Author: Ashe

Snippet #5 – Spacial Terrors

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We come now to the end of March and snippets from A Demon in the Desert.  I hope you’ve enjoyed the little excerpts and background info.  April should see me busting my ass at a new level with the help of Camp Nano.  I’m almost done with rewrites and then the serious editing can start.  I’m hoping to have the thing as close to done by May as I can.  I’ll probably post Camp Nano status reports, maybe weekly.

Anywho, I was trying to think of a last snippet to post and I think I’ll go with another nightmare.  This one in particular is very near and dear to me as it will be one of the nightmares/hallucinations that I suffered from.  They lasted a long time too.  I didn’t really stop having them til I was 25.  I call them “spacial terrors.”  In this scene, Grimluk is talking to a local Halfling named Thomas and asks him to give him an idea on what things have been like in Greenreach Bluffs through Thomas’s story.  As always, this is not the final edit.

“I guess the best place to start is to say that I never had any sleep problems before all this. Occasionally, you eat somethin’ that don’t sit well and you have a weird dream but that’s normal. Natural even, right? I didn’t even notice the dreams at first. Figured it was just somethin’ I ate. Shrugged ’em off. Now…” He downed half his pint and belched. “It’s like the world goes wrong. Sometimes I see things while it’s happening but mostly, it feels like reality’s been pulled inside-out and gone tipsy. Everything, and I mean everything, goes far away but not. You ken it? The whole world skinny, stretches leagues away. It’s all still close enough to touch though. And touching, gods.”

A small moan escaped Thomas’s throat.

“The size of things goes wrong. If you were near when I had one of these, you’d be my size but you’d be so much bigger too. Like you’d shrunk but grown to the heavens all at once. All wrong. And everything feels that way. A splinter feels as big as a the biggest tree. A pebble would sit in my hand and feel like I was holding a mountain. The only thing that seemed to fight it off is light. So I’d light my lamp back up. Or try to. Some nights, it’s all too much and…and…I just lay there. I use to scream at it. The madness of it.

“It’s all worse now though. I avoid the bed but that’s just making it worse. I said I see things sometimes and I do and the things is worse. I think I see glowing eyes sometimes. Or some sort of light. It’s so hard to tell but sometimes it feels like something’s watching me. Sometimes, when everything stretches out to eternity, I can see…gods damn it, things. I don’t know what to call them but things. I can see them in the dark edges of everything.”

Thomas sighed heavily. “Fuck,” he croaked. “It’s so much worse than I thought. Sayin’ it all like that, out loud.”

He swallowed hard and for a moment, it looked like he would start crying. Grimluk remained silent. He wanted to let Thomas catch his breath. Everything had tumbled out of him like the rush from a broken dam. The Halfling laid his head down against the table and sucked in a deep breath.

The Sliver stood silent save for the sound of the wind that slipped through the windows every so often and the sound of light snoring coming from behind the bar. Grimluk and Thomas sat in the quiet and drank their ale.

“Thank you,” Grimluk said when he felt Thomas had recovered.

Minor Update

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Firstly, sorry for not doing a TBT this month.  This week’s been pretty rough.  Spent a few days sick, either from the new medications or some sort of bug.  Not entirely sure.  I slept most of yesterday off and by the time I even remembered it was Thursday, it was too late.

Secondly, I’m doing Camp Nano next month in an attempt to speed up finishing the book.  It’s just like Nanowrimo, except officially unofficial, because it’s not actually Nanowrimo, just one of two new months for writing.  Should be helpful.

That’s all for now, really.  I hope you’re all doing well and have a good weekend.

Snippet #4 – Souffles and Jackasses

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This little section introduces two of the main characters.  What you see here is a little silly but after, things start getting serious again.  The original scene was just Grimluk showing up at the door.  I hadn’t created Trilgor yet.  Hadn’t even named the Mayor yet.  I knew I wanted a little Halfling woman though and then I got the idea of her yelling at Grimluk and it made me laugh so out it came.  Enjoy.

As the pair reached the gate of the mayor’s house, a big gust of wind blew through the town, sweeping down from the bluff behind the house. It kicked up several dust devils and with several more gusts, they spun harmlessly through the center of the town. Trilgor unlatched and pushed through the gate as another gust threatened to take Grimluk’s hat off. The hunter lifted a hand and kept it in place.

