Flashback Friday! Halitor at Midwinter

It's the last Flashback Friday of the year (and a very convenient time to have it, as the author is visiting family and far too focused on over-eating to write a new story this week). Flashback Friday is the brainchild of Michael D'Agostino; to learn more, click on the banner above!

To stick with the spirit of the season, I found the original flash-length version of "Halitor at Midwinter." A longer version appears in the Bookelves Anthology, Vol. 2, along with six other winter tales by authors of wonderful books for middle-grade readers (as we like to say, for 10-year-olds of all ages).

But for now, enjoy a cold night with Halitor.

Halitor at Midwinter

Halitor the Hero stared gloomily into his fire and sighed. He remembered how it had been this time last year. He’d been warm, for one thing. Snow had been falling then, just as it did now, but he’d been in Alcedor Castle, with Melly and the king and all the court, enough people and enough fires to make even a drafty old castle warm.

Now it was Midwinter’s Eve, the time of year when everyone gathered with family and friends and celebrated the return of the sun—or celebrated to ensure the sun would return. Some said the parties determined how the year would come out.

Halitor really hoped that wasn’t true. If it was, he was probably ruining the year for scores of people. And he was supposed to be a Hero, making their lives better! He poked the fire, added another stick, and huddled closer. His horse moved in to enjoy the warmth, too.

“Come on in, Nightwind,” Halitor told the animal. “Maybe if I make your life a little better tonight it will keep the bad luck away. If I’d been smart, I’d have given up my quest and gone back to the castle for Midwinter.” The horse snorted. He knew as well as Halitor that they had traveled much too far to return for the holiday. And, the young Hero reminded himself, along the way he had managed to do some good. He’d rescued a family from ogres, and arrived at an isolated farm in time to help put out a fire that threatened house and barn. He steered his thoughts away from some less heroic events.

Now he was in the sparsely populated lands in the farthest mountains of Kargor, and apparently a lot higher than he’d meant to be. He looked into his saddlebags, extracting a bag of beans and spices, and poured a handful into the pot of water coming to a boil over his fire. He’d had no luck hunting, not for days. Animals had more sense than to be out in this weather. His Midwinter feast would be another pot of watery bean soup.

He’d known worse. And the shallow cave that Nightwind had found offered more shelter than they’d had for days. Halitor smiled in spite of himself. He was cold and wet and hungry, but he was a Hero, by heaven he was! In the morning, if the storm had blown itself out, he’d ride on and find that village he’d heard of, the one with the wyvern problem. That settled, he ate his dinner, wrapped himself in his blanket, and went to sleep.

It wasn’t yet light when something nudged him awake. A foot. An experienced Hero like Halitor knew that it was never good when someone woke you up with a toe. That kind was always an enemy.

In this case, the enemy was a boy about nine years old. Halitor looked from the pale and very young face to the bare foot that had kicked him. A bare foot? In this blizzard? He started to sit up.

“Just you stay put, mister.” The voice was as tough as a treble could be. Halitor would have ignored the command, but the boy looked scared, which meant that he might do something foolish. It also meant that he could use a little encouragement. Halitor knew all too well how it felt to be over his head.

“Right. I’m your prisoner, then. Would you like some breakfast?” Halitor didn’t know what time it was, but when you were a little kid and barefoot in the snow, it was a safe bet that it was mealtime. “If you let me sit up I’ll fix us something.”

The boy hesitated. He edged a bit closer to the fire, and made up his mind. “Very well. But don’t do anything foolish.” Halitor sat up very carefully, happy to see that for once his captor wasn’t pointing his own sword at him. The boy had only a sharp stick. And behind him there were three more children, each younger than the previous.

“Da always said no one but a bandit would be out in the woods on Longnight,” the second child said.

“We are,” pointed out the third child. The fourth just stood there shivering, a finger in his mouth.

“Getting storm-caught can happen to anyone,” Halitor said with the sort of cheer he saved for desperate situations. He no longer worried he was in danger. But as a Hero, he had to find a way to save these waifs from the storm. “Sit up to the fire.” He handed the second child—the only girl—his blanket. “Wrap up together, all of you.” After a second look, he took off his cloak and gave that to her as well, then built the fire back up.

