Born Free
Seriously, I think my boy is doing something new with the way he uses his LJ.
Maybe we should get him a tip jar. I mean, he needs to pay for premed and eventually for med school. Besides, let’s face it, sooner or later, he’ll have to pay for med… potent, probably: http://robertahoyt.livejournal.com/4938.html
By Their Cats Thou Shalt Know Them
Mumble years ago, my husband and I were sitting in a comedy club in Charlotte NC when the poor visiting comedian decided to make a riff on common cats’ names versus common dogs’ names, or such. He started by saying that dogs were given manly names – I don’t remember the examples he gave – while cats got names… and here he made the mistake of pausing and asking who in the audience had cats. Our entire table raised their hands.
The comedian might still have saved himself, had he noticed that we looked a little… unusual… He didn’t. So he asks my husband his cat’s name. He said, “Petronius the Arbiter, cat from Hades.” Comedian said “uh” but, nothing daunted, proceeded on his – oh so very – unwise course. He points at me – clearly not taking the hint that we were married from our holding hands. Or perhaps he thought one of us had to be sane – and says, “And your cat’s name?” “I have two,” I said. “Random Numbers and Pixel Wallwalker.” You’d think by this point he would take a hint, but nothing doing. He points to a friend of ours at same table and says, “And yours?” “Crystal.” Another friend, “Yours?” “Myiuki,” he says. “It means Deep Snow and…” At which point the man lost it. “WHAT are you guys? Did you land from Planet Weirdo?”
All I can say is he could have done worse. He might have found a table full of writers. Recently while talking about cats to a friend, it occurred to me that writers have a strange and creative approach to naming their cats. (Some of them carry this as far as naming their kids, their cars, their home appliances and their dental floss. The least said about THOSE writers, the best.)
For instance, the Hoyt demesne is afflicted with a mix of variously named felines, ranging from our own characters to other people’s characters. Continue reading “By Their Cats Thou Shalt Know Them”
The three chapters are below, but this is an mp3 of me reading the first two chapters. YES that IS my real accent. (I was born and raised abroad.) No, I don’t normally sound like that. Athena made me!
http://darkshipthieves.com/audio/darkship1-2.mp3 (warning: 27MB).
*I know I’ve done this before, but now that DST is actually shipping from Amazon, here is the opening. And happy New Year, everyone.*
One
I never wanted to go to space. Never wanted see the eerie glow of the Powerpods. Never wanted to visit Circum Terra. Never had any interest in discovering the truth about the darkships. You always get what you don’t ask for.
Which was why I woke up in the dark of shipnight, within the greater night of space in my father’s space cruiser.
Before full consciousness, I knew there was an intruder in my cabin. Once awake, I couldn’t figure out how I knew it. The air smelled as it always did on shipboard, as it had for the week I’d spent here – stale, with the odd tang given by the recycling.
The engines, below me, hummed steadily. We had just detached from Circum Terra – a maneuver that involved some effort, to avoid accidentally ramming the station or the ship. Shortly we’d be Earth bound, though slowing down and reentry let alone landing, for a ship this size, would take close to a week.
My head felt a little light, my stomach a little queasy, from the artificial grav. Yes, I know. Scientists say that’s impossible. They say artificial gravity is just like true gravity to the senses. You don’t feel a thing. They are wrong. Artificial grav always made me feel a little out of balance, like a couple of shots of whiskey on an empty stomach.
Even before waking fully, I’d tallied all this. There was nothing out of the ordinary. And yet there was a stranger in my cabin.
Years in reformatories, boarding schools and mental hospitals, had taught me that the feeling I woke up with was often the right one. Something had awakened me – a door closing, a step on the polished floor. Continue reading “A Sample of Darkship Thieves”
A post by D’Artagnan Hoyt, the bestest cat in the world (Mommy says so.)
