Day 4!

Go back to Day 1 here.

Brody waited in the hallway while the doctor and the nurse made sure their patient was all healed. He didn’t go far, lounged against the privacy glass and waited for them to finish. Whatever that feeling in the pit of his stomach had been, before, it was worse now.
Libby Wade was just as confused about why they couldn’t find her in the system as they were.
 
He’d learned a long time ago, to trust his gut. His gut said she wasn’t trouble, she was in trouble. He didn’t leave a job half finished, but he damn sure didn’t leave a job half finished when it left a civilian in trouble.
 
The nurse and doctor walked out of the room, nodding to him, and he dithered in the doorway. If she wanted to be alone he could easily sit in the waiting area until EMR showed up.
 
“Captain—”
 
“It’s Brody,” he interrupted.
 
“You said Captain the other night,” Ms. Wade said, struggling into a seated position.
 
“I retired.”
 
She blinked at him. “I was only unconscious for twelve hours.”
 
He smiled, shaking his head, and pulled up a chair. If she was going to talk to him, he could sit down so he wasn’t towering over her. He didn’t have any reason to be intimidating, and a lot of reasons not to be. “I’m not actually part of the PacIC S ‘n R. Their commander is a friend of a friend, and he wanted me to come in for a job interview. My leave time ran out and I was officially retired about an hour after we got you to the hospital.”
 
“And you’re still here because?”
 
Brody had decided he was going to try this radical new thing called honesty. His life was officially, weirdly, his now. “I don’t like a mystery.”
 
“And I’m a mystery?”
 
He leaned back in the chair, aware the longer they talked the calmer she seemed to be. She was bright, and more honest than she needed to be, he’d been able to tell that from her interview with Inspector Hussein. “Well, either you were in on a plot and didn’t get out of the way in time, or you were a complete bystander with no records, or…” His new stance on honesty didn’t stretch to voicing the sudden thought that she was supposed to be the fall person.
 
She looked down at her hands, folded neatly on the hospital blanket, and sighed. “They said I could get up if I wanted to.”
 
“Don’t you want to?”
 
Brody couldn’t escape the feeling that Libby Wade had entire conversations in her head. She looked at him, and put whole seconds into thinking through the words that were going to come out of her mouth. He didn’t think he needed to tell her how unusual that was. Normal people didn’t employ that much forethought.
 
“Where am I supposed to go?”
 
Brody leaned back, folding his arms over his chest. He hadn’t thought about that. If her name wasn’t in the system for the police it wasn’t going to pop up anywhere else. If she had assets, or a place scheduled to stay, or a job, none of those things were going to happen right then. Even being slow to get out of the hospital bed—she could feign needing another nap to sleep the rest of the sedative off, he could tell she was tired so it wouldn’t be much of a stretch—they’d turf her from the room in a few hours at most.
 
“If you want to leave me a card, too, I’ll let you know before I try to leave town.”
 
Brody sighed, and told the voice in the back of his head saying this was a horrible idea to shut up. “I’m retired, I don’t have a card to leave you.” He watched her for a long minute. “And if you feel up to getting out of the hospital bed, or when they don’t give you the option of not, I’ll vouch for you at the temporary housing. That’ll at least buy you a week to figure you where you’ve gone in the system.”
 
“Oh…” Ms. Wade gulped, and nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”
 
“You’re welcome.”
 
A dark figure appeared at the door, and Brody intentionally relaxed in the chair. “This’ll be EMR then.”
 
The door hissed open, and a man in black pants with a zippered plastic jacket, complete with shield on the chest and—he was sure—the giant letters EMR on his back leaned into the room. “Ms. Wade, I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time, just to answer a few questions.”
 
She nodded, and he stepped in and let the door shut behind him.
 
“Excellent. I’m Investigator Bakker,” he said smoothly, flashing a badge at her. “And you must be Captain Halliday.”
 
Brody offered him a friendly hand, and decided the smoothest option here was to pretend he was infatuated with a pretty face. “Just Brody now.”
 
“Ah yes, the twenty year track.” Bakker nodded. “Do you mind—”
 
“Hope you don’t mind if I sit in, there’s been some records mishap, I’m going to escort Ms. Wade to temporary lodgings when she’s done here.”
 
“No, of course not.” Bakker pulled out his note-taking device. “I’m sure you remember the Official Information Act still.”
 
Which a stick like Bakker was going to imply meant Brody couldn’t share anything he learned in any circumstance. In reality, if he shared information with the media or un-involved civilians his ass was grass. There wasn’t, actually, any way to keep him from sharing anything he learned with Inspector Hussein. Just like he could have shared anything he learned from Inspector Hussein with Bakker.
 
He probably wouldn’t, but he could have.
 
