Outside Blue Moon Coffee Cafe, looking down Lake Street.
We stepped out of the Blue Moon Coffee Cafe to find Lake Street in Minneapolis doing its level best to impersonate the London of Sherlock Holmes. Rising temperatures plus snow on the ground created a blanket of cool, damp fog over the city.
Headed to bed soon … enough excitement for one day.
Also, there’s the Sunday write-in tomorrow 12-5pm at Minneapolis Central Library.
So I’m on the final leg of my version of the Twin Cities Region Writing Tour (Traditional Route). We’re hanging out at the Blue Moon Coffee Cafe, which is a delightfully atmospheric cafe of the kind enamored of writers, students, revolutionaries, lexicographers, and other dubious characters.
At this point, we’r
e all feeling pretty loopy. Currently my status on Google Chat reads “NaNo 2014: Bringing a crossbow to a raygun fight” and the Bacon Torch has been freely offered to all of the comrades who would like an alternative to the Traveling Shovel of Death. (We conjecture that it’s the most delicious weapon that you’ve ever smelled.) I’ve scored my nominal win (50K words) though I will keep on making additional words through to the bitter end. The novel isn’t remotely finished.
The other thing that’s fun is chatting with NaNo pals. The Tour is great because it conjures that slap-happy, final-exam atmosphere in which great ideas can float up through the miasma of caffeine, barely restrained panic, and uncontrolled brainstorming. Or in my case, the Muse of Research can waltz in with techno-whackery that I’d never anticipated. I was thinking “weaponized welding rigs” and what I got was the Bacon Torch. Or its vegetarian option. Let’s not forget the vegetarian option.
And the communiques from various novelists are loads of fun.
Jackson’s Coffee and Gelato, Minneapolis MN. A lovely place to spend a cold, foggy, snowbound November afternoon on the way to the NaNoWriMo finish line.
Here we are now at Jackson’s Coffee and Gelato, a cozy and writer-friendly location on Minneapolis’s Lake Street, rich in electrical outlets, cozy atmosphere, and yummy eats (I highly recommend the black chocolate gelato, as well as the roasted almond).
However, I ate my food (yogurt parfait, half-and-half serving of the aforementioned gelato flavors) while it was still photogenic, so was only able to document the wreckage.
Yogurt parfait and gelato, after the fact. I assure you that they were both delicious.
Today’s word count is not all it might be, due to a research side-trip on topics such as how to construct an improvised crossbow, and the sound of a crossbow bolt’s flight and impact. There is also the bacon torch discussion (including vegetarian options for those would prefer not to make their thermal lance out of animal products), but that’s an interesting side-light and will only be deployed later in the tale.
However, this resulted in the scene where Hernan and Taryn, my romantic leads, first catch sight of each other, probably the least romantic “meet cute” on record, in which technique trumps technology–with a trigger warning for anatomically specific death by crossbow. Continue reading
Writing now in the spacious back room of Depot Coffee, a coffee place in Hopkins, Minnesota that (as name indicates) used to be a railway station. Thirteen of us are writing around a big table, racking up word count and drinking coffee.
If you’re a Twin Cities WriMo, look for this sign at each of the stops on the Traditional Tour, 14 hours of NaNoWriMo goodness today, Saturday 22 November 2014.
Performance stage at Depot Coffee, Hopkins MN. Last year my bad back required me to use this lovely rug as a recumbent work station.
I’ve reached the point in the novel where my hero is launched on his hopeless mission to eliminate an emissary from the alleged space pirates, who has already potted three or four professionals. Now that I’ve realized that the Romance with Rayguns actually is the same novel as The Fourth Prime, story is bopping along nicely. Excerpt follows (raw and hot off the press). Continue reading
This morning I tried out the new walking work station (with my keyboard resting on the tray on the new treadmill in my workout location).