She doesn’t like it when I call her mommy. Says she’d remember if she’d given birth to me, which is silly, because I don’t remember being born, so no reason why she should. The thing is, I’m probably adopted, because I’m handsome and fuzzy and not a pink blob on two legs, like Mommy and Daddy and the sad, deformed bigger-kittens they have. But, you know, they’re still the only family I gots. And they feed me and pet me and younger deformed-giant-kitten lets me sleep in his bed at night, which is really warm.
So… to make a long story short, mommy says that no one even knows all the name she writes under, which comes prettilly from a woman who calls me D’Artagnan, Tagnan, Little Cat (which I’m not!) Pickle Jar, Sausage, Bah-Lamb and a dozen other things and expects me to remember them.
Anyway, her names so far are Sarah Hoyt and Sarah D’Almeida and Elise Hyatt and apparently for only one book (Plain Jane) a house name (Whatever that is) Laurien Gardner.
And, she says I should tell you about the books, so here goes:
My favorite is the shifter series (I read them after they go to bed. I mean, geesh, if Mommy found out I can read and write, she’d start dictating to me.)
Draw One In The Dark — adventures of a dragon boy and a cat girl, though what she wants with a lizard, is beyond me. There’s also a pearl. It’s very educational.
Gentleman Takes a Chance — more cat girl and dragon boy. Kyrie, the cat girl is really hot, though Mommy would probably glare at me for saying so.
Then is the Musketeer’s Mysteries series. These are out of print, Mommy says, which is not fair, since it’s all about the adventures of D’Artagnan who was named after me, and who solves mysteries with his three friends, Athos, Porthos and Aramis. I’d like to meet the cats they’re named after.
Then there’s Darkship Thieves, hopefully the first of a series, only I read this in manuscript form, since it only comes out January 5. It’s about this girl who goes to space and meets a guy with cat eyes. Two paws up. Recommended reading. Go buy it. I want to read more of these.
Then there is the Magical British Empire — Heart of light, Soul of Fire and Heart and Soul, only of course they don’t have any cats. They do however have dragons. I wonder what mommy thought she was doing there? No clue.
And then there’s Dipped, Stripped and Dead under Elise Hyatt. It’s about Fluffy. The second book will be about the cat Pythagoras. Comes out in April.
Also in April comes out No Other Will But His, which is about Kathryn Howard, wife of Henry VIII, but mom says there’s no cats in it, though Kathryn behaved a lot like a cat whatever that means.
And that’s it, and now I’m going to make Mommy give me kibble and pet me. This was exhausting.
Hi to everyone out there. My human, Sarah, says that there are many many people you can reach through this computer thing. I don’t know what she means, because I’ve walked up behind this computer thing — and coughed a hairball or two on top of it, and let me tell you, it’s not touching anyone. But then humans are weird that way. I mean, it’s like the whole thing with water. what sane species keeps water in their lair, ready to dump on them at a moment’s notice. They could just lick themselves clean like normal people, or have their friends lick them, at least. I mean, it’s fun and no sudden water on head.
But Sarah-human is looking over my shoulder, and anyway, I didn’t mean to make this a post about humans. You know, I’m not complaining. Oh, well, okay, I’m complaining, but it’s not that bad. They give us food twice and a day and everything, even if Havey eats most of it. Of course, I can’t figure what they put into those cans. I’ve never seen animals that shape running around. Perhaps they just press squirrels really well? Sometimes I have nightmares where those wheel shaped things are spying on me with beady little eyes. They have purple fur, and they hate me, becaus ethey know I’m going to eat them some day. But then my tail… Uh… no, Sarah, I don’t need to see the vet for more valium. Whatever gave you that idea?