“Now, when we finish determining exactly what happened during the explosion we’ll have more questions for you regarding that.”
 
“I don’t really remember much about it.” She shrugged. “I was getting the luggage off the transport and James was doing something else and then he freaked out and told me I had to run before it depressurized.”
 
Brody filed that away for later. The bay hadn’t depressurized, it was built to keep that from happening.
 
“And this James, did he have a last name?”
 
“Smith. I don’t have any of my electronics, and I don’t remember his contact information off the top of my head. His name was James Smith and he was starting a job at the PacIC Consolidated Bank. I work for GIG LLC and we met a couple of years ago at a work function.”
 
“Mr. Smith said he was in banking?”
 
“He didn’t talk about what he did. He said it was boring.”
 
Brody didn’t need to be an expert at reading people to tell Ms. Wade was starting to have second thoughts about James Smith. He couldn’t blame her for that, but he did consider telling here they were probably premature. Just because they couldn’t find James Smith in the system wasn’t any more reason to assume he was problematic than the fact they couldn’t find her was.
 
Well, except they hadn’t as of yet found a body, either.

Here's day 3. Just like yesterday we wound up with double c's. Coddiwomple, and Concussed. 

If you missed day one and two, here's A:Atraxia and B:Broody​.

By the end of the week I'll start some sort of master list, so you don't have to click through if you miss a day, or start next month or something.

Given the fact Libby hallucinated one of the founding scenes from Pride and Prejudice while she was concussed, it might be logical to expect her brain to come up with something equally fanciful in those last minutes before the medical sedative turned her loose.
 
Maybe the ball at Bingley’s, or Mr. Darcy’s failed proposal, if her subconscious was going to stick with the Austen theme.
 
Instead, a nurse walked through the door and Libby Wade become immediately aware of her surroundings. This was not to say that she woke up. Waking implies one was previously asleep and slowly stirred to consciousness. Libby was not asleep before the nurse opened the door with a soft swoosh and stepped through. Libby wasn’t…anything. Libby felt as if she wasn’t before that exact moment.
 
She hated sedatives.
 
“Well you’re going to be difficult,” the nurse huffed, checking her vitals. “Do you feel good, sugar?”
 
She closed her eyes and carefully took stock. Her head felt fine, minus the swimmy bits from the sedative that clearly wasn’t completely out of her system yet. Her leg was all healed, and whatever internal bleeding she’d had—they’d been thankfully vague about that—seemed to have healed. “Yeah, I’m good.”
 
The nurse—her pin said Carolynne and she had a kind dark face, excessively pink nails, and perfect straight white teeth—leaned over and checked her pupils. “Wonderful. The doc-in-a-bot will be in to see you in a second.” Carolynne glanced over her shoulder. “There are some officers here to see you, do you need me to chase them off?”
 
“Run, Libby! It’s not going to hold.”
 
“I can’t leave you here—”
 
“Go!”
 
“James—”
 
“Go! I’ll give you as long as I can. Tell them—”
 
“Hey.” Carolynne snapped in front of her face.
 
Libby swallowed, her head hurting. “Can I have some water?”
 
“Of course. Do I need to tell them to give you more time to rest?”
 
She laughed, relaxing against the pillow. “Does that work?” She didn’t wait for Carolynne to answer. “No. I’m okay.”
 
Carolynne muttered on her way out the door, and it’d barely swished closed before it opened again.
 
“Can we come in?” her Mr. Darcy asked, voice gruff. He was tall, like properly tall, and had the stupid fad beard that’d come back into style, and she couldn’t remember his actual name.
 
“We?”
 
He stepped forward. “My name is Cap…” He cleared his throat. “Brody Halliday. Do you remember me?”
 
She pushed the bed control up gently, so she wasn’t flat on her back trying to crane up to look at him. “I remember you, I didn’t remember your name.”
 
He nodded, like that was to be expected, and glanced over his shoulder. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” He looked back at her. “There’s a detective here from PacIC CID that has some questions though.”
 
“Are you going to offer to chase her away for me, too?”
 
Captain Halliday cocked a brow at her, eyes wide. “No. I thought I’d make introductions, since she asked.”
The other figure stepped through the frosted privacy door, and Libby realized why it’d only been a blob of dark on the other side of the glass. The CID detective was wearing a black headscarf and a dark, neat suit and it’d all sort of blended together through the glass.
 
“Ms Libby Wade, this is Inspector Dagny Hussein.”
 
The inspector stepped up to the bed, dark brown eyes clear and direct. “Miss Wade, are you feeling well enough to answer some questions for me?”
 
Libby swallowed, and watched as the gopher robot maneuvered through the door, around the other people in her room, and stopped next to the other side of the bed with a pouch of water, made to keep her from drinking too quickly. She took a grateful sip.
 
