warden of where the river went

"The Isthmus Variation" is out in BCS!

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 22:20:00 -0700

My story "The Isthmus Variation" is up and free to read in Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

Elizabeth Bear, in her week at Clarion West, mentioned something about the uses of whitespace in narrative. I grabbed that and ran with it, and along the way the world of the Slow Game filled itself in around me. I am pretty sure there are more stories to be written in this world, and the way the residents of it think about art and story is fascinating. So go forth, and read!

Cleaion West Writeathon: whoomp, there it is!

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 22:27:00 -0700

So despite having to work this weekend and having a bunch of household stuff to do besides, I managed to get about 5200 words out. I have slain one chapter and another is lying on the ground bleeding. The finished chapter needs a quick edit pass and then it'll be on its way to The Usual Suspects, as well as to those who have donated. (It's not too late! Help us support Clarion West!)

Excerpt below the cut!

Accomplished: Hopes raised, and then dashed most thoroughly. Plans are both revealed and ruined. Someone tries to fly, and finds they cannot.

Excerpt:

In another situation he would have been far warier, but he was worried about Maijid and the time was slipping through his hands. He was nearly within striking range now, and he began to gather the will to use the Word. He crept around the edge of the fountain. Heartbeats went by.

Amin remembered Dema, and moved more quickly.

So close now. He coiled himself, concentrating all of the tension in his body, the eagle prepared to strike. He breathed in, slowly. The scent of water filled his head, tinged with metal.

Now.

He released his hold on the tension and straightened out in a line aimed at Baki’s back, using the edge of the fountain as leverage. The strike was good, true—

“No.”

Something—a hand—clamped around his upper arm and he stumbled, yanked off-balance. Before that hard hand let go, he felt the edge of a familiar rush of power.

Azrael stood there, wings spread, a terrible look on his face. “What—“ Amin hissed, recovering his balance. The angel just shook his head.

Clarion West Writeathon, Day Two

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 20:52:00 -0700

2k words on Word of the Chosen tonight, and I think I'm done for the night.

I am strongly suspecting that there aren't 50k more words yet to go in this book. I'd rather forgotten that I'd intended this one to come in at about 70k, and chapters 1-6 have about 32.5k or so already. We'll see; I may get inspired and add a subplot.

Excerpt from tonight is below!

They arrived in Tehran, and parted at the edge of town after turning their horses out in the pasture with the rest of the Nizari horses. The Nizari had contacts among the merchants, and Amin arranged with a pot seller to take some of his wares and one of his small sons and go set up a blanket in a spot where he could see Naim’s door. There was very little cover near the house, and so hiding in plain sight was going to have to do.

Amin called out to passersby, flirting with the women and flattering the men, telling them all about the wonderful qualities of his pots. This was a disguise he used often, often enough that he was occasionally recognized as “that pot-selling boy who’s sometimes around” by several people. They seemed to assume that he had a route he worked through the city, which is why they only saw him once in a while. Amin even made a few sales.

He wondered if his parents had been merchants, if this were the life he would have had had he not been born what he was. If he’d been born male instead of female, if he’d been born without the power, would every day of his life be spent in the baking sun, telling all who went by that his pots were the best to be had in the city? Would he be one of the water sellers who trudged past with their huge clay jars on wagons? A drover, beating a stick over the back of a lowing ox?

Or would he instead have been she, locked within strong walls until a husband was found for her? Would she be silly, and perhaps a bit weak? Or would she have been like Isra, using her beauty and her body as a weapon?

Such were the thoughts that occupied him as he called out and watched Naim’s door.

The Clarion West Writeathon!

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 19:43:00 -0700

Friends, Romans, countrymen…it is that time of year!

What time of year, do you ask? Ah, one of the most wonderful times of year!

It is time for the Clarion West Writeathon!

I and many of my fellow Clarion West travelers are doing something nutty: we’re writing. We’re writing to support the students of the CW Class of 2010, we’re writing to help support the fantastic program that has given so many of us a much-needed kick in the pants. (Hey, it makes more sense than a bunch of writers doing, say, a half-marathon for charity.)

My own personal goal is to either get 50k words written or finish my current book, Taker of Souls, in the six-week timespan of the workshop. (Yes, I have a full-time job. Yes, I’m nuts.) And I want you, yes, you to support me.

How can I do that, you may ask? There are ways!

Are you a writer? Want to do this thing with us? Sign up—submissions close this week!
Donate! Go to my Writeathon page and donate something--$10, $20, more, whatever you like. (Clarion West is a 501 3(c) and your donations are tax-deductible.
People who donate and then let me know (email me at kmillering at gmail, subject line “I Donated!”) get:

My eternal gratitude

A lovely PDF of the first six chapters of Taker of Souls

PDFs of chapters as I finish them

Or just be supportive! I’ll be posting my progress with excerpts daily. Cheer me on. If you’re local, I do plan on going to most if not all of the readings (http://clarionwest.org/events/reading_series ) -- maybe I’ll see you there!

caught with a paintbrush in my hand

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 10:41:00 -0700

I've been trying to finish my rewrite on the story formerly known as "Sybilla" for a few days now, and I keep running into the same problem I had when I first wrote the story: according to the rules I've laid out, the protagonist dooms herself with a well-meaning but ultimately foolish decision in the middle of the story. I have myself painted into a corner, and I was really fighting, trying to find a way out. If I change the rules or the decision, I'm writing a fundamentally different story, which is not a story I want to write.

