Gladiators and Hobbits and Stuff

After Bachelor at Wellington's post regarding film scores, I looked at the movies on my shelves, picking out a few with my favorite movie music, which led to me re-watching some of them.

I've just finished Gladiator, a disaster for the historical purists, but a great story for the rest of us. Emperor Commodus (portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix) was even more vile than he is presented in the film, and he had his sister killed. He really did play at being a gladiator, but with poor skill. After a failed poisoning attempt by one of his concubines, Commodus was killed later that night by his wrestling partner. If the facts had been presented on film, they would have made for a compelling story, but I like the movie, too. In fact, there are parts of it that remind me of another of my favorite stories, Eagle in the Snow by Wallace Breem. 

A film that I did not list in my favorite movie scores is The Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King). Howard Shore's music is awesome.

It's nearly 11:00 p.m., and I'll be awake for a few more hours, so I think I'll start watching LOTR from the beginning. If I viewed all three films back-to-back, I'd finish them around 11:00 a.m. tomorrow morning! 

More Space Pirates

For Lavinia, here's one more excerpt of the space pirates tale (it needs a title).

I had originally posted this a few days ago, but deleted the entry. Not sure how much of this story I want to put out into the universe just yet, especially since it's an unfinished piece. This is the beginning scene:

“Cargo aboard, sir. Freight lockers secure.”

“All of it stamped?”

“Just like it were legal.”

“Excellent. Knew I hired you for a reason.”

Haldis grinned. “Aye, captain.”

“Cheeky. Passengers?”

“Three cabins, sir.”

Kristoff rubbed his chin. He needed a shave. “Only three?”

“Wyatt was delayed, counting all those crates, so Corrigan stood as steward.”

“In that case, thank God for any passengers at all.”

“With your permission, captain, you haven’t met ‘em. You see the ugly looks they’re giving each other, you might not be so thankful.”

“How many times I have to tell you, Haldis? No paying customer is unattractive. Well, rarely unattractive.”

“Yeah. I mean, yes, captain.”

“What’s all this sir and captain stuff?”

“It’s for the passengers. Sir.”

Kristoff narrowed his eyes; grinning, Haldis didn’t blink.

“Get below”—Kristoff nodded toward the companionway—“and hold on to something.”

Engines—beautiful things—quickened until their thunder became a deep-throated howl. No mortal song was sweet as this. It shuddered through the ship beneath his feet, hummed along his bones, up his back, out his fingers, through his skull. Braced against the railing, Kristoff swayed as the Martina Vega spread her silver wings and lifted from her slip.

Each change in the rhythm and pitch told the story: queuing for departure, angling for trajectory, increasing speed, resisting the planet’s gravity, roaring through the atmosphere. Flying free.

The radio on his belt crackled. “Wide open, Kristoff.”

He unclipped the radio—old Earth tech, but it worked—and held down the broad gray button on the side. “Good hands as always, Finney. Join you in five.”

“Aye—captain.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

c. 2008, Keanan Brand

Sort of a Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day, but my mom has a fever, and I'm feeling a bit poorly myself.

I did go to her house this morning, gave her a card, and loaned her a book (A Pale Horse by Charles Todd)--not quite what we had planned for the day, but any day involving a good book can't be all bad.

I teased her about passing along her illness through the phone lines yesterday, and didn't stay long; the sore throat makes talking difficult.

Before I left, she warned me to get my lunch before the Baptists got out of church, or the traffic would be dense for at least half an hour. Taking her advice, I didn't go grocery shopping (which must be done soon), but--feeling like an utter hedonist--picked up a soft drink and a roast beef sandwich at a local fast food drive-thru and brought lunch home.

So, here I am, about to add to the novel. There's some cool stuff coming up, and I can hardly wait to get to that part of the story.

Work in Progress

The following scene (from the second fantasy novel) is the one that's been bugging me for a week or so. I want to avoid melodramatic and unnecessary speechifying in my fiction, so whaddya think of this:

Gaerbith once more offered his hand. “My lady?”

