Bench mark

While I know you write until your story is done, I thought I'd report that I've now reached 80,000 words on Oraphan Cycle, so I've officially written something that is actually book length!

Hey hey, its the next part of BTBBN...

I usually like to have a little banter before I present the chapter. But I ogt nothing, so here it is.

Chapter 3
The Uneventful Trip to Camp

Jacob’s dad was out of town on business again, so it was only his mom who was there to boss him around. “Jacob,” she said, “you have got to pack. You leave in two days!” Jacob mostly ignored her and went on playing games. He was tired of this joke; it had ceased to be funny a long time ago, so now he just ignored it. If they wanted to keep on playing games, then they could all they wanted.
“But that note really was weird, Jacob,” Eric had said when Jacob had told him of his resolution. “I couldn’t read it, and that was real! I couldn’t see anything on it at all! So maybe your parents really did see a brochure and sign you up for this thing.” But Jacob wouldn’t buy it; it was much less unusual for his family to be playing a joke on him than for there to be a magical brochure to send him to necromancy camp, and therefore the former had to be true. Weird things like that didn’t happen; the extended joke was already strange enough.
Jacob ignored it all. If he ignored it, it would just go away.

It was sometime past midnight. Jacob had fallen asleep on the couch, lit by the iridescent glow of the television. Late night advertising programs flickered, selling knick knackery of the finest quality. Being an unconscionably heavy sleeper, Jacob didn’t hear the faint tapping at the window. He didn’t hear it when it went on for thirty minutes, nor when it turned into a sharp wrapping, and eventually an insistent, if somewhat diminutive pounding.
The doorbell rang its synthesized chime throughout the house, and Jacob woke with a start, surprised to find it still very dark. Downstairs he heard his mother shuffling to the door. She clicked on the porch lights, looked around, then shuffled back to bed, leaving the lights on. Fully awake and a bit curious, Jacob jumped in shock when he heard the tap tapping on the window once again.
The first thing he did was grab the remote and turn off the TV. His eyes still burned blue from the light, and he could see nothing save the pinkish hue of the sky outside and hints of his own reflection from the lights that still shone from the DVD player and satellite box. The tapping again, and he saw the ripple of glass where it had been hit. Was somebody tossing pebbles at his window? A shudder of fear wobbled over his flesh at the thought of the man in the Cadillac, but it was always possible it was one of his friends playing a joke on him, or trying to get his attention for something. Bending down close to the window, he cupped his hands to block out the light.
With a sudden shock he sprang back, staring wide eyed into the darkness. Two beady eyes stared back. Tap tap tap. The eyes were not human, but the looked at him with bizarre intelligence. There was a hissing and squeaking, and whatever it was scratched at the glass of the window. Jacob sat stark still, afraid to move, and then in all the squeaks he thought he heard, “Open up!”
Jacob didn’t respond. He didn’t want to open the window. He dared to get closer to the unknown knock knocker, but could not quite make out what it was, even though it couldn’t possibly be human. Was it a nocturnal squirrel? A raccoon? Jacob didn’t want to know; after a moments thought he went to his own room and shut the door, hoping that the strange creature was just confused.
He lay in bed and waited for the inevitable. The minutes crawled by, and slowly he began to nod off, when suddenly, tap tap tap went the glass of his bedroom window. He covered his head with his pillow, but the wrapping seemed to penetrate straight through and into his ears. “Go away,” he said aloud.
The tapping stopped.
He took the pillow away from his head and looked at the window. He couldn’t see anything outside except the tree lulling in the wind. At first he couldn’t believe he was actually being left alone; part of him expected to be hounded all night. Yet now there was nothing but peace and quiet. He laid down on his cold sheets feeling relaxed and sleepy.
Then the tapping was at his door.
He didn’t believe it at first. There couldn’t be tapping at his door. Slowly, with uncertainty, he sat up in bed. It was impossible, silly. He was imagining it. He had been about to fall asleep, and then his restless mind had made the noise itself for some reason. Maybe he should have been afraid, but he wasn’t, so sure was he that he had misheard. But the sound had sounded real enough. He waited longer, but there was not another tapping.
Tap tap tap.
Until there was another tapping.
Jacob couldn’t ignore it this time. It was definitely real. What was outside his room door? What could he do? There was only one thing he could do. Weakly he tried to call out, “Mom!”
But the words sputtered all the way down in his chest and just barely blubbered from his lips. He was barely audible even to himself. He tried to work up his courage, even then realizing that his courage might get his mom killed if there were something actually dangerous on the other side of the door. “Mom!” he called a bit louder, though he knew it was still too soft. He prepared to shout again.
“No, ist not your mom,” said a small, raspy voice with an odd accent. “Open the door, I’m bringing mezzage.”
Perhaps it was the unusual accent that disarmed Jacob, or the life lessons he had learned from watching movies as a child, that good things always came from opening the door to mysterious strangers in the middle of the night. Isn’t that what cartoons had been teaching him from his youth, that children were chosen for greatness in the middle of the night.
And so with trepidation, and hopes for a glorious future, Jacob cautiously approached the door. The carpet was cushy under his bare feet as he reached out for the knob. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but it wouldn’t go down; maybe he should just go back to bed after all. Surely the shadows he had seen beneath the door that looked like two little feet weren’t actually real. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat again. Where did throat lumps come from, anyway? He had never gotten one before.
With a surge of courage or foolishness, he yanked open the door.
“Hiss!” went the possum.
Jacob yelped and fell backward.
“Saury boud dat,” said the possum. “Iz jus reflex.”
“Are you going to hurt me?”
“Not right now I donz think. Just make no sudden movemens.”
Jacob nodded.
“Well, I comes to pick you up for camp.”
“What? Seriously? But it’s the middle of the night.”
“Yes, well, I comes to pick you up when I comes, and I am nocturnal so there you go.”
“But I haven’t packed.”
“You were supposed to be packed, but we are on tight schedule, so we go. Jus grab a few things and we go.”
