Just a little teaser from the last quarter of my book. In revision, I’ve been going through and adding a lot of scenes to the second half, trying to slow down the sloppiness break-neck speed. I like these new scenes–they feel luxurious. In drafting this part of the book, I felt like I was on this long slide toward the inevitable end, and so I didn’t take the time I really needed to examine my main character’s mental state. Here, Terra’s voice shines nicely.

Silvan knew my body, but he didn’t know my true self, not really. If he had really known me, then he would have known how I was transforming, turning to stone, hardening against him. But he didn’t. He just kept pressing kisses against my collarbone and drawing his soft hands over me. He took my laughter and my goose bumps to mean something deep and true. But the only emotion running beneath my raw, ravaged skin was a murky concoction of guilt and anger. The guilt was for using him this way, for selfishly taking advantage of his body’s small pleasures. The anger was for what he was doing on behalf of the Council.

Despite his cock-eyed smile, no matter how warm and pressing his fingers, he’d reaped the harvest of my mother’s death: power, and plenty of it. Silvan was complicit. And he would pay.

Sometimes I’d gaze deep into his black eyes, find myself reflected back in them, and think, You are so stupid. You have no idea. I know that’s not fair. I’d always kept secrets from him, after all, not only the assassination, but the wine-dark dreams that still came to me every night. When he kissed me, I closed my eyes and imagined smoother lips, thought of a lithe, long body pressed against mine, and not his. I thought of snow, and the wild perfume of summer flowers that came even in the white-swirled night. I was always naming them in my head, even as I stood by Silvan’s side in the archives. I faked a shit-eating grin when the woman read out our bloodlines. But the only thing I heard was Magnolia Virginia, Syringia Vulgaris, and of course the names of a thousand roses.

To be fair, I was never really with Silvan, even when I stood right next to him.

So I should forgive him for believing me when, one night, as he tangled his big fingers through my hair, cupping the crown of my head in his palm, and said to me, “My parents want you to come to supper tomorrow night. Captain Wolff will be there,” I gave a sweet smile and said, “Of course. I’d love to.”

Even as the bile rose in my throat.

It’s been awhile since I’ve teased, hasn’t it?

Well, Internet, here go you. Fresh off the laptop. As in, I just wrote this. I think it captures both the point in my story (generation ship Maia Asherah has almost arrived at its destination) and the current state of my manuscript, which is ZOMGALMOSTDONEWHATNOWEEEEE!, pretty well.

After the shuttle departed, something changed, shifted, about the mood of the ship. I’d walk through the districts and hear how nobody spoke except in whispers. In the cool, stirring air of the dome, the field workers went about their business in silence. Even the merchants had lowered their voices. When I walked by the shops in the morning, nobody shouted sales at me. I no longer heard anybody bartering, trying to work out a deal. At the counters, citizens paid their gelt, took their packages, and were gone.

I think that everyone was holding their breath. I know I was. For one thing, I was waiting to hear what kind of disaster would befall the shuttle. I was sure that at any moment, Captain Wolff might call us to gather in the pastures and announce that there had been an accident—an explosion, maybe, or a crash.

But I don’t think that was all of it. We worried about the shuttle crew, sure. Every night I watched my brother rock his daughter and make promises that her mama would come home soon, and that just about made my heart break. But there was something else, a sort of breathless excitement in the way we all looked up as we walked through the dome, watching Zehava grow bigger and bigger in the sky overhead.

We were almost there. For five hundred years, the planet had been nothing more than a story parents would tell their children. There were times, I’m sure, when nobody believed we’d ever really get there. It was just a myth! A fairytale! But now things were different. Nine Asherati were bound for the surface, even if their mission was a farce. Soon we would arrive. And then maybe—just maybe—we’d finally be free.

A cycle. Only a cycle remained. I went about my business as if my life would always be this way—walking to the labs in the morning, spending my days digging through dirt, coming home to eat supper with my brother and his baby, frittering my nights away with Silvan. But part of me was always looking up to the glowing sphere of blue and white that grew bigger and bigger in the black distance. Soon we would arrive. Soon everything would change.

First thing’s first; I have yet another review of Beth Revis’ Across the Universe up on the Best Damn Creative Writing Blog. I feel almost like I’m picking on Beth (though it’s a positive review!). Definitely not my intention–it’s just that this book, which is being released today, has a ton of marketing and hype around it and people seem inclined to say stuff like, “Oh, you’ve read it?! Write about it for us!”

Anyway, pick it up. It’s tasty stuff.