“I feel…fine, considering.” She took another sip. “My memory seems a little…messy.”
 
Inspector Hussein smiled kindly, but Libby wasn’t sure that was genuine. “That’s understandable. Just a few preliminary questions.”
 
She nodded.
 
“We haven’t found your arrival manifest, Ms. Wade, is there a reason for that?”
 
Libby blinked at her. “I don’t know.” She shifted, uncomfortable. Why couldn’t they find her manifest? James had called them in as they docked, hadn’t he? “James called the transport in.”
 
Inspector Hussein took notes on her personal device. “And what was James’ last name?”
 
“Smith.” Libby rubbed her forehead. “James Smith. I remember him calling the transport in, but I don’t remember the call sign.  I know the control answered, and the barrier opened normally.”
 
“Okay.” The inspector nodded. “Have you known Mr. Smith long?”
 
“About two years.”
 
“We haven’t found you in the system yet either, can you tell me what you do?”
 
“Population statistics. I run non-government surveys.”
 
“And that pays well enough for private transport?”
 
Libby flushed. “No. Not even close. James had the transport. He works…worked in banking? I’m not really sure what exactly.”
 
She scribbled another note. “Do you remember who he worked for?”
“He was changing jobs. They just hired him at PacIC City Conglomerated.”
 
“Who do you work for?”
 
“Global Information Gathering LLC. My supervisor is Matthew Perthins. His office number is on the website.”
 
“Was Mr. Smith a work connection or a personal connection.”
 
“Um…”
 
There was a soft noise from Captain Halliday in the back of the room, and she resisted the urge to tell him to stuff it.
 
“Um?” Inspector Hussein asked, patiently waiting.
 
“I met him at a business function, but I don’t believe he was ever actually connected to GIG.”
 
“Did you have a romantic relationship?”
 
“No.” Libby rubbed her forehead. “He hinted. A lot.” She took another drink from her little pouch, and waited for the ‘why didn’t you date him’ question that was probably coming because of course she wanted to talk about her private life with complete strangers.
 
“Should I be looking for you under a different name in the database? We’ve tried Elizabeth and Libby, neither got a return that fit you.”
 
“No.” Libby swallowed. “That’s my only name. And given I filed my taxes like six months ago and that went through fine, it should be there.”
 
“It should.” Inspector Hussein nodded. “Well, that’s all I have for now.” She pulled out a small,  actual paper business card. “I’m going to leave this with you. Please inform me when you leave the hospital, I’m sure we’ll have a few more questions.”
 
She turned, and nodded to Captain Halliday, and stepped gracefully from the room.
 
Libby didn’t feel even a little better. She was supposed to be answering questions for the inspector, not coming up with a million more for herself.

Previous---/---Next

Here's day two. Hopefully it doesn't require a re-post this time...

​“Never trust a survivor until you figure out what they did to stay alive,” Commander Stevens shouted, throwing the pieces of exploded ‘rescue civilian/second-wave-suicide-bomber’ dummie at them.
 
Brody didn’t really need the reminder that kept running through his head. He’d never forgotten that bit of advice. Even if the men and women of Pac-IC Search and Rescue had forgotten—or just never been taught, the civilian Search and Rescue training was a little different than the military training had been—Brody wasn’t about to decide that just because she was hurt and she looked harmless he didn’t need to keep an eye on her.
 
He was currently taking up part of the waiting lobby, within sight of the room they’d stuck Ms. Wade in to recover. None of her injuries were world ending; a bit of internal bleeding, a mild concussion, and a hairline fracture to the femur. They’d given her a nanite injection and put her to sleep for twelve hours so the little monsters could work. Modern medicine was outstripping him. Fifteen years ago, when he’d finished his training, that sort of fix would have taken a couple of days. Long enough to know something about what had happened before a possible witness/suspect was mobile again.
 
Twelve hours had barely given him time to go back to his rented quarters, shower, eat, and sleep for a bit. There were about two hours of the sedative left, and he was looming in medical, waiting for the crime scene techs to give him a report.
 
Well, not give him a report. His retirement had officially come through two and a half hours ago. He didn’t doubt he could trade on the ‘recently retired, decorated hero’ thing to see the report.
 
That twenty years of service requirement sounded long, at eighteen. At thirty-eight, looking at another century of life on full pension with no direction was long.
 
Pac-IC S and R definitely wanted to be a direction. Their commander—a personal friend of Commander Stevens—had arm-twisted Brody into coming in for an interview. When half the fram city had exploded Brody honestly entertained the idea it was intentional.
 
But that kind of thinking was why people who took the hard tracks got handed their retirement at twenty years. And the panic that’d rippled through the ranks when they all realized there were life-signs and no one around with dive clearance to go get them—without waiting probably an hour for the bomb sweep to finish—was genuine, even if him having those skills felt pretty unusually coincidental.
 