After a moment, she turned and took it, sliding her cool fingers into his grasp.

“Walk with me?”

She matched his stride down the slope to a tumble of stones and a half-submerged log at the edge of the water. He chose a broad, flat rock that lay at a slight tilt toward the river and turned, bracing his weight on his good leg.

She did not withdraw as he expected, but tightened her clasp. “Take me with you.”

He meant to speak, to further explain his decision and why it was best that Yanámari go to Disson, but when he faced her, all he could think of were wide, purple eyes full of that thing that squeezed his chest. He could not find breath, much less words.

She gave a choked laugh. “I am begging. I have little pride left.”

Omwendinn, is this possible?

With Me, anything is possible. And then, with almost a chuckle, All My gifts are good.

Gaerbith laughed, and Yanámari drew back, puzzlement and shame in her gaze.

“Nay, my lady, nothing like that."

“Take me with you?”

He nodded.

“Then I will try not to resent your oath or your god.”

“Someday, perhaps”—he rubbed his thumb across her fingers—“you will hear the Voice.”

With her free hand, she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, and looked across the river. The hilt of the silver knife gleamed along the inside of her arm.

He remembered that knife flying down a corridor, striking the king’s wolf handler. Only two days ago, the knife had killed a Nar’ath. Lord Arien had been far-seeing when he left his sister such a gift.

“There will be more danger, my lady. We will be in a smaller company, less protected and more hunted.”

Her smile was tight, brief. “Do not try to talk me out of it.”

His chest constricted until his heart seemed too large for it, battering against ribs, pushing aside lungs. “Beyond warrior or Keeper, I am only a shepherd, my lady. If matters had been different, after the war I would have returned to my father’s house. I do not presume to count myself your equal but, if you go with me as companion, will you not also go as—as wife?”

There it was again—that look in her eyes. Her voice, warm wine: “At my father’s table in Elycia, I made my choice, and do not regret it.”

He could not speak.

“And it is I, Captain Gaerbith, who am not worthy of this honor.” She looked long at him. “If your god exists, I thank him.”

He saw truth in her gaze. Many things he longed to ask, to say, but this was not the place, not with Rubin’s family and the remnant of the Fourth Lachmil looking on.

Giving her hand a light tug—“Ro’Ar is waiting”—Gaerbith turned from the river.

c. Keanan Brand 2008

Back to the Beginning

Lately, I've been in a hinterland of sorts, trying to find my way in my writing, in my life, in my work.

Sometimes, the only way to get a clear picture is to step aside, be objective. Sometimes, in order to get one's bearings, to make progress forward, one must look where one has been.

So, as part of the effort to reorient myself, here's a look into the past, the very first blog entry I wrote, originally titled "The Red Book of Westmarch":

Christmas 2002, a friend gave me one of my favorite presents ever: a hardbound book with a red cover, embossed in elven filigree, with a star stamped in silver at the top, a silver double-B at the bottom, and a silver title, There and Back Again, its lined pages waiting to be filled with whatever words I wished to write thereon.

Having read, in the 70s or early 80s, an edition of The Hobbit subtitled There and Back Again, a Hobbit's Holiday, I was both amused and excited to own this small volume--and a little unwilling to mar its pristine pages with cross-outs or scribbles or poor penmanship.

Two months later, I found the courage.

February 25, 2003

So begins my own Red Book.


February 27, 2003

So many people who love Tolkien's work love the completeness of Middle-earth. What is it in all of us that wants something more? That seeks a world of our own, away from the one we know?

Truth can be told in a tale. A story can be a mirror held up to life, altering our perspective, clarifying details that appear fuzzy in reality.

In Middle-earth, everyone has a purpose. Their actions and words have a goal. In a story, all events point toward the end, the culmination of all things. Then, when the end comes, we readers are not always willing to leave the imaginary for the concrete. Perhaps we feel purposeless in the real world, or small and insignificant, lacking importance or place. Yet Tolkien gave great importance to halflings; mayhap we little folk can bring about great things?

