"Fraulein, you are obviously many things, not the least of which is repetitious."

I do not want to let slide all the questions you asked me a couple of weeks ago, so I think I'll just go ahead  and answer them all in this post! They are not particularly philosophical questions, so a line or two in answer to each will certainly be adequate and probably less confusing for you readers than trying to devote an entire post to a single inquiry. Got it? Okay.

Bree asked: "To which character in The Baby to you feel most sympathetic? To which can you most relate?" Though there are several characters to whom I feel much sympathy, I believe The Queen would be the one who garners most from me. You want to hate her simply because she's the whole reason a child was stolen, but you just can't. She is the sort of woman who would not have been royalty if she hadn't had a brother ambitious enough for both of them, and though she rules well, she is a little bewildered and only comes out of her bewilderment when in the presence of her baby, the Prince of Crissendumm.
I can most relate, probably, to Jamsie or Smidgen; both are trying to keep the scraps of their family together, both are finding certain aspects of that responsibility a challenge, both have a lot at stake. I can relate not because my family is falling apart, but because if it ever came to that, I'd feel like the responsible party. I can also relate to Starling, though, as far as longing for certain things that seem impossible, and going about the Palace making odd observations and remarks. That is not to say that these three are my favorite, but that I can most relate to them. I think at present The Admiral is my absolute favorite, and now I've got Elisabeth on board with me in that respect which makes me happy.

Bree also asked: "What age-range are you aiming for with this book?" Technically speaking, it is for ages 12 and up. Jamsie and Richmond, the principle characters, are thirteen and twelve respectively (I think? I forget now) so it is a little young to be classified as Y/A fiction. But it's not mid-grade fiction - the themes and complexities are a little advanced for middle-schoolers, I think, though I saw recently that middle-schoolers were being required to read The Scarlet Letter. I mean, honestly? You'll soon tell me that Bleak House is required reading in kindergarten. I have always enjoyed "children's" books, so I think identifying with one age-range (while easier for marketing) lessens the value that an all-encompassing range would have. I think that many readers in many age-ranges will enjoy The Baby. The side-characters are, for the most part, out of their teens, so there are plenty of adults to interest older readers.

And: "Who is The Baby, or is that Top Secret?" The ambiguity of The Baby's identity is purposeful and inevitable. You will have to wait to read the book for a full explanation.

And: How long is the project currently? (and how long to you expect it to be?) Currently, The Baby is a sorry little 21,000 words long. I still have much of the plot to write, but it is not going to be a hefty book. I hope to reach 70-80,000 words.  Lots of work to do. *sigh*. I have been busy with plotting and detailing, but there has not been over-much writing going on. The trouble with building word-count for me seems to be all the alleys I could go down with my fascinating side-characters, and knowing me, I have to be careful not to give them too much of the stage. (good luck with that.)

Esther asked a mash of simple questions that I can answer quickly:

1. Are the Baby, Jamsie, and Richmond the only earth-folk in Crissendum at the moment? One can never be quite sure, can they? The thing is, the citizens of Crissendumm often visit this world, but this world is rather ignorant of the existence of their world, so apart from tumbling down The Puddle or another portal, people seldom go there.

2. In whose household is Starling? The Queen's household. At the start of the book, Starling is an unfortunate undermaid's undermaid.

3. How old are Jamsie, Richmond, Smidgen, and Starling? Jamsie is thirteen, almost fourteen; Richmond is twelve, almost thirteen. Smidgen never exactly tells us his age, but I'd warrant he's in line with Richmond. Starling is sixteen, but very small for her age.

4.  Falling into Crissendum is apparently simple enough, since your characters did it accidentally. Is it as easy to fall out? Does the puddle go both ways? There are several portals in and out of Crissendumm. One would be sailing off the edge of the world, because in Crissendumm, this is still possible. Another method is stepping in the arch formed by the Nodding Twins, two ancient willows. This dumps you out somewhere in a wood in America and is a mischievous way, because you're never sure which wood. There are other ways, like stepping through a certain reflection of a reflection into the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, which can be a bit awkward. The portals are all marked on the globes made in Crissendumm, and are common knowledge. It is a rule with the portals that they can only work one direction each trip, so you have to exit by a different portal; this keeps traffic to a low. Imagine banging into someone careening down one way while you were shooting up the opposite direction? Road-kill in such instances would be difficult to clean up. 

5. Who is this John character? John Brady is Leona's love interest, and Leona is Smidgen's sister. John is a teacher at Whiskin's Abbey at the beginning of his contracted term of four years, and thus tied to life as a monk for the interim. 

And for the very last question, Bree asked if I could give you a proper introduction to Crissendumm. I shall refer all of you who are curious to Crissendumm: A World Inside a World where I explain lots and lots about this strange place. I hope my answers satisfied you, and thank you so much for asking; I love to delve into the whys and wherefores thereof. :)

Septemberisms

It's the start of September which in its turn, is not really the start of autumn which is in its turn, my favorite season of the year. And between such things like reading about the murders of the Princes in the Tower by Richard III, reading Miss Marple mysteries aloud at midnight, scoring The Mind of the Maker with a G2 pen to mark all the best quotes, making cinnamon-sugar doughnuts, and directing and producing a mini-musical, I have had some time to write. Not quite as much time as I'd like, but it seems I'm in a reading stage of the writing which is, of course, equally important. Reading is the fuel that good writing runs on, and when I'm not reading, my engine tends to gutter. So though someone else's book is the tome in my hand these days, I am not too worried. That said, I thought it was time for some snippets so you could enjoy what writing I have done, and get a feeling for what is to come.

