Hey, everyone! Sorry for missing last week. I had thought about doing a post about why you shouldn't shove messages into fiction, but I feel like I already may have written that one and in any case, I need to think it over a little longer. But today is the kick-off of the next part of my attempting to market my manuscripts before turning to self-publishing.
Before I get started, I do have other news. I also placed two short stories in magazines. Yay! A sci-fi-esque retelling of "Echo and Narcissus" titled "Mathematically Perfect" was accepted by Purfle and Gyve, and a fantasy called "Siren Song" was picked up by Rivet. Again, yay!
I also have news on the Under Locker and Key front. One agent has rejected the story. All others have been silent. I never said it was impressive news. But after three weeks of waiting, I feel justified in starting another send-off.
Today's special: The Sands of Cartha. Query below, followed by the first chapter of the novel. Genre: YA high fantasy with my own twist. Feedback in the comments, and telling of your friends is, as always, appreciated.
Four humanborns marked Cartha’s
history. The first was a powerful warrior, the second a gifted healer, the
third the most ruthless tyrant the world had yet known. The fourth is Alder
Torrance.
High school sophomore Alder is
used to change. Thanks to his military dad, he’s moved often, never getting to
stay in one place for more than a school year. But getting attacked at his high
school, then tossed into a magical world, is a little more change than even
Alder can manage, especially when that world is peopled with elven Kingdoms,
winged firepeople, and roving bands of desert dwellers who kill travelers for
magical power.
Disoriented and endangered, Alder
finds friendship and protection in Zed, a fireperson with a unique and
dangerous talent, and Orion, a slave boy with a gift for weaponry. And he needs
all the help he can get. The son of a human father and Carthan elven mother,
Alder is humanborn, and humanborns have always been powerful. Many Carthans
expect Alder to save them from the bloodthirsty invaders from the North, but
others see in Alder a worse evil by far.
Alder doesn’t want fame or power;
he just wants to go home. To do that, he must travel through Cartha without
being identified and killed, infiltrate a Kingdom under siege, and contact a god-like
being nobody in Cartha fully understands. But with each day, Alder cares more
for his new friends. If he stays, he’d be giving up the normal life he had. But
he might have the chance to change an entire world. If he can live long enough
to do it.
THE SANDS OF CARTHA is a YA
fantasy complete at 92,000 words. I received an MFA in Creative Writing from
Brigham Young University. My poetry has been published in FLARE: The Flagler Review and Sassafras
and my fiction has been accepted for publication at Rivet literary journal.
And the first chapter:
Chapter
1
It’s weird that I can be the new kid
eleven times without feeling nervous at all, but when I’m a returning student, I get slammed with
crippling anxiety.
When I wake up, I’m okay. Excited,
even. But while I’m showering, a heavy feeling of dread settles in my chest. By
the time I get out of the shower and shave, my hands begin to shake, resulting
in a nasty cut on my chin.
I curse and press a wad of toilet
paper onto the cut as I put on my jeans and the red-and-white shirt I picked
out last night. After a couple minutes the bleeding stops, as does the
trembling, leaving me to wonder where this fear came from. Is this what the
back-to-school jitters feel like? Or am I nervous about seeing Rosemary again,
after what happened last night?
That’s ridiculous. Last night was
amazing. Her fingers between mine, her warm cheek on my neck, her skin’s
fragrance like flowers in the rain…amazing.
School
today will also be amazing, now that for the first time in my life I get to put
down roots. But I’m so tense my stomach bubbles and churns.
It gets so bad that when I go
downstairs and the smell of Dad’s breakfast burrito hits me like a salsa-slathered
prize pig, I have to duck into the bathroom to retch.
There’s a knock at the door. “Alder,
is everything okay in there?” Dad calls in.
“Yeah,” I call back, wiping my chin.
The cut stings. “Just great.”
“Do you want to stay home today?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I must have eaten a funky
burger at the diner last night. I feel better now.” Not that I’ve ever had food
poisoning before, but it makes a good excuse.
“Okay.” Dad walks away.
The nausea passes, but the anxiety
doesn’t. I breathe fast and heavy with no idea why. It’s weird how fast it came
on. I felt so confident about going back to school and seeing Rosemary again
when I woke up. Now I want to run back to my room and hide under my bedcovers.