So things have been crazy. I know I’m always saying that, that things are crazy (it has been a crazy year), but in this case, it’s very much true. First the holidays, and then, yesterday, my mother had to go in for surgery. No worries. She’s okay. But such things are always stressful. I lost track of my writing for a few weeks with all the travel I was doing, and then impulse-bought a laptop (it’s brown! With a faux-wood finish! And awesome!) in hopes that I’ll keep up better with my creative impulses this way. Already, things feel improved–and I feel improved. It sounds dysfunctional, but I feel cruddy when I can’t write. Writing makes the hard times easier.

Anyway.

I’ve been chugging forward on Daughter of Earth and have also started plotting/drafting a new project, which I’ll call Son of Godzilla 2000 for the time being. The first draft of DoE is nearly finished–I’m at 58k and close to the climax! But I’ve decided to stop forward progress for the time being to massively rehaul the beginning.

I’m usually not a massive-rehauler. But one of the good things about a writing group is that they can tell you where you’re going wrong before you’ve really become cemented into your wrongness. And apparently, I need to work on building the tension more organically and smoothly in my book’s first half. So I’m shimmying stuff around, drafting a new opening.

I’m a little nervous about this beginning; it states, up front, what the book’s central theme is, and it’s one that agents don’t always love: growing up in the shadow of grief (other things introduced sooner: the core tenet of duty, how fucked up Terra’s dad is). But I think it’s the best one for the book, and I need to be a slave to that, not agent-tastes.

Here it is, DoE‘s new beginning. Let me know what you think!

Daddy said it was my duty to look nice for Momma’s funeral, that wearing white would be a misva. I ran the word over my tongue as I straightened the thin funerary cloth down against my shoulders. Teach had told us about misvas just a few days before—how every good deed we did for the other citizens of our ship would benefit us, too. He said that doing well in school was a misva, but also other things. Like watching babies get born in the hatchery. Or paying tribute at funerals. When he said that, he looked across the classroom to me with a kind of watery gleam welling in his eyes.
That’s when I knew that Momma was really dying.

In the hours after the fieldworkers came to take away her body, Rian locked himself away in his room. That left me with Daddy. He didn’t cry. Instead, he wore a thin, brave smile as he pulled off his dark work clothing and tugged the ivory shirt down over his head. I watched him while I held my kitten Pepper to my chest. It wasn’t until the cat pulled away and tumbled to the floor that I lost it.

“Pepper! Pepper, come back!” I said, drawing in a hiccupping breath as he scampered out of my parents’ open bedroom door. Then I brought my hands to my cheeks and touched the streams of wetness there. For some reason realizing my tears only made it worse. I wheezed with grief.

Daddy turned to me, the stays on his shirt still undone. I’m sure I would have seen a few ugly chest hairs straggling out if my vision hadn’t been so completely blurred.

“Terra,” he said, putting a hand against my shoulder and squeezing. My answer was an uncontrollable bray, an animal noise. I let it out. I thought that maybe Daddy would draw me into his arms for comfort; after all, that’s what Momma would have done. But he only held me back at arms’ length, watching me through steady eyes.

“Terra, pull yourself together. You’re soaking your blouse.”

I knew then that he wasn’t Momma. Momma was gone. I brought my hands up to my eyes, veiling them. Like I could hide from the truth behind my fingers.

After a moment, between my own panted breaths, I heard him sigh. Then I heard his footsteps as he drew away from me.

“Go to your room,” he said. “Compose yourself. I’ll get you when it’s time to go.”

I pulled myself up on weak legs. My footfall down the hallway was measured, careful, as plodding and as empty as my heart. But when I reached my bedroom door, I pounded my fist against the keypanel hard. Then I launched myself past the door as it slid back, and thrust my body down into my waiting bed. I heard Pepper approach. He let out a curious squeak. But I ignored him, my hands clutched around my belly, my face pressed against my soggy sheets.

Do you want a teaser today? No? Well, too bad!

More from Daughter of Earth, just under a thousand words (sorry, I just can’t shut up). This is yet another scene between main character Terra and her botanist boss (and my fave), Mara MacGregor. Some background information, for those who may have missed it: book is set on a generation ship. There’s a rebellion, about which Terra has only recently learned. Koen is a boy who has proposed to her, but won’t kiss her. And Terra’s mom is dead, and was a baker.

I think that should get you up to speed.

Remember, the usual caveats (this is a draft!) apply.

“Mara,” I said at last. “There is something I’ve been meaning to ask you. It’s not about boys. Men, I mean. It’s not about that.”

She didn’t even look at me. Instead, she fiddled with her dials. “Spit it out, Terra.”

