Joely Sue Burkhart

Totals last night: (edited dark and early this morning)

• 770 new words (+ 733)
• 37,982 Sven total (38,715)
• 32,201 TFW total (32,934)

Fixed the end of the previous night’s work.  I skipped a good opportunity for Darius to torment her, so I backed up a little and cut a few paragraphs.  Too easy, much too easy on her.  Now, it’s horrible, which is exactly what I need.    The fight is coming.  The climax where she realizes Zahak can’t possibly win the battle.  That’s the plan, at least.

Still grinding away on the end of The Fire Within, up to 31,431 words, now.  I need to revise the last section I worked on last night (835 words) because it’s not quite right.  I have two very real threats going on at the same time, which are really the same, if that makes sense.  One is in the dream world; one is a very real dragon.  But they are the same.  Making this all tie together smoothly and make sense is a challenge.  I’ll also need to go back and make sure everything’s believable and well-established before this dream battle.  What happens in the dream, happens in real life too, and I need to verify that’s clear before hand, not just something I spring in the last quarter of the plot to make it work.  I know I’ve established this sort of thing in the BloodRose world before, but it might not be clear in this particular novella.

Dreams can kill.  I need to make sure you believe it, know it, when Zahak chooses his battle.

The Fire Within:  31,431 words

Sven Total:  37,212 words

My plans for this week: keep on trucking until TFW is finished.

How about you?

That Man wanted to watch movies this weekend.  Nevermind that I bought 300 and still haven’t seen it yet…  Not to mention Pan’s Labyrinth.  Neither are his cup of tea. Don’t even ask about the Firefly episodes I still haven’t seen.

He selected Shooter with Mark Wahlberg first.  It starts out with Wahlberg as Bobby Lee Swagger and his buddy on a sniper mission.  The buddy looks at a picture of his wife.  And I turned to That Man and said, oops, he’s going to die.  And soon.  Sure enough, the next scene, the guy gets killed.  Could the sympathy factor have been a little more subtle, please?  So then we jump ahead 3 years and the same government who left him to die on his last mission comes calling spewing duty and patriotism.  Fool that he is, Swagger goes.  And of course, is double crossed yet again.

The movie wasn’t bad, per se, just pretty standard.  I was supposed to believe this guy was super smart–and I have to admit, I loved the way he got the FBI agent Memphis as his spotter–but he was stupid enough to leave the buddy’s girlfriend unprotected after she helped him recover from the double cross.  Of course, the bad guys found her, tortured her, and used her against him.  Duh. 

The most powerful moment of the film was at the very end.  Swagger has won–but lost.  The bad guys are high-up politicians who escape unscathed.  They’re sitting around bullshitting how smart and rich they are, how everyone else is stupid for you know, following the law and being moral.  They’re drinking, smoking cigars, laughing belligerently.  Again, an un-subtle effort to make them despicable, so when Swagger kills them in cold blood, we’ll be sympathetic.  That we’ll consider him the hero.

Not an easy thing to pull off, is it?  I mean, the hero kills these guys in cold blood.  Stands over a weeping, begging man and shoots him in the head.  Calmly.  Deliberately.  And then he walks out, gets in the car with the girlfriend, and they drive off to the mountains.  I have to ask:  what kind of life will they have?  What kind of man can just walk away from something like that?

And a story idea was born.    Most of you know that my favorite character I’ve created to-date is an assassin, so I’m fascinated with characters like Swagger.  I jotted some notes and filed them away for later.

The other movie That Man picked out was Wild Hogs.  Let me just say that middle-aged-male-locker-room humor is not my cup of tea.  The only thing that made the movie mildly amusing for me was the gay cop played by John McGinley.  When he followed them to the water hole and wanted to play Marco Polo, I laughed out loud.  At the end, when the Wild Hog idiots are standing against 40+ “real” bikers and getting the shit kicked out of them, a mysterious rider shows up.  I ROARED OUT LOUD, thinking it was the gay cop.  Imagine my disappointment when it was some new phantom guy (played by Peter Fonda) who was the dad of the lead bad biker.  Meh.  It would have been much funnier if the gay cop came to their rescue!

