple of months -- when I came to the sad conclusion that I would have to murder my friend Benedict Colm.

This was as sad as it was necessary, but there was no getting from the fact as my son, Enoch – whom I called E in an attempt to save him therapy bills as he got older – came speeding into the living room, atop Ben’s Christmas gift to him.

The gift was an electric toy motorcycle with a top speed of ten miles per hour, an acceleration that might seem impossible for a small boy to achieve in a home that was less than seventy feet in either direction, but which E managed, quite often.

I heard the horn blare a moment before E came riding in and, with the practice born of two weeks of terror, dove behind the sofa, while Ben, who stood square in the middle of the living room, his arms crossed on his chest, became an impromptu traffic circle.

E sped around him once, twice, then headed the other way, at an increased velocity.

"What do you mean you’ll have to kill me?" Ben asked, obtusely, looking at me. "And what are you doing behind the sofa?"

I crept from behind the sofa to stand on the sofa itself, having learned that a large piece of furniture was the best defense against the toddler version of the fast and the furious being played in my house. "What do you mean what am I doing behind the sofa?" I said, as from the kitchen there came a now-familiar series of sounds indicating that E was either rearranging the kitchen chairs to use as slalom cones or simply hitting them and dragging them along with sweet disregard for what it might do to chair legs and seats.

I dropped to sitting on the sofa, shaking slightly, with what I figured was a form of post traumatic stress disorder, only not particularly post, since the stress had started just over two weeks ago when E had unwrapped the fully-charged electric motorcycle.

"If you were likely to have children," I told Ben darkly. "I’d already have started payments on the realistic drum set with electronic amplification."

"You are making no sense at all," Ben said, in that even tone that makes me want to strangle him with my bare hands – even though I was aware that was one of the stupidest ways to kill him, as I would be immediately discovered. "What can the possibility of my having children have to do with this, and surely you remember I used to have a garage band. In the unlikely event I ever have a child, I’d be happy if you gave him or her a drum set."

I think that was when I picked up the nearest object – a collection of mystery short stories, leather bound and weighing in at about three pounds, a Christmas gift from my parents – and flung it at his head, missing, of course, just as E came back through the door from the dining room, in time to ride over the book and break its spine.

"Well, you shouldn’t have thrown it at me," Ben said, looking baffled when I howled in outrage. He picked up the book and tried to smooth the broken spine.

Ben was six three in his stocking feet, with reddish brown hair and the sort of face that is pleasant to look at rather than handsome. Because this was the weekend and also, still, part of his Christmas vacation he was in what he considered his relaxed attire – dark green pants, with a broadcloth shirt, a cashmere pullover just a shade darker than his pants and the sort of tie he considered playful and holiday-like – in this case green, with a barely discernable red dot. I would bet that were I to lift his sweater I would find his tie had been precisely tied to fall just over the top half of his belt.

I thought, not for the first time, that it was a very good thing that Ben was gay because any woman worth her salt, forced into a romantic relationship with someone so unflappable, exact and unemotional-seeming would have done the sensible thing and put a steak knife through his heart.

"Not your steak knives," he said, when I communicated this sentiment. "They’d never get past the rib cage. You never sharpen them." He set the abused book on my coffee table, which is third hand and made mostly – I think – of spit and cardboard. The legs bowed under the weight of the book, which wasn’t exactly hard, since they bowed under the weight of a coffee cup.

Ben and I had been best friends since middle school, when I was Lancelot, Galahad and the belle dame sans mercy rolled into one -- or actually, considering that my parents were the owners of the largest used/new mystery book store west of Kansas, Miss Marple, Poirot , Perry Mason and Nero Wolfe -- forever running off in defense of those younger than I or those in peril of some sort. Or again, perhaps not, since the only small, young or shy teenagers that those four were likely to rise in defense of would be those who had committed a murder, while I ran to the defense of any smaller person who was being bullied or otherwise abused or ganged up on by people bigger than them.

