New Novella: Orluvoq

I know I never update this and no one ever reads this, but just in case here we go.

Yesterday I finished writing my novella Orluvoq. It's 30,600 words long (which correlates to about 120 printed pages) and inspired by Inuit (specifically Greenlandic) culture. Here's the blurb:

In the highest north, the world has an end. Black oblivion gapes out forever beyond the plains of rotting snow, the two separated by the infinite drop of an ice cliff holding all the world’s dead.

In the highest north, hunters ride kites into the aurora to fell narwhal from out of the sky. Chandlers set the beast’s tusk in columns of tallow. Shamans exact powers from the burning candles—powers to walk with shadow or the wind, to turn away frostbite and fever, to stay warm on the darkest night in deepest winter.

But the narwhal’s tusk has other powers. Darker powers. When consumed, it floods the devourer with an inimitable high. Once consumed, the devourer will never be satisfied with anything less. Every shaman is taught not to eat the tusk. If forced to choose between healing and warmth or the high, the shaman can’t always be trusted to be stronger than the addiction. 

But not every shaman does as they’re taught.

And so, we follow Orluvoq, a drug-addicted, eight-year-old shaman, as she climbs down the ice cliff at the end of the world to find her dead parents. Will she find answers, or will she only find that her hope is all gone?

 I don't have any information on a publishing date, but I'm sure I'll post here once I do. In the meantime, you can read the beginning here.

I found this picture and thought, "That's Or lu freaking voq."

Anglish

So, good news. I've officially resumed work on Stoneslayer. It's beautiful. I just did a read through with a bit of editing and am sitting at 85,000 words. I expect the finished product to require around 35,000-40,000 more words, so hopefully I'll hit at least 120k with this book. Time and hard work will tell. If I can get my butt in gear I should have the first draft done before the end of August. If not, then hopefully before September's over.

But the other interesting thing is a major series of edits that I made during this read through. See, in this book there's a tribe called the Hanoshites that broke off from the main character's tribe 400 years ago. Because of this, I wanted them to be able to understand each other, but to have distinct dialects. Originally I just had them speaking in sort of an old-timey drawl. But I recently got the idea to have them speak Anglish. Now some of you are thinking, Benny, I think you mean English. But no, Anglish is a purist version of English that only has Germanic roots. Sort of a, "what if Modern English had developed from Old English without any Latin/Greek influence?" Here's an example from the text:

“We of Hanosh like our crowded gladness—though not to the mark of drunken daze; this the Bodings fastly forbid. In eight of the months, each Tent takes their stint throwing a simbleday. Songwrights, craftsmen, cooks, and so forth make show of their knacks. The other four months, the coming of the yeartides, as they’re hight, are the times of highest gladness. The whole of Hanosh gathers and shares in the best of mirthmaking and feed—though I warn thee, thou mightest never need feed again.” He smiled at his quip. “As luck would have it, the Tamez Simbleday lined up flawlessly with thine incoming.”

And that's about what it sounds like. It has a certain elegance to it. But here's the crazy thing. Doing these edits I had to check literally every. Single. Word. To see what its etymology is. The other frustrating thing is that sometimes, there literally aren't any fitting Germanic words for it. One example is tent. Try though I might, I couldn't come up with a suitable substitution. In other instances I had to come up with my own word. Like for encampment I used haltstead.

In the end, I think that the Anglish decision has added a great deal of depth to the work and I'm glad I did it, though it took many days. In those remaining 40k words the Hanoshites will appear yet again, so I'll have to delve into the Anglish Wordbook once more.

A New Plague Cover Reveal

So I sat down today knowing only that I wanted to make a cover for my novelette A New Plague, which, as you can see in the sidebar, is complete. This is what I came up with. It will be out soon after some edits. You can read the intro section, Germ, here. As a brief summary, it's about a man whose job is to make new plagues, and, well, he makes a new plague. Even though it deals with some heavy topics, it has a general jovial air about it. I like to refer to it as a work of grindark.

You're Too Good For Me

There are lots of good things you can say to someone you're in a relationship with. I like you. I love you. You're amazing. I'm glad we met. Et cetera. But there's one thing you always want to avoid saying. I don't deserve you, or another variation, You're too good for me. Never say this.

Now if it slips out a time or two, you're probably still in the clear. But if you say it with any regularity, you're setting yourself up for failure. Because say it enough, and they'll believe it too. One day they're going to say, "Hey, you're right." And they'll leave, and your tears will flow like Niagara.

You should only convey this sentiment if you legitimately believe they should get with someone else. Because when you say you're too good for me, you're also saying you deserve someone better. You're saying, "I believe you would be better off with someone else." Is that what you actually mean? Because that's what you're saying. Tell them enough and they'll believe it.

A New Plague: Germ (chapter from new story)

I got a random idea and wrote this last Friday. It's the prologue to a novelette (hopefully around 15,000 words) I'm calling A New Plague. It will consist of four sections titled Germ, Body, Plague, and Death. I'd like to create some shorter work that will get people interested in reading my longer efforts. I present to you now section one: Germ.

Belit’s eyes danced through the crowd before him. So many people. Browsing. Buying. Bustling.

Breathing.

How could there be so many?

He cleared his throat. “You know what this city needs?”

His companion, Derf, sent him an askance glance. “Enlighten me.”

“A new plague.”

“Belit, no.”

“Belit, yes!” His eyes danced to the pudgy man.

Derf sighed. “It's hardly been a year since the third hellthresh threshed its last.”

“Exactly. Just look how happy they all are.” Repulsive. They had no right.

“Maybe that's because they're not systematically crapping out their intestines in black globs.”

“Precisely. Morale is too high! Who let them get this cheery?”