So overall, I wasn’t impressed by either movie.  But I got a story idea out of one, so it wasn’t a total waste.

Just a quick update before I head into the weekend.  I finally broke 50% on my Sven goals!  Yay!

The Fire Within is up to 29,530 words.  I’m in the final quarter and the dragon shit is really hitting the fan.  Let’s see, I have Eleni staked out in the desert, naked, half roasted, waiting for a dragon to rouse from its lair and eat her.  Zahak has been thoroughly betrayed by not one but two people and was wounded bad enough that he hasn’t been able to come after her.  They’re both going to face their darkest fears in the next few sections.  I really hope this ending will just fly!

I’ll do one more section of Beautiful Death.  This section continues the mini-cliffhanger from last week.

The energy blast slammed into the other woman, and Isabella thought her own heart would explode with agony. Pain arced across her chest and she sagged to her knees, unable to draw a deep breath.

A furious roar rebounded in the skyway and a blur of shadowed leather, fur and wings shot over her. Instinctively, she rolled to the side to avoid the slashing talons. She leaped to her feet and dialed up the stunner to full blast.

Here was something she would enjoy killing. “Come at me again, you son of a bitch.”

Wheeling about, the monster towered over her, shredding the cushioned floor of the skyway with six-inch razor talons. Enormous pitch black wings flapped the air, filling the skyway with feathers. Ebon scales plated the shapeshifter’s head and barbed spines lined its sinuous neck. Jagged teeth snapped in a pointed reptilian snout, splattering poisonous saliva on the floor.

With another roar, it hurtled toward her, shaking the skyway floor beneath her feet.

Isabella fired and struck a direct hit with maximum power. “Go back to the Underworld where you belong.”

The monster jerked, but its furious charge continued unchecked.

Twisting away, she felt claws slash deep furrows down her left arm. Pain bloomed, blazing with immediate fever. She ducked the slapping wings, but the serpentine tail slammed into her. Grunting from the impact, she flew through the air, crashed into the polished marble wall, and slid to the floor in a heap.

Face darkening and hot with fury, Isabella flipped to her feet, inwardly cursing. She hadn’t let a shifter wound her in at least a year. Unsheathing her sword, she re-evaluated the monster. With a high silver content, the deceptively slim and elegant swords were standard issue for Marshals. The aliens and the monsters they spawned with their virus all reacted badly to Earth’s metals. This one would be no different. Even Hades, with all his fearsome power and seduction, would shriek when her sword bit into his perfect skin.

Leaping at the beast so fast her coat flapped like wings about her, she feinted at those baleful red eyes. She evaded a vicious snap from the poisonous mouth and dodged beneath the gaping jaws. With a quick stab into the unarmored underbelly, she vaulted backward from a swipe of talons that would have gutted her.

The shapeshifter reared to its full height and clawed at its abdomen. Smoke rose from the wound and blood spurted in a scarlet fountain. A shriek pierced the air, shattering the glass windows of the antiquities shop. Still screeching, the beast fell on its back, tail and legs lashing the air in agony.

Isabella circled the howling shapeshifter and raised the sword over her head with both hands. Nothing indicated this contaminated, grotesque body had once been human. It would kill and feed with absolutely no respect for human life. This, she could terminate with a perfectly clear conscience.

She brought the sword down with all her strength and severed the head from the scaly neck. Sidestepping the splatter of gore, she pulled out a cloth to clean her sword. The blade would etch and corrode if she didn’t get the venomous blood off.

Isabella dropped the disintegrating cloth on top of the dead shapeshifter and tapped her earpiece to make her report. “I need a decontamination unit to Acropolis Book Antiquities.”

Oracle responded immediately. “Thank you, First Marshal Thanatos, for your faithful service to our Citizens. Please confirm the status of Sybil of Delphi.”