Only when the food was ready did the oldest lower his stick and sit in with the others. “Don’t forget, you’re my prisoner,” he told Halitor.

“I won’t,” the Hero promised. “See? I’m doing your bidding, making you something to eat.” When the child’s mouth was full, Halitor asked, “How did you all come to be wandering from home on Longnight, and in such a storm?”

Stick scowled and wouldn’t answer, but Girl spoke up. “We got no home. Not no more. Wyverns come and wrecked it.”

“Your parents?” Halitor didn’t want to ask.

“Dunno,” Girl said. “They wasn’t to home, and we had to run and then we got lost.”

Halitor kept feeding the children, even though he was nearly out of food, and kept them talking until daylight, and until he had a pretty good idea where their village might be. When at last they were warm and well-fed, he stood up. Instantly Stick was on the alert again.

“Let’s get going,” Halitor said, ignoring the bristling child. “We need to get you back to your village before Midwinter is over!”

He loaded the children onto Nightwind, wrapped the blanket around them, and led off through the snow, trying to ignore his own cold feet.

“Mister?” It was the littlest child, finally without the finger in the mouth. “Are you the Longnight Spirit? The one who brings gifts to little boys and girls?”

Halitor shrugged to himself. A Hero was what he needed to be.

“I guess I am.”

###

Halitor's story.

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2013
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated!

I is for the Ice Castle

  

In my book, Halitor the Hero, the eponymous Halitor learns of the Ice Castle, a vast frozen mountain in the north of the land. He wants to see it, and speculates that since he's not doing well as a Hero he might need to go to the mountain and learn to herd yetis. In this story, Halitor does visit the Ice Castle, and learns that there might be more to yetis than he thought.

Halitor at the Ice Castle

Halitor the Hero, as he was known to himself and a few very kind friends, gazed in awe at the gleaming structure of ice and rock towering over him. All his life—at least, since leaving his home village two years before—he had heard about the Ice Castle. The marvelous mountain of ice at the top of the world. And now he was seeing it, and it gave him chills.

As the day went on and he rode higher and closer to the mountain, the chills of awe became just plain chills. The wind blew constantly past his frozen ears. Halitor had failed to consider how cold an ice mountain would be. He was now very high up, and it had been two days since the last village. As the sun set, Halitor shivered and looked around for a place to make camp, out of the snow and wind.

A cave. What he needed was a cave. Halitor searched the hillsides, and rejoiced to find one. He led his horse into the shallow grotto, and both he and the beast heaved sighs of relief at being out of the wind.

He and the hose alike would have appreciated a fire, but there was nothing to burn. He’d not seen a tree since before the last village, nor a shrub since. He cared for his horse, rubbing it down and covering it with a blanket. Then he ate a cold meal, wrapped himself in his other blanket, and prepared to pass an uncomfortable night.

In his dream, Halitor was moving. A large yeti carried him away into the depths of the cavern. Halitor opened his eyes. By the Duck Gods! It wasn’t a dream. An extremely large and hairy creature that could only be one of the yetis he had come to seek toted him down a long, rocky corridor, surprisingly lit by torches mounted in wall sconces. He closed his eyes again. Yetis were animals. Everyone knew that, and animals did not use tools. That meant no torches, and no wall sconces. Ergo—Halitor had learned that word from the seneschal at the castle where he had spent the winter, and he liked it—ergo, this was not real and he was, in fact, still dreaming. Relieved, he closed his eyes again. He would just keep sleeping, and wake up in the cave with his horse.

Halitor couldn’t keep his eyes closed. For a dream, it seemed awfully real, especially the bouncing and bumping he got as he was carried, and the odd, musky smell of the yeti, which was hard to avoid as his face was mashed into the creature’s back.

