One remarkable thing, it seems like a lot of people go through 3 or more trunk novels (according to the linked post and the responses) before they come up with anything saleable.  So, unless you count the trunk novel I wrote when I was 14, it looks like, late start or no, I did pretty well on producing a first opus that at least a respectable small press editor thought was worth showing the public.

[cross-posted from my LiveJournal page]

Tam: Did she send you?

(The question hits Christopher out of nowhere–and it instantly raises his hackles. The suspicion that he needs to move again, to lose himself in the anonymity of a new city, has been nagging at him for weeks. Someone’s been watching him; he’s seen the same ragged old woman on Seattle’s streets five times now in as many weeks, studying him with knowing eyes, but he hasn’t been brave enough to confront her. And now? Here’s another stranger, one he’s sure has also been watching him, at least today. And this stranger seems much more hostile.)
Christopher: You got a problem there then? Do I know you?

(Tam steps back from Christopher, who stands at least a head taller than him, and raises one hand as if to protect himself.)
Tam: Did she send you?

(Wait. Confusion briefly strikes the young Newfoundlander before he realizes that this stranger looks as nervous as he himself feels. Hard on the heels of that a second realization strikes him: this one, whoever he is, isn’t human. Not entirely, anyway. Questions flood him then, but he forces them down; it’s none of his business, not if he’s leaving Seattle soon. That nervousness, though… it gives him pause. He backs up a step. The strap of his bouzouki’s gig bag slips a bit on his right shoulder, and he grabs at it to keep it in place, but keeps his other hand out, palm up.)
Christopher: Swear t’ Jesus, man, nobody sent me. Just lookin’ for somewhere to busk tonight, is all.

Tam (relaxing a bit): So you’re a musician?

(Christopher grins crookedly, his hand clutching the strap on his shoulder a bit more tightly; the bouzouki’s weight at his back is a comfort. His guard’s not down, not yet. But of all the words that could describe him, ‘musician’ is perhaps the truest… and the safest. At least until he learns the measure of this stranger.)
Christopher: Yeah… well, I knock around on the zouk a bit, anyway. When I can. (He nods ahead towards the nearest bus stop on the block, and then casts a glance behind him.) And there’s an old lady wit’ a whistle two blocks back. I… ah… thought I’d jump the 43 and try downtown.

(Tam looks puzzled at the instrument case.)
Tam: “Zook?”

(This begins to bring down the Newfoundlander’s guard; maybe he read this stranger wrong? All at once he’s weary, tired of scanning every face around him for any signs of a threat. Maybe this other man is simply nothing more than what he is–a wanderer, ill-fitting his current surroundings, though truth be told he knows he stands out more himself, with a brogue that flags him as Not From Around Here with the first word out of his mouth. Jesus, he could be Warder-blood for all I know, he thought. Not that he can ask, not right out here on the street in earshot of who knows how many passing grungy college kids passing them along the sidewalk of the Ave. And so he opts for the safe topic at hand, swinging the instrument bag forward just enough to reach its zipper so he can undo it and show just enough of the neck of the instrument inside to give the stranger a look.)
Christopher: Bouzouki. The Irish kind. Kind o’ a big mandolin.

(The dark-haired stranger smiles, surprised, and quietly reads the engraving on the instrument’s neck
Tam: Airson mo mhac Crìsdean.
(His accent on the Gaelic words is peculiar and slightly off, about as different as Spanish from Portuguese, but his voice is softly resonant, and the sunlight drifts across the inscription as he reads it, as though reflected off the window of a passing car.)

(Christopher goes still, staring, stunned that the other man gets the pronunciation almost correct. For a moment, memory flares: another voice murmuring those same words. For my son Christopher. His reluctant grin fades, skewing, though his face is no less earnest as he zips the instrument bag closed to protect its cargo from the drizzle in the air. Turning his th’s to d’s, his accent thickens, while he casts one more glance back over his shoulder.)
Christopher: That’s my zouk. (He pauses, then, in a sudden burst of sympathy, he adds…) Listen, man, you want t’ come along, there’s a pub in Ballard lets me play, sometimes. Nothin’ else, we could get a pint.