He’d experienced a lot of concussion responses in twenty years, some of them seriously disturbing, but he’d never had someone go full Jane Austen before. It was that novelty that was making him feel like there was more to this girl. Had to be. That, and the fact no one was really sure who she was or what she’d been doing in the docking bay.
 
James was double-missing. Every James they could find in the system was accounted for, triple checked for the three that had reason to be in that area, and vetted. The going assumption, among the people who were supposed to be investigation this sort of thing—Criminal Investigation Division and Emergency Management and Recovery—was that she’d mistaken the name. She had a concussion, it happened.
 
Brody shifted, and watched the nurses bustle back and forth between patient rooms, sidestepping the stick-legged droids that delivered water and non-essentials, and conversing in rapid med-speak with the automated robot doctors. Each ward had one human physician on at all times, mostly for patient comfort. Given bedside manner was often a thing of the past, Brody figured it wouldn’t be long until that was gone, too.
 
He'd bet nearly everything he owned, and his ridiculous lifetime pension, Ms. Wade had gotten the name right. Once she’d realized she wasn’t at a ball waiting for her dance with Mr. Darcy she’d clued back in pretty quick. And he might have been retired now, but he hadn’t been last evening when he pulled her out of a crumbling temporary airlock bubble. He didn’t leave a job half finished. Either she was in trouble, she was trouble, or both.
 
“I hoped I’d find you here,” Dagny Hussein said as she flopped into the chair next to him. Her charcoal pants and matching suit jacket were shiny in the hospital lights, and her perfectly placed black headscarf wasn’t even a little. She was neat as a pin, and the kind of investigator that wasn’t going to get anywhere in her career because she was perennially incapable of going along to get along.
 
She’d been waiting at the emergency dock last night, and he hadn’t needed her to introduce herself to know she was CID. The charcoal gray suit was kind of a give-away, but not as much as the general air that screamed “COP.” The EMR stuffed shirts had a tendency to scream “Fed,” or “feckless.”
 
“I’m pretty sure I gave you my contact,” Brody reminded.
 
She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her chair. “You did. But your file says you’re officially retired.”
 
Brody glanced at her, staring thoughtfully into the recovery room, and weighed the ways he could play this. He was retired. Which, glass half empty, meant she didn’t have to tell him anything, not if she didn’t want to. But, glass half full, it also meant the only person pulling on his strings now was him. He didn’t have to play things officially, keep his cards close to the vest and cover all his motives.
 
“I don’t leave a job half-finished,” Brody answered, before she’d found a question that made him change his mind about being honest. “And you’re back here already.”
 
Dagny nodded, brows drawn together. “EMR is really sure it was just an accident, and she was in the wrong place.”
 
He scoffed. “They said, last night. James was the concussion talking and there’s surely a logical reason we don’t have an arrival manifest for her.”
 
She stared at him for a minute. “James wasn’t the concussion talking?”
 
Brody rubbed his face. “You’ll see what I mean when you talk to her.” He glanced at her. “I assume you’re here so you’ll get first crack?”
 
Dagny shrugged. “Survival situations breed trust. I figured if you were here you could introduce us and then maybe I’ll get somewhere before EMR shows up and it all gets swept under the rug.”
 
Brody nodded, and decided it wasn’t his job to tell her how to manage her career. She was bright enough to know being intractable about this sort of thing wasn’t going to make her any friends. At least not the kind that helped with advancement.

Previous---/---Next

So. It's that time of year again! A to Z Blog Challenge! Last year I basically wrote a novella in bits for this, and that's the plan for this year, too. Last year was a modern thriller. This year I'm not quite sure what we're doing yet. It involves our intrepid heroine, Libby Wade and a somewhat reluctant hero named Brody Halliday, and a floating city somewhere in the Pacific ocean at some as-yet-undetermined time in the future. 

Just like last year, I'm posting these basically the day they're written, so it's likely there'll be mistakes. If you notice a major one, let me know and I'll try to fix it. 

Libby Wade blinked down at the fine bead and lawn edging of her high waisted Regency gown. Her hands were covered in satin gloves, heavy rings on multiple fingers of each hand weighing them down. The rings sparkled and flashed in the light from a million candles, and they cast a shadowy yellow glow over her gown and her arms.
 
“Cousin Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy has asked you to dance.”
 
She swallowed, her mouth dry and dusty. “I…”
 
“He’s so wealthy, Lizzie!” An older woman exclaimed, leaning close, deploying a fan expertly.
 
Libby tried to focus on the other woman. Her hair was done up in ringlets, and there were gaudy jewels hanging from her ears and her neck. Her dress was maroon satin and covered in handmade lace. Libby could focus on the lace, could see each individual thread and swoop, but she couldn’t see the woman’s face, couldn’t focus on her eyes.
 
