#SoCS: “Eco”

It’s a bit late to be thinking about posting for the Stream of Consciousness Saturday, but…  it technically is still Saturday (an hour before midnight counts, right?)

Seems good enough for me.  So here goes…

This meme/blog hop hosted by Linda Hill happens every week.  (I guess there is also something else going on called “Just Jot it January” as well.  This isn’t one of those posts, though, barring a small bit of typo-fixing and spelling correction, this is scarily raw stuff).

For a bit of background, Parvenu the name of the first set of books I started writing, a trilogy of Release, Soulclaimed and Moon-called.  The main character’s name is Kieri. 

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The first thing that came to mind as I read the prompt was Parvenu, or at least the first book of the series. Not sure why… Maybe because the initial fanfiction stories that lead into the development of Kieri Vestimorn’s character evolved from a cartoon involving a massive ecological disaster on a galactic scale. There were other reasons, of course. I’d noted in the story itself how Daryl was so happy and proud to call Kieri his son when the birthrate on Acaria had suffered so much after the pollution and deforestation the planet had suffered during its industrial age and as its budding space-faring economy developed. How so many girls seemed to be born as opposed to boys and the survival of those few sons was a challenge, even with advanced genetics researchers on the planet and medical facilities that drew patients from all over the galaxy because of their skill and success rates

Acaria could cure the ills of universe, but seemed helpless to save the lives of their own children….

I did have a reason for this built into the storyline as well. it also explained why genetics research was such an obsession in Acarian society and why crossbreeding of different species worked.  I think I developed some even on the economic reasons for this situation (too many of which revolve around the patriarchal underpinnings of Acarian society and the fact that Acarian women… at least until recent times, outnumbered Acarian men by a 1:3 ratio [technically, I guess that is supposed to be 3:1 not the other way around ]; with numbers like that, then the decreased birthrate, boys just were valuable—no other way to say it).

So yeah, I guess I can see why Release (and all the books in the Parvenu trilogy I was laying out would fit into an “eco” themed post. Even the later two books, when Kieri tries to deny his father’s place in his life and Andy finds his place in society and as Kieri’s equal… The same ecological disaster had harmed the world these two boys ended up growing up on. The same economic forces pushed them there, away from their families or anyone who might have been able to protect them from the abuse they suffered.

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That’s all I have for you tonight.  If you’d like to read more about the fan fiction that inspired the series, here’s a good start.

WIPpet Wedneday: How Had He

No huge post today (that’s all happening over at The Garden of Delights where I’m doing my check-ins for the ROW80, IWSG, etc.).  Today is just a short, and hopefully sweet WIPpet from my Swan Song Series books that I chose because it also fits the RWA Kiss of Death Chapter‘s Twitter prompt for the day of “Old”.

Super easy maths for the day. It’s the 3rd day, so I’m giving you three sentences.

Instead of looking back out the window, Alanii watched his mother’s hands, marveling at the way her fingers had taken on the wrinkled and forever bent shape of hawthorn branches….. How had he not noticed the gray in her hair nor the hollowing of her cheeks? Surely only yesterday she’d been up and running about their home with twice the vigor and glow of youth that many of the fosterlings in her care showed.

I sincerely hope you enjoyed that.  Now why not head over to the WIPpet linky and visit some our other awesome members?  Emily, thank you so very much for graciously hosting this blog hop.

A New Thing: #SoCS (Stream of Consciousness Saturday)

Today I’m trying something new because two of my favorite writing people (Shan and Fallon) have participated in this bloghop for a while and caught my curiosity with their creative posts.  So…  here I go, trying something new.

Following the rules (found here), this piece is raw.  Not even WIPpet raw, where I’m usually posting a piece that I’ve sketched out and done some minor edits on.  Typos will be fixed, but that’s pretty much it.

The prompt for today is “contrast“.  Either I must use the word or the post itself must involve contrasts in some way.

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Vartanian walked toward the ruin, the dark stone round and worn in the twilight shadows.  Behind him, he heard the rest of the men murmuring softly to their mounts, settling their packs, the relaxed bustle of a hundred other evenings.  A camp like any others, three walls and a ceiling tumbled to the sky…

But it wasn’t like the others, not really.  Vartanian supposed he should have expected it.  After all, he’d heard the rumors too.  But after all these years seeing the lad grow up, knowing how gentle he was—he’d sworn his life to the service of this young man, so sure he had been of Alanii Vestimiir’s noble heart!—, now Vartanian held his wounded arm tight against his side, staunching the bleeding, knowing as second in command he had to take charge of the men and hold them back.  Knowing, and dreading, that he had to protect Alanii now, despite the creature that had filled the man only moments ago.

Creatures that he’d helped hunt down only ten years ago.

Just ahead of him, he heard a snap, then saw a small flame build and take, chasing away the oncoming night.  Light against dark, hope against despair…  life against death.  He knew where his loyalties lay.

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Hope you enjoyed this piece.  The characters are from the world of my Swan Song Series books (this scene came to me because I was editing photos from our England trip this past Spring).