The courtyard was pitiful. Dry, overgrown grass jutted out of planters with the occasional, sickly-looking group of flowers. The purple petals of one flower in particular could be pretty in the right season but in their current state, looked more like leaves made of dried blood.

The house was built in similar fashion to the Silver Sliver. It started in stone and peaked in wood. The foundation was much bigger, appearing to have been built up from a basement or cellar. It was three stories in all and, like the Sliver, had an ironwood door as well, though much more ornately carved.

A small set of stone steps lead up to a wooden porch. The Orcs stepped up to the door and Trilgor gave two, strong knocks. After a minute or two, the door ripped open. There stood a Halfling woman, red-haired, hazel-eyed, glaring up at him.

“You ruined my souffle, you jackass!”

It caught Trilgor off guard.

“I’m sorry, Sadie. How was I supposed to know?”

“The hell do you want, comin’ up and bangin’ on doors like you’re comin’ through?”

Grimluk stood there a moment, surprised at the ferocity of the tiny woman and her anger at a deflated souffle.

“I need to speak with Selbie,” the young captain said with a sigh. “I found a new hunter.”

He motioned towards Grimluk. The hunter touched the brim of his hat.

“Hullo, miss.”

Sadie looked the hunter up and down, like she was sizing him up.

Then, without warning, she slammed the door in their faces. They stood there, unsure of what just happened, and waited.

“Is she always like this,” Grimluk asked Trilgor.

“Actually, yes. Whatever issues Sadie’s suffered, she’s one of a few who hides it well.”

The door ripped open again as he finished speaking. This time, a older man with graying hair and round spectacles stood next to the irate baker.

“Here are the dummies,” she almost hissed before she disappeared back into the house.

Grimluk grinned to himself. He couldn’t recall anyone ever calling him a dummy, much less someone small enough he could pick up with one arm.

Health and wealth, minus the wealth

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Sooooo, I went to the doctor yesterday and was diagnosed diabetic.  That was a surprise.  And high blood pressure.  Less surprising but still not great.  Good news is I got all my meds for less than 80 bucks. Have to figure out how to get test strips though. Those are stupid expensive. No insulin injections thankfully and for the time being, I won’t be pricking my finger until I can find a cheap source of test strips.

I don’t know if the blood pressure meds just had a huge, immediate impact or I’m just so worn out from the passed few days but I’m pretty tired.  I mean, I’m definitely worn out.  Tuesday went to shit hard enough I didn’t get any writing done and yesterday was what it was.  I woke up around 5:30 this morning with my stomach cramping like crazy and then shit my brains out.  Pretty sure that was a combo of stress and the first dose of the metformin.  Doc said I might get diarrhea from it.  I feel a little off but that’s hardly surprising.

I was hoping I’d be able to dedicate today to writing but I don’t think that’s gonna happen.  I feel a little bad cause I keep thinking “this better not make me have to push the book back again,” but like, fuck, doc said if I hadn’t come in when I did, I could’ve ended up in a coma.  That’s big.  And still kinda scaring me.  And I’m dealing with the psychology of being a fat person and the relation to diabetes.  It’s standard to view fat bodies as the ones who will get diabetic and then how the language around fat bodies is so focused on death.

But I’ll get there.  Partner’s taking good care of me.  I just gotta figure out food and drink mostly.  I have to eat with two of my morning meds, so breakfast is now mandatory.  Wheeeee.  Hopefully I do get to feeling better quickly though.  Doc said I should.  Then maybe I can pound out a big ol’ work day.

Hope you’re all doing well.

Snippet #3 – Monster threatens to eat backer’s kid

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Two snippets down, three to go.  This week’s snippet involves one of my kickstarter backers.  Mr. Somma, with his very generous backing there at the end, requested I name a character after his son, who wanted to be an Elf.  Somehow, I got it in my head that I needed to model the character after his son as well.  It actually worked out, as Ajay is Indian and I had originally written in a family of Elves with dark skin.

I actually combined two ideas for the section.  The first was a series of nightmares my mother told me she’d had as a kid, about a man in a red coat chasing her.  The second, was The Grundel, from Extreme Ghostbusters.  If you read the Grundel page, you’ll see some controversy about the dialogue sounding like a pedophile.  Given the subject, it’s a little hard to avoid even in my version.  I just wanted to put that out first.  I’m going to be editing the scene further once I finish the current draft though, so that potential angle will be cut down quite a bit.  Enjoy!