“I’m not that Elizabeth,” Libby managed, struggling to form the words. Didn’t they understand something was wrong? Her leg ached, and she tried to look down at it.
 
“But, my dear, Mr. Darcy—”
 
The woman was clinging to Libby’s arm, pulling at her, and she tried to struggle away. “I’m not that Elizabeth!”
 
The woman was a man now, wearing an official looking redcoat uniform, with bright blue eyes and a perfectly trimmed beard. “Please be still.” His voice was steady, and he didn’t sound like the rest of them.
 
“I’m not that Elizabeth,” she whispered again, hoping he’d understand. “I’m not.”
 
“Okay.” He agreed, and squeezed her hand. “Is your name Elizabeth though?”
 
She was laying down now, on a chaise. “I don’t need a fainting couch. I’m okay.”
 
“I’m relatively sure you’re not,” he muttered, and his gloves felt rough against her arm. Where had her gloves gone? “Is your name Elizabeth?”
 
“Libby.” She swallowed, watching his face. “Are you Mr. Darcy?”
 
He blinked at her, shocked. “…not sure how to answer that.” He cleared his throat. “What’s your last name, Libby?”
 
“Wade. Libby Wade.”
 
“Okay, Miss Libby Wade. I’m Captain Halliday. Do you know where you are?”
 
“No.”
 
“Okay.” He nodded, and started checking her for injuries, her arms and her abdomen. “What do you remember?”
 
“My cousin wants me to dance with Mr. Darcy.”
 
He froze for a second. “I’m pretty sure that’s the concussion talking, Miss Wade.”
 
She leaned her head back, a throbbing pain coming from her leg. “Concussion. I have a concussion.” She blinked, the candlelight slowly morphing into a yellow mining lamp on the ground next to her. “There was an explosion.”
 
“Run, Libby! It’s not going to hold.”
 
“I can’t leave you here—”
 
“Go!”
 
She struggled, trying to sit up. “James…”
 
“Don’t move.” The man holding her down was wearing yellow search and rescue gear, and he expertly kept her from getting up. “Your leg is definitely injured.”
 
“We were in the docking bay, and there was a malfunction. James…” Libby closed her eyes. “James was…was…”
 
He touched his communication box. “I’ve got one, I think she fell out of the ducting. She said they were on the docking bay.”
 
“The docking bay is gone,” a voice said darkly. “We’ll keep looking. Do you need assistance?”
 
“No. I’ll stabilize her and bring her up.” He looked down at her. “Do you know where you are now, Miss Wade?”
 
She swallowed, and leaned her head back, her pulse slowing. “Pacific Intercoastal City,” Libby answered.
 
He pulled out a first aide diagnostic scanner, and held it over her leg. “I think we’ll be able to just stabilize this.”
 
Libby closed her eyes. “Did I ask if you were Mr. Darcy?”
 
“You did.” He nodded. The diagnostic beeped, and he sat it down and started unpacking a crash board. “Do you feel like you’re injured anywhere but the leg?”
 
Her head picked then to clang particularly hard, and she breathed through it. “Other than the marching band in my head, no.”
 
He made a small noise. “I can’t really do anything about that here.” He glanced up at her. “You’d probably rather medical do it anyway. But I’ll be gentle moving you onto the board.”
 
Libby was pretty sure he was lying. “Does that ever happen gentle?”
 
Those blue blue eyes looked at her, in the low light, and her stomach flipped. Concussion, and he’s a professional. He’s just pretty.
 
“It does if the person knows what they’re doing,” he grumbled.
 
Something pushed against her leg, and she felt him snap it around her ankle and just above and below her knee. Libby stared at the jagged metal hole in the ceiling. She almost asked if he’d given her something, but she recognized the part of blood loss that made you feel calm and floaty. “I think I might throw up.”
 
He stopped, and moved up to look in her eyes. “Let’s not do that.” He ran the diagnostic over her chest and attached something to her wrist. “Her bp is dropping and I don’t think it’s coming out of her leg,” he said into the radio. “Have medical ready.”
 
Libby blinked, he’d wrapped an arm around her shoulders and lifted her off the floor, sliding the deployable stretcher under her as far down as he could, and then stabilized her legs together and lifted them just far enough to pull the stretched down the rest of the way. It beeped and hissed as it secured her in, the bubble flashing over her.
 
“See, smooth as silk,” he attached the mechanical lifters and stood up. “If you still feel like you’re going to vomit tell me. We’ll be on the other side in a second,” his voice came from the pad behind her head, through the communication system attached to the sled.
 