“Okay, just a second.” Jacob grabbed his book bag from his closet and started shoving clothes into it.
“Underwear, bring loz of underwear. Do you have your toothbrush; children muz brush their teeth.”
“I’ll get it, just a second.”
“Iz very important have dry socks; bring lots of socks…and loz of underwear. You wear boxers? I think briefs better for exercise. Bring collared shirt for special occasion, okay?”
Jacob finished cramming clothes into the bag and went to his bathroom.
“You getting tooth brush? Good. Kids muz brush teeth. Did you bring enough underwear? Okay, lez go.” They left his room in a mess. Leading the way, the possum jumped up to the open window; Jacob wondered how he had gotten it open in the first place.
“Shouldn’t I tell my mom I’m going.”
“No, she knows, you should have said goodbye before. We muz go now, so no time to tarry. Go, come.”
Jacob climbed out the window. The night was surprisingly warm and muggy, and he felt sticky and nasty almost immediately. He slipped on the roof shingles when he tried to grab for the tree limb to climb down, but he managed to catch himself. Still, by the time he got to the ground he was already dirty and beginning to sweat.
In front of the house a taxi cab was waiting, and they climbed into the back seat. The air conditioning was blasting on high and just touching the cold, fake leather seats made Jacob chilly. At first the change was a bit of a relief, but after just a few minutes of driving, Jacob was rather uncomfortable.
By the time they hit mid-town, Jacob could feel his teeth beginning to chatter involuntarily. He felt tired and thought what a relief it would be to fall asleep, but he couldn’t. The houses wherever they were looked odd and smallish; in fact, he was confused as to where they were. There weren’t any street lights, and it was dark outside except a few porch lights, some of which gave off a strange, almost blinding, bug zapper like light.
“Where are we going?” he asked the possum.
“We have to pick up some of your books, since you didn’t look at your book lizt.”
“Where though?”
“This iz street nobody else come to. Iz off Robert Lee at funny angle, so iz called Diagonal Lee.”
“Is it a street that only magical people can see?”
“No, but many specialty book stores down here. Market fell out for necromancy and alchemy and like, so nobody come down here but us and few Wiccan nuts.”
“Oh,” said Jacob. “Where is your accent from?”
“Two miles from your house.”
“You’re only two miles from my house? Why is your accent so weird?”
“Why my accent weird?” asked the possum defensively, suddenly raising his voice. “Local accents appear when not everyone watches TV all the time! Possums near your house don’t even speak English! Waz closest possum available who speaks it!”
“Oh,” said Jacob feeling uncomfortable for upsetting the possum. The AC fan shushed out of the vent right on Jacob’s legs, which were growing numb from the cold, and his skin was sticking to the seats. Between this and the possum’s silence, he was fairly uncomfortable. “Uh, what’s your name, anyway?”
“Virgil,” said the possum.
“Nice to meet you, Virgil.” Jacob hoped being polite might open up the possum to speaking again; he seemed like a very sensitive fellow. But the conversation didn’t start anew, and they rode the rest of the way in silence, which thankfully wasn’t very far.
It was an old brick building with a glass front of windows that started about waist high, lit from the inside with dead fluorescent lighting. A bell jangled as they entered the door. The shelves were chock full of books, as were the couple of displays which had so many books packed on them that their efficacy as displays was questionable. Jacob walked over to one of the displays and started looking over the myriad titles. Luther Speaks: An Ode to the Great Apostate, Sun Beam’s Astrology: A Practical Guide for Me, Clarence Yojimbo’s English-Japanese Dictionary, Crystal Truths: Why its all about Lines, Man, and The Kybalion, amongst others. “Ignore those,” said Virgil, “they are not relevant to our ztuedies. Most of them are there for the stragglers who come off street anyway; zerious stuff iz in back.”
“Hey, Rick,” said a man behind the counter in the back of the store, “What’s up?” The man was tall and thin, had a thick growth of whiskers, though nothing you could call a beard, long hair and thick, black framed glasses.
“No much Moon Child, juz buying school books for zummer camps.”
“I thought your name was Virgil?”
“Virgil? Virgil! Get out of my store you overgrown gray rat!” shouted the store keeper, yanking a sawed off shotgun from beneath the counter.
“No! Iz child stupid! He gets confused with story I tellz about your arch nemesis Virgil the Immolator, possum who accidentally burn down your old bookstore and house and mother’s house. We juz meet, so he get confused.”
“I loved that house…and my momma.”
“I understand, don’t mind us, we juz pick up books. I know where are.”
They walked to the back corner of the bookstore, under a sign that said ‘Alchemy and Hermetics’ in big block letters. “Did you really kill his mom?” asked Jacob when he thought the clerk probably couldn’t hear them.
“No, but she moved to Utah after losing house.”
“Oh,” said Jacob, though he still didn’t quite understand. “What is Hermetics?” he asked after a moment.
“Stuff you can’t understand.”
“Why can’t I understand it?”
“Because iz Hermetics.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Yes.”
Their conversations made no sense, thought Jacob. He followed Virgil/Rick around the bookstore, carrying the growing stack of books that the possum pointed out. Jacob couldn’t even remember the titles of them all, there were so many. Leroy’s Practical Shamanism, A Southern Guide to Necromancy, The Tao of Willie, The Penguine thrift edition of Psychotropic Drugs and the Path to Enlightenment, Blue Duck’s History of Texas, So you want to talk to the Dead? Definitive Edition…
“Donz worry,” said Virgil, “Iz some for next semester too.”
“Next semester?” said Jacob, suddenly dropping the books and almost crushing the possum. “I thought this was just a summer camp? What do you mean next semester?”
“Hiss!” hissed Virgil. “Watch out kid! Iz boarding school and zummer camp, didn’t you read brochure?”
“I’m not going to boarding school in…in…wherever!”
“Dog Tick.”
“That’s stupid; all my friends are at Covington!”
“Fine, fine, you’re not going to boarding school, okay, fine, but pick up books anyway and ztop complaining.”
Before they were through, Jacob had three stacks of books on the counter. The bill was astronomical, but Virgil told him not to worry, his parents would be billed later. By the time Jacob had transferred all his books to the refrigerator that was the cab, his arms felt as though they were about to fall off.
“Now where to?” he asked, hoping it would be far away so he could sleep, then changing his mind because he had forgotten that the car was freezing and he wouldn’t be able to sleep.
“Juz back zouth; we muz hurry to catch the bus.”

