I wrote about two thousand words tonight, and finished up with this.

This is how I think a real paladin would act.

That evening, after the rest had gone to bed, Merrily approached her mama on the sofa and took her warm, wrinkled hand. Gertrude squeezed her, and without opening her eyes said, “What’s wrong, baby girl?”

“Am I doing right, mama?” Merrily asked. “I… I feel silly, but I don’t know. No one seems to be really bad here. I mean, yes, they’ve done some wicked things, but no one’s been hurt. Mister Gennyson tried to put Leo back together, even if he was a grave robber. Uriel wants to take off the law that’ll kill him, Mister Gallows loves his son.

“The vows talk about putting the wicked and the strong to flight, defending the helpless… but I don’t see anyone like that here. I feel like I don’t know what to do. Everyone has reasons. Lots of people, all being reasonable…”

Gertrude squeezed Merrily’s hand again. “Do you think evil things are never done with reasons? Good reasons, good intentions, wonderful goals in sight?”

Merrily thought about that, and she shook her head slowly.

“The evil you fight is not the people. I told Diane we’re all bad people, and I meant it. You start thinking that you’re good and they’re bad, and you’ll be in for a world of trouble, baby. The difference between hero and villain isn’t always in what they want. And if you pay real close attention, you might just see that the bad fellows are the ones that need the most saving.

“Now you come right over here.” Gertrude kissed Merrily’s cheek when she bent down. “You listen to your mama. You were meant to be who you are, little Gamble. Made to be who you are. You keep this boy safe like you promised, and you don’t compromise. Someone’s got to hold the world in check.”

The corners of Merrily’s mouth tugged, then drew into a smile. “Thank you, mama,” she whispered.

“Silly girl. Now, it’s late. What you doing up so late anyhow? Scoot! Bedtime.”

Merrily kissed her once more, bid her a good night, and held her skirts as she took the stairs and tried to keep them from squeaking too loudly on the way to her bedroom above the front porch.

So, my CPU died on Monday.

It was a wonderful computer– I built it myself three and a half years ago, and it was a hardy machine. Everything in the computer was saved, of course; the hard drives are fine. The ram was good, but since it’s DDR2, I doubt I’ll be able to do much with it. The graphics card will come in handy until I upgrade it– a Geforce 7900 GTX. Top of the line three years ago, still a decent brand, but all good things must come to an end.

…

Point being, with my hard drive out of commission until my new computer arrives next week (I’m bastardizing a mac pro with Windows XP– just plugging the old hard drives in) I won’t be around much.

See you next week!

My latest NaNo excerpt:

The Crooked Cabaret.

Three establishments, all sharing the same space and name, none of the lot respectable.

Entertainment! Singing women wore too little behind guarded doors, windows blacked out with board and paper to keep High Hope’s decency laws. There the girls wore too much makeup, and during the shows in the middle of the night they would remove their stockings and put legs up on chairs, showing glimpses of their thighs to titillate and delight a male audience. Back stages doubled as brothels– a portion of the girls sold themselves on the sides. Muscled bouncers stood guard over the doors, exterior and dressing rooms both. They were paid extra for the latter.

Alcohol! While not illegal in High Hope, the bar in the second subdivision of The Crooked Cabaret could make a man go blind, and moonshine was illegal. Not that they called it that. Not that they bought it, or had it tested– the bathtub and a second-hand water extractor was the beating heart of the establishment. Sticky floors and sticky bar stools, grubby coins and the smells of urine and vomit lingered at the edges. A few drinks of the house special, though, and none of that shone through.

Miss Polly Owens was in the last portion, nestled in the back between the two others. Near enough to hear the drunks shouting nonsense, near enough to hear the singers in their backstage rooms. Red fabric pinned to the walls, old pillows in piles– nothing more to the furniture but a few candles. Polly leaned up against her cushion and blew opium smoke from her mouth, eyes shut and peaceful. Others about did the same, all in silence. Someone sang one room over. Polly didn’t care to open her eyes, nor discern whether it was a drunk carousing or one of the ‘real’ singers. It all sounded the same after a while.

… I wonder where this story is trying to take me. It’s already ramping up to look far longer than I’d intended.

That was easy.

Have I ever mentioned that my mother is a professional artist?

I mentioned that I wanted Victorian-style pen and ink illustrations for my novel to my mother; she mostly does a lot of still life and landscape. She got very excited when I described the sort of things I wanted– cloth bows, still life with wine, a top hat and gloves, birds’ nests between the junction of steel beams. She’s not a fantasy fan, but then, I’m not much interested in fantasy illustrations.

(Though the giant mechanical crab might be nice.)

My very last villain, the most dangerous man in my cast, has moved himself neatly out of the ‘villain’ category. He’ll still carry out his part in the plot, and some of the things he’s going to try are pretty awful.

But after bidding his love interest, “I’m in trouble and I have to go. Have a wonderful life; I wish I could have been part of it. Don’t protect me,” … well. No one is going to keep him in the villain slot.

Perhaps that’s good… I’ve seen many authors declare with pride that they have no villains. I’ve always eyed them skeptically, imagining a contrived series of misunderstandings or stubborn, unbearable characters. You have to be a dang good writer to pull off an appealing villain-less story.

Why, Uriel? Why?

You know what novels ought to have?

Pictures.