Isabella turned away from the already decomposing monster and froze. The bag lay discarded on the floor, and the woman was gone. A flash of ugly brown at the entrance of Dionysus Theatre caught her gaze. “Sybil, stop!”

Citizens surged from the Theatre exit, talking and laughing over the performance. Not even riots would keep them away from a good show. Isabella pushed forward, trying not to injure any of the people. “Oracle, the human criminal somehow survived a direct charge from my weapon. She’s heading into Dionysus Theatre. Hercules, guard the other exits!”

The crowd made way for her, cheering when they saw the dead monster in the skyway. Even the weapon in her hand didn’t frighten them. Charging into the opulent entrance of the most famous Theatre in New Olympia, Isabella searched for possible hiding places.

The criminal would need to find a way Outside. She had to know Oracle monitored all Gates. She had no hope of escaping.

But how did she survive the blast in the first place?

“Marshal, do you have a visual on the criminal?” Oracle asked in her ear.

“Negative. Could she have entered a private area free of monitoring?”

“There are maintenance areas below the floor where you stand, as well as access panels on each side of the Theatre. These areas are not currently monitored. I will note this deficiency for the next Pantheon meeting.”

Sagging, Isabella sheathed the weapon, her fingers cramping. Her heart still pumped fast and furious, adrenaline burning in her veins, but relief overrode the buzz. She wasn’t guilty of killing a human after all. “What are my orders?”

“You are injured, First Marshal. Take a full interval for your care.”

Oh, yeah. Now her arm hurt like a bitch, blazing with fever and cramping as poison seeped into her bloodstream. She needed to wash the saliva off and stop the bleeding immediately.

“Hercules, take command of the squad. I’ll check back in before you go off shift.”

“Understood, Thanatos.”

She tapped her earpiece once more, sending it into standby. Outside the Theatre, a decontamination crew already worked on the remains. Off to the side, the tattered bag still lay on the floor.

“Any reason I can’t take this for evidence?” She asked the supervisor.

He shoved the ghastly head into a containment box marked for MedCorp research labs. “You can have anything you want, Marshal.”

Isabella swallowed hard and looked away. She certainly didn’t want to know what they did with the bodies she supplied.

She picked up the discarded bag and opened it. The simple backpack was filled with ancient books. What could be so terribly important in these moldering old tomes that would drive an exiled Delphian to attempt to smuggle them out of the City? How had the woman survived a full human-rated blast?

Even more troubling, she feared the monster deliberately interfered with the criminal’s termination. Perhaps Delphi and Argos truly were united in some treason against the Pantheon. Why else would a shapeshifter risk termination to assist a human?

She didn’t know, but she intended to find out.

(My Thursday Thirteen post is below this entry) 

What a terrific review from Jayne of Dear Author:

As I told you when you offered us an e-copy of “Survive My Fire,” dragon shapeshifters usually do little to light my fire. Shapeshifters period have pretty much lost my interest at this point, and yet your book grabbed me from the start.

She did note some confusion about the Keldari terminology, so I created a new Keldari page including bits of the mythology and dictionary.

Even better, this review was picked up for syndication by Reuters and USAToday!

So a huge thank you to the two Ja(y)nes, and to May who encouraged me to send it to them in the first place.

You Know It’s “Back to School” When… You have to go to a dozen sold-out stores in order to gather the following school supplies (this year we have TWO monsters in school). I know I never needed this much junk when I went to school! 1. Three boxes of Kleenex 2. Two botttles of hand sanitizer 3. Three packs of baby wipes 4. 2 cans of PlayDoh 5. Watercolors 6. Colored Pencils AND pencils 7. Four packs of crayons and two of markers 8. Glue Sticks AND white glue 9. filler paper 10. 70-page notebooks 11. 5 colored portfolio folders with brads 12. ruler (wooden only) 13. safety scissors, Pearl pink erasers, pencil box, backpacks…. Oh, and then I needed to provide another $5 for Princess Monster’s “other” supplies the teacher provided.  This is still better than when she needed a disposable camera and cassette tape for kindergarten!