And it went swimmingly. While walking on the treadmill, I wrote approximately 1500 words of fiction in two back-to-back 45-minute bouts, some amount of nonfiction (haven’t counted that yet), and listened to part of the audiobook of Laurence Gonzalez’ Everyday Survival. Then I took a walk in the 11-degree weather to go do my errands.
The groove is back, my friends, the groove is back. The root canal two days ago worked its magic, and I am no longer sick. Which is pretty damned wonderful, except I just lost 5-6 months of high quality production.
I am not going to think about that now, because I have another NaNo excerpt hot off the press! Continue reading
Martisset smiled at something her namesake was saying (as yet there was no sound) and the drums rolled over her reply to him. She helped Martisset the Elder walk to the place where the Great Shipwright had saluted the likenesses of the dead. He leaned forward and kissed each one, and as the nearest camera focused on the carven skulls, Hernan could see the worn spots, gleaming in the sunlight and the supporting fill lights, where that kiss had been repeated over centuries.
“We promise the dead that we will not permit the Pale Rider to ride abroad again.” His voice was far more resonant than Hernan would have expected, given his frailty and great age — over a hundred years old.
Martisset offered her arm to him so that he could lower himself to one knee. Hernan felt a shiver. The old man had no living elders; the only ones older than he now were the artifacts of the ancestors—chief among those, the statue of Martis-Mortis, antique god of war and Pale Rider, who each year at Midsummer was ritually forbidden the city of Karisalay-Prime, and with it the planet Karis.
***
Excerpt from one of my NaNo 2014 projects: untitled romance with ray guns. Martisset the Elder, the old man in this scene, is the speaker in the short story Poetics (reprinted in the collection Tales from the Inhabited Worlds).
Weekend Writing Warriors offers a selection of eight-sentence excerpts from many different writers. For the full selection, see here.
This one’s moving along slowly, but it is my Official NaNoWriMo Project. It’s a continuation of the story from Inside the Jump (NaNo 2013). So, without further ado… Continue reading
On the road to the write-in at Your Mom’s Basement, White Bear Lake MN
Minnesota nearly-winter with snow and silvery overcast.
More of the amazing overcast and sun. Minnesota winter light in all its austere beauty.
Pepper jack quesadilla with a side of salsa. Gamer food, also writer food.
Another fabulous afternoon at the Minneapolis Central Library write-in, and I scored over 3000 words. That’s still slow (some of my companions cracked 10,000) but I’m really happy with the scenes I wrote. I’ve stepped over the threshold into my fictional world, after much careful working-out of structure and plot.
So, without further ado, the rearguard of the extremely syncretic Midsummer parade in the city of Karisalay-Prime. Continue reading
For the last stop of the night, the Northern Tour came to Wilde Roast Cafe, a venue that holds a well-deserved warm spot in my writerly heart. This is the place where I’ve sipped a mocha and carried on chats with my buddies near and far, done write-ins solo and in groups, and generally hung out in a creative way. True to form, relaxation at the end of the day scored me almost as many words as the previous two steps put together, as well as the chance to confab with two NaNoWriMo first-time novelists (hello, Alvina and David!) 
Here’s the cozy alcove in front of the fire (a real fireplace in the original location at Central & Hennepin, a simulated one at the current location). I’ve written here more than once, and fictional patrons have included Max from The Shape-shifter’s Tale, a dystopian urban fantasy in which the original Wilde Roast location passes under the name of Oscar’s Cafe. Meanwhil
e, we ate, drank, were merry, and cranked out some serious words. Becca Patterson aka Mreauow crossed the 50K mark. Every NaNo must have its pacesetter, and she is carrying the torch this year. In two weeks, we’ll be doing the Southern (Traditional) Tour, which traces part of the route of the original 28-Hour Writing Tour. No, that’s not a typo. In days of yore (till a few years ago) this tour began on Saturday morning and ended mid-morning on Sunday, generally with staggering word counts and equally staggering circadian hangovers for most participants.
E. P. Beaumont 