The pair’s second stop was a father and his son, Rhim and Ajay. Elves, brown-skinned with shaggy mops of black hair falling over their pointed ears. Rhim’s honey-brown eyes were bloodshot. Ajay refused to look anyone in the eye. They were quiet and polite but short with Grimluk. Rhim was visibly hesitant to speak with the hunter. His body language told Grimluk he was wound up enough he wanted to bolt. Sadie saw she needed to step in, as the hunter had known all too well, and persuade Rhim to talk.

She was surprised when her simple confirmation that Grimluk was there to help allowed Rhim to relax some. The man clearly needed some sleep but he relaxed enough to talk.

Most of what they’d been through had happened fairly recently. They had paid no mind to the cycle of nightmares at first but at some point, the nightmares refused to stay in their dreams and invaded their waking lives.

Rhim had jolted awake from a particularly disturbing dream involving a man in a red coat luring Ajay away. When father had went to check on son, his heart had frozen. Ajay was gone. The window was open. Rhim took off for the Watch. Despite the night Watch’s best efforts, he had demanded that Trilgor inspect the scene personally. Trilgor followed him, armed, ready, and very much wanting to know where a teenage boy could disappear to in such a small town.

There was no disappearance though. Rhim and Trilgor scared Ajay half out of his skin. The window was closed and the boy had clearly been sound asleep.

A few days later, it all started back up though. This time, Ajay woke in the middle of the night to the man in the red coat tapping at his window. Ajay had told his father that it looked something like a man-sized ogre. The face was long and gaunt with a huge and grotesque jaw. Rotten teeth filled a huge mouth. Orange eyes locked onto the boy’s. A sonorous voice beckoned Ajay to come with him.

Ajay screamed. The whole building bolted awake.

Ever since, the thing in the coat had been torturing them both. If it wasn’t tapping at Ajay’s window, it was appearing at the foot of Rhim’s bed to tell him of how he would feast on the boy. Flesh and soul consumed in a banquet of eternal pain.

Grimluk let himself out as Rhim broke down into tears. A few minutes later, Sadie joined him, her own eyes looking watery, like she was going to cry as well. She sighed deeply.

“Is this what you always have to deal with?” she murmured.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“By finding the thing causing it all and stopping it. When you’re ready, we can continue.”

Sadie looked up at the hunter. Concern shown back. Her chin quivered but she held the tears back.

“You’re a good man, Grimluk.”

A small smile crept to his lips. “I try.”

Snippet #2

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This whole scene is from the first draft.  I really love it and wanted to edit it and keep it.  This is the current version of it, which starts off chapter 2.  A friend who’s serving as a beta reader demanded (with much love) that I expand on the first sentence and I fully plan on it.  In any case, I hope you enjoy the current iteration and that it gets you excited to see the finished book this summer!

Grimluk emerged from the sandstorm like a phantom. Several yards ahead of him lay the town’s entrance, guarded immediately by two Human men. The hunter walked slowly towards them, covered from head to toe with a thick coating of pale dirt, which he endeavored to beat loose from himself. He stopped within talking distance, and allowed the Watchmen to observe him. The dust fell from him in great showers. After clearing himself as best he could, he held up his hands in peace, letting them know he was real and awaited their response.

“Charlie, you see this too,” the watchman on the right asked the watchman on the left.

“Big fuckin’ Orc-man,” Charlie remarked.

“Aye. We both see him them. Reckon we should ask what he wants.”

He stepped forward, holding a rifle, and shouted at Grimluk.

“We both see ya, so you’re real. What you want, Orc?”

Grimluk lowered his arms and spoke.

“I was hired to fix your demon problem” he said plainly.

The Watchman looked back at his peer before turning back to the green-skinned wanderer.

“How do we know you’re really a hunter? How do we know you ain’t a harrier?”

“You’re a Wastes town. That means you have a barrier, correct?”

“So it’s said,” the Watchman replied.

Grimluk stepped forward slowly. He could feel energy ripple as he approached. The hunter reached out his left hand and touched the barrier. It rippled and shimmered like a soap bubble, humming lightly in resistance to the Orc’s hand. The Watchmen looked at each other, curiosity and confusion washing over their faces.

