Tag Archives: Anori

Anori Outtake: Qoorog

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And then Qoorog was there, coming up the path, along the edge of it, plodding forward, his head down, his hair hanging down, knees up high, one after the other, like he was sleepwalking. IMG_3493The hill was steep and the steam thick. I waited for him. He was a heavy guy, thick jowls and stomach, but he wasn’t out of breath; he didn’t look at her as he approached.

“You smoke?” His voice wasn’t like she imagined; it was normal, like she was talking to someone in the park.

“Yes.” He had a big head, round and impressive, high heavy cheek bones, a wide jaw, a silvery walrus neatly trimmed mustache, large ears and a thick neck; his eyes were bright behind his wire-framed glasses, almost stern. “I don’t.”

“I’ve seen your cat.”

“Yes.” He was already moving past, his walking cadence the same, slow and hard, his feet shooting out ahead and then almost gliding, like a mute spirit-walker supreme.

Anori Outtake: Watching Adults

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“I read about you in the newspaper.”

“My life’s a scandal.”

“My mother cried when she saw that story. I remember looking at the picture of your house. It was dark behind the trees. I didn’t understand.”20140914_112241“No.” Dee traced her finger on the swirling lines of the granite. “You didn’t read about that.”

“I remember my mother talking about it at my uncle’s, standing by the fireplace. I was looking into the fire, watching the logs move forward and fall into the ashes.”IMAG2094 “My aunt told everyone about your father crashing his motorcycle, and they were talking about you. These people were all above me, adults talking like they knew things. That was the moment when I knew they didn’t. They knew nothing. They were scared. They just said these things that filled the air, that it was tragic and you were poor girl and there was nothing anyone could have done. And I looked at this fireplace and was suddenly terrified. I had felt like I was safe, that the fireplace meant something, the food on the table, the glasses in their hands, but it meant nothing. Everything was nothing. Nothing was nothing. It wasn’t just a word. It was all I knew.”

Anori Outtake: Music in Antarctica

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It was a long wooden walkway running down over the rocks to it, a dull yellow, low clapboard structure with small rectangular window and an unassuming bland metal chimney on the end, the calm water, ice and endless sky spreading out beyond it as far as she could see. That was their home for the next three weeks.my houseHer mother played records from start to finish. Lai wasn’t allowed to just listen to her favorite songs. She had to get there. She had to hear all of the songs on the record, both sides, A and B. Puff was the second last song on Side A. And then This Land is Your Land. I couldn’t stand that song. peterpaulLai watched her mother, sitting there in a hand-knit sweater, a grey and white caribou herd across her chest. She looked old, not just the way she moved, but her face and neck. It was what she imagined for herself, wandering through darkness, not finding the right things, sitting and staring, because there was nothing else to do.

Anori Outtake: Robi on Gambling

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They watched Ethan step back from the table, trying to look calm.

“He’s really into it.” Robi’s voice cracked.

“You don’t gamble?” Angelica asked.

“Yeah, I’ve gambled. I’ve lost everything and tried to get more to make it all back.”

“I couldn’t do it.” Angelica sighed. “I just couldn’t lose money like that.” thegambler“I’ve lost money. Shit, it wasn’t that bad. It was just stupid.” Robi sat forward, his cheek lightly against the stucco pillar. “I lost $3500 on Blackjack. I just didn’t know when to go to bed.”

“I don’t get it,” Angelica tilted her head.

“It’s just…you’re there and you believe that you will win. It’s incredibly real. It’s faith.”

“Sounds like boredom to me,” she replied.