At less than five feet tall – my adult height – and weighing less than a hundred pounds, soaking wet and with lead in my pockets, I’d been constitutionally incapable of sleeping at night if I thought that someone, somewhere, was getting away with committing blatant injustice against his fellow man or woman or snively, pimply middle school kid.

Ben had come to my rescue when I’d taken on three bullies – each of whom outweighed me by almost twice – at once and had insisted on rescuing me despite my outraged howls that I had them surrounded.

We’d been best friends ever since and co-dependent in an unusual way, in which I charged in and got way over my head, and he jumped after me to rescue me and incidentally finish off whatever dragon I’d been fighting. But now, I thought, staring at him, my eyes misting with tears, I would simply have to kill him.

"Why on Earth are you crying?" Ben asked, as E came back in and whirled around him three more times, before speeding back out to the dining room, causing a hollow sound in his wake, that I was afraid was the knocking down and breaking of the potted plant my boyfriend’s mother had given me for Christmas.

"Because I really am going to hate having to kill you. And then, you know, at your size and in the middle of winter, with the ground frozen solid, there is no way that I can dig a hole large enough to bury you in. And that means that either you’ll be found right away and I’ll have to figure out a system of misdirection so they think someone else is the culprit, or I’ll have to figure out a way to dissolve your body, so I can flush it down the drains or something." I thought a moment. "Given how dirty that bathtub was when I moved in, do you think there would be any noticeable difference if I used it as a container to dissolve you in muriatic acid?"

He sighed heavily. "Don’t you think that buying enough muriatic acid for that purpose would call attention in and of itself? Besides, from what I read, it doesn’t dissolve the body completely. You’d end up with clogged drains, and they’d find pieces of me down in the plumbing." He had to shout the last part because E had come back for a whirl around the living room and, this time, was blaring the horn at the top of its capacity and continuously, which created a sort of siren effect. "Besides, your neighbors upstairs would probably complain about the smell."

"Why not," I said, as the siren receeded towards the kitchen, followed by a series of thuds that meant that E was trying to open the door to the bathroom by dint of knocking on it with the front wheel. "They have already complained about the noise. Which means I’ll get evicted before the month is out and I have no idea if the security deposit will cover impact marks on the bathroom door." I brightened up, as the noise indicated that E had hopped directly from the motor bike onto the toilet, which was, at least, an advantage over the last time, when he’d brightly informed me that the electric bike was plastic and washable. "Where did you say your ex lives now? I wonder if I might simply make it seem like he did you in. I mean, the police already knows he set fire to the inside of your condo when you broke up."

"Only that part of the police force that is currently dating you," Ben said tartly, and then in the tone of one defeated, "Fine, fine, fine, fine. Do you want me to take the boy out for a spin on the sidewalk, to tire him out, so he can stop terrorizing you?"

Until we meet again

2009-06-08T22:16:12Z

Dejah Thoris Burroughs Carter Hoyt, June 12 1989 - June 8 2009

She was the cutest ball of fur you ever saw.  For reasons that would take too long to explain, Dan and I broke into the sun room where she was locked -- away from her mom. I think she was maybe four weeks old, all fluff and meows.

We bottle raised her and her two brothers -- not easy since I had a full time job as a translator at the time. I always thought it was because of that that she was a little shy. Not socialized enough. Didn't like being held. However when Dan lay down on the floor to read, she would climb between his shoulder blades and fall asleep.

When we put wood down in the hallway of the house in Charlotte, she escaped from where we had her locked up and hid under the neighbor's porch for two days, refusing to come out. Dan had to go under there to get her. The fit was so tight, he had to strip to his underwear to get her.

As she became tamer with time, Dan was her special person. She used to sit on the bed, on my side, and give me dirty looks when I came to bed, because I was clearly a third wheel.

When we moved from Charlotte, for various reasons, (mostly renting) the cats ended up outdoors. DT took up hunting. She could bring down anything, from rabbits to birds. In Columbia, SC she got me involved with raptor rescue by bringing down a hawk (I think) that we then nursed to health. This while she had a bell on.