Libby kept her eyes open. He pushed her through the emergency airlock the system had slammed up to cut off the water. Pacific Intercoastal was one of the older gen of floating cities, more than two thirds of the thing was under the water and once you poked a hole in it, it locked down hard to keep all of that from filling up and turning the floating city into a more modernized Titanic. Halliday’s search and rescue suit had grown into a full-body swimmer, with the jet assist, and she could tell from the pull he was pushing as hard and as fast as he could, for the emergency dock at the top level.
 
So, she was probably bleeding internally. Her leg wasn’t injured enough for the rush. Libby closed her eyes and wondered if she’d start hallucinating Mr. Darcy again. It’d been a pretty dress. 

read last year's instead---/---next letter

The terrifying thing is in a couple of weeks, and I'm going to talk about that at the end, but obviously I'm still not on top of things. I'm trying, It just doesn't seem to be getting there. 

And we're not really making a post today because I'm technically on vacation with the proto-human right now. Not that there's a lot to do at a beach when it's cold.

Anyway, about the terrifying... I'm a guest at RavenCon this year! Oh, and I'm probably going back to school in the fall. So yeah. So much for productivity...

On a side note, I couldn't with the Mongol Queens book. But I highly recommend Fables of the Dragon: Tales of China from Golden Fleece Press. Not just because it's ours, but because it's a really great read and if the Mongol Queens sounded interesting it's probably your kind of book!

Because I maybe feel like I could pull off a good one right now. But I promised a first post of the new year post tonight, and I'm here at the computer (even if I feel like I've swallowed glass and I haven't really slept in two days).

So. 2018!

I feel SO unprepared for this year. But we're going to ignore that pervasive, quiet sense of dread that accompanies every start of something new, and talk about the plans for this year. Or at least a few of them. 

1) Focus on projects! 
This is a problem I universally have. I need to do better at focusing on things before they're due in three days. 

2) Post a short story to the blog every month.
Someone challenged me to write a short story every month for a year, so I'll be doing that. And then posting it on here. I think we'll try for a little more polish, so I'll work on them for a month and then post them at the beginning of the next month.

3)Read !
I'm challenging myself to read 52 books this year. I'll also be posting a short review and possibly a list of what books I'm ready when so people can read along with me if they like! This weeks book with be the Mongol Queens, because I already checked it out from the library. Feel free to make suggestions for next week.

4)Catch up.
For irl reasons I've felt like I'm scrambling behind the snowball that is my life for like two years now (or a year and a half, if you happen to be paying attention). I'm still not caught up. I get close sometimes, and then it seems to all spin off into left field on me. So. 2018 will be the year. I'll get back to where I'm supposed to be. 

5)Flaunt it!
I'm going to write another post on this one, probably next week. The short version is that I agreed to do an utterly terrifying thing this year, and it's a first, and I'm going to need to psych myself up for this one. We'll talk about the long version next week. But outside of that specific thing, I posted before about needing to remind myself that I have skills, and this journey has been years long (more than a decade) and it's good for me to remember that. That's probably not just true writing wise. It never hurts to have at least a moderate amount of faith in your abilities. I need to work on that more.

Okay. Cold-Brain is checking out for the night. But I will finish The Secret History of the Mongol Queens by Saturday, and post something about it!

See, look!  I did a thing! I posted two weeks in a row!

(If you're glaring at me and assuming I've written two posts and scheduled them to drop a week apart, shut up)

So I promised we'd talk about what my plan is for next year, and then also a little about what sixteen years of writing has taught me about planning your next year as a writer. But first here's a picture of a spoon balancing a potato and some euro coins? I think those are European. Although I'm also pretty sure that's a ten and some pennies and nickles in the back. There's much so much going on in this picture. So much. (Thanks, Pixabay)

Okay, I know that's not helpful. You're probably already home. The moon is MUCH closer than the stars. No one actually wants to be eaten by dragons. You're right. Absolutely.

But. Here's the thing. Unless you're just really organized and on it--and if you are why are you reading something from me?--you're not going to make every goal you set. But my umpteen years of experience has taught me there's a difference between lowballing your goals, and being realistic. 

So yes, I could make a goal to market my way into being a bestseller that is almost 100% guaranteed not to work. Won't know if I don't try, though.

Some goals, as a writer, are the same for all of us. Write consistently. Send things out. Work on growing a skin thick enough to let other people read your sh*t. Those are pretty universal. 

It's the details that'll be different for everyone. Are you the kind of person who gets bogged down in the things you're failing and gives up? Or does a commitment to write every day mean you'll think about writing every day and make it happen more often than you would otherwise? Do you need big goals to keep you motivated, or small ones so you feel like you're accomplishing something? 

The best path to success is knowing what you need. Not what everyone says you're supposed to need.

I painted that on a canvas and put it on my office wall.

