under construction!!!!

so, i paid a guy to make me a new website, 'cause people think this one looks terrible (i still like it!) but, if people dont want to read the stuff on it...well that's oskysst. (hint: thats swedish)

at any rate...new site coming soon...also most of the writing on here is outdated and not very good...but im too lazy to update it for a website thats going to change soon.


if you want to read something newer from me, comment or whatever and ill send or link you something :)

nanowrimo

i won!

dont feel like being bloggy

excerpt coming soon!

Homunculus and the Cat my second novel is now done -

mermaids
minotaurs
death of the main character...many times
goddesses
dragons
kissing

its a good one, this...

nano progress is back on!

so...my word count has been crawling slower than a slug in the freezer, but i've been working my butt off!

i hit a wall, my first real big wall since starting this book. normally, or rather id like to say previously, this would have meant months of nothing in the keystroke department, but with a climbing target on my stats page and the little stair of progress acting more like a plateau i knew i needed to keep trudging along, trying everything in the book, in order to break that wall. I did, cleaned the debris and am using the nice flat surface i've made as a runway.

so my biggest nano victory to date is having punched this wall, (called by some writers block, but i don't believe in writers block...ill post a thread about it)...right in the face until it crumbled.

this is why it took me some 6 years to finish my first novel. id hit a wall then sit on my brain for months on end. finally id get an idea and get back to work...then id hit a wall again.

the good news is creativity can be forced, "writers block" can be kung fu-ed in the neck and brutally decapitated like a Quentin Tarantino movie. and while nano hasn't really taught me this, it has forced me to really implement it, to an eye opening degree which i believe i shall not lose.

here's the next line of the next bit of my post-wall word monsoon...

“I’d kill for some air right now!”

Homunculus and the Cat: Chapter XI (nanowrimo day 1, 12-3am)

Chapter XI

The cat was perched lazily atop the bowsprit, her favorite part of a boat, and considered death. She had only died twice, but she was beginning to enjoy it. It felt good. She wondered how it would compare to sex.

She couldn’t ask anyone of course, as she didn’t know anyone who fit the criteria of being, or having recently been deceased. She considered finding a ghost, spirit or perhaps another one of her kind, an Eneddi. She wasn’t even sure why she compared it to sex, only it seemed that humans enjoyed it and she enjoyed dying. She had never tried the other. She was still just a kitten after all.

“Ankh’Si,” Tyro called her new name from across the deck.

The cat opened her eyes.

“Guess what’s for dinner?”

‘Maybe I’ll ask the homunculi if any of them have ever been destroyed.’ It probably wasn’t at all alike, but she’d have to now that she thought of it.

“Karl made sushi.”

“Hell yes!” Ankh’Si had no idea what the words meant, except that Tyro used the term often. It wasn’t Atlantean, or Egyptian. The cat didn’t even think it came from one of the other languages that the others spoke, and there were a lot of those.

The ship was full of refugees from across the globe. All of whom were just looking for a place to stay. Rare magical homeless bums, that’s what they were. They were sailing to Troy, with a commission to retrieve unknown cargo for some rich and coincidentally fat lord in Atlantis. Nobody trusted him but they were out of options.

“Mermaid’s garden snake,” Karl announced as they assortment of bodies made their way below deck. “Olympian tuna, and blue triton-tail.”

The cat salivated.

“What god gave you those?” Tyro asked.

“These gods!” Karl stuck his fists in the air above him, below him and all around his sides. The hekatonkheire clenched each of his hundred fists with pride.

“Easy to catch a fish with a hundred hands.”

“I guess.” Tyro conceded.

Conversation slowed as the sushi was passed around.

“How’s the weather?” Petra, a Satyr and head of the sanctuary, asked.

The question was non-conversational and directed at the designated seer. Redbeak. He was an imp and damn good at prognostication.

“Rain tomorrow.”

“Storm?”

“No, just big clouds and wet air.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll be arriving in Troy then anyway. If the storm does get out of hand-”

“It won’t.”

“How-”

“Galemakers.”

Petra scrunched her forehead. They didn’t have any real galemakers on board. Two or three of the homunculi had an affinity towards the craft but none had any real training. Sione, the resident wereboar was one actually, but he was still recovering from a nasty transformation and woldn’t be much help on his own. It usually took about three galemakers to abate a bad storm, six if you wanted them to last and still keep the ship on course.

“The Persians have better galemakers than Troy.”