The thing I realized last night is that the story is about the corner. It's an interesting corner. It's a Greek tragedy, which after all is what I originally set out to write. The thing about tragedy is that the progagonists generally don't manage to escape with their lives. The best you can hope for is a noble death.

I should be able to mostly finish the story today, with this in mind. Yay!

Outer Alliance Day! (and a bonus scene!)

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:21:00 -0700

As is blazingly obvious to pretty much anyone who’s ever read anything about me, I am queer and polyamarous. One of the things I like best about the SF/F community is its inclusiveness; I have met so many people who are like me in so many ways within it.

As a member of the Outer Alliance, I advocate for queer speculative fiction and those who create, publish and support it, whatever their sexual orientation and gender identity. I make sure this is reflected in my actions and my work.

Today is Outer Alliance Pride Day! So to celebrate, I thought I would post a scene from short story that is going to be turned into a novel at some point. I wrote it during my first week of Clarion West. All you need to know is that Tithelle is the Saint of the Splendid Bullfrog, and she has been charged by her brother, the Saint of the Counterbalance, to go forth and confront the god who is in the process of hatching out of the Counterbalance that keeps the city of Between balanced on top of a spire above the clouds.

(From "The Saint of the Splendid Bullfrog", by Kris Millering)

It had been long enough since she practiced her former profession that at first Tithelle was afraid she had forgotten something important. Forgetting something important, as she dangled from the rough rope that was secured on the other side of the metal hatch, might kill her.

The wind shoved her back and forth on her slender rope, and she felt the knots in the harness she had made for herself strain. She was not as small as she used to be; sainthood was a comfortable profession and in her case not one that led to the sort of violent exercise she had done in her youth. Her muscles and sinews remembered what to do, but the strength in her arms was lacking.

For the moment, all she needed was gravity, and to trust her harness. She released the catch on the curved metal buckle that the Saint of the Starry Anvil had given her a few hours ago, and slid down a few inches before allowing the buckle to snap closed. The trick was to be patient, on the descent. Gravity must be allowed to have only so much hold on her body, and no more.

Down she went, past the balance point, swaying in the constant buffeting wind. The balance point was massive, many times thicker than a human body, and above her head the sky was entirely blotted out by the rough rock of the underside of Between, sloping down like the outside of a funnel to the balance point. In comparison to the bulk of the city, the balance point was impossibly slender. There was a constant grinding noise coming from where the stone of the city met the darker stone of the spire that supported Between.

That spire was hollow, and there was another metal hatch just below her that would let her inside. The hatch was nearly vertical, with a grab bar on either side and a small ledge beneath meant for resting feet on, and a wheel in the middle that mirrored the one in the hatch that was now two hundred feet above her head.

In a way, her descent was an easy one. She did not have to worry about having miscalculated how much time it would take her to descend and do what needed to be done. She did not have to worry about wakeful children or a housemaid who had been sent to fetch a forgotten slipper. Nobody was going to shoot at her now. She had all the time she needed, a luxury she had not once had in her career as a housebreaker.

Tithelle reached the hatch, the balls of her feet thumping onto metal, and curled one hand around the support bar next to the wheel that would open the spire. She made a loop with her rope around the buckle to secure it, and then tried the wheel. It did not move, but she had not expected it to. She pulled from the bag slung around her a can with a long nipple at the top. She applied penetrating oil to the places where the wheel connected with the door and to the hinges, then braced herself and waited.

Being patient was the hardest part. Three applications of the oil were probably going to be needed, and she counted off heartbeats as she was pushed around by the wind. Beneath her, the spire disappeared into a layer of clouds. Not for the first time, Tithelle wondered what lay below those clouds. Where was Between, strange city balanced far above the earth? She was sure it wasn't anywhere near Samarqand, where she had been born.

When new citizens of Between arrived, it was considered a mercy not to ask where they had come from, for what crimes they had been sentenced, or what their names had been prior to being sent to Between to live out their natural lives as Saints. Still, Tithelle wondered. Saint Eumenida of the Torn Quarto was a beautiful dark woman whose eyes flashed when she was angry, and she was often angry. Tithelle wanted to know from where she had come, what great city she had once called home.

Instead, when she met Eumenida in the street, she murmured pleasantries and inquired politely about how the latest batch of paper and thread were coming along. She cursed herself every time they parted, telling herself that next time, she would smile a little more, ask after Eumenida herself. The bookbinder was relatively newly arrived, surely she would want to talk.

After she returned from this misbegotten adventure, Tithelle decided, she would invite the Saint of the Torn Quarto to her house on Little Ordinance Street. She would get cakes from the monastery down the street. She would serve tea and try to find out more about the woman who made Tithelle's heart beat fast whenever she spoke to her.