Because you should pick a new freaking project at least once in a while. Stretch your creative muscles. Do something that bloody terrifies you. Don't wait for inspiration to come, go look for it. 

​"Don't wait for your Prince Charming, go out there and look for him. The idiot might be stuck up a tree or something."

Missed six months of blog posts? Pshaw. Didn't write for two months because life? Big whoop. 

Take a deep breath, roll your sleeves up, and get back on that horse.

Make a plan. Try to stick to the plan. If you have to remake the plan later that's fine. You only fail if you give up. You never know what you can do if you don't try.

​Try.

All the goals in the world don't really mean anything if you don't share them, do they? Share them. Publicly. Find people who aren't averse to public shaming and tell them it's okay to poke you. Kind people, who'll do it with love because they want to help you grow.

Avoid trolls. We all know a few. 

So. With that in mind, I'm going to share my goals for 2018. Feel free to share yours in the comments. I am armed with wet noodles and perfectly willing to spend some time poking people.

Publishing:

• Try to be on freaking time. It's a thing. 
• Do better at taking care of the things that aren't on fire.
• Clean the mailbox at least once a month.
• Let the fire-breathing dragon out, in re: people not following submission guidelines. It's their own fault, I have better things to do than be overly-nice about it.
• All the other crap that we always have to do, that no one wants to.

Writing:

• Try to be on freaking time. It's almost like I have a problem. (O.o)
• Remember even if I'm scheduling for two people I'm not ACTUALLY two people.
• Finish 4 started projects (Float, Only the Dead, Travels Book 2, Space-Romance Thing).
• Start 2 new projects.
• Keep up on the marketing stuff. Blogs, and social media, and all that jazz count as marketing. So at least 2 somethings every week.
• Finish the kids series this year. Because I should only have one book left, but I'm late. On like 2. Again.
• Send some things out in the world. Alone, in the cold. 
• B-i-C-H-o-K. Five days a week. For at least an hour a day on the project you're supposed to be working on.

Personal:

• ​Breathe.

Alright. We're taking next week off for holiday insanity. Come back on the 1st for the 1st post of the New Year!

Cue broken laughter...
I haven't posted on here since May.

I went digging into last years posts today, because I was going to try to come up with something coherent and interesting to say about the end of another year, and realized I walked away half a year ago with a promise to be back next week. 

That probably says more about how my year's gone than anything else I'm going to come up with. But I'm going to try anyway. You're welcome. 

So first let's be overly personal and pretend you want to know how my private life is going. 

Dementia is a vile bastard that makes EVERYTHING harder than it needs to be. 

That's it. That's pretty much my year in a nutshell. 

I was talking to a friend about taking my kid to see Disney's Coco and how I spent the last half of the movie trying to control myself. Nothing is less attractive than being the adult ugly-crying through a kid's movie. I'm talking full sobbing, snot-dripping, ugly crying. I'll try not to give any spoilers, but basically it's a movie about trying not to forget people who have died, and the kid's great-grandma spends the whole movie sitting in a chair slowly turning into a vegetable. 

So watching that when my mother is sitting in a chair slowly turning into a vegetable, and Dad's been dead for a year and a half and I still sometimes have dreams where he's not... Yeah. I was still trying not to cry when we walked out of the theater. 

And then I had the really unhelpful thought that my parents lost their parents and they weren't weirdly wrecked by it for years afterword. Or they were, and I was so wrapped up in being a kid that I didn't notice. I'm not bad at grief. I'm not self-destructing, there are just moments where it becomes really clear--internally anyway--that I have no bloody clue what I'm doing.

So that's been my 2017. Less painful and underwater than 2016. Still pretty damp and uncomfortable. Here's hoping the trend continues.

I was sitting around trying to think about what writing, or authorship, or publishing taught me this year. The authorship/publishing thing is rounding down their third year, there should be some take-away there, right? Writing is closing it's sixteenth. So basically most of my adult life. 

I offered to be a guest at a conference this year. I haven't heard if I will be yet, probably won't for a couple of months, but I offered. I almost didn't, because why would I? What would I talk about? And then that voice in the back of my head, the one that likes to remember once in a while that I'm a functional freaking thirty-seven-year-old woman, snapped at me. What would I talk about? Publishing children's books, you know, like I have for three years. Editing two journals at once, twice a year, for three years? The entrepreneurial nature of having to teach yourself everything. 

The thing writing, and authorship, and publishing taught me this year is that I have skills. Maybe I'm not raking in money, and I'm not on anybody else's radar, but that doesn't mean I don't have skills. I'm absolutely still growing, as a content producer and as an artist. If I want that growth to keep happening, I have to listen. And I have to keep trying bigger things. 

Not that I know what those are yet.