The plump fellow scrunched his right cheek in an unenthusiastic smirk, then let it fall. “A spunge or
two might have had a hand in that.”

Belit scoffed. Expungers. Their bones could erode. “We need to do something about them eventually
as well.”

Derf pursed his lips. “Something like throw them a banquet? You know your hobby would be cut
woefully short if they weren’t there to stanch the plagues every time.”

“But their hobby would disappear if I did. They need me.” A woman walking by brushed his arm.
Belit shuddered and wiped at the arm. Disgusting.

“Expunging isn’t so much a hobby as it is an occupation,” Derf murmured, rubbing his brow with soft fingers. “Do you really need to pitch in? We recently had the eleventh yellowing that lasted a month, killed forty-eight. The eighth frenzy went nearly six weeks and left opportunity for eighty-nine new graves to be dug.

“Kudda is more a plague to the epidemes than he is to the general populace.” Belit watched two little girls playing with a doll. Nauseating. “You yourself just said he released his eleventh yellowing and it was expunged in a month. How long did my first hellthresh last?”

Derf made his best show of looking uninterested. Probably because he was. “Forty-one months.”

“And the second?”

“Forty-two.”

“And what about our most recent hellthresh?”

“Forty-three.”

“Do you have any idea what it would mean if my fourth hellthresh lasted forty-four months?” He kept his voice low enough to be shielded by the mumble of the multitude, but his eyes threatened to jump out of his skull.

“No.”

Belit glared at him. How he hated the man’s eyes. The way they protruded made him look sickly even when perfectly sound.

“Neither do I.” He turned toward a door in the wall, a sloping thing that started elaborate on the high end and ended decrepit on the short. “All of Dodane, Derf. My plagues reached all of Dodane—even spilling a little into Jubea and Yap. There hasn’t been another pandemic on that scale for over a century. How many died? What was the number?”

Derf wiped his hand on his trousers before grabbing the knob and pulling the door open for Belit. “Five million six hundred thousand twelve. Belit, why are we at this place?”

“And how many are left?” He entered the threshold and was greeted by warm, damp air. Perfect.

“Across Dodane? More than six million. It’s estimated there are several hundred million in the entire earth though.”

“How dare they!” Belit ignored the exquisite right side of the room and trod into the sickly, ramshackle side. He loved the way the walls always looked like they had just been coughed on. “These expungers really need to learn to let nature run its course.”

“And yourself?” Derf asked.

Belit waved a hand. “I already learned that lesson. Now I’m on to bigger and better.”

The pudgy man grabbed his sleeve. “Belit. Why are we here? I assume you didn’t come all the way just for a sip of ale.”

“A sip? I’ll need a mug at the least.” Silly, silly, Derf. Didn’t he know anything about the workings of the world?

“Belit.”

The plague maker stopped.

Though no light came to blind him, Derf squinted. “What are we doing here?”

Belit supposed he’d have to tell the chap at some point. Irritating. “I need to get a germ. I’m going to bond with a new plague.”

Derf’s squinty, stupid eyes widened, making him look more like a fish than ever. “But...that’s… You can’t.”

“No, Derfolte,” said Belit. “You can’t. Kudda can’t. Bialt can’t. But they can’t do much more than make transient diseases, not even worthy of the plague title. Remember Dwastane? The last supreme epideme?”

Derf swallowed uncomfortably. “Belit...no. Don’t you remember how much damage…”

The epideme widened his own eyes and smiled.

“Belit, yes.”

The Unicorn of Unconditional Love

Unicorns are majestic beasts. Their appearance inspires awe. Magic runs through their very veins. Their horns, alicorns, are imbued with sorceries untold. They are never unnecessarily aggressive. We have every reason to revere them.

But they're not real, are they? So while it's fun to consider the possibility, it doesn't pay much to invest in the idea. Now comes my proposition: unconditional romantic love is a unicorn. Those three words are a paradox when juxtaposed. "Unconditional romantic love."

Let's take a look at what unconditional love is. Someone is ugly. You consider their needs at least as important as yours, if not more so. Someone is beautiful. You don't consider their needs any more important than the ugly person. Someone hurts you. Someone helps you. Someone wallows in their own laziness. Someone works as hard as they can. Someone hates you. Someone loves you. Regardless, you love them all equally. It doesn't matter what they can provide for you. It just matters that they exist. That's the only condition of unconditional love.

Now let's take a look at what romantic love is. Someone is ugly. You don't consider them a potential mate. Someone is beautiful. You put them in your sights. Someone hurts you. You distance yourself from them. Someone helps you. You grow more comfortable and grateful. Someone wallows in their own laziness. You disregard them. Someone earns their own. They gain clout in your eyes. Someone hates you. You couldn't imagine living with them. Someone loves you. You love them.

Romantic love only exists when a series of conditions are met. Only when you find someone capable of filling your needs. That may be money, attention, sex, badinage, emotional support, a nice thing to look at—numerous possibilities. A romantic interest only becomes interesting when they can fill a certain percentage of your needs. If that weren't the case, there would be no obsession with finding someone to love. You'd just walk up to somebody, ask them if they wanted to get with you, and they'd say yes. That's what romance would be like if romantic love was unconditional.

But now come the real questions: is all this bad? Are all men pigs? Are all women whores?

No.

Having standards is a good thing. It's okay to care about your own well-being and the well-being of your children (not to mention your partner). That's the entire premise of natural selection. Just keep in mind that you aren't going to find the perfect partner, and neither will your partner.

This post was inspired by the negative connotation for the word 'objectify'. We assess other people on various criteria by objectifying them. Everyone does it. Of course there's a level where you reach too much objectification, but if none existed then no one would ever mate and the species would die.

This is merely a funny image that I created.