“What?”

“The Persians have more too. The sea will be calm as long as the siege is on.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Tyro butt in, “What do you mean the siege?”

“Master Tyro, the city of Troy is under siege by the Persians, do you not divine these things for yourself?”

Tyro had nothing to say. Everyone believed him to be a proficient at divination despite what he told them. He was right of course. He was crap at that stuff. Seeing and foretelling were close to being the bane of his existence. But, he had a smartphone and the habit of using it on occasion in this world was something he couldn’t suppress. It was probably a good thing the internet didn’t work on it. But he had apps and for some weird reason functional gps. It made no sense but what was he going to do about it in Gaia, where magic existed in technology’s place?

“I,” he paused, “was unaware.”

“I suppose you were too pre-occupied with the other current events to notice another siege on troy.”

“Yes, between that and the sanctuary burning to the ground.”

“Indeed.”

“So how will this siege affect our contract?”

The imp looked at Petra with puzzlement “I had thought,” he reproved, “That this would have already been accounted for.”

The rest of the present crew had silenced themselves to listen. Petra wasn’t the ship’s captain but she was the ranking staff from the sanctuary. She was the director of the organization. She had some of the management and staff, including Tyro, aboard the ship with her, but she called the shots.

Tyro had only recently been promoted to a full-time position but the management was required to stay in Atlantis. He was unsure how he felt about the mantle placed upon him. He hadn’t stayed at one job for this long before, but he believed in the cause. He was almost as passionate about it as Petra was. Just because homunculi had no souls, it didn’t mean they shouldn’t be treated like animals or worse, in many cases.

So what if they were man-made? So what if all the best alchemists could transmute homunculi? That didn’t meant they should be slaves. Soul or no soul, being created intentionally by a mortal did not negate one freedom. People have children on purpose all the time and don’t get to force them into servitude or sell them as commodities. Of course even the worst case scenario is a reality somewhere, but in civilization, such things are illegal.

It didn’t seem right to Tyro that just because homunculi were made artificially that they deserved anything different than other sentient creatures. And they were sentient. Most homunculi could think and act of their own volition. Tyro had seen them during his previous apprenticeship in Japan. He had worked with the alchemists that were forced to produce “false-humans,” as they were called, for the Yakuza. When Herakles made a plan to escape Tyro resigned and joined them. It was perfect timing for him too. Any longer and he was sure to have been roped into more Yakuza affiliation.

“There’s no way were getting into Troy!” Someone said.

“We might as well turn around now!” Said another.

“Hesperides will never give us funding now!”

“We might as well take the ship and disappear.”

There was a chorus of agreement with a few mingling suggestions of new destinations and ideas of what to do when they got there.

“Listen!” Petra shouted. “We’re not going to become whalers in Greenland. And we’re not going to all end up in whatever underworld you- Look,” she said, “We are going to go to Troy. We are going to appeal to the Persians or wait out the siege. We’ll explain it to Hesperides when we get back and apologize for the delay. We’ll get our funding and re-build the sanctuary.”

“Hesperides,” one homunculs argued, “won’t give us funding, he hates us.”

The small cabin exploded in debate once again. Petra grabbed her plate and left. Tyro followed her and the cat followed him.

“Are we really going to appeal to the Persians?” Tyro asked as the three of them walked to the forecastle.

“It’s worth a shot.” Petra said. “They’re going to quarantine our ship anyway. There’s no way we can get close to Troy without the Persians knowing, not while a siege in going on.”

“What’s the deal with the siege anyway,” Tyro asked.

“It’s a demonstration.” The cat said. “The Persians are protesting Greek tariffs.”

“You knew about this?” Petra asked incredulously.

“Well,” the cat said, “I just overheard some stuff at an oracle parlor one night.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t think about it until now.”

Petra sighed.

“So,” Tyro asked, “It’s not a war then?”

“No, the Greeks are just getting a little out of hand on taxing imported Celtic and Viking goods.”

“Good.” Petra sighed again. “A war’s the last thing we need.”

“But,” Tyro said, “If the siege is about imports and exports, they’ll be less likely to just let us in to Troy and pick up our cargo.”

“That is a problem isn’t it?”

“By the way, has Redbeak had any luck scrying what the cargo is?”

“No, none at all.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, that means it’s something big.”

“Big?” The cat asked.

“Expensive, or important or something, we’re not just going after a boatload of really nice pillows or anything.”