   She felt stronger, too, next to the baby, and strength was a thing she'd always lacked; she was only Veronique in these moments, wearing a wreath of poppies in her hair from the field near Darrow-Dwelling, and waiting for her brother, Darron, to return from his first hunt.

-The Baby

  Jamsie crossed her arms and thrust her chin at a higher angle. "Queen Victoria is quite the safest queen to have ever lived."
  "Much you know, m'lady. Why, i'faith, her every footstep is probably dogged by an assassin or four, her food hovered over with a spoonful of poison, her carriages stalked by hateful citizens who only wait for a chance to shed royal blood."

-The Baby

  Since there seemed nothing left to be said, Jamsie remained silent. What was one supposed to say to a thing like that? All the etiquette columns she'd studied in preparation for growing up neglected to cover how one should respond to a death threat.

-The Baby

  "Climbing has rather been proven to aid one's health, I believe," Ap-Brainard called back to them from a landing ahead. "Upward--it'll be bloody worth it if you've the guts to look beauty herself in the eye. Not many men have the pluck."

-The Baby

   In books they speak of certain women looking like angels; perhaps it was the other way round: perhaps angels--the best and gentlest--occasionally look like women.

-The Baby

  The Lady took a step forward, extending her pretty white hands, and when she took Jamsie's face in her hands and kissed her, the kiss was so like Mum's that Jamsie felt the ache of tears in the bridge of her nose.

-The Baby

  It hurt Jamsie to hear the light gaiety of the Queen's tone when she could see the way the poor woman chafed her wrists till the blood came rose-red to the surface of her skin.

-The Baby

  Richmond cleared his throat and opened his mouth, but a swift jab from the Admiral on his right cut the remark short, ending it in an ill-advised cough. Richmond twisted in his chair, furious and sore, but the Admiral was inspected a slice of toast held up to his nose and was, by all appearances, now quite absorbed in the study.
   "What did you mean by that?" Richmond hissed.
  "Not enough butter, your majesty," the Admiral said a bit sadly, and put the slice of toast to the side.

-The Baby

  The Queen carried The Baby back to her chair with Nurse following anxiously after, and sat down, holding him on her lap. "We'll grow up to be a lovely man, shan't we? Lovely, lovely, lovely--" (with a bounce for each word) "And you'll grow up to be just like your Papa, shan't you? Only, I'll keep you close to me always because you know I love you so, darling thing."

-The Baby

 "I can't say for sure, can I, Your Majesty?" Starling finally answered. "I could'eve had the best and kindest mum and father in th'world and still turned out skinny as a springtime eel, couldn't I have? But there probably wouldn't be quite so many bruises on my back, I'll wager." She shrugged.

-The Baby

.. (The Admiral) undid the ebony buttons of his feathered veskit. Goons, but it was a hot piece of haberdashery.

-The Baby

Come visit again tomorrow for a very special interview and giveaway!

Irresponsible things like engagements of state..

  When people ask what inspires a certain story, there is generally a list of things that spring to mind on a basic level. Elisabeth Grace Foley's question started me thinking about what really did inspire The Baby, and to be sure I did not give a pat, off-the-cuff-links answer. She admitted that this is a question she has great difficulty answering, so I am sure she will have grace with me for being a bit abstract, perhaps.


      As far as strictly commonplace things that inspired The Baby (or helped me come up with it, or whathaveyou), the first that comes to mind is a man I know. I do not especially like this man (which is why he showed up as Darron Ap-Brainard, bwa-ha), but since the very first of my acquaintance with him, he made me cock my head and try to figure him out (which is also how he swaggered his way into the novel). There is a strange mix of charm and double-faced-ness about the real man which lends itself well to making a good antagonist. I do not think the man himself is a villain, so you will not find complete villainy in Ap-Brainard. (But honestly, a complete villain with no shred of ruined goodness about him is not much of a character to read about.)
     The other commonplace thing that gave me the idea for this story was the peculiar thing that happens to me with many of my novels: the first line. Usually I end up changing the first line in the final draft, but it is usually a first line that gives me the idea for a whole story. I'm a big one for starting different Microsoft Word files for bits of writing that probably won't go anywhere. But occasionally they do, and The Baby is one such. At the start of it, you have a little shred of dialog:

 "We could mutiny!"