After far too long, the passage opened into a brightly lit room, and the yeti carried Halitor to a dais at the far end and dumped him unceremoniously to the floor. Halitor had spend all the previous winter learning to be less clumsy than nature had made him, but nothing could prevent him from landing in a graceless heap. Struggling to maintain some shred of dignity, he pulled himself together and stood up.

Did yetis understand human speech? No longer able to convince himself he was dreaming, Halitor had to give it a try. “Good evening, good masters!”

The hairy creatures turned to look at him, but none appeared to understand. No one answered him, though there was a burst of activity and chattering talk amongst themselves. That answered one question. They might not speak his language, but they did speak, and Halitor was pretty sure that meant they could think.

With no invitation to do otherwise, and no place to sit in the elegant but unheated hall, Halitor stood and tried to think. After a long time, a small, stooped man rushed from a side passage. He had a great deal of white hair, but he was human. Halitor hurried to meet him, relief flooding him, and they met with much hand-clasping and exclamations of joy.

Halitor was about to ask if the man knew the way out, when the white-haired man spoke his first coherent words.

“You’ve come! You’ve come at last to rescue me!”

Halitor drew a deep breath and let go of the question he no longer could ask.

“Of course.” A Hero would rescue himself and the old man.  Halitor needed to think fast. “Can you talk to these yetis?” Maybe they could ask directions.

“Oh, I talk to them,” said the old man. Then he laughed. “They just don’t listen.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Years.”

Halitor gulped. That didn’t sound good. Though the yetis hadn’t killed and eaten the man, or anything, they weren’t likely to help them leave. He’d have to do that himself.

“Have you tried to leave?”

“Don’t know where the door is.”

Well, at least he hadn’t been caught and dragged back. But if the yetis didn’t mind them leaving, why capture them in the first place? 

Halitor shook his head. He always did better if he didn’t think too much. He took the old man by the arm, and strolled across the chamber to the passage by which he’d entered.

No one stopped them. The yetis were still chattering, possibly about them, possibly about their own business. As Halitor led the way up the passage, the old man kept mumbling about getting lost in the maze of passages.

When he couldn’t stand it, Halitor said, “There is no maze. There hasn’t been a single branch off this passage!”

That quieted him. In the distance, they could see the grey light of a gloomy day. A moment later, Halitor was hugging his horse, though the beast showed no sign of concern for him. It took only a minute to pack up, and he boosted the old man onto the horse.

Grinning, Halitor led the animal down the mountain. Just turn and walk away. Sometimes, it really was that easy.

###

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2015

Being an author-publisher looks a lot like work...

I don't have a review ready to go today. I could blame it on having been on the road with my oldest son, visiting colleges (colleges? We're just getting some traction on this parenting thing, and it's almost over?). That would even be partly true. But I'm also working hard on all the final details for Halitor the Hero, which is still on schedule for its Nov. 30 release date!

There's a lot to do. Once the MS is clean and lovely as far as content goes (got there last week), the formatting begins. I spent yesterday in battle with MS Word getting it to where the ebooks should be perfect (I often wish my books had illustrations, but I admit that it is easier to create an ebook without them!). Now I'm working on the print version, which is easier in some ways (no need for live links!) but requires more of what I'm less good at, i.e. an artistic sense. This font or that? And I set myself a big challenge this time: I hired my amazing cover artist, Danielle English, only for the front cover. I'm doing the back and spine myself. In theory, this is well within my skills. In practice...the jury is still out!

Once that's done and all the chapter heads are just as I want them (and headers! footers! page numbers!), and I upload the whole thing, I'll finish that short story for Friday's blog and get back to your regularly scheduled entertainment!

Oh, and about that "NaNoEdMo" idea, where I was going to get Death By Trombone through the first round of edits by the end of the month? Not looking so good! But I am working on it, so I know I'll get there eventually. Maybe even by the end of the year (just in time to start the second round of edits in the new year).

Meanwhile, you can pre-order the ebook of Halitor from Amazon AND from Smashwords!

 

And don't forget the exciting pending release of the BookElves Anthology! I'll link up as soon as we have a pre-order page, because there are some cool holiday stories in there! Huge thanks to Princelings of the East author Jemima Pett for all the work she's doing on this!