When we lived in Manitou Springs and traveled a lot, we boarded the cats while we were gone. If DT got wind she was going to be boarded, she'd run all over the neighborhood to avoid us. More than once we left on vacation and left instructions with our friend Charles to the tune of "When she comes to eat, grab her and take her to the vet for boarding."   By this time, we'd have had them indoors only, but her friends, Pete and Randy liked being outdoors and so she did too. If we tried to bring her in she'd cry her heart out to join them.

She was the youngest of the first batch of our cats and answered to 'baby girl" as readilly as to "DT". She always answerd to Dan, no matter what he called her, though.

When first Randy then Pete died, we brought DT and Pixie inside. She was Pixie's best friend, comforter and nurse as he declined and died, four years ago. I don't care what animal experts say, she missed him till today.

If she loved you, she groomed you -- usually wildly. We called it "hair by DT" when she licked your hair so it was all at odd angles. If you weren't feeling well, she crawled in bed with you and did this. Lately she was afraid one of us would think she didn't love us. She'd walk between us, licking one and then the next.

She's had diabetes for six months, and we've been giving her insulin morning and night. When she seized twice last week while I was away, we thought it was the diabetes. But when I came home on Friday she couldn't close her mouth and had bloody drool. I thought "tooth. It has to be tooth." But we took her in today, and it turned out she had cancer of the jaw which mestatized all over her lungs and spine. She was in pain and she was only going to get worse. This cancer was very aggressive. It couldn't have been there more than two weeks.

We did what we had to do.

At times like this, I wish I had more faith in a life after this. I believe there is a G-d, but that doesn't necessarily imply a belief in the after life.

Heinlein said it's entirely possible normal people die and disappear forever, but not "saints". Well, I don't know about saints. And I know every theology is fuzzy on the afterlife of cats.

But tonight I want to believe there is a rainbow bridge and that she's there, with Pete and Pixel, all of them young and hale again, waiting for us. Until we meet again.

I've joined the Glee Club Of The Damned

2009-06-05T15:33:22Z

Now you can too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj-x9ygQEGA

You know

2009-06-04T19:46:24Z

You know you've lived with a book for too long when the only "last line" that feels right is "And she was done." Messages from Fred, anybody?

(Though the line stands. It works for the book.)

blogging at MGC again

2009-06-03T16:05:38Z

Has it been a week? I promise I'll blog more regularly once books are turned in. :)

Meawhile, I'm giving away a nifty darkship thieves tshirt at MGC, so hye thee there!

http://madgeniusclub.blogspot.com/

Blogging today at MGC

2009-05-27T12:58:45Z

http://madgeniusclub.blogspot.com/

Other than that, deep in Kay-Ho. Yes, I know how bad that sounds, but I finally figured out how to fix the bits that are sticking out to make her less of the "helpless victim."

I'm still NOT able to let her run off to Ireland to be a pirate, but it will do. History will NOT be flaunted -- and all that.

Sarah

Sarah Talks Back at Music

2009-05-17T01:21:42Z

I've been sick. I'm late on books. I haven't been able to play in my own diner in days. So I find myself in the store, talking back at the music in the ceiling. There was Five For Fighting's Superman playing and I yelled back "Oh, yeah, try not being faster than a speeding bullet." I know I play with the theme of "superpowers have a price" in the Shifter series, but honest to BOG, at least becoming an animal has a larger downside than being bullet proof.

This song definitely wins the winey-*ssed lyrics prize.

Here are a few more things I'd like to have said:

Five For Fighting - Superman (It's Not Easy)

I can’t stand to fly

Oh, yeah? Try it with security lines, buster.

I’m not that naive

WHAT does this have to do with no being able to fly?

I’m just out to find
The better part of me

Perhaps you should look behind the sofa cushions. I find when people set out to find themselves, if they just do a really good spring cleaning, they usually get more out of it than by going on a spree. Of course, clearly it's more fun going on a spree.

........