 And that's all. But from that bit of dialog came the whole of the story as you know it now. Wonderful, how the mind ends up making mountains out of molehills. Please don't ask how a lost baby came out of a line about mutiny. I couldn't tell you.
  But sometimes inspiration can be retroactive, meaning that some of the less-obvious things that prove as inspiration for The Baby were not even recognizable as inspiration for anything when I first became acquainted with them. Oftentimes they are things from years back. Or, even if recent, the items that inspire seem to have very little to do with the matter under inspection; upon seeing a pin-board for a new novel idea, Jenny suggested I read Rosemary Sutcliff's The Shield Ring for inspiration, though it is "off by a thousand years." In the same way, the names of the Balder children sprang from nothingness: they are both named after their father's shipping firm; Jamsie's real name is 'Jamaica', from the sugar-plantation that has been in her family's possession for several generations. Richmond was named for the great city in America where their father's company has a sister shipping-office. The ideas for the family business were inspired in some part by Amazing Grace (quite opposite an effect than Wilberforce must have been thinking), as well as The Witch of Blackbird Pond. In both cases the source had very little to do with why I retained some little impression about plantations, but...I did. Something about slaves and sugar and Barbados and Jamaica. I dunno.
    The whole idea for The Puddle came from a nighttime walk to the mailbox when the eery idea whispered in my head as I sloshed through a murky pool of water in bare feet: "What if you stepped into a puddle and it had no bottom?"  Starling and Leona (And hence, Smidgen) came out of two separate dreams I had that, at the time, I thought I ought to write down because there had to be a story in there somewhere; I didn't write them down, but I remembered all the same and got two playing-pieces from it. The Admiral and his Fleet came from a hyphenated scrawl I had down for inclusion in Cottleston Pie: "Passenger-Pigeons." But all at once this story needed The Fleet and they had to be black and voila: you have mail-carrying crows.

So in a very long and roundabout way, Elisabeth Grace, I hope I've answered your question to your satisfaction. I find that there is almost never one single thing that influences my stories. They just are or they are not, and the ones that are end up making it to "The End" and the others rarely even make a debut on this blog. Just as my life is a mash of everything including the kitchen sink, so my stories grasp ideas from anywhere and everywhere ranging from sugarcane to excursions to get the mail.

 
"My brother thinks the king should not have gone on the trip himself, especially when I was so near my time; irresponsible things like engagements of state are better left to members of the House of Polaris who like to go sailing."

-The Baby

The Rummaging: when plot must be yanked by the hair

Over on Google+ (yeah, who uses that?), I often keep people updated with bits and pieces of things that never quite make it to the blog. After all, some things don't warrant an entire post of their own and are much better left to a short, snappy, 140-character status. But when I posted this photo (below) with a mention of character-profiling, Bree Holloway inquired further as to how this system works. What faith that child has: asking for instruction when I'd only posted the picture to show how few I'd got done, and how many more I had left.

 

However, there is a certain satisfaction in these closely-written sheets, and they have actually become life-savers for me so I will oblige Bree and the rest of you by explaining this method of Character Profiling. I like to call it "The Rummaging" and you may do the same. Surely another author-or-thousand has done this same method, but since as far as I'm concerned I made it up, I will take the time to post about it for your enlightenment.

Essentially, it all came down to this: my strengths are my character-interactions and their behavior on-page. My weakness is plot. I could banter and spar and cockawhoop all day long, but you might never get to that crucial scene that you're aching to read. And I go into my novels knowing that I will need to focus specifically on the plot. I've learned that and now it's not quite so much of a pain as it used to be - I'm growing used to having to drag plot from myself. Isn't that ridiculous? Some people have plots squirming out of their heads constantly; I have people. Que sera, sera. When I got temporarily out of temper with The Baby, I knew it was only because I had used up what plot details I'd thought up at the start of the project. I always have a beginning and an ending, but I seldom know the in-between. I had a handful of amazing characters but nothing for them to do.

That's when "The Rummaging" began. It started as a way for me to ask my own questions about Lord Darron Ap-Brainard, and to answer those questions in the best way I could. Questions like:

Who is he?

Where does he live?

Why not the House of Polaris?

What is he prepared to do in order to keep a member of the House of Rushes on the throne?

- Things like that; questions I didn't know the answers to myself, but that I knew would be vital to me understanding and portraying Ap-Brainard correctly. The funny thing is, in a way it's like a Beautiful People exercise, only...different. See, I Rummage: I ask myself sensible, pertinent questions and answer those questions with as much detail as I can, and the results are striking. I didn't stop at Ap-Brainard: I moved on to Smidgen and Starling and The Admiral and Leona and John Brady and Richmond, and there are still many more left to Rummage out. The best part of this exercise is that it builds plot on its own... I cannot set up a series of cause-and-effect and plug people into it. That does not work for me in the slightest; I have to dig and delve in my people and figure out what they do. That builds the plot quite apart from me. I found out certain characters have duplicity with which they certainly didn't start. Others have heroes who are part of Crissendumm's mythology that has a direct effect on their political tendencies in the current story. I don't use  completely the same questions for each character. Some are similar (i.e. I often note where they live) but others vary widely. Smidgen is one of the only characters who has a defined hero. Starling has a dream that is complicated and multiplied by a certain friendship. The Admiral has more responsibility and depth than many realize. But there was one question that helped with plotting more than any of the others:

How did they get involved with The Baby?

