Tag: writing

TASTE

Two Paragraphs from My Current Work in Progress

X. Jupiter Hart

This is a doodle of an eyeball glyph I did in Adobe Illustrator a while back that I’ve never had an excuse to use until now. If you scroll down past it, you will find an excerpt from the current chapter I’m working on. The species so described is part of the established lore of the fictional Environment in which my story is set, but I think this would be the first time I’ve fully realized it in prose. Might give it more qualities in future drafts, but methinks this is serviceable as a rough sketch.

At first glance, this life form looked perfectly harmless. Comical, even. Resembling a course layer of chocolate brown hair growing out of solid bedrock. Carpeting the walls of the burrow. The fur of a shaggy dog, without the dog. But as every worker knew, this fur was not to be petted. If one were to agitate the hairs in any way (either by accidentally kicking them or handling them in any non-gingerly fashion), such an action would trigger an immune response in the organism, causing fruitbodies to germinate in the agitated hair tips. A mere ten minutes or so later, these hairs would have evolved into thick, almost woody stipes bearing mature spherical sporocarps, each one with that characteristic appearance suggestive of the head of an old Morgenstern club with a shiny metallic sheen. One could probably see their reflection (albeit distorted) looking into such an anatomical structure. But no worker in their right mind would dare find out for sure. It was grilled into them from their job training that if a fruitbody had that certain silver look to it, it was dangerous. One should get as physically far away from it as humanly possible, with the same speed and sense of urgency as if it were a time bomb on the verge of detonation. Because in many ways, that’s exactly what it was.

That silver part of the Silver Brown never made a sound when it burst. But a worker would always know when it did. Their sinuses would instantly be assaulted with an odor that was as distinctive as it was repugnant – something like a cross between cheap men’s cologne and a skunk carcass in an advanced state of putrefaction, with a subtle hint of wet dog flatus. The unmistakable stench of untold cubic gallons of the organism’s seminal ether being ejaculated into the open air, a minute percentage of its mist and vapors invariably finding its way into the lungs of any hapless soul who just happened to be in the vicinity.

TASTE

A Question of Balance

X. Jupiter Hart

I actually halted working on the book for about a month. Mostly because I’d reached a point in the narrative where the focus shifts to the villainous faction of the story. There was a question I philosophically wrestled with during that time on whether the (impartial) third-person narrative voice should adopt a tone for this chapter that’s in any way different from earlier chapters that focused on the hero and his trusty sidekick. On the one hand I really want to convey the innermost workings of the antagonist’s head, but on the other hand I want to avoid telling the audience what to believe about him. A certain equilibrium between the two would be ideal. It’s a matter of knowing when to lean to one side and when to lean to the other. Not the easiest hike, but I’m forging ahead with it.

TASTE

He With Nine Toes

X. Jupiter Hart

One of the things I miss about the SILVER BROWN experiment is drinking the essence of the people’s vibes whenever I threw pages of the manuscript out into the Twitterverse. I’ve been itching to do something like that again in 2022. Unfortunately, my current work in progress is not yet at a point where I’m comfortable with the idea of other people reading it — it’ll need to go through a few drafts before it gets to that stage, and I’m still in the middle of writing the first one. In order to scratch the aforesaid itch, I shall dig up one of my oldies that I started writing in 2008 and eventually forgot about.

Years ago, in the days when people still met in person, I used to attend writers’ critique circles that were advertised on Meetup. At the first meeting, I showed them the first few chapters of HE WITH NINE TOES — the manuscript I was working on at the time. If I recall, the reception was glowing. The only beef they had with it was the choice of vernacular. These chapters take place on an agricultural planet, where the locals speak a dialect that is heavily influenced by the Scots language. In their reviews, my fellow scribes told me that they frequently couldn’t make heads or tails of what the characters were saying. But aside from that, they loved it.

I never got around to correcting the issues they brought up, abandoning HE WITH NINE TOES to try my hand at writing something that wasn’t space opera. But I think it’s in decent enough shape to amuse people if I were to show it to the world at this time, warts and all. Starting on the 7th, unless something comes up. If it helps lighten the mood this apocalypse tax season, it’ll be totally worth it.