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Yeehaw, the monsters are back to school today!

It was a difficult summer.  I struggled to get some kind of routine, but with each kid running off in different directions for various activities to keep them occupied while we worked, it was challenging.  That Man leaves for work at a different time every day.  He arrives home at different times every day.  Definitely not conducive for “routines.”  Add to that the stress and worry of the past week with MM’s tonsillectomy, trying to get school shopping done, and the miserable 100+ heat, I’m relieved that school is starting already.

Now, at last, I can define a consistent daily routine.  I must, to survive.  We have two monsters in school this year!

To start this new routine, I dragged myself out of bed dark and early to write.  The day always goes better when I’m up and organized, fully awake, long before I report in for the EDJ.  I know I’m certainly in a better mood when my writing goal has already been met for the day, or I at least have a healthy start on it.  I get terribly grouchy when there are so many demands on me that 11:00 p.m. rolls around and I haven’t even opened a file yet. 

I’m sure I’ll be really tired this week as I try to get myself back to up early, in bed early.  I’m trying to make lists, breaking my day down into intervals.  I know it sounds dumb, but at night, my brain is fried and I forget to do things like… make the kids’ lunches.  Then morning comes, and even if I’m up early before work, I don’t want to have to make TWO lunches now during my writing time.  Or worse, forget entirely, and then have grumpy kids who really, really hate whatever the school lunch is, whining and complaining.  Ugh. 

Anyway, I’m hoping to get back into a personal routine for my writing AND my exercise/diet, which also took a huge hit this summer.  More through the week as I get my feet under me.  For now, I made 1061 words.  I’ll update my Sven count and report in officially later today.

Quick, check the moon phase.  I feel a crazy, manic period coming on.  Is it a full moon?  Or maybe just the fact that the monsters are going back to school this week?

I’ve watched a few shows that we normally don’t watch (That Man is God of the remote control, which is why I still haven’t seen all the Firefly episodes yet–but with MM sick all week, I caught a few surprises):  a wildlife show on elephants, MM’s favorite animal (other than horses, of course); and Cities of the Underworld–Scotland’s Sin City. 

What fascinated me about the latter show is how whiskey distilleries moved underground back in the 1700s because of heavy taxes and only like 7 licenced distilleries.  Deep in caverns below Edinburgh, they brewed their whiskey with watchers keeping an eye out for taxmen.  They devised ingenious ways of transporting their liquor–like caskets.  The little tickler is how something so simple–like whiskey–was so important.  How it shaped the culture and livelihood at that time.  Makes for interesting worldbuilding questions, yes?  Like Dune’s spice.  Look how an entire galaxy empire was built around a need for spice.  Cool stuff.

The elephant show just about made me bawl.  It was a terrible drought in Kenya and a four-year-old baby died.  Watching her mother try to get her up…  They said a mother elephant was known to break her own tusks off trying to lift up her dead baby.  All of the elephants stood around solemnly, sharing in her grief.  They touched the dead baby, gently.  The herd finally moved on, but the mother kept turning back, trying one last time to get her baby up.  Then later, the nearly starved herd came across a skeleton, and the mother grieved all over again.  She remembered her dead baby.  All of the elephants picked up the bones, passing them back and forth, touching them, as if they recognized the dead elephant.

Don’t even ask me about two other shows we’ve started watching:  Holmes on Homes and Ice Road Truckers.  The latter show–OH.  The sound the ice makes when they drive those huge semis across the frozen lakes…. How do they do it without having nightmares for months later?  After watching Mike Holmes, how could anyone ever hire a contractor to work on their house?

There’s got to be a few story/worldbuilding ideas in there.  So what new or odd thing triggered your inspiration lately?

After a fever-free weekend, Middle Monster is FINALLY feeling better!  Yay!  Her throat is still sore at times, and she does have ear pain off and on, but she’s eating and playing almost back to normal.  We had a scary moment last night during dinner when apparently one of the scabs came off.  It must have been big enough that she could feel it dangling or scratching in her throat.  She got a little panicked about that and didn’t want to eat any more of her dinner.  Later, she ended up eating two peanut butter sandwiches without problem, though. 