“Well duh!” Ankh’Si said. “Why do you think he sent us? It’s probably something illegal. Drugs or something.”

“Boy I sure hope not.” Petra added.

Silence followed. The three of them gazed in the direction they were headed. East. Toward Troy, the Persian fleet, and their unknown cargo. The salty air filled their lungs and the stars overhead shone comfortingly to them as they each wished according to their own traditions. Petra silently implored her goddess for help. Tyro adopted a weak hope in nothing in particular and Ankh’Si considered getting some more sushi.

“You know Hesperides,” Tyro said, “he’ll find a way to make us all his slabs, not just the homunculi. Even if he does give us our funding, there’ll be a catch.”

“What about your mother?” Petra almost pleaded with the cat. “I know you two aren’t on the best of terms but…”

‘Best of terms?’ Ankh’Si thought, ‘I slit her throat!’

“I don’t know, she said. I guess we are even now. I won’t say there isn't a chance.”

Petra turned and reached to the cat for a hug.

“It would mean to world to me, and the sanctuary if you could at least talk to her.”

The cat’s fur changed to a dark purple as she allowed herself to be hugged.

“I promise I’ll talk to her.”

NaNoWriMo

so, ive finally decided to take the plunge. im doing nano. i am going to finish Homunculus and the Cat for it. this is not cheating as i will be doing 50k NEW words on it. and if i have to maybe ill tack on a false beginning just to make it stand alone for nano.

for more information on this project please use the link above.

hopefully there wont be any updates from me until december. (as i should be focused entirely on H&C)

Arachne

coming soon

also i am thinking about cutting it back to a monthly series instead.
i am going to try my luck with NaNoWriMo this year and im trying to get my ducks in a row for that.

but i promise im going to do the story of Arachne

also on my list are:

Balor
Baba Yaga

Monkey King

Karkotaka

Hercules' trials

Izanagi

The Amazons

those are just the ones in the que, i dont know when ill get to them or in what order but theyre on the "id like to do" list

thanks for looking

p.s. i will be posting some of my other stories though so check back!

Fionn Mac Cumhaill and the Salmon of Wisdom

I didn't plan on eating the salmon of wisdom. But I did, accidentally. If I had known how easy it was to eat the fish, I’d truly have been more inclined to do it purposefully, and pretend it happened exactly as it had. But I did not. And I did eat it.

My master had searched for the thing for longer than I had known about its existence, for longer even than my master had known about mine. And he had been there at my birth. He was not a fisherman, but he labored with that river long enough that he should have been, were it not for the obsession that undermined the experience.

We had been fishing that day, just as we did most days, sitting on the bank of the Boyne. Master Finn told me often how glad he was for company. I suppose this was true, in part, but I had witnessed the slight grins and shortened breaths as he supervised the extra fishing line. That’s what he really cared about. Though I gladly received the knowledge he had to offer in return for the extra lure I bore.

“Thus, from the nine hazelnuts, the salmon gained all the wisdom of mankind.”

I wasn’t paying attention. I knew the story well. He knew this, and I was never scolded for my inattentiveness. I could recite it all, in his own words, back to him. As long as I kept on my line, or net, or whatever method we used that day, I had earned my keep.

I did marvel however as I sat and pulled the grass, how knowledge could be carried through the nuts of a Hazel tree, sacred or not. I had eaten Hazelnuts, usually prepared with salmon, for the better part of seven years and the only wisdom I had gained came from a wild and feral old poet. Often I believed he might have been a druid who became a bear at night under the light of the moon. But from him, on no occasion, did I witness the use of magic.

Other times I feared his mind was addled.

Finn Eces was a poet of some renown and he knew the ways of the warrior. Quickly I learned them from him. This was our agreement. Whether he was touched by the gods or possessed, it concerned me little. I learned his poems and trained in his techniques.

Finn lurched from the grass into the river.

“Fionn!” He called for me. “Fi- Fionn! I’ve got him!”

I grabbed the net and leapt into the water. I swam upsteam and outward. I cursed myself for my reaction. I should have run along the bank for a ways. I was going to drift too far to reach them. I dove under the surface and battled the current. Maybe I could get Finn to come to me. I stretched out the net, or tried and failed. It had become twisted and ineffective

I gasped for air as I came above again. I saw Finn, wrestling the great beast. If there ever was a time to be a were-bear. I knew at once it was a sacred fish. Its scales shone in the fading sun and the thing was the size of a seal.