Tam: Sounds good to me. (Holds out hand) I’m Tam, by the way. Sorry to pick up your name by stealth, Crisdean–it was not my intent.

(The sound of the Gaelic form of his name is enough to ease Christopher considerably, all by itself. It’s not wise, perhaps. But memory still lurks behind the tall Newfoundlander’s eyes, and now the sound of a pint sounds appealing indeed, along with the idea of company, for once. He takes the offered hand and shakes it; his own’s sturdy, a working man’s hand, though with enough calluses on his fingertips to suggest he plays that instrument of his sometimes without a pick. At the bus stop ten feet away, a Metro bus pulls up.)
Christopher: It’s okay. C’mon with you then–that’s the bus that’ll get us to that pint.
(The bus isn’t terribly crowded, not at this hour. But there are enough riders on it to keep Christopher on the alert, and he can’t quite hide his relief that the old woman he’d seen, the woman in the fedora with a whistle in her hands, is nowhere in sight. He doesn’t say much, not while the bus wends its way from the U-district to Ballard, nor once he and his companion are off again and heading on foot towards Molly Maguires. There’s music already there; it’s open mic night and the stage is occupied by a black-haired girl with a bodhran and a grizzled old fellow pulling away on a squeezebox. But Christopher, after tossing off a wave to the tender at the bar, aims for a booth towards the back–where he, and his companion for that matter, can keep an eye on the door. Somehow, for reasons he’s not quite ready to put a finger on, it seems apt.)

Tam: So the writing on your, um, Zook–was that… (He trails off, does not complete the question.)

(One of the young waitstaff of the pub comes over to take both men’s orders; absently, Christopher asks for a Pyramid ale. He waits politely until his companion’s placed his own order, and waits again until the server’s gone on his way, safely out of earshot, before he replies.)
Christopher: Gaelic. Scots Gaelic. My… (A beat.) My mum spoke it. (Another beat.) You say it differently.

Tam: She cares a lot about keeping you safe.

(Present tense. Not past, which is the truth of it. Christopher hasn’t missed that, but he doesn’t bother to correct it, not even with a bottle of local beer to blunt the reminder of memories he’d rather not consider. He’s changed the subject, and Christopher knows it; his hazel gaze swings back to Tam, shadowed now, more than a trifle wary. But he’s promised an amiable pint, and that’s what he’s going to give–even though he’s sure once again that he’s dealing with someone not entirely human. The server comes back again with his bottle of Pyramid, and he thanks the youth by rote, barely aware of his passing. Except to mark when he’s gone… and when, therefore, it’s safe for him to speak beneath the music from the stage.)
Christopher: Y’get that then, from one glimpse of my instrument?

Tam: And from your being so far from home.

(One corner of his mouth quirks up in a grin, though, as he takes a pull off that beer. ‘Far from home’–oh, yeah, quite an easier guess when a man has but to open his mouth and talk. How much he can guess off this Tam, though, is another question entirely. There’s nothing so blatant a clue as an accent, or anything the other man is carrying marked in an obvious other tongue… but still, Christopher has his suspicions.)

Christopher: That I’d be, yeah. I’m thinkin’ you’d know somethin’ o’ that yourself, too.

(Tam smiles and raises his bottle.)
Tam: I hope it’s far enough.

(Habit makes Christopher cast a glance around the place, but most everyone in the pub is focused on the duo of musicians on stage. In the booth he’s claimed with Tam, there’s the relative safety of anonymity. Now there’s the acknowledgement, given and received, that he’s got at least something in common with this other man. He’s dying to know now what more there is–and if this Tam is shirking from crossing paths with the old woman, just as he. Christopher MacSimidh has no talent for dissembling, and so he opts for as direct an approach as he can take without risking sounding daft. He leans forward where he sits, the better to keep his voice pitched low.)
Christopher: I hear that, yeah. Look now… I don’t know who your she is, but if it’s the old woman I saw, the one wit’ the whistle… I’m duckin’ her too.