So it’s back to the EDJ for me today. I’m going to be soooo far behind! 

As for writing, I continued slowly through this little side project.  No, it wasn’t planned.  No, I don’t think I’ll be finishing it any time soon.  But it was one of those really old stories that I’ve had for a long time, and something I read recently sparked it until it just wouldn’t shut up.  So I wrote out 6656 words on it over the past two weeks or so.  The fire has died down, and peace is coming back into my mind, just in time for school to start up this week.  YAY.  The monsters will be going to bed much earlier at night, so I should have more writing time without staying up so late.

My Sven total to date is 30,720 words.  Not bad, although I’m a little behind.

I also made a submission of Beautiful Death, and revised the little Maya fantasy story for Drollerie Press, changing it from first person to third.  I think it reads a little better now.  Hopefully that freebie will go up soon and I’ll post a link to it.

My plans for this week: 

1). Unbury myself at the EDJ, which might require some overtime.

2). Return to The Fire Within.  My goal is to finish the first draft by 8/31.

How about you?

From Coffee Time Romance:

Survive the [My] Fire is a spectacular ride into a world that comes alive. The picturesque view of the whole land, as well as the description of Chanda, is cleverly created. Even though there are numerous scenes of brutal attacks, Chanda’s tormented trapped life reaches to the heart of the reader. Joely Sue Burkhart depicts a romantic fantasy that is skillfully crafted with some heartrending moments. I was not only intrigued by this tale but held spellbound.

Read the whole review here.  Thank you, Cherokee!

It’s taken me years to see Walk The Line.  I knew I would love it.  You might remember me saying that ages ago I chose black as my theme color because of Johnny Cash and his defining song.

Oh, how I adored the movie, and especially, Joaquin Phoenix.

But it was bittersweet, too, because it reminds me of a beloved darling I killed.  Early in the writing of Beautiful Death (before I even finished the first draft), Joaquin was the inspiration for a character I named Bryan.  At the time, I was trying my hand at erotic romance.  He was a lot like Nathaniel in LKH’s Anita Blake series.  Needy, weaker, but stronger because of that need.  He was a perfect match for Isabella’s strength and ferocity.  He brought out her softer side, and represented her humanity.

I abandoned that incomplete version, and in the next draft, I murdered him.  Bryan was completely removed from the story.  I forced myself to expand Hades’ character, to give him the elements of Bryan that I loved.  He had to bring out the softer side of Isabella, alone, without any crutch character to help him.  The vulnerability that Hades shows–a deliberate weakness he knowingly allows because Isabella can’t fight it–is a direct result of Bryan’s demise.

The book is better, much better, for that murder.  But watching Walk The Line reminded me of Bryan’s death.  Sigh.  Fortunately, I’m using Joaquin for inspiration in The Fire Within as Darius, the main antagonist.  He’s a creepy, scary kind of character, more like the Emperor in Gladiator.  Some day… I’ll write him as a hero.

The winner of the free copy of Patti O’Shea’s In the Midnight Hour is:

Anna Black!

Anna, I probably have your snail mail addy somewhere, but if you have a minute, please send it again.

Thank you to everyone who entered!

For the first morning since the post-tonsillectomy fevers started, MM awoke fever free this morning!  Not pain free, though.  She was up at 6:23 a.m. crying, but I got her some ice water and we rocked for awhile.  Littlest Monster got up around 7:30 a.m. and wanted to watch TV, so MM and I went back to bed.  She slept until about 11:30. 

Ate two pieces of pizza crust (all the toppings scraped off).

So maybe the end is in sight!

Edited:  She ate six pieces of pizza, I think–I might have lost count.  Some toppings, but mostly the crust.  Poor thing–this is the first real solid food she’s eaten in days, other than a little mashed potatoes and gravy last night.