But that won’t happen. Dad’s not
going to think anything is going on other than a mild case of food poisoning. If
he thinks I’m really sick, he’ll tell Mom, and Mom will make me stay home. I
won’t stay home. Not on the first day of school. That would be weird, and I’m
done being the weird new guy. So I rinse out my mouth, take a deep breath,
shove my shaking hands into my pockets, and walk into the kitchen.
Dad sits at the table, hunched over
the morning paper. He’s wearing his Air Force uniform today, so he’s probably
teaching a class and wants to put the fear of John Torrance into the new ROTC
students.
“Feel better?” he asks when I come
in.
When I nod, he adds, “Did that back
there mean you’re nervous for your first second first day of school?”
It takes me a minute to figure out
what he means, but when I get it I shake my head. “It was something I ate.
Seriously. I’m good now.”
“You’re sure,” he says, staring me
down. “No nerves whatsoever?”
I give him a wide smile. “Yep. I’m
fine.” My whole body convulses in a shudder. Does Dad notice? “C-cold this
morning,” I say through chattering teeth.
Dad nods and rolls his eyes. “As it
will be every morning until next June, here in Connecticut. If you try out for
a team this year, go for basketball. The games are indoors. Plus, that coach at
your last school thought you showed promise.”
I shrug. I’m not too interested in
sports, like my dad is. I don’t hate them or actively avoid them. I like the
competition of team sports, but the arbitrary rules and point-scoring systems
have always seemed a little useless to me. What good does it do me in the real
world if I can carry a lemon-shaped ball across a line or make a three-point
basket at the buzzer?
That
doesn’t mean I don’t participate in gym class, because I do. At my last school,
I impressed Coach Powell with my jump shots and rebounding; he tried to
convince me to join the basketball team. But we moved two months later so I
never got the chance.
I have lived in sixteen different
towns, in sixteen different states or even countries, since I was born. That’s
impressive, considering I’m still on the back end of fifteen years old. My
family has never lived anywhere for more than a year. Dad’s in the military; although
he teaches, we still move around a lot. For some reason, though, he decided we
should in Connecticut for a few years.
Mom didn’t like the idea of sticking around
here until I graduate. Surprising, because when we first got here she couldn’t
stop raving about the trees and how beautiful the forests were. But over the
summer, when Dad got the opportunity to move us to Hawaii, she said she wanted
to go.
She
acted more and more freaked out since school ended in June, looking out of
windows all the time and getting up in the night to make sure the security
system was on. My curfew went from eleven to ten to nine-thirty, and would have
gone down to six, I’m sure, if I hadn’t begged Dad to step in.
He must have spoken to her about it,
because the next evening Mom announced over dinner that she thought we should
stay in Connecticut until I graduate from high school. Still, I can’t stop
thinking about how she’d acted. Why would she worry like that over staying a
few years in Coventry? Had years of rejecting normal medicine for her weird
herbal mixes finally cost Mom her mind?
Maybe it’s because I’m all she has.
Mom and Dad tried to give me some brothers and sisters, but despite their best
efforts, I’m an only child. While it’s lonely, I don’t have to worry about
sibling rivalry. Nothing goads me in to raising my B-minus average or trying
out for basketball.
This year, maybe, I can do both, and
more. Anything’s possible now that we’re staying. I can spend my weekends with
Rosemary and maybe Bryce, join that basketball team or one of Coventry High’s
many clubs…whatever normal people who don’t move every eight months do.
My mom glides into the room as I
pour myself a bowl of Cocoa Puffs. “Ugh,” she says. “I don’t know how you can
eat those. They look like dog food.”
“Good morning, Mom,” I say. “How’s
the painting coming?”
“Hmm?” Her grass-green eyes widen
and she touches the dried drops of pink and beige paint in her loose brown
hair. “Oh, right. It’s coming along. Not quite done, though. It would go faster
if I had a live model.” She raises an eyebrow at me.
“No, thanks.” Mom usually paints
portraits, but right now she’s working on a series of paintings of ears. I
don’t get it, and Dad just shrugs and tells me Mom’s always liked the shape of
human ears.
I don’t like my ears. They have
weird little notches at the tips and hang out from my head like they weren’t
stuck on tight enough. I would grow my hair out to cover them, but Mom refuses
to let me run around looking like a “barbaric desert dweller,” whatever that
means, so I get regular haircuts.