This question sets me up perfectly because I have to be able to provide an answer, and that links people to each other and then to events and all of a sudden, through this stack of question-and-answer sheets, I have the plot I was searching for. I spent most of yesterday afternoon finishing off most of the profiles, and my sense of direction with this story came back as I trusted it would. The only thing left to do is to go back through all the sheets and assemble the various details into one long timeline so I don't leave out any of the important details that have made "The Rummaging" a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

One of the best things you can do for your own writing is to know your strengths and weaknesses and watch those weaknesses with a close eye, doing things like "The Rummaging" when need be. I promise it is worth any of the extra work; I can't tell you enough how pleasant it is to sit down, pull Smidgen's sheet out of the stack and know exactly where he is supposed to be at what point in the plot. Bones, people. Bones. You've got to have a skeleton or all the skin in the world isn't going to bring the thing to life. Now that all its bones are in order, The Baby is back in business. I cannot wait to show you the thing in its entirety someday.

When Re-writes Pay Off

By the way - I did not model Smidgen off of Gavroche.
The picture just fit him. 

Rewriting is a thing I only do when I absolutely have to. I used to fear it. Now I just dislike it. I'm not talking about editing so much as I am talking about those moments when you open up one Word document file, sigh, and open a new one, needing to create something entirely different. There are several reasons why I usually wait to rewrite until the entire novel has been finished. If you're too picky on a first draft you'll find yourself bogged down in fixing problems that might straighten out by the end of the novel. But sometimes you just know that you'll go from bad to worse if you don't rewrite a scene right now. I came across this dilemma in The Baby a few chapters back; the chapter was finished and well-written and had done its duty of introducing a plot twist and a new character or two, but it just wasn't right.

Then I realized the problem: this scene intended for a children's book had no children in it--in fact, it dealt with a dilemma that most adults would find intimidating, let alone the 12-14 year olds who will be reading this book. Once I determined what the problem was, there was nothing left to do but fix it. I rolled up my proverbial sleeves and set to work. Below I have excerpts from the former version of Chapter Six, and the new version. Former is written in red, latter in blue:

     At Whiskin's Abbey in quite another corner of the valley, a young man waited in the shadow of an apple-tree.
     "Morning, John Brady," an old man said, tugging his cap in passing.

     Smidgen pushed his spine against the curve of the apple-tree outside Whiskin's Abbey and waited for John Brady. A hum like a hive of drones poured over the wall of the Abbey-school, but Smidgen knew it was no honey those boys worked for--it was lessons and more lessons. 

Not only is the second passage more interesting, it's also more intimate. In the former passage you are told there is an apple tree near  a place called Whiskin's Abbey. In the second it is spoken of as "the apple-tree outside Whiskin's Abbey..." A slight difference, but one that sets the tone and brings the reader in.

     Leona sat on a boulder--soft and white against the dark firs--and slid off as he noticed her. She came up smelling like sunlight and heather and wrapped him in her arms.

     Smidgen swung himself to the ground and led the way across a field ripe with cockleburs and over a ridge into the fir-filled copse. Leona was perched on the boulder where he'd left her, only now that she saw John Brady, that strange, worried look left her face and she smiled as she usually did.

Here, the second example is less intimate, but much more what a young reader will identify with. Smidgen is concerned for his sister, Leona, and he doesn't notice her beauty--he notices that she no longer looks worried. That, to Smidgen, is the thing that gladdens him, while John Brady would be more inclined to notice her physical appearance.

     She glowed brighter than ever and pushed a sweep of red hair from her eyes. "We are fine." As she said the words she raised her eyes, and John felt himself swayed by the intensity.
     "You and I? Yes. We are very fine." He touched the very tip of her pixie-like nose and smiled.
     Leona shook her head. "I meant something quite different."

     "We are fine."
     Something in her voice struck Smidgen as unusual, and he looked up from thrashing the grass to see a funny look on her face.
     John jerked his head with a laugh and touched her nose. "You and I? Yes. We are very fine."
      "And me," Smidgen said. He thought it advisable to remind them he existed. "I'm fine."

You can tell the difference here. Smidgen's appraisal of this conversation is much more casual and indignant. He feels the tension and he plants himself in the middle of it, which adds interest to what could be no more than a lovers' conversation which--as any third wheel knows--is not terribly interesting.

     John threw out his arms, exasperated. "Within a Community?--yes. Promises there are binding. You know this as well as I."
     Leona's head was bowed and her shoulders shook. John rolled his eyes. Oh God, no crying. Why do women--? "Leona, be a reasonable creature. What could possibly make our lives more difficult than they are now?"

     "Don't start acting like a woman, Leona," John said. Smidgen watched his obvious impatience at the first signs of Leona's tears, and wondered if John knew how rarely Leona cried. How could he? He'd never lived with her.
     Smidgen took her hands in his. "Tell me. I don't mind if you cry." 
     John rolled his eyes and elbowed between them. "Oh come now. Neither do I. Just don't...overreact. What could possibly make our lives harder than they are now?"