Since then, I have weathered periods of self-doubt, frustration, criticism, and other plagues that attend being a writer. Yet, amid the negatives, there have been moments of wonder and insight and even wisdom.

This blog is for sharing and exploring the journey, the detours and the shortcuts, the bogs of despair and the fields of imagination, and the plodding from one page to the next, even when creativity seems to have shriveled up like a sun-blasted raisin.

Readers as well as writers are welcome on this road. After all, a writer's words cannot truly live without anyone to read them.

Join me?

At first, that request for fellow travelers went little heeded. In recent weeks, a few more of you have joined this journey. Thank you.

Getting Restless

In 9 days, I get to go to Arizona for a nice long break from the day job at a youth organization. All you parents and educators will know exactly what I mean!

Space Pirates

Okay, break's over.

Yesterday, my brother called--he had babysitting detail, so there were bursts of random noises in the background, and occasional older-sibling scolds when the baby ventured where she should not--and we talked about nothing and everything: his college finals, the latest in computer gaming news, the family, my qualified early success planting stuff (haven't killed anything yet), my job, and the novels.

For a week, I've been working on a single scene in the second Dragon novel, deleting as many or more words than I have kept. After my brother's call, I decided to spend my mental energies on a different piece of writing--in this case, the space pirates, who travel in an obsolete tub and use old Earth technology, like pencils and paper, hand-held radios, and so on. Don't have a title yet, but I do have fun coming up with crazy stuff to add to the tale.

Below is a slice from Chapter 3, which I now present without context or explanation:

He radioed the engine room. “Alerio, any chance you and Corrigan can whip up a little Vega Surprise?”

“With or without the cinnamon sprinkles?”

“Nothing fancy. It’s just gotta work. We’ve got a runner on our six.”

“Aye, captain. One Vega Surprise coming up. Tell Finney to gimme a minute.”

Finney called out, “I can give you thirty seconds.”

No reply from the engine room, just static. Good man, Alerio. Not one to waste time with words when action was needed.

“If that runner has guns on it—”

“Don’t even think it, Finn.”

She reached up, slapped her palm over an entire row of toggles—“Get ready”—counted to three under her breath, and flipped them up.

The ship shuddered, hesitated, then surged forward, downward, twisting left then down again, and then Finney pulled the stick, bringing the Martina Vega’s nose up into a sharp incline. Kristoff was plastered against his seat, fairly certain he had left his innards and most of his good sense somewhere behind that rock Finney had just dodged.

“Wa-hoo!” erupted from the radio. “C’mon, Finney, do that again!”

Dragging his radio to his mouth, not sure if he would retch before he finished speaking, “Shut up, Haldis,” ordered Kristoff. “Galley okay?”

“Sahir looks green, but we’re good.”

The runner had fallen behind and, if it were possible, looked confused. A small moon, a massive crater on its southern pole, hid the Vega in its shadow—and, as long as anything flaming didn’t choose that moment to shoot through the field, the freighter could put the entire moon between itself and the runner. Such a large mass would interfere with the Orpheus’ scanners long enough for the Vega to leapfrog behind another mass, and possibly run fast enough to reach Port Henry ahead of Zoltana, offload its cargo and refuel, and be away again before the constable caught up to them.

Of course, the harbormaster might be suspicious of a crew so eager to turn around a cargo of liquor, ship parts, low-priority medical supplies, and miscellaneous crates of goods specially ordered by the local citizenry. He’d want to know what was so urgent about such commonplace things. Kristoff could try fobbing him off with a story about a sick mother or some such lameness, but he’d rather not have to say anything at all.

Wasn’t that Jink Turner fella a stevedore? Maybe he could be convinced to help out a bunch of poor, downtrodden smugglers like the Vega crew. Maybe he could get together with the Port Henry stevedores, play on their sympathy for a fellow dockworker, help him offload the cargo jig time—

“Whoa!” Kristoff gripped one arm of his chair and with his other hand grabbed the bar above his head. The ship rolled to starboard, tilted down then up again, and swooped behind another blob of space stuff.

So much for supper.

c. Keanan Brand, 2008