Not just illustrated children’s books. Novels. Adult novels. Preferably excellent old fashioned black and white penmanship in fine crosshatching. Illustrate a lantern, a snowy countryside, a lady’s dress, a tapestry. Something related to the story, but not the scenes itself, which might intrude into a reader’s sense of visualization. Scatter where appropriate.

Why isn’t this done in the publishing industry?

Imagine, if you will, a party of heroes trapped with Whirling Blades of Doom! ™ coming down on them slowly from above. Stone sides, no secret doors, no weapons or ‘I forgot I had these’ moments.

Suddenly, the door is kicked open! Maxwell has arrived!

Maxwell grabs his son, turns, and slams the door on the rest of the heroes’ faces, leaving them to their fate. Hey he never said he’d save them, after all.

…

This isn’t something that happened in my story. Yet, this is somewhat typical of Maxwell’s behavior. The greatest jerk you’d ever meet– an animated man in his late forties, armed with his black clothes, top hat and cane. A mad scientist in every way.

Since making his appearance on camera, he’s enslaved a dead man, drove through the countryside in a giant mechanical crab (terrifying more than a few farmers in the process), left my heroine to die, broken into a water factory, pulled his gun on more than a few people… only stopped short of killing because of the nice people he had to team up with.

He was supposed to be a villain. So why isn’t it working?

I can’t tear my eyes off of this guy.

I found this the other day– an award winning short animated film, with a hint of Poe. I’ve been watching it about once a day since I discovered it on Saturday.

http://catpianofilm.com/

Maxwell’s goal was the very back of his laboratory, next to the drafting table. Uriel’s hibernation put him standing against the wall. For extra safety, Maxwell had had him strap himself into a set of electro-magnetic cuffs at the wrists, the waist, the neck. “This is Uriel.”

Samin looked the man up and down, more than a little disturbed.

Uriel looked human.

He was a big man, just about the same age as Samin if looks were to be any judge. His skin was tan, and because Uriel wore a worker’s undershirt Samin could see that Uriel was heavily muscled. His hair was black, pulled back into a knot behind him, his nose and jaw very strong. He looked like a beast of a fellow, someone Samin would want his axe nearby should he prove unfriendly. Samin turned back to Maxwell. “What is this?”

“He’s… we’ll call him my servant.” Maxwell reached around the back of Uriel’s head and tapped a button he’d installed there– a ‘kill’ switch, should Uriel ever become dangerous. Now Maxwell mostly used it as a way to shock him out of hibernation.

Uriel’s eyes opened. They were red, and they glowed slightly.

“So… is he human?” Samin asked. “I can’t tell.”

“He used to be,” Maxwell said. “I needed a prototype to resurrect after Leo died. I couldn’t try blind on my son.”

“He’s a dead man?”

“I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re asking. Filched him out of a hospital morgue. There were some problems, of course, with doing it that way. He’d been dead for at least an hour, and he’s never remembered anything about his life.” Maxwell gestured with his cane brandishing it up and down Uriel’s chest. “This man can carry over a literal ton, and yet delicate enough to reassemble eggshells. Mind like a calculator, memory like a written book. A few extra toys built in here and there. I think this is the pinnacle of my life’s work.”

Maxwell walked to a control booth well away from Uriel and flipped a lever. Uriel’s cuffs were released.

“Why do you keep him locked up?” Samin asked.

“Because he’s dangerous,” Maxwell replied. “Most great artificers are killed by their own creations, you know. I mean to see that that does not become me. Uriel…” Maxwell handed him the list he had written. “I need these things. Load up the crab and ready the hatch doors.” Uriel nodded and left to start collecting things. Maxwell frowned and turned back. “Except for Leo’s personal effects on the bottom… I’ll get those.”

Maxwell seemed to have forgotten about Samin– he left him in his laboratory alone with Uriel.

Samin was fascinated and horrified at the same time. “But…” he finally said, “What is the difference, then, between what Maxwell has done to you, and what Gennyson has done to Leo?”

He hadn’t expected an answer.

“I’ll need a detailed description of what Gennyson did to the younger Gallows before I can answer that,” Uriel said without breaking his work. “But given context and the evidence of grave robbery combined with Gennyson’s history with Maxwell Gallows, I suspect Gennyson had stolen the boy’s body?”

Samin blinked. “Stole, stored, deconstructed, cobbled together badly.”

“Then the difference is that Maxwell is better at his art than Gennyson. In matters of freedom, I have more– the difference between slavery and prison, retrospectively. In situation, his was the better, as Leo continues to have allies after his remaking.” Uriel mounted the ladder at the far side and began to pull it back and forth, taking parts and pieces from selected shelves, packing them into bags for transportation.

“You’re a slave?”

“Yes and no.” Uriel hopped down from the ladder, slammed the stone floor with both feet on landing. “The technical definition of slavery is, ‘a person that is owned by another’. Now, if that definition was expanded, all machines and devices of civilization are the slaves of men, as are all beasts, pets, livestock. The question you must ask is, ‘am I human, or not?’. What is a person? Is it a mind, or a will? Can a dead man yet retain a soul? What is the elusive quality that defines humanity?”

Samin’s mouth was dry. “Do you want out?”

For a brief moment, Uriel stopped working. His voice had such intensity that Samin stepped back. “Yes.”

Samin did not interrupt Uriel again.

I love my villains.

NaNoWriMo Report
End of day 4/30
Par wordcount: 6,667 words
My wordcount: 17,004 words

… I have little to say, except that I’ve wanted to write this book for two years. This is way, way too much fun.

Also: I adore third person omniscient.