Anori Outtake: Terror in Sex

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She was hiding under the covers and then I was under her dress, tucked against her breasts. She tried to push me away but she liked it too much, her body taut, pushing into my face and then pulling away. I loved her like that, her lips and breasts, her hips rolling up, so bent on the edge. I liked that emptiness, holding that demand in me, hard, and I couldn’t stop.smiling downShe was still wearing her panties and part of her top, or at least I thought she was, and saw her lean away, her face go to one side, eyes closed as she lifted her knees and grabbed my shoulder. I was frozen, seeing her like that, pent up, wanting to explode, me wanting nothing but that, to be there, my hand down her stomach, pulling at her top and breasts, down onto her hips, pulling her panties down, all of her naked, she turning around, pushing back, wiggling, hanging on in a desperate act, burning, her back arched and pulling me inside. It was terrifying – for a moment anyway – how much I liked it.

Valerie Texting

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Valerie texted with both thumbs and a forefinger, her long fingers with ethereal pink nails, furrowing her brows, curling the corner of her mouth, her feet splayed out sideways, her knees pressed in. Valerie TextingShe looked almost a caricature of herself, everything exaggerated and intense, tight inside herself, not even there, aware of nothing but her screen.

Transplanting Characters in “Anori”

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Fitz is a go-to character in Anori: “To my mind, the philosopher types all died in the Renaissance and that.” 

It seemed obvious that he would be a player in a prime scene in the book, something that’s got everything – sex, police chases as well as furious angst. bugsHowever I realized that Uncle Ralph is the one who belongs in the scene; he’s family and makes Dee understand what she will be leaving.

And so, as much as I love the witticisms of Fitz, I had to expunge him from the great chase scene in New York.

He was transported to Greenland instead, where he will watch the ice melt and wax melancholic about the great ships launching into space. b57d5767-8ffc-4950-a52d-7e5eda760aec-620x372“Good seein’ ’em go. Now we can have a bit of the peace and quiet.”

 

Anori: Inertly Happy in the Book

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At the moment, I am in an oddly happy place in my writing. I have another 60-80 pages to go in the first draft of Book One of my science fiction trilogy, Anori. IMG_3153I am fairly certain how the book will end – and then leading into the next – and have done the heavy lifting of the narrative to get to this point. I only have to bring the story together with a final series of events that will lead Dee away on her great voyage. And it all seems so clear and whole…and yet I wait and procrastinate the work. Yes, I am a victim of my inertia-loving self. 20140625_210115But it also seems more than that. There is a feeling that I don’t want to lose, being in something that just might never end, being safe in this eternal-seeming thing.

There is a wide and open road behind me, most of it clear, and then the world ahead, knowing sharp bits, dreaming of them on their own, letting them hover high in my head, not grabbing, tying anything down. It is too final to do that, pointless, leading only to a barren landscape. 20150301_133111While I know that there is always Book Two – and then the Third – this book, this journey I don’t want to end. I like the edge, broiling up on the crest, anticipating, arching ahead with that, and dream of staying until I can’t take it anymore.DSCN2352

Leaving Home As a Kid

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“I wandered off as a kid, just kind of left. I never wanted to run away, nothing like that, but I liked being in my own head and staying there, alone.” Och squeezed the brim of his hat between his hands, bending the thick material together. “I remember once coming home from school, pretending to sleep, just so I could miss my stop. That’s how I thought. I had to pretend to sleep and wake up in case someone was watching. It was just…I just wanted to see where the bus went. I always got off at the same stop and I didn’t know where it went. I wanted to know where it went. And so I opened my eyes like, ‘Oh, no, I missed it. What do I do now?’ And there wasn’t anything. It was all the same, streets and stores and apartments. I stared out the window as we went north. And then it was only apartment buildings, wide avenues and then empty fields. The bus came to a turnaround and the driver asked me if I was lost. I told him that I had missed my stop.”

“How old were you?” Dee asked.

“I don’t know. I think maybe Grade Three.”

“You rode the bus alone when you were eight?”

“I did the same thing on the subway another time. I went to the end of the line. I collected a transfer from every station.” I stared into the water as if he could see his small hands clutching bits of colored paper. “I was never scared or anything. I was just getting off and on the train, collecting transfers. It was so great…like magic.”