just a daily update

I totally and unequivocally do not buy that modern fantasy novels are 120,000 words long on average. According to Word, Oraphan is currently about 76,000, meaning I'd be halfway to this, and not quite halfway to a bigger book which can be something like 200,000 words. They say that most books have about 250 words per page in a paperback...again, I don't buy it. Looking at what appears to me to be a standard length page in a history book I'm currently reading, it has closer to 500 words on the page. If it really is close to 250 words per page, right now I'm looking at my manuscript being already over 300 pages; that's not huge by any means, but not a particularly large fantasy novel. But mostly, Oraphan just doesn't 'seem' that long; yes, I'm going by gut feel, but I can take my time getting through 300 pages in a novel. Oraphan, though, wizzes by when I do my re-reads; I think Word is lying to me...that's it.

Why is this important? Well, because supposedly first time authors do better if their manuscripts are a bit shorter, so I'm trying to figure out just where I need to wrap up the first 'volume' of my work so that it makes a nice, sellable trade paperback. Otherwise I'd just write until I'm done...which won't be for awhile. Sometimes I feel like those hack writers who just write and write and write and never even really tell a story...like a modern TV serial or something...like BattleStar Galactica. Do all those episodes really give you more character development? Not necessarily. So I have to ask myself, am I just filling space, or are my characters actually growing, and in the way I want them to. For that very reason, I nixed about 2 typewritten pages yesterday. Bren just wasn't acting like Bren...but the fact that I had to write it to realize that in the first place leads me to believe I haven't been writing him as himself consistently throughout the whole thing. I have a feeling for each character, but sometimes that can shift or move, temporarily or more permanently...so, for instance, Glay just had a shift, but it was intentional...but Lemuel has developed over time in a way that may not have made sense from the beginning...

For a writer, my blogs sure are wordy and useless. That's why I'm trying to write fiction, and not blogs, I suppose.