“I know you know a lot about . . . stuff. Not just plants and all.” Clearly, the lack of sleep had somehow affected my ability to put together a half-decent sentence. I drew in a breath, doing my best to speak directly. “I was wondering what you know about the rebellion.”

Mara finally stood straight. She regarded me carefully—evenly. “I do know a lot about, as you put it, ‘stuff.’ For example, historically there have been many rebellions. On Earth, there were the peasant uprisings of France. The American revolts—three civil wars could be pinned on revolutionaries there, in fact. There were the Jacobite Risings. The Boxer Rebellion. The Indian Mutiny of 1857. So it’s unsurprising that we’ve known rebellions on the Maia. One might say that such acts are a part of human nature. Like teenagers—” She lifted an eyebrow. “—we all must eventually rise up against our parents.”

“You said ‘rebellions.’” My words came out breathlessly, in a rush. “There’s been more than one on the ship?”

Mara gave a short nod. “Several. The largest was the uprising that coincided with the deactivation of the ship’s engines. That was . . . a dark time in the Maia’s history. Without the sound of the ship’s heart, steadily beating, to cling to, many passengers felt lost. For the first time in their lives, they noticed the emptiness of their lives. Before their uprising, all marriages were chosen by the council, as vocations are today.”

“People didn’t get to pick who they married?” I asked, making no attempt to hide the surprise from my voice. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be stuck marrying someone I didn’t even like. At least Koen and I got along, mostly.

Even if he still wouldn’t kiss me—even if he hadn’t even held my hand the night before as he walked me home.

“No. I suppose it was a great coup. Now the only ones whose matches are picked for them are the crazy old biddies like me, who are still unmarried by twenty-five.” Mara’s smile was wistful, and maybe a little self-deprecating. I tried to imagine what she would have been like at twenty five, if she would have been any softer, or, perhaps, a little more fun. But I couldn’t picture it, not at all. In my mind, it was like she was probably hatched a little gray-haired old woman, with a hooked nose and a cock-eyed grin. Smiling to myself at the thought of it, I started to turn back to my table, to the clippings that were still scattered there.

“But Terra . . .” Mara spoke carefully. I looked back at her, over my shoulder.

“Yeah?”

She let out a deep sigh. “In the event that your sudden curiosity about the history of human uprisings has something to do with a certain organization known as ‘the Golden Dawn . . .’” My ears pricked up at the mention of it, but I did my best not to show it. Instead, I only looked at her, my mouth a thin line. She grimaced, then rolled her jaw and continued. “You should know that they tried to recruit me, when I was about your age.”

“Oh,” I said, more a statement than a question. I was still being careful to look disinterested. No matter how much I wanted to trust Mara, I couldn’t really be sure she was safe.

“They knew about my feelings about child rearing and marriage. I can’t imagine why anyone would be interested in such things, but you know how gossip travels through these halls.”

I gave a small nod of my head.

“Anyway, I turned them down.” My shoulders wanted to fall; I didn’t let them. “I told them that Mara MacGregor’s never been much of a joiner.”

She cocked her head to one side, looking at me sidelong for a long moment. It was the sort of scrutiny that would have normally made me blush—but I was too spent for that. “Really, I’d expect no different from you. You are my apprentice, after all. P. Pungens?”

I squinted at her. She held her palm out to me expectantly, laughing. “The picea pungens sample I asked you for, Terra. You know, some of us still have work to do.”

I rolled my eyes, turning back to one of the long boxes of finished slides that sat on my workspace. As I ran my finger along the glass edges, I heard Mara make a strange noise—a little rumble, low in her throat, like she was trying to clear it, but couldn’t—not quite.

“Funny thing,” she was saying softly. It seemed she spoke more to herself than she did to me. “I can’t remember the name of the woman who asked me to join the Golden Dawn. I do remember the smell of her, all yeasty. And there was flour on her shirt. I believe she was a baker. Yes, that’s right. A baker. Now what was her name? You know, it’s been years since I last saw her. I wonder whatever became of her.”

I swallowed, hard. There was suddenly a lump in my throat, dry and huge. My hand even shook as I walked to Mara, and passed her the slide.

“Oh well,” she said, taking it from me and pressing her lips into a simper. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter now. Does it, Terra?” Though the words seemed casual, off-hand, her gaze was piercing. I knew she meant the words for me, and me alone. And I knew what they meant.

“No,” I said, and though my eyes welled up with tears, we both ignored it. “I suppose it doesn’t.”

(The husband has informed me that “the Golden Dawn” is the lamest name ever for a rebellion, and I should call them “the Golden Shower.” This is why he’s evil.)