In return, I refuse when Mom asks
for a model for her bizarre ear paintings. She can use a mirror if she wants to
paint my ears; I inherited their weird shape from her. In fact, Mom and I share
a lot of physical features. We’re both tall and thin with brown hair and full
lips. Our eyes are the same rich green. Dad has called me “Miranda” by accident
on more than one occasion.
Ears.
Of all the obsessions…it’s not like she’s starving for artistic talent. Mom
calls herself a “renaissance artist.” She sculpts, writes, sings, but most of
all, she paints. All the time. And her latest obsession made me lose any love
of painting I used to have. Once, when I was little, I thought I might become
an artist like my mom. I flooded printer paper with watercolors and paid
attention to the details of people’s appearances as if I were going to paint
their portraits. Noting whether their eyes were cerulean or sky blue, that kind
of thing, and how dark I’d make the shading of the jaw. But that was a long
time ago, back when Mom still did portraits.
After
she gets past this ear craze, Mom may someday become famous for her portraits;
over the couch in the living room hangs one of my dad that looks just like him,
or did, back when he was in college.
Now, Dad looks like your stereotypical
All-American superhero after a couple decades. I’ve never seen him use his
weights, but he still looks like he outmuscles locomotives every morning before
breakfast. Leaps tall buildings, too, as a cool-down.
I look nothing like him, but who
cares? Rosemary kissed me last night, not the football star I might have looked
like if my parents’ genes melded differently.
Neither I nor my friend Bryce nor
even Rosemary can understand how a military guy like Dad could have ended up
with an artistic free spirit like Mom. “He broke up a hippie riot,” Bryce said after
he and Rosemary first met my mismatched parents. “That has to be the answer.”
“Come on,” Rosemary had said,
pushing her black hair behind her ear. “True love has no reason. They could
have met anywhere.”
“Okay, then, let’s discover the truth.
Alder,” Bryce said, “how did your parents meet?”
Honestly, I had no idea, but I said,
“Witness protection.” Which made them howl with laughter, and in that moment I knew
I’d keep these friends.
I watch my mom place her hands on my
dad’s shoulders and lean down to kiss his cheek. I turn my attention down to my
cereal and take a bite. My stomach lurches. The cereal is fine, but what is happening to me? It’s got to be
something more than watching my parents act all romantic while I’m eating. I
force the food down, but now Mom’s looking at me. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“He was throwing up before you came
in,” Dad says.
“Traitor.”
Mom shakes her head. “Honey, if you
want to stay home today, you can.”
“I’m fine.” I have to go to school
today. I want to see Bryce and I have to
see Rosemary. But, even more than that, I feel like if I miss the first day of
school I’ll jinx myself. I’ll never fit in, and I’ll stay the guy with the
mismatched parents who doesn’t know if he’ll be living in Guatemala in six
months. I don’t care if I’m nervous or throwing up or if I get struck by lightning
on the bike ride to school; I’m going, and I’ll be a normal student whose only
long-term worry is the SATs.
“Are you feeling nervous? Is that
was this is?” She turns to my dad and gives him a look that kind of resembles
her “I told you so” look.
I set my bowl down and lean against
the counter, putting my hands in my pockets. “No. I ate something bad at the
diner and now it’s gone. I’m fine.”
Dad holds Mom’s gaze and shakes his
head. “Miranda, if Alder wants to go to school, there’s no reason to keep him
home.”
Mom walks to the refrigerator and
pulls out a thermos that must have been chilling there all night. “All right,
then. But just in case you feel sick again, take this.” She hands me the
thermos. “It’s cold, but it should still work.”
I sniff it. Ugh. Peppermint and
ginger tea, an herbal remedy for an upset stomach.
“Uh, no, thanks,” I say, pushing the
thermos away. “Bryce is picking me up for school, and he’s protective of his
car. I don’t want to risk spilling it. I feel fine, I swear.”
Mom nods. “Fair enough. Wait a
moment.” She leaves and returns with a leather packet. “Keep this close.”
I take the packet and open it.
“Geez, Mom!” I throw the knife, the
actual, eight-inch hunting knife, on the table. “I can’t bring that. I’ll get
arrested!”
Dad stares at the knife and then at
Mom. “Miranda, is that necessary?”
She raises an eyebrow at him and
folds her arms. Turning to me, she says, “Hide it, then. I want you to be
safe.”