(Tam cocks an eyebrow.)
Tam: Old woman with a whistle?

(Christopher blows out a breath, ill at ease all over again for having to muster words to come close to what’s been gnawing away at him for weeks in this rain-washed northern city, and never mind saying it outright. The beer helps, but only so much, and only because it gives him something to do with his hands when breaking out the bouzouki isn’t yet an option.)
Christopher: Yeah. I’ve seen ‘er, downtown sometimes, Capitol Hill, Queen Anne… (He frowns and waves a hand towards the door by way of punctuation.) Here, sometimes, but not tonight. If she’s what I think she is, she’s… (How in God’s name can he put this?) She’s someone I’m better off avoidin’.

(Tam stops drinking and sets his bottle down. He examines Christopher carefully for a moment, with a serious look on his face.)

Christopher: Does the word ‘Warder’ mean anythin’ to you?

(A pause. Tam shakes his head.)

(He’s in it now. Christopher braces himself, and it plays out on his face, for a tightening of his jaw betrays his tension. Tam’s not of the line, then, not hiding like he is. Which means he’s something else. There’s a tang of Sidhe about him–but not enough for the Newfoundlander to be certain. Not with his own Warder blood no more than latent, able only to whisper guesses, and sometimes warnings. That he feels no warning now is all that makes him brave enough to answer.)
Christopher: She’s one. The old woman. Means she’ll have a way o’ knowin’ things about this city, who’s in it… and who shouldn’t be.

Tam (Concerned, thinking this through): And she’s after you. Is warder a. . . a euphemism, like “fair folk” or “kindly ones”?

(Christopher almost laughs. Tam’s answer is enough to tell him his instincts were sound–this man does know at least something of the very world he’s avoiding. The relief of that knowledge is strong; at least he won’t be written off as a madman. He glances to the door again by reflex, smiling without any particular humor, eyes distant.)
Christopher: Nah. (His gaze comes back.) But a Warder knows the meanin’ behind those words.

Tam: That’s good to know. The energy coming off you is. . . out of place. I mean, it’s yours, but there’s something about it, like it needs to come to rest. If that’s what she’s after, then you have to get it tucked away, or it’ll be way too easy to peel it off of you.

(All color drains out of Christopher’s face and he slumps back in the booth, tilting his head back a moment, clamping his eyes shut. He does laugh, now, and it’d be a good laugh if it had any pleasure in it; as it stands, it sounds more like fear. )
Christopher: You… you can tell?

(Tam utters a mild profanity in a language similar to, but not the same as Gaelic, the same language he seemed to speak when he read the words on the bouzouki. He slowly, carefully, looks around the room before speaking again.)
Tam: Yeah. I can tell. I shouldn’t have said.

(And now, with a pause in the music as the duo on the little stage gives way to an older woman with a guitar, those not-Gaelic words are clearer to Christopher’s ear. He looks again at his companion, then waves off those last words and plucks up the bottle before him again to drain it dry.)
Christopher: I thought you would. It’s okay. (He sighs.) Well then, Tam, I can say this. If she’s good at the Wardin’ she’ll know you’re here. If you’re after keepin’ your head down, and if you’re passin’ through, she’ll not care. (When his bottle is empty, he sets it back down before him and stares at it, his voice gone very low.) If trouble finds you on Seattle ground, though… that she’ll care for.

Tam: I see. (Pause.) If that’s the case, then why is she after you?

In other news, however, Shadow of the Antlered Bird has picked up a five-star review at the new site Poddy Book Reviews.  It’s a new site, so I’m not sure how high the standards are or how many people read it, but the reviewer compares my book to “how Leonard Cohen grabs you by the brain and forces you to ponder the meaning of his poems, or the lyrical quality of his songs.”

