You can now find the prologue and Chapters 1-3 up at InkShares. Just click the read button at the following link. Upon Stilted Cities
Chapter 3: Security Detail:
Major John Daniels is a veteran. For nearly 13 centuries he’s stood faithfully at his post overseeing the city of Manhasten keeping the city safe in its endless migration along the barren landscape. What Daniels doesn’t realize, is that everything is about to end.
Chapter 2: The Inspector is now up on Inkshares! More sample chapters will be up in the coming weeks.
It’s been a long time since I have shared any news on Upon Stilted Cities so here are a few pieces.
1. I have launched a page on InkShares, a website that is a mix between a publisher and Kickstarter for Upon Stilted Cities. For now, I am just building a following and have not launched an official campaign. However here’s where the news comes in.
A new chapter from Upon Stilted Cities is now up on their website for free. Some of you may have read the prologue. So you will find Chapter 1: Designation Runner 17 up at the following link. Upon Stilted Cities It is likely that in the next few weeks I will place several more chapters up there from the book that will introduce several other main characters. The book is going through one final edit and if I am not able to get published via this website, it will be up before the fall season, self-published.
2. Mimi of the Nowhere, a prequel to the events of Upon Stilted Cities will be serialized on this blog later this month. The text is a novella and is also going through one last round of edits before it goes up on here. I will publish a chapter a week, once it begins. Mimi’s story will give readers a look at the life of one remarkable homeless women, living in the belly of the giant walking city of Manhasten.
3. I have several other pieces in the works. Some of them are related to the Upon Stilted Cities Universe (which I am currently calling the series: The Chronicles of the Great Migration as it will be a trilogy) and some are more stand alone.
In any case, the reason I haven’t posted much is because I have been busy writing and making pretty significant progress. For more news, you can follow this blog or visit the Upon Stilted Cities page to enter your email and sign up for my soon to launch newsletter.
A Few Thoughts Before Dreaming
Pigeons shitting on the car.
Streaks of white,
Cleaned off,
To happen again,
So much for the car wash.
The gum I stepped in,
A faithful passenger,
Creating sticky situations,
And semi-sucking noises.
No ninja here.
The beautiful stranger who smiled at me,
Sending transmissions like shockwaves.
Envisioning the possibility of love and marriage and happiness,
A tale of forever…
Followed by inevitable divorce.
Socks getting lost in blankets.
Tossing.
Turning.
Mind wandering to extravagant places with unfortunate problems.
A sigh,
An unpaid bill.
A sigh,
Things left undone.
A sigh,
Things left unsaid.
Then,
A deep breath.
I listen,
For the stillness,
For the wind,
For the hint of raindrops,
For the naked air wrapped in a cloak of day and night
In it, I find the beating of my own heart,
Matched with the music of the leaves outside,
Gently rustling.
Just a little song.
I remember beauty.
I remember love.
I remember life.
As my eyes slip shut.
Hope
Hope
It takes a child,
To measure our pride,
To softly know of simple love.
What wonder is finite
In the universe of imagination?
By what measurements can we justify
The boundless design of simple curiosity?
There is hope beyond the ‘me’ and ‘mine’ of early ignorance.
An amalgamation of then and now.
It is the breaking lose of joy that accompanies compassion
It is the skipping of rocks across a pond,
And the simple sharing in water in singular moments.
Yes, it takes a child,
To show me the way back.
In our second episode of Anthropological Inquiries, we speak with Dr. Marty Otañez who has spent the last several years studying the Anthropology of Cannabis.
Car stalls.
Stillness in the early morning.
No sun yet.
Fog and cloud mingle with the full moon like tendrils grasping for possession.
I wait.
Engine turns over.
On the road again.
The moon devoured.
A sky bound feeding frenzy.
Deep darkness.
Car stalls.
5 miles to go
I wait.
Engine turns over.
On the road again.
The moon escapes the maw.
It makes a dash for freedom.
The tendrils lose their grip.
Moon slides behind a mountain.
I am jealous.
No reprieve for me.
Car stalls.
2 miles to go
I wait.
Engine turns over.
On the road again.
The sun paints the sky with its morning yawn.
Color at war with the vast armies of the night.
A reliable cycle.
A predictable outcome.
Car Stalls.
A half mile to go.
I wait.
Engine turns over.
On the road again.
The sun douses me with its first light.
I am radiant.
I am blinded.
I am almost there.
50 feet to go.
Car stalls.
In this 4 part on our series on Race, we explore the concept of Whiteness and White Trash from an anthropological perspective.