It’s not easy to be me

Where we find that Superman is REALLY twelve and hasn't yet discovered it's not easy being anyone.

Wish that I could cry

Onions are good for that. Or did they perform a tearductomy.

Fall upon my knees

Oh, sweetie, I'm so not touching THAT with a ten foot pole.

Find a way to lie
About a home I’ll never see

No one wants to hear you ~~lie~~ ~~whine~~ boliviate about the home you'll never see. Trust me. Geez, like the Roman imperial guard lamenting their lost Germanic homeland. But none wanted to go back.

It may sound absurd

It DOES sound absurd. Message from Fred, much?

But don’t be naive

Excuse me, have we been introduced?

Even heroes have the right to bleed

Now there's a right to fight for. "We MUST fight for our right to bleed." Uh uh. Shakespeare said it better. "If you cut us, do we not bleed?" In fact I declare a moratorium on lyrics reprising Shakespeare.

I may be ~~disturbed~~ whiney

Fixed it for you

But won’t you concede

Anything, if it will stop you playing the watering pot from public location speakers, thank you much.

Even heroes have the right to dream

Yes, but must they TALK in their sleep.

It’s not easy to be me

Oy, vey, it's not easy to LISTEN to you.

........

I can’t stand to fly
I’m not that naive

You should join the North American Non Sequitur society. They don't make sense, but they like pizza.

Men weren’t meant to ride
With clouds between their knees

um.... um.... um... (Bites tongue till it bleeds.)

I’m only a man in a silly red sheet

The fact that I hear this line as "I'm more than a man, consorting with sheep" greatly improves the song.

Digging for kryptonite on this one way street

Yes, I often look for arsenic in my shower. NON SEQUITORS DON'T MAKE YOU A PROFOUND THINKER!

Only a man in a funny red sheet

I still like it better with sheep.

Looking for special things inside of me

I recommend a good Atlas of the human body.

It's not easy to be me

IOW you suffered for your art and now it's our turn?

My Penguicon Schedule

2009-05-01T17:18:52Z

If you happen to be in the area, please come say "hi!".

Sci-Fi/Fantasy - The Perception	Sarah Hoyt Daniel Hogan Jeff DeLuzio Sarah Monette	5/1/2009 18:00	0h50	Poolside 1
What is the general perception of genre writing? Pros and cons of genre writing vs. traditional fiction.

Opening Ceremonies	Rasmus Lerdorf Jon "maddog" Hall Jane McGonigal Wil Wheaton Windell Oskay Sarah Hoyt Matt Arnold	5/1/2009 20:00	0h50	Ballrooms 7/8
After the countdown ticks to zero, Tux will welcome you to the convention, and you will hear from our guests of honor!

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly	David Crampton Mary Robinette Kowal Sarah Hoyt Dan Hoyt Elizabeth Bear Cherie Priest Jeff DeLuzio Sarah Monette	5/2/2009 13:00	0h50	Poolside 1
Character Development. Bringing your imaginary friends to life. Discussion of what makes a character live on the page. Heroes, villains, supporters. Different methods and ways of making your characters real to your audience.

To See a Universe in a Grain of Sand	Sarah Hoyt Dan Hoyt Elizabeth Bear Daniel Hogan Sarah Monette Sarah Zettel	5/2/2009 15:00	0h50	Columbia
Worldbuilding. How to create your universe.

Lie to Me!	John Scalzi Mary Robinette Kowal Sarah Hoyt Elizabeth Bear	5/2/2009 19:00	0h50	Poolside 1
Authors telling lies....what will happen next?! (PS - the audience gets to lie too!)

Liar Liars!	Catherynne M. Valente Sarah Hoyt Brian Briggs Cherie Priest	5/2/2009 8:00	0h50	Poolside 1
Discussing lying in fiction, unreliable narrators, fake memoirs and histories, authority in prose. Books like The Things They Carried that play with the idea of the author as a liar to great effect.