The way cookiemancy works is, before you open a fortune cookie, you ask it a question, and then whatever the cookie says, you interpret that as an answer to your question.  Since it isn’t actual divination, you may alter the interpretation according to whim to make it more appealing, more entertaining, more sensible, or more bizarre. 

For example, when I introduced Sarah Avery to cookiemancy, she asked whether she would be able to sell her first novel (this was the epic-length Hands of Beltresa, which currently remains unsold, although she has since written Closing Arguments, which was published by Drollerie Press), the cookie answered, The world is always ready to welcome talent with open arms.

“Well, that’s not true,” said Sarah, and was about to write cookiemancy off, when I suggested that some reinterpretation was required.  And sicne we’re both grammar nerds, I suggested the problem was a misplaced modifier–that it was not talent the world would welcome with open arms, but rather “talent with open arms” that the world was welcome.  “So, ah…” I said, not really sure where I was going, “…it could mean that…um…you will be discovered once you’ve…uh…given up and slashed your wrists?”

Needless to say, that interpretation of open arms didn’t go over big.  “Or,” I suggested, “open arms could mean you’re receptive–that talent alone is not enough, but your ability to listen well and really capture people is what will put your book over the top.”

Another time, when a question about my book (then still a manuscript in progress) turned up Give a kiss to the person who sits next to you (while at lunch with a married coworker), I read that as a reminder to seek out the advice of others and really listen to their opinions on the manuscript in progress.

Cookiemancy can sometimes happen by accident, if there’s a really pressing question on your mind.  For example, a fortune that said Your happiness is dependent on your outlook in life really restored my equilibrium once, the day after someone stole the radio out of my car.  Another time, I went for Chinese food with some friends the day after their wedding, before they’d left on their honeymoon, and we all laughed when the groom got There is still time to change your path (that was 16 years ago, and they’re still happily married).

So cookiemancy remains a part of my life–not because I believe in it, but like most of my superstitions, because it entertains me.  Because the world is a richer and more interesting place when viewed through the lens of magical thinking. 

So when Antlered Bird was released, and I picked up take out and wrote the announcement, I asked my fortune cookie how my precious book would do in the big, bad world, and I got, A dream is just a dream.  A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline.

So I’m pretty happy with that.  It means I have work to do, but that work still makes me pretty happy.

I have no idea who runs that blog, or why they found my post worth noting.  But apparently they did.  And as far as I can tell, there are no ads on the site, so I think it’s an actual person who read my post and found it interesting, not just a bot that brings things in at random. 

It’s a good feeling, and kind of weird.  And I must admit to having a bit of a knee-jerk distrust impulse (so far, almost all of the comments I’ve received on my blog have been from bots trying to spam my readers).  But, as I said, it seems legit.  And kind of flattering.

Oh, and looking at the “related” posts on CatVeranda (apparently only related by the keyword “bird”), I found another interesting link to somebody’s dream about finding Judy Garland’s cockatoo (or eagle) in a café.

For those who aren’t on my mailing list, here is the press release for the new publication of Shadow of the Antlered Bird: 

“When you arrive at the end of the novel, you’ll want to immediately reread this wonderful book.”
-Liviu Suciu, Fantasy Book Critic Blogspot
 

In time for Halloween, Drollerie Press has just released the e-book Shadow of the Antlered Bird, an intense and haunting novella by David Sklar that explores the darker side of identity, as a young man’s quest to find himself unleashes a nightmare he is not prepared to face.Order it at: http://drolleriepress.com/bookshop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=33
Read an excerpt: http://drolleriepress.com/Authors/?page_id=120
Read the review: http://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com/2008/08/indie-review-shadow-of-antlered-bird-by.html

More information, including the author\\\’s blog and details of recent publications by David Sklar in Membra Disjecta, Space & Time, and other venues, can be found at: http://davidwriting.com/

The Drollerie Web site also now has my author page and an excerpt from the novella.

More info soon.  If you’re on my mailing list, you can expect your first e-mailing from this site.

Yes, my chilling little novella will be available before Allhallows, so you may yet read it in the season to which it is suited.

Antlered Bird Flyer