This is one of my favorite bits in the whole chapter, since I can imagine my young brother being just as protective of me. Smidgen likes John Brady, but he still considers himself the first man in Leona's life. Thus, when he sees John making Leona cry, he's ready to wedge himself in that little crack and be the one to comfort the lady. There are two dynamics here that weren't there in the first version of the chapter, since Smidgen never comes to the valley: a brother-sister, long-standing relationship that John and Leona can't possibly have, and a sense of triumph; Smidgen has scored a point over John. Something he's probably been waiting to do for some time.

So.

Can you see how rewriting pays off? Smidgen is now a much larger character and that has sprung me into new plot depths I hadn't expected. All because I took a morning to restructure a chapter that wouldn't have fit in a children's novel. It's definitely worth a thought. You never quite know what might happen if you take out your scalpel and start probing!

One-liners: a twist on snippets

Wherein I have gathered the best single-lines of The Baby for your enjoyment, rather than the ungainly chunks so often presented:

"Sometimes Jamsie could be the most annoying thing."

" 'What a hash. What a horrid, mealy, bungled hash.' "

" 'Just goes to show you what you get when you leave your precious baby in the care of a kitchen maid. Darn her red hair.' "

" 'Worried? Course I'm worried.' It wasn't exactly a falsehood."

" 'Kidnapping used to be as common a profession as farming. It might be coming back in style.' "

"She shrieked, somehow hearing her voice gobbled up by Richmond's twin yell, and felt the plunge."

" 'We had better go then. Off to The Castle--and my uncommon doom.' "

" 'Ahhhh...T-O-A-S-T-A-N-D-T-E-A--that's th'way to spell 'Darrow-Dwelling, your majesty.' "

" 'And has the kingdom gone to ruin without its mail?' "

" 'Did my napkin startle you, lad? Your nerves play a high pitch.' "

"Richmond shot a pea across the room."

"A law against laughter couldn't possibly be a useful law."

"Starling craned her neck to get a last look at the sleeping baby--fat as a pan of sweet-buns left to rise in the sun-shine."

"Starling hid herself behind a potted rosebush and hoped she looked something like a topiary."

"The beauty of earth and sky doth mingle among mortals yet awhile"

I like to give you a nice chunk to chew on now and then, and since you haven't been fed much of anything of The Baby, I thought I would hand you a rather nice slop of it to rummage through. Herein you will meet Darron Ap-Brainard at his home, Darrow-Dwelling, and will (perhaps) understand a bit more of Crissendumm itself. First thing you must know: Darron is based off of an actual acquaintance of mine, and I cannot wait to fully flesh out his character and see if--by recreating him in a book--I can understand his peculiarly grating personality in reality. We shall see. 

***

After a walk of a couple miles—much farther than Jamsie had anticipated—the Admiral summoned them to turn in at a grand gate. The panels of the gate were intricate designs of wrought iron made to look like willow-branches, and over the archway hung a placard designating this place as Darrow-Dwelling. A robin formed of hammered metal perched on either side of the arch and gave the way a comical, saucy air.

“So this is it?” Jamsie asked, more to fill the blank in conversation than because she had any doubt on the matter.

“ 'Tis.” The Admiral shook himself and sighed. “There will certainly be T-O-A-S-T A-N-D T-E-A here. The laird never has guests but there's loads of food.”

“Loads of food sounds rather perfect,” Richmond called as he trotted up the drive ahead of them.

“Walk circumspectly!” the Admiral shouted after him. “You can't run up to a place like Darrow-Dwelling. It isn't right.”

Richmond stopped mid-trot till Jamsie came up to him. He hooked his arm through hers and Jamsie leaned forward to allow him to whisper.

“It's all right for him to say. He cares about decorum and we don't,” Richmond hissed.

Jamsie pulled off and cast an eye back at the Admiral who was walking along the lane looking brighter than he had in the whole of their acquaintance. “But perhaps if Darrow-Dwelling really is so fine a place as all that, we ought to behave?”

Richmond hooked her arm again and dragged her closer. “We'll behave but only because we have to extract some information from these people.”

“Information?” Jamsie was entirely puzzled.

Richmond stopped short and stared at her, eyes goggling. “Jamaica Balder! You don't mean to tell me you've been walking through this...Crissen-Smissen—or whatever they call it—for the past three days and forgot all about the reason we got here in the first place!”

All at once Jamsie noticed how far away London felt—this whole time there had been too much to look at and think about to have any time leftover to worry about the thing that had sent them careening down the puddle.

That lump one gets when one realizes they've made a horrid mistake began to form in Jamsie's stomach.“Our Baby!” She felt like bursting into tears but restricted the emotion to a single hiccuping sob.

Richmond patted her arm. “Oh, come now. At least one of us has been thinking about it. We haven't entirely abandoned the poor thing.”

“But I did forget all about the poor Baby. I'm a wretched sister—I ought to be...punished somehow!”

The tears threatened to spill over again but Richmond gave her a nice shove. “Save your bawling for another time, Jamsie old girl. If you start sniffling the Admiral will wonder what's up and then we'll spoil the element of surprise. If these are the people who took the Baby, we have to spring the accusation upon them. We can't give them a head-wind, you know.”

