Take a Walk Between the Worlds

 

That’s what I plan to do tonight. In addition to celebrating Samhain, I’ll be celebrating HalloNaNoWeen at midnight. Yes, I’ve been celebrating this for seventeen years now. At midnight tonight, I will begin my eighteenth NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). And how spookily appropriate that this year, I’ll be launching a story about a Demon. Just seems right!

The hardest part this year has been waiting for midnight tonight, because I just want to start writing! I’ve written 8,300 words of scene setting, world building, voice capturing, and outlining in prep, and I know there will be much more. All for Bob's Memoir: 4000 Years as a Free Demon.

So, Bob is a demon conjured by an inept adept some 4000 years ago. The mage slurred the name Beelzebub during the conjuring and it came out Beetlebob. When Bob appeared, the mage died of shock, creating a convenient bridge for Bob to cross into the human world—a free demon. He’s been a happy-go-lucky (mostly lucky) fellow ever since.

And like most of my stories, I’ll write just outside what is generally accepted regarding demons, history, famous people, gods, and primordial ooze. The story promises to be a little spooky, a little sexy, and a lot funny.

There are, believe it or not, people who want to read my words of wit in their raw, unedited form. I call them patrons. Devon Layne Sausage Grinder patrons and Nathan Everett Fifth Wheel patrons pay $10 per month and in November will receive daily updates on Bob’s Memoir! Furthermore, they’ll be invited to a private Discord channel where they can discuss the story and suggest future developments as I’m writing. If all goes well, there will even be a time designated during which I share my screen and you can watch the words take shape on the page!

Here are the links to join the pages. Either Patreon page will give you all the same benefits.

Nathan Everett: https://www.patreon.com/nathaneverett

Devon Layne: https://www.patreon.com/aroslav

The story starts—and invitations to discord come out—tomorrow.

So, what else is new? I’ve spent the past two weeks slowly making my way south from Sun Meadow in Idaho to King’s Row in Las Vegas. I’ve set up camp and am ready to write.

The location is very nice, quiet, and roomy. I even have a storage shed, so I don’t need to keep things in the back of my truck. Perfectly beautiful spot for my new trailer. I changed my route coming down after four days of rain in Winnemucca and news that Austin (my next scheduled stop) had snow and 23 degrees. After eating my fill of Basque food, I headed down US 95 to Hawthorne, NV for a couple of nights.

The Basque delicacies included two things I would never have thought up to try. The first was to dish the Basque beans right onto my salad (on the advice of my waitress). I could have made a meal on that alone! Delicious. The second, equally unlikely, was prawns sauteed in cream sauce with some special spices and served over a bed of garlic mashed potatoes. I ate far more than I was comfortable eating. It was just so good!

I passed up staying at the infamous Clown Motel in Tonopah and was quite thankful I had my trailer tucked away in an RV park a couple of miles away. I had intended to stay in Beatty, NV, just 110 miles out from Las Vegas, but it was Beatty Days and every camping spot in the area was full until November 2! Who knew? That meant that I had a 220 mile drive from Tonopah to King’s Row on Friday, but I was still here by 1:00 and managed to get my trailer parked without difficulty.

I bought a lovely bottle of Saint Émelion Grand Cru to have with my prime rib steak and discovered I had either given away all my bottle openers or I’d hidden them so well I could no longer find them. My new next-door neighbor came through for me and loaned me a corkscrew. I know that is not a wine glass, but I’m a little short on glassware, too!

So, supplies have been acquired. First nap is out of the way. I’m nearly ready for midnight to come. Let’s get this party started!

Now, where did I hide my reading glasses?

One of the joys of moving into my new trailer and having my daughter along for the move, is finding out where she hid things as she helped move me into the trailer and get ready to roll. Of course, I can't blame her for everything I can't find. I'm pretty sure, for instance, that I tossed my reading glasses case in a paper bag as I was moving out of the guest room at M&J's house. When I got to the trailer, I tossed that bag in a bin of things I wouldn't need while traveling and strapped it down somewhere in the middle of my truck bed, under the tonneau cover. I'll uncover it in Las Vegas when I get there.