And don't forget that Goodreads Giveaway for Halitor!

Enter to win an advance copy of Halitor the Hero!

A Fair Maiden who breaks all the rules.  A would-be Hero who fails everything by the book.  It’ll be the adventure of a lifetime…if they survive past breakfast.

Halitor wants to be a Hero and ride through the world rescuing Princesses and Fair Maidens in distress, but he’s hindered by his tendency to trip over his own feet and drop his sword when he gets excited. So when his Hero apprentice-master abandons him at an inn in Loria, he resigns himself to life as a kitchen boy. But he’s reckoned without Melly, the young kitchen wench. She wants his help finding her father, and she won’t quit until she has it. Soon Halitor is tramping through the mountains fighting ogres and dragons and just trying to stay alive. Along the way he learns a lot more than just how to be a Hero. This fun fantasy adventure has a good dose of humor and plenty of excitement to keep kids turning pages.

 Enter now to win an advance review proof copy, signed by the author. Offer open only to residents of the US (or people with a US mailing address).

Not a US resident? Don't despair--I'll give away some electronic copies after my November 30 release date, so watch this space!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Halitor the Hero

 

by Rebecca Douglass

Giveaway ends November 17, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Cover Reveal: Halitor the Hero!

A Fair Maiden who breaks all the rules.

A would-be Hero who fails by the book.

It'll be a fantasy adventure like you never saw...

If they can survive past breakfast!

Halitor has failed at every apprenticeship under the Ice Castle. He figures it’s his last chance when his parents foist him on Bovrell the Bold as an apprentice Hero, and he pores eagerly over the Hero’s Guide to Battles, Rescues and the Slaying of Monsters. But Halitor infuriates his master when he drops his sword, and he gets hopelessly rattled around Fair Maidens. When his master abandons him at an inn in Loria, Halitor is ready to give up and just be a kitchen boy. But Melly, the young kitchen wench, has other ideas. She wants to go find her father, and soon the two are battling monsters and worse on a wild journey to her home. Before they are done, Halitor has learned more than just how to be a Hero.

Available now for pre-order from Amazon Kindle! 

Unfortunately, I am unable to use Amazon for pre-orders of paperback copies. If you would like to pre-order your real, live, concrete copy, please use the "contact me" link above or email Rebecca(dot)Douglass(at)ninjalibrarian(dot)com

Many thanks to Danielle English for the beautiful cover art, as always!

WIP Blog Tour

It has been a long time since I devoted a post to talking about writing. Long enough for people to forget that writing books is what I really do, rather than reviewing them (though obviously reading books is what I spend the most time doing, and I don't even review everything I read!). So it was perfect that I got a tag this week from fellow Goodreads author Heidi Chandler to take part in the Work In Progress Blog Tour.

The rules go like this:  Provide the link back to the post by the person who nominated you (see above). Write a little about and give the first sentences of the first three chapters of your current WIP, then nominate a few other writers to do the same.

So my first job was to decide which WIP to write about. I'm currently in final edits on my humorous middle-grade fantasy, Halitor the Hero; in early edits on the second Pismawallops PTA mystery, Death By Trombone; and starting to draft stories for a third Ninja Librarian book, which doesn't even have a title yet, though I think of it as "The Problem of Peggy."

Since only one of those has a clear first three chapters, the choice was pretty easy. And I here realize that I haven't yet done any of my homework--writing blurbs and summaries and all that. Here's my chance to start!

Halitor the Hero

Young Halitor has failed at every possible career for a peasant lad in the lands under the Ice Castle when his parents manage to foist him on Bovrell the Bold as an apprentice Hero. But he's no good at that, either, and when his master abandons him at an inn in Loria, he would be willing to settle down to being a kitchen boy, as long as they feed him. But Melly, the kitchen wench, has other ideas. Soon the two have set off on a journey to try to find her father. What Halitor learns along the way is a lot more than just how to be a Hero.