This year I have decided to participate in NaNoWriMo and attempt to write a book of 50,000 words or more during the month of November. You can follow my progress at LoridiansLab at NaNoWriMo
Recently I surveyed some of my followers on three different books. Today I am announcing the winner of that Survey and the project I will be working for the month of November.
So here it is:
Elian Anvil is a freelance Master Star Forger from the planet Rolantuz in what humans know as the Pleiades constellation. Armed with the science to turn a gas giant into a sun and provide limitless energy to all mankind, for a very modest fee, of course, he sets out to change the world.
Or is he? Locked up inside a psychiatric ward Elian, who the banal doctors insist that his real name is Peter Thompson, is just waiting for the right time to take action, or whenever his damn ship arrives.
If you’d like to be a part of future surveys and updates on any or all of my projects, you can sign up for my bi-weekly Newsletter.
Happy Halloween 2017.
I recently wrote a piece for a Halloween themed Flash Fiction Event. I thought it would be fun to record a quick video and throw it up on YouTube. But, if you just want to read, the words are also below.
Welcome back doctor, you are well I hope?
No don’t bother, I know the usual trope
Are you ready to examine me under your microscope?
I am ready to share now, I will succumb to your hopes.
Your hopes, your hopes but what of my hopes?
I take it you want me to explain my tale?
I warn you now, you will think me mad, a liar, worthy of jail
I have told a few others but to no avail
They do not believe it, thus far the truth has not prevailed
The truth, the truth, the truth will prevail
Why am I speaking in rhymes you want to know?
It simply eases my pain and lessens my woe
The loss of my wife was, you see, quite a blow
Although, you think I am guilty, that I know
The woe, the woe, you cannot possibly know.
It was early morning when I woke from my doze
The darkness still sparkled, the sun had not rose
I shifted and turned in the chair that I chose
I shut my eyes tight but they would not stay closed
Stay closed, stay closed, if only they’d stay closed
I moaned, for sleep was scarce indeed.
The first colors of the morning had begun to bleed.
I sat up in the chair and tried to proceed
But long bouts of insomnia had sapped me indeed.
Nights without end, indeed, indeed.
I rose from the chair and the world started to spin
I pawed my way to the bathroom so my day could begin
I glanced at my reflection and I did not find twin
But instead staring back was a strange man with a grin.
That grin, that grin oh the horror of that grin.
His face was like mine, but something was wrong
We stared for a while, time looped and grew long
His eyes like questions, hypnotic and strong
My terror grew deeper for a mirror is never wrong
Distorted and cracked but never wrong
How much time passed? I could not say
But I will never forget what happened that day.
For the man in the mirror, he wanted to play.
And the game that he liked? Command and obey
Obey, obey I had to obey. My gaze was fixed, I had to obey.
It was not a good game, it was cruel you see
For he was trapped in the mirror and he wanted control of me
He wanted my life, he wanted to be set free
A curse had trapped him there for all eternity
The curse, the curse he wanted to be free.
A blood sacrifice was required of course
Not a chicken, nor a goat, not even a horse
At first, I resisted, I fought with all my force
But my will was finite compared to his source
Centuries of hate were his near infinite source
He compelled me to do it, to his will I was bound
You may think me mad, that my mind is unsound
But those eyes, those greedy eyes, so wide and so round
I could not resist his will, I was bound
Bound, bound, soon we will all be bound.
He beckoned me to the kitchen, and made me grab a knife,
And then he sent me upstairs to find my sleeping wife,
I entered our room full of struggle and strife
But his desires were strong and he wanted her life
Her life, your life, bound in the blood and knife
The rest you can guess I am sure it’s quite clear
After all, I’m famous, the case of your career
Crazy as It might seem we are bound right here
Do you feel it yet doctor? That tingle? That fear
The fear, the fear are my intentions yet clear?
And now doctor, I have you, you are all mine
You lingered too long, you dallied for the last time.
I captured you with my lyrics and rhythms and rhymes
I’ve been trying to find the right vessel and now you are mine
Mine oh mine, you are all mine
You see, the sorcerer in the mirror managed to get free
But his body? Long gone and so he found a home in me
But something about me is inadequate you see
I am dying and to a new body he must flee
This body will crumble, oh doctor, it’s too late now to flee
Come closer now doctor and stare into my eyes
That’s it I beckon, I compel, I promise you no more lies
That’s right doctor, give in, resistance is unwise
Let down your barriers, let me try you on for size
Wonderful, what a fit, what an excellent prize.
Now to find the descendants of my captors and bring about their
demise.
Loridian's Laboratory 