Dancing with Wolves - And Vamps!	Sarah Hoyt Dan Hoyt Elizabeth Bear	5/3/2009 10:00	0h50	Poolside 1
Fantasy allows for the ultimate "bad boy" romances. Your lover ripping your heart out can be literal if he's a vampire. Such stories can be fun, others horrifying. What makes a good love story, what's just plain disturbing and why?

Finding Your Voice	Mary Robinette Kowal Sarah Hoyt Dan Hoyt Elizabeth Bear Sarah Monette	5/3/2009 11:00	0h50	Poolside 1
1st Person vs 3rd Person writing. Discussion of pros and cons of different voices in writing. Benefits of the "God" point of view for an author and a reader. Benefits of the main character as narrator for the author and reader. Limitations of both.

Book Signing	Catherynne M. Valente John Scalzi Jim C. Hines Wil Wheaton Sarah Hoyt Dan Hoyt Elizabeth Bear Daniel Hogan Brian Briggs	5/3/2009 9:00	0h50	Ballrooms 7/8
Come meet some of our great authors and get your book signed. There may or may not even be readings done by some of them - how well can you beg?

Writer's Workshop Special	Sarah Hoyt	May 2, 2009 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm	2h	Boardroom
A special treat for participants. Ms. Hoyt will be doing some writing exercises and discussing the craft with you.

Where I read the beginning of Draw One In The Dark

2009-04-21T23:38:53Z

I didn't think my voice was yet QUITE up to a full short story, so this is me reading the beginning of Draw One In The Dark. I'll do the opening of the other novels too, over the next few weeks, and eventually post it on my site. For now, after much bugging of my friend Kate Paulk, (and Rob Hampson, and Francis Turner) it's hosted here:

http://www.sff.net/people/katepaulk/xtra/dw_a0045.mp3

DST T-shirts

2009-04-20T18:28:37Z

So excited! promotional t-shirts for DST here. Attached picture modeled by younger boy who is wearing it back to school. One of them is being donated to the Penguin Con auction, others going to members of my writers' group -- you know who you are. About ten left. I MUST think of contests so you guys can win them. They look terrific! Superb art by Alan Pollack!

Various and sundry updates

2009-04-20T17:22:43Z

Writing madly on the final phase of an historical novel called "No Other Wish But His" -- a fictionalized version of the life of Katherine Howard which one of my writers' group members has nicknamed Kay Ho. (G)

A few updates: As you can tell I have indeed survived Luna con. For those who heard me there, my voice is now back -- which means podcast tomorrow. (Yay, right?)

I'm now on face book under Sarah A. Hoyt. I'm also twittering as sarahahoyt, if you feel a burning desire to know what I had for breakfast or -- more likley -- when the next book is coming out.

And speaking of next books, two quick updates and covers.

My book Dipped Stripped And Dead, under the pen name Elise Hyatt has a cover and a release date. It's coming out in October 09 and this is the cover: It's the fluffiest book I've ever written, bar none, but it was a lot of fun. Samples aren't up, yet, but I'll try to get them up tonight and I'll let you know as soon as they go up.

Also, while at Luna con I found out I had a cover for my book Darkship Thieves, which is coming out January next year. Is this a cool cover or what?

Sample pages -- unedited and from a version back -- here:

http://darkship.sarahahoyt.com/

And now I shall return to my interrupted Kay Ho.... ;)

Lunacon Schedule

2009-03-19T18:50:10Z

If anyone is attending Lunacon, or considering attending, and wants to stop by and say "HI", here's my schedule of panels.

http://www.lunacon.net/lists_programs_byparticipant.asp?p=1607

Programs scheduled as of 3/18/2009 6:41:31 PM EST::
Friday Total Events This Day: 1
Track Start Time End Time Room
Reading & Signings 3/20/2009 7:30:00 PM - 8:00:00 PM Elija Budd
Title: Reading: Sarah Hoyt
Description:
Participants: Sarah Hoyt,