The memory foam mattress topper I got for my new bed still remembers being in a small box. This was only three days after I opened it, but it's still trying to remember what shape it's supposed to be a week later.

I had a great time visiting in Lynnwood before heading across the state to Idaho. Q, M, W, and J took me out for a lovely birthday dinner.

So much fun with Quinne and her mom. They joined me on the trip to Idaho so they could see the new trailer and "where Dad lives." They both thought the trailer was cool and even really liked Sun Meadow. Sadly, they left to return to Lynnwood on Sunday morning, and I turned my truck and trailer south.

I've made it as far as Winnemucca in the week I've been on the road. That's only 630 miles or so from Sun Meadow, but I follow the 2-2-2 rule most of the time. Never drive more than 200 miles in a day; always arrive by 2:00; always stay at least 2 days. This is my fourth day in Winnemucca, which is necessary in order to enjoy the Basque food.

Here are two things that would never have occurred to me until the server suggested them. At the top is the house salad: Romaine, celery, carrots, egg, tomato, parmesan and the house dressing that I'd compare to a spicy Caesar. The server suggested that I put the Basque beans right on the salad. Oh, my! what a taste sensation. I could have eaten that as my meal and been quite happy!

But, no. I had to follow the next suggestion for Scampi ala Diabla. Sweet tiger prawns, sauteed in garlic and butter, finished with white wine and sun dried tomatoes, cream and special seasonings to add a bit of fire. But get this: It's served on top of garlic mashed potatoes! Who would have thought to serve shrimp and cream sauce on mashed potatoes? So good! I'm still overstuffed from the meal, served with a glass of house red wine.

Of course, that was the second Basque dinner I'd had. Friday night's was served family style with six people I'd never met before who all became our family at dinner. I had the Solemo, pork loin simmered with garlic and pimento. I'm having the remains of that meal for Sunday dinner today!

Well, I expect to get to Las Vegas for the winter on Friday if all goes well. In the meantime, I have about two more chapters to write in order to finish my current WIP, Team Manager COACH!

I had to stop after 41 chapters and go back to edit and cut the equivalent of four chapters (around 14,000 words) before I could write half a dozen new chapters to get it where it is now. I'm pretty happy with it, but need to get finished before next Sunday.

Why? Monday is NaNoWriMo. I've been making notes and working on the timeline/outline for the story and am excited to get started on it next week.

I’m having a “good time” figuring out how long a trip it is from Girsu to Babylon and whether Cyprus is on the way to Athens. Coordinating a historical timeline in twenty or thirty different parts of the world with a fantasy character’s timeline and the map of his travels is proving complex and confusing. (Wait! How did he get to India?) Especially since Bob doesn’t always remember what location came first, second, and third, or which country had the best wine. That is usually the country he forgot because he was drunk most of the time.

I’m coupling that with a few features that I’m blatantly borrowing from famous writers—usually with my own twist added to it. Take for instance, the infinity room. I’m pretty sure I remember a similar pocket of some sort from a Heinlein story, and I know Harry Potter's Hermione had a bag she kept more in than the bag could possibly hold. And of course, there are the bottles that genies supposedly live in. My twist is that Bob creates the room for all the books he collects. But having books, he also needs to build a library in the infinity room so all the books are neatly stored. A library needs librarians, so he has to convince some librarians to live in his infinity room. If they are going to live there, they need houses, stores, food, restaurants, crops, animals, and wives. And those all need other people to tend to the work. And it all needs to fit in a neat little satchel that Bob can close the flap of and carry as he flees town ahead of a jealous husband determined to get his wife back. And don’t rattle the bottles in the wine cellar!

All part of the tale of a happy-go-lucky (mostly lucky) demon.

Tier 3 patrons for either Nathan Everett or Devon Layne will be able to see this story as it develops daily during NaNoWriMo. Join us!