Grimluk pushed his hand through the barrier.

Charlie’s rifle was up against his shoulder and aimed squarely at the Orc’s head in an instant.

“Hold back, Orc,” Charlie shouted.

Grimluk held his right hand back up and pulled his left hand back from the barrier.

“Yeah, okay…you’re true,” the other Watchman said.

The trio stood silently.

Follow Friday #3 – Edward M. Erdelac

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Firstly, the formalities: “Edward M. Erdelac is an award winning screenwriter, an independent filmmaker, and contributor to Star Wars canon. He’s been published in several magazines and is the author of Buff Tea, Dubaku, and the acclaimed weird western series Merkabah Rider.”

Secondly, he’s my friend and he’s been a big help and inspiration for me getting this writer thing going.

Thirdly, the Merkabah Rider series is one of the best weird westerns you will ever read.  Whenever I recommend weird westerns, it’s the first series I go to.  You cannot, unfortunately, purchase the first book anymore, and the second and third books will be joining that list over the next year or two as well.

Now, it’s true that my Follow Fridays are usually going to be me promoting friends, but the thing with Ed is that I started out just a fan.  We became friends over the past few years because I was totally floored by how good the first Merkabah Rider book was.  I had just discovered Lovecraft and Howard a year or two before.  I’d finished the Dark Tower series around the same time and found myself wrapped in the loving embrace of the weird west.  An old blog, The Weird West Emporium, which is now operating off of facebook, led me to a whole bunch of exciting new things and discussions.  Among them, was a recommendation for the first Merkabah Rider book.  I bought it, devoured it, and as soon as I saw the second book was out, I did the same for that.  I can’t remember the specific order of events, but I sought Ed out on facebook and found him friendly and fun to interact with (something that still holds true).  I think I surprised him with my enthusiasm.  Maybe not though.  In any case, we ended up chatting some, and before the third book came out, we got more familiar.  Three years later and I’ve seen the man finish the story of the Rider, put out plenty of new stuff, and get a story in Star Wars magazine.

He’s a good writer.  He works hard on his stories, does the research he needs to (something that I think shines through supremely with all the Jewish mythology in Merkabah Rider, however liberal the depictions), and he’s also happy to chat with folks.  So, seriously, drop by facebook and give him a like, or follow his blog, and hit up his Amazon store and grab a book or two.  Oh and don’t worry, he’s going to bring the Rider’s story back.

Snippet #1

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The following is the start of a fight from chapter 3.  The scene is not final but it will be mostly the same in the end.

“I’d just like to say, I’m sorry in advance if this doesn’t end well for you.” He then turned back to the crate and kicked it again. “Get up, already,” he said flatly.

The contents rattled again, heavier this time. Something that sounded like dry-heaving came from inside as well and before Grimluk could ask what was going on, the crate’s lid burst off, splintering at the point of impact. It ripped off, flying a few feet in the air and landed with a thick but dull thud. The crate tipped forward and landed open-face out.

A body stepped forward, planting a heavy-booted foot down, the dry-heaving sound emanated from it, louder now that it had exited the box. It turned slowly towards the hunter. He could feel the thing’s eyes on him, its coat and clothes covered in dirt. Pebbles of debris rolled from the thing’s crushed hat. Selbie walked up to stand next to it.

Grimluk’s lips curled into a snarl. The man before him, once a pale Elf, glared at him from a rotting shell. Most of his flesh was missing but appeared to be knitting itself back in all the important places. Bones, both broken and whole, poked out of some places and shown clearly in others. The dead Elf’s eyes shown as vividly as they had in life, though now tarnished by rage and hatred. And he stank.

A ghoul.

“Ald’n,” Selbie called. The ghoul turned to him and growled.

“Thech!” More of the dry-heaving sound followed the Elf’s attempt to speak. He hacked and choked before hurling a wad of black phlegm from this throat. “Thhhhe fuck…do you want…old man?” The voice that issued forth from the dead Elf’s mouth sounded like gravel scraping flesh. “Why…am I…alive again?”

“It’s very simple,” the mayor said as he stepped in front of the man. “You failed to help this town and now you’re going to make up for it. You’re going to do your best to kill this Orc.”

Grimluk huffed to himself, looking completely unsurprised. He was surprised to see a talking ghoul though.