Jamsie rubbed a sleeve across her face. “I know.”

“Good girl!”

It took another half-hour just to make it up the lane because the Admiral would keep swinging like a clock pendulum from one side of the way to the other to admire the 'T-O-A-S-T A-N-D T-E-A' of the view and be sure they admired it too. Jamsie was not generally a suspicious person, but she found her apprehension grow with each move the Admiral made. What if this was all a trick? What if the Admiral was not taking them to a castle at all? What if Darrow-Dwelling was a robber-baron's lair and they were to be held hostage forevermore? What if they were never to see their Baby again, or sit by the fire with Mum and Dad and burn their fingers on toasted bread? It was such a sad prospect when she thought about it that Jamsie let a few tears dribble down her face despite Richmond's sensible warning.

Just as the tears dripped off her chin into the dust of the lane, the Admiral popped up on her left side. “Darrow-Dwelling straight ahead, your majesty.” He pointed a gnarly finger at the fine old house, quite near now.

A muffled chorus of hounds assembled as if a whole fox-hunt was trapped under a glass watch-case and grew in pitch till someone opened the massive, age-blackened doors of Darrow-Dwelling. The torrent poured forth—dogs of every shape and size—and milled about the traveling party.

“Get your beasts off me, Darron Ap-Brainard!” the Admiral howled, shielding his face with an up-thrown arm and glaring at the flood of hounds.

Jamsie patted a leggy wolfhound on his grey head and stared past the melee to the doorway of the house. A small man with a deal of dark hair on his head and face lounged against one side of the carved frame, arms crossed. He wore a slashed doublet of crimson with yellow peering through the slits. A smile broke the darkness of his beard, but it stopped short somehow of being quite a real smile—no teeth showed, and the lips looked pleased with themselves.

“Conceited,” Richmond remarked at Jamsie's elbow.

“Exactly what I was thinking,” she said. It was a bit disappointing, as Balders were notorious for not being able to tolerate anyone's conceit but their own. She had been so looking forward to a nice time at Darrow-Dwelling—even with the possibility of robber-barons.

“Hither, hounds,” the conceited-looking man said. He didn't shout—hardly raised his voice—but the dogs stopped barking and backed off, tails swinging low and teeth bared in apologetic grins.

“That is much better, Ap-Brainard.” The Admiral smoothed his feathered jerkin and sniffed. Jamsie and Richmond fell in place behind him and together they advanced up the stone steps till they were face to face with the small man.

“Have you any messages for me, Admiral? Your fleet carries from the far and wide, does it not?”

A shade of red seeped into the Admiral's grey face. “My fleet temporarily....abandoned me.”

“Abandoned you?” The man's eyes were small and glittering—dark as his hair—but his moustache quivered as he laughed. “And has the kingdom gone to ruin without its mail?”

“I should hope not, m'lord,” the Admiral whispered.

“You're a post-man?” Jamsie asked. Now it all made sense—the Admiral 's Fleet was in charge of delivering messages throughout the kingdom and they'd gone off and that was the cause of the Admiral's consternation.

“Your Fleet is like the passenger-pigeons?” Richmond asked.

Darron Ap-Brainard moved his sharp gaze to Jamsie and Richmond and stared at them in a bold fashion as if he had hours in which to do nothing else. Their questions remained unanswered for the time-being. It seemed as though there were nothing in Crissendumm but the trio on the steps of Darrow-Dwelling. The Admiral and the dogs—even the house itself—took backstage and there was nothing real except the small man who stared at them so curiously. Jamsie touched Richmond's fingers and by the tightening of them around her own, knew he was glaring back at the man too.

Of a sudden, the man laughed. “Whither do you come?”

The Admiral moved back into view. “They hail from England, m'lord.”

His eyes widened. “From England? The Pool worketh mighty wonders again, I see.”

Jamsie did not think he sounded as surprised as he might. She shifted her weight from one foot to another, the great desire for a cool seat in a quiet place coming strong over her senses.

“You must be tired, my lord and lady,” Ap-Brainard said with a low bow as if he could read her mind. He straightened, and winked at them. “Welcome to Darrow-Dwelling, fine folk. Mayhap you will find it a place to your liking.”

Richmond thrust his chin forward. “We hear it's a comfortable place enough. It ought to do for a quick stop.”

Ap-Brainard laughed again. Jamsie didn't like the short, cynical merriment of it. “Darrow-Dwelling will more than 'do' for you, my good fellow. Darrow-Dwelling is the essence of comfort itself, as I know the good Admiral will have told you.”

He had made short work of anything at all to be said, so the group followed their host through the heavy doors into the merciful dusk of a stone foyer. Here, the shadows were deep and rich with shapes suggestive of bookcases and armchairs. A globe stood in the center of the foyer, illuminated with a single stream of golden light which poured forth from a circle cut out from the domed ceiling. They followed Ap-Brainard to this globe, and Jamsie touched it as she went by. The countries on it were queer, unfamiliar shapes—not at all like the seven continents of the real world--and there seemed to be two dimensions to it: the solid beneath, the vaporous above; the two layers connected by opalescent gems here and there. “What is this a map of?” she asked before she could help herself.