“To me!” I shouted.

I don’t know if he heard through all the thrashing, or if Finn’s head was above water at that moment. But if I kept trying to swim toward them, I knew the river would bring them to me. I kept trying to untwist the net.

I could see that my master had jammed his pole into the salmon’s mouth, or gills, maybe through both. Blood was discoloring the water.

They came to me and the fish’s tail beat me like a Formoriian warhammer. Water filled my lungs as I sank and blackness conquered my mind. But it was momentary and I choked back to consciousness. I kicked my feet against some loose rocks on the river bed. I tumbled and banged my joints on other rocks. Before I drowned, I surfaced again, long enough to take a breath for a second round of river current.

The salmon whipped its tail and writhed with fury, but Finn held the rod. Each time the salmon struggled it had less power.

The river bent and I rolled onto a pebbly beach. I got to my feet as quickly as I could, which is to say not at all. And I looked about me. There was a log nearby and I went for it. Heaving it into the river I leaped on it and rode it like a raft. I heard the wood crack as My master and his catch slammed into it. But it held long enough for me to put my hand in the salmon’s mouth. It clamped down and tore my flesh, but I held its jaw and reeled it, slowly, despairingly, back to the shore.

My net had tangled itself around Finn and the fish. It had nearly cost my master his life but it had hindered the fish.

“Well, worth it.” Finn said.

We lay there on the dark sand and gravel for some time. I learned much of the blood in the river had been Finn’s and not the salmon’s. But I was too fatigued to tend to his wounds, or mine, and neither was fatal.

We woke some hours later to the sound of wolves. The wind whistled through the dark forest behind us and the river rolled on at our feet. I was shivering violently and acutely aware of the pain in my arm.

“Finn! Master Finn!”

He got up, checked his prize and begged Avalon that this was indeed the one. I silently added my oblation to it.

“We should leave this place.” Finn said, looking across the river in the direction of his cabin.

I agreed.

He made me fetch the wheelbarrow.

“Too excited to sleep.” Finn squeaked as he saw to the fire.

I changed into dry clothes. Finn did likewise as I set myself on the preparation of the salmon. It took a heroic effort just to scale the fiend. But I got my revenge. After little tribulation, the salmon was gutted, cleaned and on the fire.

Finn dozed while I turned and jabbed at the thing. Over the past seven years that I had been here, cooking salmon had become to me, so familiar, that my mind idly wandered as I did so. But this fish was so large that it took all my attention to not burn the edges or under-cook the middle. I poked and prodded, always being careful not to taste it.

My stomach growled like the wolves in the forest but I did not give in. I could not deliberately disrespect my master. The smell of the meat touched my nose, like the stories of the gods touched my imagination, but I did not eat it. I did not even taste the fish. I pretended to fear it, like an ill omen. And the salmon neared completion.

The thought of finally being done with the ordeal and done with salmon was as sweet to my mind as any meal could have been to my body that night. I tested the thing one last time, pressing it with my thumb. The grease burned me. Even in death the fish found ways to torment me.

“Finn!” I yelled sucking on my blistering thumb. “Come eat your damned fish!”

 I was tired and overwhelmed by the night. I felt my mind fatigue and my body lose its vigor. Suddenly the world was too much for me. I thought I would retire that night with an empty stomach and I was at peace.

“Fionn,” Finn said to me, “have you eaten the salmon of knowledge?”

“No master.” I told him truthfully.

“I can see it in your eyes!”

“No!” I removed my sore thumb from my mouth, “I have not taken so much as a single bite.”

“You-” Finn stammered.

I knew he was right. I knew that all the knowledge of the fish had been condensed into that small amount of grease that burned my thumb. And I ate it. That was not all that I knew. I had gained all the wisdom of the world at that time. My mind had filled with knowledge beyond mortal capacity and comprehension. I knew how the sacred Hazel trees bore enlightening fruit and how those nuts had dropped into Nechtan’s well. I knew the salmon, Finntan, had eaten them and gained all the wisdom of the Tuatha Dé Danann. I knew Boann and how she begat the river Boyne. And I knew of all the men who had tried and failed to capture Finntan the salmon of wisdom.

Finn Eces, my master knew it too. It did not take the magic of the well of knowledge to see the light in my eyes.

That was the last I, Fionn mac Cumhaill, ever saw of him. He bade me eat the salmon, which I did and I left the next morning.