Chapter One: Halitor the Hapless
A girl’s scream sounded through the afternoon, and Halitor clutched his sword in a sweaty fist and reined his horse to a halt at the edge of the forest.

Chapter Two: Halitor the Homeless
Once Melly had gained some skill with the sword, she began to suggest that they needn't stay on at the Drunken Bard.  

Chapter Three: Encounters with Ogres
Melly clutched Halitor’s arm and pointed into the woods. A pair of small ogres looked back, growling and gnashing their teeth. 

(Okay, I cheated on that last one and put the first 2 sentences).

So the great writers I'm nominating are:
Jemima Pett
M.G. King

And I still need to do a post about writing!

###
On a housekeeping kind of note, I've looked at my last few reviews and decided I need to take a break from reading and reviewing kids' books and reset my grump-o-meter. I'll try writing more short stories, posting more photos, and talking about writing until I feel more objective.

Flash Fiction Friday: Halitor at Midwinter

Because writing is way more fun than editing, or cleaning house, or shopping for Christmas presents, here's one last holiday story before I turn to focus on my family for a week or so.  Have a safe and pleasant holiday!

Halitor at Midwinter

Halitor the Hero stared gloomily into his fire and sighed.  He remembered how it had been this time last year.  He’d been warm, for one thing.  Snow had been falling then, just as it did now, but he’d been in Alcedor Castle, with Melly and the king and all the court, enough people and enough fires to make even a drafty old castle warm.

Now it was Midwinter’s Eve, the time of year when everyone gathered with family and friends and celebrated the return of the sun—or celebrated to ensure the sun would return.  Some said the parties determined how the year would come out.

Halitor really hoped that wasn’t true.  If it was, he was probably ruining the year for scores of people.  And he was supposed to be a Hero, making their lives better!  He poked the fire, added another stick, and huddled closer.  His horse moved in to enjoy the warmth, too.

“Come on in, Nightwind,” Halitor told the animal.  “Maybe if I make your life a little better tonight it will keep the bad luck away.  If I’d been smart, I’d have given up my quest and gone back to the castle for Midwinter.”  The horse snorted.  He knew as well as Halitor that they had traveled much too far to return for the holiday.  And, the young Hero reminded himself, along the way he had managed to do some good.  He’d rescued a family from ogres, and arrived at an isolated farm in time to help put out a fire that threatened house and barn.  He steered his thoughts away from some less heroic events.

Now he was in the sparsely populated lands in the farthest mountains of Kargor, and apparently a lot higher than he’d meant to be.  He looked into his saddlebags, extracting a bag of beans and spices, and poured a handful into the pot of water coming to a boil over his fire.  He’d had no luck hunting, not for days.  Animals had more sense than to be out in this weather.  His Midwinter feast would be another pot of watery bean soup.

He’d known worse.  And the shallow cave that Nightwind had found offered more shelter than they’d had for days.  Halitor smiled in spite of himself.  He was cold and wet and hungry, but he was a Hero, by heaven he was!  In the morning, if the storm had blown itself out, he’d ride on and find that village he’d heard of, the one with the wyvern problem.  That settled, he ate his dinner, wrapped himself in his blanket, and went to sleep.

It wasn’t yet light when something nudged him awake.  A foot.  An experienced Hero like Halitor knew that it was never good when someone woke you up with a toe.  That kind was always an enemy.

In this case, the enemy was a boy about nine years old.  Halitor looked from the pale and very young face to the bare foot that had kicked him.  A bare foot?  In this blizzard?  He started to sit up.

“Just you stay put, mister.”  The voice was as tough as a treble could be.  Halitor would have ignored the command, but the boy looked scared, which meant that he might do something foolish.  It also meant that he could use a little encouragement.  Halitor knew all too well how it felt to be over his head.

“Right.  I’m your prisoner, then.  Would you like some breakfast?”  Halitor didn’t know what time it was, but when you were a little kid and barefoot in the snow, it was a safe bet that it was mealtime.  “If you let me sit up I’ll fix us something.”