It was not a bad life, being a Saint, but it was a little lonely sometimes.

She applied another coat of oil and let herself swing back and forth, back and forth.

“And how’s that work anyway? You’re a bicycle.”

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:49:00 -0700

August has been…interesting in a lot of ways. The Clarion West slump is real; or at least it’s real for me. Of course, I really missed being a photographer, so I’ve been concentrating on that for the last few weeks as well as getting ready for a wedding I’m shooting this weekend. There are a lot of things that needed catching up on, errands that needed running, the dog started having appointments for acupuncture, etc. (Yes, the dog gets acupuncture. Also, Prozac. He’s a mutant, but he’s our mutant, and something is clearly working since he’s been a lot better company for the last few weeks.)

I’ve been still writing with Storm, of course, and a lot of my energy has been going towards doing a rewrite pass on Shadows and Silk and getting some stuff out for submission. I’m getting ready to start on the agent hunt, as well. I have one rewrite of a CW story that is taking shape in my head, as well.

I am also looking for a day job in between there; this economy is a bit nutty, but I have mad skillz. (I do tech stuff as my day job; I make content sit, stay, roll over, and sing for its supper.) I have three stories currently out for consideration, one of which I should hear back on any day now.

My goal right now is to start something new on September 1st. Which means I need to get this edit pass mostly done by then. Which means I should get back to work instead of writing any more blog entries. :)

all graduated!

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:15:00 -0700

I am now officially a graduate of the 2009 Clarion West Workshop.

It was an amazing experience, and I learned a tremendous amount—including a good measure of confidence that I do in fact know what the heck I’m doing. To have that time to focus on writing and becoming better at my craft was a gift that I am so happy to have been given.

I posted a few updates on Livejournal while I was there: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, and Six--and the 'I'm back' post. Now I’m in recovery mode, doing some rewrites, and settling into my life. I have a couple of short stories that are just about ready to be sent out to markets, so I’m focusing on getting those ready to go and doing some rewriting on Shadows and Silk so I can start sending out query letters to agents.

Imryne, of House Melrae archive site!

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:37:00 -0700

Just a brief pause to note that Imryne, of House Melrae now has an archive site! I'm still working on getting the cast lists done, but you can now go read the whole story without sifting through two years of LJ archives.

the bells that still can ring

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 23:01:00 -0700

I'm settling into my new routines, getting things done that I've been neglecting for far too long; I've had pretty specific plans for an upgrade to my computer system, but this upgrade required a reconfiguration of my desk, which required me to unbury my office couch out of all of the stuff I had on it and then rebury it in things from my desk. I've been catching up on sleep (I was running in such sleep debt that it took ten days to get myself sorted out, but I'm back to needing my usual 7.5 hours a night), working on my Web sites, and in general unwinding.

What I haven't been doing a lot of is writing. I started something new with Storm today (who knows how long it'll be until it sees the light of day; I am about thirteen cowritten projects behind at this point, and I'm reasonably sure that a few of these aren't ever going to get written up), and of course I've been working on Imryne, but I have a few other things I've been letting percolate in the back of my mind. I need to show up to Clarion with a few fleshed-out ideas. Ideas? Not a problem. Fleshing them out? Um…yeah.

How I write short stories is kind of like wandering into a dark room and feeling around for a lightswitch. Sometimes, it takes me a while to find it and I whack my head on a few things first. Sometimes, I'm not in the right room at all. Sometimes, I'm in the right room, but it's not the room I thought I was in. The most recent Mouse story that was published in Ravens in the Library was one of those. I started out with the idea of "Mouse and music", and I knew the first line was, "Far away in the House, a door clicks closed. Several more creak open."

In the world of Mouse, opening and closing doors always signify change. Behind closed doors, when nobody is looking, the House changes itself. If the House is opening and closing doors on its own, you know something big's happening. Then I saw the golden clouds of music, and I was off and running. It took me almost until the end of the first draft for Mouse to admit what was actually going on and allow me to make sense of all of the weird events that were jangling around the story, looking for a plot to structure them.

So fleshing out ideas without actually writing a first draft is kind of hard. I'll manage it, but I'll squish it between finishing Imryne and getting my photography business up and running. Which is a subject for another blog—how do you keep two budding creative businesses up and running without running out of soul to put in your work? I'm going to be finding out.

For those of you who are Seattle-local, I will be at Norwescon on Friday at what sounds like it might be a combination reading, SJ Tucker concert, and signing. I'll post more details when I have them, but all I know right now is that I'm supposed to show up in Sea-Tac and wander around until I figure out where I'm supposed to be.

Anyway, found a new, interesting-looking market that isn't quite open yet and that I have any number of stories that might fit it. I won't be sending Those Who Do Not Reap, since that's my Clarion story and will get suitably eviscerated and put back together during the first week. I am very, very fond of Reap, and am looking forward to making it even better. One of the things I'm doing this week, besides getting back into my exercise routine, is to get my submission ducks in a row. More on that later, though, as I try and figure out where I left off on that.

I'm excited, and right now, life is very, very good.