Saturday Total Events This Day: 3
Track Start Time End Time Room
After Dark 3/21/2009 11:00:00 PM - 12:00:00 AM Brundage A
Title: Yes, You CAN suck my blood, but you have to take me to dinner first
Description: The vampire as a romantic interest, ranging from the attraction of all things dark to vampires who are, in fact, nice guys who just happen to suck blood. (And what IS the point of the latter?)
Participants: Sarah Hoyt, Kathryn Richards, Darrell Schweitzer,

Literature 3/21/2009 12:00:00 PM - 1:00:00 PM Brundage A
Title: The Economics of Fantasy
Description: If they're so powerful, why aren't they rich? Does anyone else wonder about the poor apprentice, the neglected mage, the despised witch? Yes, yes, we know, when someone is too powerful, fear sets in against them. BUT fear only sets in if they're powerful in a material way. Don't give us "we wouldn't use our power for money." Humans do everything for money. So... how come the mages aren't also the noblemen?
Participants: Sam Butler, Louis Epstein, Sarah Hoyt[M], Peter Liverakos, Jeff Lyman,

Reading & Signings 3/21/2009 7:00:00 PM - 8:00:00 PM Westchester Assembly
Title: Autographing: Sarah Hoyt, Daniel Hoyt, Robert Hoyt
Description:
Participants: Sarah Hoyt, Daniel Hoyt, Robert Hoyt,

Sunday Total Events This Day: 1
Literature 3/22/2009 11:00:00 AM - 12:00:00 PM Birch
Title: The Baen Traveling Slide Show
Description: Highlighting some of the many Baen authors and artsts at Lunacon.
Participants: Eric Flint, Mike Flynn, Dave Freer, Sarah Hoyt, Jim Minz,

Liveblogging Opus II

2009-03-15T17:21:33Z

Last night, at about 2 am I found myself considering asking Dan to take me to emergency. I couldn't breathe and I'm fairly sure your bronchi aren't something you should be able to listen to like a wind orchestra. Every minute it seemed like my wind pipe was more constricted and I was choking to death. And then I realized that I when we asked for the feather bedding to be removed from the room, they hadn't thought the coverlets on the bed needed to be removed. Once they were removed, I was able to breathe almost instantly, and I'm feeling much better today than yesterday. so those of you who saw me gasping and looking like I was dying yesterday -- it's not the black plague, it's my old friend an allergy to feathers.

This morning I have discovered that a writer is a perfect mechanism for the distilling of caffeine from coffee -- needing only frequent trips to the bathroom.

After staying up ridiculous late, hanging out with guests of honor Gordon and Ilona Andrews, coffee and coke are sort of the stuff of life.

After participating in a sedate panel on dragons, where I believe I encouraged the audience to throw fruit at us -- I was VERY sleepy and my voice hasn't recovered from the horrible night -- I am now sitting at a panel with the guests of honor, my son Robert Hoyt and virtual guest Mike Stackpole, participating through second life, about urban fantasy.

A question was thrown to me and I believe I was thoroughly inane in my answer, as I was trying to figure out how much I could say before my voice died altogether.

More to come....

Live blogging the con

2009-03-14T20:53:39Z

Here I am at lovely Opus Fest in Denver, CO. The weather is nice and the fans are nice and con organizers are possibly the nicest I've ever seen to fans.

It would be lots of fun if I weren't recovering from pneumonia.

So far I've been present at the opening ceremonies where the importance of showering was greatly emphasized (in a good way, truly. It was funny.)

Then there was the vampire panel, where I found out that notwithstanding OMike's being convinced that I have legions of gay vampires.

(Unless three is now a legion this is unlikely) I found that I’m not nearly fascinated enough by vampires to read everything ever read containing a vampire. However my copannelists were nice people and seemed to have a lot of fun. Then I had a reading where I avoided reading at all, instead talking meanderingly about my writing. And now I have a break till the dinner with writers at five pm. Tomorrow I have a more solid schedule, as per previous post. If you’re in Denver, come out and see me. Sarah PS - Pardon the weird font. Sometimes my eee does this. I need too figure out if there’s a patch.