“I can’t bring this to school.” I
shake my head. “Dad?”
“Alder, maybe, if you keep it at the
bottom of your bag—” Dad stops, like he realizes what he’s saying. Putting a
hand on Mom’s back, he says, “The school has great security. Alder will get in
trouble if he tries to bring that inside. Any psycho would, too. Alder’s safe
there. He’s fine. It’s just a little nausea.”
While Dad calms Mom down, I eye the
knife lying, half out of its leather sheath, on the table. I love my mom, and I
know she means well, but sometimes she’s so overprotective it’s smothering. All
through elementary school she volunteered in my classes to “see how I was
doing” and in junior high she refused to give me permission to go on a class
field trip into the city because I would be gone overnight.
I haven’t even gotten my driver’s
permit yet because Mom’s worried I’m going wind up in a fiery car wreck. She
means well, I know. But I’m almost sixteen and I need my space.
This is the first time she’s tried
to get me to bring a weapon to school, though. My stomach lurches again and I
almost lose my cereal.
“Your school day still ends at
three, yes?” Mom asks.
I
pour the rest of my cereal into the disposal; I’m so anxious I’ve lost my
appetite. “Yeah, but I might stay after school if they have club sign-ups. I’ll
catch a ride home with Bryce.”
My
mouth still tastes bad, so run upstairs to brush my teeth and use some
mouthwash. When I’m satisfied, I run out the door.
“Call us when you know for sure. Have
fun,” Mom calls as I walk out the door. “But be safe.”
I wave back at her, and run towards
Bryce’s used gold car. He’s honking and waving me over.
“Hey, man,” I say as I pull open the
passenger side door.
“Hey.” Bryce looks at me as I sit
down. “Where’s your stuff?”
I look around. With the nerves and
the knife and the weirdness, I’ve forgotten it. “Wait here,” I say, kicking the
door open amid Bryce’s protests that I respect the vehicle. “I’ll just be a
minute.”
My bag is where it always is: in a
closet in the front hall. I open the door quietly; I don’t want to rehash
everything that happened over breakfast. As I kneel to pick up my backpack, I
hear my parents arguing in the kitchen.
“Did you see him?” Mom says. “He
looked so nervous. We shouldn’t have let him go unprotected.”
“He said it was a bad burger.”
“And you believed him?” Footsteps
pace the kitchen floor.
“Yes, Miranda. I believe him. Why
shouldn’t I?”
“Because you know as well as I do
that he doesn’t get food poisoning. We’ve worked so hard to keep him safe,
moving around. Something’s wrong now. I can feel it. We should pick him up from
school and tell him everything.”
A chair squeaks. “Maybe someday,” Dad
says. “But not yet. There’s no reason to be afraid. We’ve tested him again and
again, and there’s no doubt that Alder is a perfectly normal boy.”
“I suppose you’re right.” She sighs.
“I wish schools would allow children to protect themselves here. I’m just so
worried that someone followed us and now they’ll find him.”
A curl of cold, spiky fear snaps
through me and I fall against the wall, panting. Who are they? What are my parents talking about? I lean closer, curious.
Panic snaps my gut apart, and I squeeze the straps of my backpack to release
the tension before it forces the contents of my stomach up my throat. I don’t
understand. Yes, the knife and this kind of talk is weird and a little
frightening, but Mom’s always been a worrier. This doesn’t merit this kind of
panic.
The footsteps stop and start again,
growing louder. I use the wall to pull myself and my bag up, and I work hard to
slow my breathing.
“Alder? I thought you left.” Mom
crosses her arms over her chest She looks small and scared.
“Yeah. I forgot this,” I say,
hoisting my bag. “I’ll see you after school.”
“Are you sure you don’t
need…anything?”
I want to ask her what she and Dad
have been talking about, why she’s been so weird all morning, but I don’t. I
can’t. I nod, run out the door, jump into Bryce’s car and slam the door.
“Really, Alder?” Bryce says as he
starts the car and puts it in gear. “Kicking the door open like a barbarian? I
agreed to give you a ride out of the goodness of my heart; I might change my
mind if you keep disrespecting Eowyn.” He pats the dashboard twice and looks at
me. “Alder?” He puts his foot on the brake. “Are you okay? You look kind of
freaked out.”
“I’m fine. Just drive.” I wrap my
arms around my backpack and wonder why I’m so afraid.