The boy hesitated.  He edged a bit closer to the fire, and made up his mind.  “Very well.  But don’t do anything foolish.”  Halitor sat up very carefully, happy to see that for once his captor wasn’t pointing his own sword at him.  The boy had only a sharp stick.  And behind him there were three more children, each younger than the previous. 

“Da always said no one but a bandit would be out in the woods on Longnight,” the second child said. 

“We are,” pointed out the third child.  The fourth just stood there shivering, a finger in his mouth.

“Getting storm-caught can happen to anyone,” Halitor said with the sort of cheer he saved for desperate situations.  He no longer worried he was in danger.  But as a Hero, he had to find a way to save these waifs from the storm.  “Sit up to the fire.”  He handed the second child—the only girl—his blanket. “Wrap up together, all of you.”  After a second look, he took off his cloak and gave that to her as well, then built the fire back up.

Only when the food was ready did the oldest lower his stick and sit in with the others.  “Don’t forget, you’re my prisoner,” he told Halitor.

“I won’t,” the Hero promised.  “See?  I’m doing your bidding, making you something to eat.”  When the child’s mouth was full, Halitor asked, “How did you all come to be wandering from home on Longnight, and in such a storm?”

Stick scowled and wouldn’t answer, but Girl spoke up.  “We got no home.  Not no more.  Wyverns come and wrecked it.”

“Your parents?”  Halitor didn’t want to ask. 

“Dunno,” Girl said.  “They wasn’t to home, and we had to run and then we got lost.”

Halitor kept feeding the children, even though he was nearly out of food, and kept them talking until daylight, and until he had a pretty good idea where their village might be.  When at last they were warm and well-fed, he stood up.  Instantly Stick was on the alert again. 

“Let’s get going,” Halitor said, ignoring the bristling child.  “We need to get you back to your village before Midwinter is over!”

He loaded the children onto Nightwind, wrapped the blanket around them, and led off through the snow, trying to ignore his own cold feet.

“Mister?”  It was the littlest child, finally without the finger in the mouth.  “Are you the Longnight Spirit?  The one who brings gifts to little boys and girls?” 

Halitor shrugged to himself.  A Hero was what he needed to be.

“I guess I am.”

###

You know what goes here!

Staying sane as a writer

Sticking (sort of) with my resolution to work every day on revising my novels has made one thing very clear: all revisions all the time makes Rebecca one crazy lady.  Doing it while laid up with a bum foot probably doesn't help, as my usual approach to regaining sanity is to go out for a ride or a run.  Instead, I have to think about what can be done beside start another game of Words With Friends (not that there's anything wrong with that).

The thing is, I notice that all the books and articles on writing talk about needing to sit down and write every day.

None of them seem to address what to do when you've finished a draft, and you need to sit down and revise every day.  Completely different job and different piece of the brain, though utterly essential, (as noted here) and if you can't do this part, no matter how good you are at sitting down and writing every day, you aren't a writer and should get a day job.

So how do I keep sane while doing the hard part?  Here are my two main solutions so far:
1.  Set a modest goal every day.  I'm shooting for 25 pages worked over and annotated for further working over.  That's one to two hours, depending on how awful it is, or how much I've changed my mind about where things are going.  If my head or foot starts to throb before I get there, I cut myself some slack and stop at 20 pages.  Today it took me an hour to do 10 pages.  Since I have a report to finish and some other work, I may stop there.  Maybe I can do more later in the day.  Rules are made to be broken.

2.  What else?  Start a new book.  That short story I posted last week about Halitor the Hero?  Yeah, him.  He's bouncing around in my head asking to get out.  So I'm letting him out.  Finish the revisions for the day, and I get to write a few pages, for an hour or until my hand wears out and I get cramps in my shoulder from writing on the couch with my foot higher than my head (this will improve.  My foot will heal.  My hand will probably never adapt to writing for long periods).

This means I am now working on three projects simultaneously.   Well, I read multiple books at once. Maybe I can also write them that way.

This also means I'm back to struggling with another on-going debate: hand-written vs. drafted on the computer.  That's my next blog post.