Ever since finishing Journey I've been restless, without a creative focus, and without even many mundane demands since my kids are all in school now.
It's a real trip, by the way, going from a decade-plus spent as a 24/7 on call caregiver with barely the time to form a full coherent thought, to... a pampered housewife with few demands on her time.
I keep asking Sam if I should get a real job. Our "deal" -- which was only ever the deal that I proposed, and clung to, throughout those hard years when even being by myself in the shower felt like a snatched luxury...the deal was, that after the crunch was over, I'd get two years to write and market a novel.
Well. Journey took five years to write, and hasn't been sold yet. But it's still useful for me to be home and flexibly "on call" for childcare in case of illness or Sam having an out-of-town conference or whatever, and also I do still cook every night. I'm not entirely useless. Just...mostly.
One day not so long ago Sam came into the bathroom in the middle of the day, when I was having a luxurious candlelit bubble bath soak. "Should I...get a job?" I asked weakly.
"Nah," he said. "You're fine. You do plenty."
But I objectively do...not that much. I have SO MUCH time in the day now, I have hella time, and I'm not even writing. Journey is in the slush pile with Baen and I don't have a current project. I'm getting itchy and restless with it. It's like I'm retired at 47.
I don't have a conclusion for this. It's just where I am. It's not a bad place by any measure; no, I'm incredibly lucky. I've always been so fucking lucky.
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Yep, looks like this is happening. Here’s the first segment of the uh. 17 pages and counting I’ve written going ‘I can make this better worse’ about I Was A Teenage Exocolonist.
[cut]
They wonder, sometimes, if the augment was a response to their nightmares.
They’ve always had them. When they sleep, they remember things that haven’t happened yet, awful things, things that left scars on a psyche significantly more well-equipped to handle them than that of a toddler.
They’re not a toddler anymore. The dreams - the memories - have only gotten worse.
They can’t talk about it. They tried a few times as a little kid. They tried, only to be told they were just dreams. That alone probably wouldn’t have stopped them; what did was the creeping certainty that if they didn’t stop, the adults would decide there was something wrong with them, something that needed fixing.
At eight, they haven’t tried in years. They know that if they’re too strange, the adults will try to fix them, and it would mean everything went wrong again. The dreams aren’t a problem; they’re a warning.
They don’t need to be fixed. Sol doesn’t need to be fixed. What they need is to fix the shields. Which they can’t do until they understand what’s going to go wrong.
They sit on the floor with the engineering manuals they used to demand to be read instead of storybooks and stare at the diagrams, trying to force their developing brain to grasp concepts that were challenging as a teenager, frustrated enough to cry.
They do cry, tears welling up and sliding down their face, but they don’t sob. They don’t make a sound, tucked away in a corner, and that means no one notices. No one but Congruence, but they changed their privacy settings off the infant alerts as soon as they could speak. No one noticed that, either.
The temperament augment doesn’t keep them from feeling desperation or despair or fear, but it means they deal with what’s troubling them quietly, in a way that doesn’t trouble anyone else. So they cry quietly through eyes they don’t let waver from the diagrams, repeating mathematical formulae in their head, making sure they have them memorized.
This time, it’s going to be different.
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tale as old as time.
It starts in fragments, like the breaking of a mirror.
I know because I was there, because I witnessed it. In some of my stories I called it a meteorite, like I told the Blue when she came seeking the secrets of the whispered word; and in others I called it the flood (the Great Flood, even – though that one was never truly my idea in the first place).
In yet others – the ones I tell in private at His wishes – to the residents of the old closet room under the stairs, I talk about it like it is melting ice, for it resonates with them: little Enid Hauke, who wants to believe that things can melt away and be reborn anew, and the Child, who wants to believe that old things are enduring and will one day return to how they used to be.
Sol is the only one to whom I tell no stories, and that is because he knows all the endings by now.
I do not know the endings.
I think I did once, for else I could not tell these stories, but that was long ago, in a dream that was idly forgotten in the passage of time, and maybe if I cared I could remember it, but I don’t and so I won’t.
We were green once – he tells me this, and maybe I could believe him if I didn’t see the Dark on him, see how little time he has left, she has left, they have left, they all have left, and I try to reach out and touch it, to stop that clock, but it’s as He told me – I cannot, and then he looks at me and says,
“Why are you reaching for my face like that?”
– and I cannot find breath to reply, for I have no heart.
That is the first law of storytelling.
The second is, you must have a heart to tell a story properly.
A heart is a special thing – a treasured commodity. Everyone wants one, but no one can hold onto one for long – like rain water, or slim particles of sand, a heart slips through one’s fingers and is gone.
He talks of hearts – the ash on his skin means that he wants one, but cannot find it, and so he comes to me and asks but I am merely a story-teller in my name and my life, and if it is not a tale humans want to hear I cannot answer him.
Not like I want to.
There are other uses of hearts – Sol talks about them to me sometimes, when he thinks I am not listening, but like the cursed bloodline I am always listening, even when it hurts to hear, even when I am not meant to hear. I have no heart, and yet there is an ache – I think Enid would call it ‘hurt’ if I were her – to hear Sol talk about things that he does not understand, that he perhaps will never truly understand.
I knew a boy who did that once, and he’s gone now.
Oftentimes, in the gentle light upon the rooftop, before the moon rises, I stand and I look up at the sky and I think that maybe Sol is gone, too – that he has gone on farther than I ever can, and then I feel alone, in the quiet settling of the night.
I am meant to be alone, though, and that’s okay.
That is the final law of storytelling.
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27. Marz/Tangent
27. things you said on the phone at 4 am
"It's just too much," blurts Tangent suddenly, and Marz startles back awake. "She... she looks at me and sees someone who doesn't exist. I don't -- I can't be the person she thinks I am."
"...I wouldn't know," says Marz, and her voice is syrupy with sleep that makes the lie come out more convincingly. "But regardless, if you aren't happy, why stay? That's not fair to either of you."
"I...."
Stars, she sounds so anguished. How sweet. For all she tries to hide it, Tangent has always cared with her whole beating heart. "Either way, darling, four in the morning isn't the time to make decisions like this, is it? Even for you."
That gets a little huff of laughter; Marzipan can picture the grimacing smile on Tangent's face that no doubt accompanies it. "I suppose."
"Mm, trust me."
"I do."
Marz feels herself smile, leaning a little against her palm. "As you should!" Another laugh, this one sounding a little less reluctant. "You can think about it after you get some rest." And then, because it's four a.m. and Marz really does love Tangent more than maybe anyone else on the planet: "Either way, I'll always be on your side."
There's a very long pause; Marz very politely pretends not to hear Tangent have to clear her throat through the line. "...Thank you, Marz."
"Of course! But don't make this a habit, I do need my beauty sleep."
"I won't." Tangent's voice has warmed; the smile Marz pictures this time is gentler than the last, the one she'd only remembered in adulthood. "I'll speak with you later. And thank you, again."
"You, my dear, are very welcome."
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