“And what…if I…kill you…instead?”

“Oh, you’re free to try but you’re very much a dog on a short leash, so you’ll be doing this thing for me whether you want to or not. And I don’t honestly care what you want.”

The dead-Elf snarled and swung a tattered arm at the mayor’s head with the same force that had blown the crate’s lid off. It did not connect. His arm hung in the air, the once decaying, mostly skeletal fist shaking several inches from the mayor’s face. The mayor smiled.

“I hope you feel better. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to step back and you’re going to try to kill the hunter behind me. Do I make myself clear?”

The Elf’s fist fell back to his side. He made no visible reply. The mayor nodded and stepped away from the two would-be adversaries. Grimluk moved without warning.

His fist slammed into the Elf’s head like a boulder. Grimluk put the full force of his weight behind the punch. The sound of a thick, crunchy snap echoed before being swallowed by a great gasp from their audience. The dead Elf’s head had snapped back completely and dangled from a strand of nerves and flesh. The townsfolk murmured in surprise. Grimluk shook his fist out and looked at the mayor.

“That it?”

“My boy, you’re hardly done yet,” the mayor replied, continuing to walk away.

The hunter returned his gaze to the still standing body. The Elf’s corpse swayed drunkenly for a moment before reaching back and grabbing its dangling head. Grimluk watched as it pulled its head back into a vertical position. The muscle and bone began knitting itself back together. The Elf let go of his head and glared at the Orc. Grimluk saw then that the Elf’s whole body was repairing itself. Holes mended, bones reset, and rot disappeared. Definitely not your average ghoul.

What’s up, dates?

Ashe News ,

So, a little bit of news.  I’ll be posting a snippet each Monday of March.  I’ve had a request to show off a fight scene, so I’ll definitely be doing that.  Just keep in mind, none of this is final draft yet, so what I post and what gets published could look different.

Secondly, I’ve looked into doing an audio book and I’ll definitely be doing that once the book’s out.  So, if you like audio books, that will happen probably in the fall.

Thirdly, I’ll start building up some Q&As and blog posts the closer we get to summer.  Edward M. Erdelac​ has graciously offered to let me take up some space on his blog.

That is all for now.

Throwback Thursday #3 – The Real Ghostbusters

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Last time I did this, I wrote about Mega Man.  You wanna know what I love more than Mega Man?  Ghostbusters.  But here’s the thing.  I grew up on The Real Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2.  Ghostbusters came out the year before I was born and then the cartoon launched the year after.  My mom took me to see GB2 when it hit theaters in 89.  And man, the series has stuck in me like it’s a part of me.  Cause it is now.  And, in the context of me writing A Demon in the Desert, it is very important.  Why?  Because it gave me so many nightmares my mom tried to get it away from me.  But I loved it.  I would scream about demon bugs crawling all over everything but when she tried to tell me maybe I shouldn’t watch some good ol’ family ghost busting, I fought her.

And that is something I’m putting in the book.  Not the show watching but the nightmares.  I had a lot of nightmares growing up.  The Ghostbusters fought nightmares though.  A whole variety.  Slimer?  Slimer would be like a silly nightmare.  It’s scary, because it’s a ghost.  Slimer was smelly and gluttonous.  Even after the boys tamed him in the Real Ghoustbusters (I use “tamed” loosely), he could still be a nuisance.  And they fought bigger, worse things.  There is an episode where the boys actually stop Cthulhu rising.  And the best line in that episode, “The Collect Call of Cathulhu,” is when Egon explains that the Big Guy “makes Gozer look like Little Mary Sunshine.”

Pictured: Little Mary Sunshine

Egon, according to the show, partially got into the busting biz because of his run in with the actual Boogeyman.  That dude is basically Mr. Nightmare, right?  And they beat his ass too.  The show took what the first movie did and expanded on it hugely.  The writing, at least before the show got rebranded as “Slimer & The Real Ghostbusters,” was way better than you’d expect from a kid’s show.  It had a strange effect on the writing of GB2 (Janine going from Annie Potts’s strange little nerdy portrayal to the redhead of the cartoon) but not necessarily terrible.  And the change stuck around.  The IDW comic is an amazing blend of the movies and the cartoons.

So yeah, this was a little rambly, but if you never saw the cartoon (check out Extreme Ghostbusters too), give it a look see!