In the interest of that, next week we're going to talk about the plan for next year, and about learning how to plan for next year (because one of those skills is sixteen-bloody-years of 'this is what I'm doing as a writer next year' plans).

Clearly the down side to doing the a to z challenge is going to be finding something to do in this space now that it's done. 

After 2016 and all it's interruptions I really haven't gotten back into the swing of blogging (if you're thinking you were here before 2016 and I never seemed all that in the swing then, shush it. I'm enjoying my rose colored glasses).

So, to that end, I'm posting a SURVEY! 

And hey, just so maybe people will fill it out, if you put in your email address when you do the survey I'll enter you to win a free book, signed by the author! (This free book may be one of mine or anything published by GFP, you get to pick.)

It's the end! If, by chance, you aren't ready for the end yet--or maybe you'd just like to read the whole thing over again--that button right down there will take you back to A.

Thea had helped half of London into an air raid shelter before her brain managed to realize that noise wasn’t just happening in her dream. The dream went fuzzy on the edges, and someone started shouting for them to turn the false alarm off, and Dottie kept shouting back it wasn’t false. Something was wrong. The air raid siren meant something, they should take it seriously.

Once it percolated through she sat bolt upright in bed and reached for her phone. It was two in the morning and she reserved that ringtone for things that warranted being woken up by an air raid siren. Like Alice actually calling her, at two in the morning.

“I’m awake,” Thea said into the phone, putting her feet on the floor. “What’s the emergency?”

“I…um…” Alice stumbled verbally. “Okay, so this is going to sound crazy.”

Thea reached over and flipped her bedside light on. “Well, I’m sitting down, obviously. I think I’d be upset if it wasn’t serious.”

“The Honolulu police just put in an information request to the national database for next of kin for Moira Kadagan.”

“Honolulu?”

“I called it.” Alice swallowed. “A body was found three hours ago, it’s an active crime scene and they suspect foul play.”

Thea blinked, and rubbed her eyes, trying to force herself to wake up. “Who was killed?”

“Moira Kadagan.”

“Moira wasn’t killed, Alice.”

“I know that.” Alice sounded especially agitated. “But they think they have a suspicious murder of a woman named Moira Kadagan.”

“As they should, given she’s been dead for a bit, and I wasn’t aware she’d ever been to Hawaii.”

“I checked it,” Alice insisted.

“I don’t doubt you did, I’m trying to figure out what the mix-up is. You’re right, it sounds crazy.”

“They sent me the ID she was using,” Alice said softly. “It says Moira Kadagan. There’s a credit card with the name Moira Kadagan, tied to a room at a little hotel in Honolulu.”

“Is the picture on the ID our Moira?”

“No.” Alice swallowed. “What do I do? Like if they go looking for Moira, they’re going to find her family I’m sure but this is…”

“There’s no way someone is impersonating Moira that isn’t going to wind up at our door on some level?” Thea sighed, and worked her way to her go bag in the closet. “Schedule me a flight, early as you can. Send me the particulars. Keep tabs on what it looks like from here. Unless we’re fronting the zombie apocalypse it won’t be Moira, obviously, but I’d like to know what it is before I get there.”

“I’m pretty sure zombies are above our pay grade.”

“We should definitely have a line somewhere.” Thea dropped her bag at the bottom of her bed. “Do I have time to go back to sleep before I leave?”

“First flight out is at five-twenty.” Alice swallowed. “Other than watching, what should I do?”

“Try to block the flow until they figure out who it actually is. Her family doesn’t need to get a well-meaning phone call in the middle of the night.”

“Should I tell them anything? Their special investigations office seems to be handling the case. A detective Holokai Fukuyama filed the request, I could butt in and make something up.”

“Not yet.” Thea turned the light off. She was going to force herself back to sleep for a few minutes. “Let’s see what we know in the morning before we start injecting ourselves into an investigation.”

“Okay. Wake up call?”

“Yes.” Thea pulled the covers up. “Four.”

“Roger, boss.” Alice signed off.

Thea closed her eyes and forced herself back to sleep. It looked like she’d be going to Hawaii sooner than planned.

“Zombies are not a thing,” she muttered to the room at large. It never hurt to make sure the universe appreciated where she stood on certain things.

So. There's Z. We're not done with Cornucopia Ltd, obviously. What happens next will be in book form, and sort of less focused on this gang. Sort of. And I'm going to soft promise it by the end of summer right now. 

But you know what they say about promises...

It seems weird to dedicate at the end, but I'm doing it anyway. Eventually when there are books they'll be dedicated to Kate because at least half of this is her fault (as with most things). 

But this one is dedicated to Dad, because he always liked the idea of new things. Like I said yesterday, it's been a weird and rocky year. I'd have loved to know what you thought about this, and I'd have been belted up for all the mistakes you found. Love you Dad.