Ap-Brainard was at her side in a moment, and he reached over her shoulder and spun the globe with a caressing finger. “ 'The beauty of earth and sky doth mingle among mortals yet awhile'. This, my girl, is Crissendumm. Our world graven on the underside, yours above. The gems mark the holes from one to another. Cannot you see it?” And as he pointed and stirred the layer of vapor, she saw the pale homelike shapes of Africa, Asia, and the rest floating just above the surface of the proper globe.

“And the Pool?” Richmond asked.

“The nearest portal.” Ap-Brainard cocked his head to one side and to Jamsie, he looked somehow familiar in that attitude. “Have you never heard of Crissendumm in England?”

“Their majesties are none too keen on questions.”The Admiral toyed with his pocket-watch and looked up with a sad smile.

“Ahhhh. I see. Dinner then?”

But the man's expression was so cat-like and self-satisfied that Jamsie edged closer to Richmond, just so she could feel the comfort of another Londoner.

***

Snippetty-Snip: The best of the Spring

We all know I had little time to write and what time I might have had, I spent otherwise. I did, however, manage to write a bit this Spring, and I have every intention of disciplining myself so that I shan't have to look at you with hands spread, saying: "I got nothin' for ya, man." These, then, are the best of the Spring:

***

They squeezed through the wrought iron rails—to use the gate was a sign of weakness—and paused on the gravel walk.

-The Baby

Her voice had in it the offended dignity of a cat who has fallen off a garden wall.

-The Baby

“You, my little blighted toadstool, are in Crissendumm.”

-The Baby

...on the fourth day the ground that had been flat began to slope upward and the going got a bit more beaten-trackish with little footpaths scarring the face of the hillsides between banks of tangled twigs that would have been elderflower in the summertime.

-The Baby

The valley below was definitely Populated. Huge houses--each looking as if it could be a castle with a little coaxing--hung back toward the valley-rim, sending instead a long, straight drive to meet the coming world. There were orchards--bare now, but promising--and shorn wheat fields, and potatoes turned up in harrows from a late crop. Here and there a horse or two grazed alongside congregated bits of dirty white that proved to be sheep upon careful inspection.

-The Baby

“We’ll take lunch at Darrow-Dwelling,” the Admiral said. “Ahhhh, T-O-A-S-T A-N-D T-E-A--that’s th’way to spell Darrow-Dwelling, your majesty.” He tugged the brim of his weather-rusted hat in Jamsie’s direction.

-The Baby

“Thruppence t’pass,” the gatekeeper said. He was a round man with a nose like a conch-shell, and wore a cap with ‘Porter’ printed on it. Jamsie smiled and waved at him as the Admiral dug in one of his vest pockets for coins.

The Admiral looked up a moment later with a sorrowful expression. “Th’Fleet stole it again.”

“Stole what?” Richmond asked.

“My money. They like shiny things--anything shiny at all. And they’re always pinching my coins. I can’t pay. I’m afraid...” he sniffed and cast a sad eye over the hedge. “I’m afraid there will be no Darrow-Dwelling for us. No T-O-A-S-T A-N-D T-E-A. And no castle for you, either,” he said generously, as if to give them a part in his complete misery.

-The Baby

"..in my realm--in England--we have many places this nice.” She hoped it wasn’t a fib--she’d never been twenty miles past London.

-The Baby

“If Auguste Blenheim the Pig had not stolen my birthright, Dear Lord, would I be half as patient as I am?” I gestured to the window--open because there was neither glass nor shutter to close out the dripping weather. “And would my constitution be half as hearty as it is, if Thou had not given me such chance to test its limits? No, don’t answer that, My Lord, for I haven’t the temper this morning to hear the answer.”

-Lady Alis (the temporary moniker of a short story)

The first thing to do was try to find Father’s certificate of death, naturally.”

“But thur weren’t any!” Ellen protested.

“Precisely.” I scooped the tiny, curled tea leaves into the silver bobber and dropped it into the teapot. “There was never one filed. Not a single Bickersnath Carlisle in the whole Kingdom of Ashby has ever died, according to the Records.”

“They moost be a healthy race, them Bickersnaths,” Ellen observed. The excellent woman stirred the porridge and raked a cone of sugar with the tines of a fork overtop.

“Mmm. That, or everyone but my alleged ‘father’ had a gentler christening.”

-Lady Alis

Character Pieces: Starling

Now that I am in town for a few weeks I have been working hard at my non-fiction project. I find, however, that I feel stunted if I'm not working on my novels. And when it gets down to bare basics, I'm a child at heart and I can't help but write children's stories. That's why The Baby (Thrice Removed) is getting more space and time than the other projects I had going on. In an attempt to get to know the characters of The Baby, I looked up some character-building writing exercises which I always enjoy but seldom actually do. I am planning on doing various Character Pieces to help familiarize you (and myself) with the cast of The Baby. I found a couple of really great ones that I hope to do later on, but the one I went with was:

In the First Person perspective, write a scene of the first hour of your character's day.

The character I chose for this exercise is one you've not met yet. One neat bit of trivia about this novel is that at least three or four of the characters are built off of two particular dreams I had that were peculiarly vivid and that made me think at the time, "Gosh, they need a story." Today you get to meet Starling. Her dream was one of the strangest dreams I've had yet. All I know is that I was going down through a peculiar castle that was all twisty and odd and I ended up in a cobbled kitchen with bookshelves that looked terribly unsteady and leaned out from the walls. There was a queer mess of dirty dishes, pots and pans, stacks of teacups, and books on the shelves, and sitting in a pile of rags with an absorbed determined look on her face was a girl of about fourteen. She had very little time to spare for me because she wouldn't leave off running her finger up and down the pages of a book, trying to teach herself how to read. She didn't know how in the world to begin and she was frustrated almost to tears, but the creature was determined. Somehow she was having to cram lessons in to odd cracks because she wasn't supposed to be learning how to read. I don't recall what my purpose was in the dream and it had no conclusive end. All I know is that is how Starling was born.

source // The Baby pinterest board

In looks, Starling is stunted. Think Young Cosette advanced six or eight years. Her costume in the dream was very very similar, and she was "all over with smuts". As I learned, she's an under under undermaid and is a terribly obscure but eventually important piece of the Castle of Crissendumm. Anyway. I just started writing with that exercise, and I've posted the bit here so you can all get to know Starling:

I dreamed I was not a under-under-under maid any longer, but a princess. I had a nose that turned up in a delicate point and a dress that crinkled when I walked, and long golden hair.

I was enjoying that dream.

“Thump.” Something hit me crack in the belly and the dream disappeared. I wasn’t a princess no longer. I was just me--Starling--and my stomach hurt. I screwed open one eye and saw Cook across the room. On my belly was Charlemagne, the cat. He’s fat and I’m puny--it hurt when Cook lobbed him at me like that.

“Get your lazy buns out of that bed, girl!”

I screwed both eyes shut, wishing the dream hadn’t gone away. I bet princesses didn’t get a cat in the belly every morning. Charlemagne was tired of just sitting there and decided to help Cook wake  me up by pushing on my cheeks with his claws out.

“Owgeroff!” His fur muffled my protest and I scrambled up in bed, shoving him off the edge with my blanket and put a hand to my cheek. It came away with little streaks of blood.

“Ain’t there a law ‘gainst Child Aboose?” I asked.

“Child Abuse?” Cook’s  face twisted in her ‘You Stupid Oaf” look. “Of course there’s a law ‘gainst it.”

“Then I ought to tell someone you beat me,” I said, trying to remember if I was in trouble with any of the constables and if so, who I’d tell instead.

Cook’s face was very red and I bet she had been drinking all the cream off my milk again. “I don’t beat you.”

“You throw cats at me,” I said.

“That’s hardly what you might call beating.”

I rolled off the cot and pulled my flimsy petticoat off its hook, snagging the fabric and widening the tear. I looked at Cook through the hole. “So it ain’t beating. But it hurts all the same.”

“An’ well it should if you’re such a lazy clot.” She flopped onto my nail-keg and it disappeared under her. Her fat little legs stuck out on either side and she swung them till she looked very much like one of the black beetles I turn on their backside while sweepin’ the hearth.

“I like this room,” she said after a bit. Her eyes were roving around and looking at everything and my fingers shook so I couldn’t do my buttons. She might see my Letters.

I cinched the rag of an apron around my waist. I could pull it tighter each day and I didn’t even have to wear a corset--when you’re fed off of crumbs and dribbles you’re never what they call Plump. “‘Course you like it,” I mumbled.

“What’s that?”

“OF COURSE you like it,” I said, and shoved the board I used for a shutter away from the tiny window. Early light seeped into the room and puddled on the floor, making a safe wall between me and Cook. “Know why you like it? ‘‘cause it’s mine and you don’t like me to have anything nice.”

Cook lumbered up from the nail-keg, for all the world like a great, heaving cow and the red in her face started to mix with bits of purple. “What are you sayin’?” She crossed the floor and came up evil-close to me.

I filled my lungs with breath and held it a moment, then it let it out, choosing my words with care. “I’m sayin’ you’re a mean, cross old woman and you’re jealous of an undermaid’s undermaid’s undermaid.” I folded my arms across my flat chest and glared at her. Later I’d pay for my words and then I might care, but for now I liked just looking at the old fool and watching her fish around for words like an overfed pigeon in a worm-garden.

“Starling-chit,” She grinned a grin like Charlemagne’s after catching a mouse, and fidgeted with the strings of her veskit. “This room is my room now. You’ll sleep in the dairy-house tonight.” With a sniff she whipped out of the room and left me half-dressed, starin’ after her.

I weren’t so very worried--I was joggled from place to place every couple of weeks because somehow Cook always liked where I slept best. The dairy was a new thing, but maybe after a few weeks she’d want to trade places again, and that heifer would finally be where she belonged. I stuffed my straw-colored hair into my cap and--after being sure no one looked on--took the Announcement from its hiding place and puzzled over the symbols that I prayed would someday make words for me.