Sarahhuman says if I’m going to blog — like it was my idea! — I might as well promote her stuff, so look, Sarahhuman has books out this month. And last month and things. Only she doesn’t write as Sarahhuman — apparently there’s a lot of them, though I’ve never met another one — but as Sarah Hoyt, where she has this great book called Gentleman Takes A Chance. It’s all about this cat called Not Dinner and how brave he is and the adventures he has, though there’s some boring parts about a guy who changes into a dragon and a girl who changes into a panther some ancient canine trying to kill them or something and this whole courtship thing humans do, but they don’t yowl or anything, so it’s boring. Then there’s one called Dipped, Stripped And Dead about this cat named Fluffy, though Sarahhuman says it’s really about some girl who refinishes furniture and dates this hot policeman and solves mysteries. Whatever. It’s written under Elise Hyatt, because Sarahhuman was asked to have another name, like when you go to the humane society and they give you a name. Let me tell you about that.
They called me Tootsie. TOOTSIE! As if it weren’t obvious that my name was Euclid. And they were going to put me down till Sarahhuman and Danhuman and their two cubs came and rescued me at the last minute. My tail was so scared that it’s never been the same since. I can’t sleep without its sneaking up on me and trying to strangle me, and then Sarahhuman makes me swallow valium, which only makes the tail take advantage of my confused state and it just isn’t fair.
But Sarahhuman is coming again, and if she reads this she’ll say I need to see the vet, so let’s keep that between us. Buy her books, because then she buys us kibble and toys and stuff, and is too busy to think I need valium.
Till next time.
Euclid Hoyt
I won’t even go into how I got into this, but it started with talking about a chicken’s eyes. Then looking at chickens online. (Hey, like you don’t look at stuff on line. First stone, buddy, first stone.) Of course, I didn’t need to look at chickens. I grew up with them (around. I mean, I wasn’t literally in the hen house.) But the kids didn’t and I wanted to show them the expression in chicken’s eyes.
Why, you ask? Oh, surely you can understand. If you’ve ever looked into a chicken’s eyes, you surely have a clue what is happening there. It’s as though every t-rex in the world is being reincarnated as a chicken over and over again.
In my head, this is what happens when one of us looks into a chicken’s eyes:
H (for human): mmmm fryer!
C (for chicken): Hey, hey, something is very wrong here!
H: Chicken soup!
C: I used to be much larger than your puny ancestors. They got caught in my teeth.
H: Chicken casserole!
C:In my dreams I still am. I stalk the world and your kind cowers.
H:Roast chicken.
C: Do you mind just lying down and letting me peck you to death? Shouldn’t take more than two hours, and it would do wonders for my self esteem.
H: What?
C: Not even for therapy? You mean, evil, cold b*stard. In my dreams I’m crunching you right now…
H:Chicken soup will make you feel better.
Came back to my contributor copies of Dipped, Stripped and Dead under nom de guerre (feels like it) of Elise Hyatt. In case no one remembers, Dipped starts like this:
One Woman’s Trash
When I was little, I was going to be a ballerina. This was a strange ambition for a five year old who could trip over both feet at the same time while standing still. As soon as that tragic fact dawned on me, I settled on the more attainable ambition of becoming a lion tamer. This, at least, seemed perfectly within my reach, since my cat always did exactly what I wanted her to – well, except when she balked at jumping through the lighted hoop. Which is just as well, since Mom didn’t exactly approve of my setting fire to her quilting frame. With the quilt in it.
In the aftermath of the fire-in-the-living-room incident and subsequent grounding, I’d regretfully dropped the lion taming ambition – probably good, since Fluffy wouldn’t come near me any more, though her fur did grow back – and with it all my hopes of a career in the performing arts.
A failure at the age of six, my ego crushed, I’d actually been weak enough to consider dad’s life-long ambition of having me grow up to become a private eye. Except that I wasn’t absolutely sure what a private eye was – it seemed to me you’d have to go around with your hands over your eyes to prevent anyone seeing them and…
Well, that also didn’t go well. And My Little Investigator’s Kit which Dad bought me, didn’t provide me with many clues. I spread the fingerprint powder over the cat, finger painted with the inking pad and used the magnifying lens to start a fire in the leaf pile in the backyard.
After the fire department had been by and we’d found Fluffy cowering under the azalea bushes at the far end, I thought that this private eye thing was by far too hazardous.
And this is how I never quite figured out what to be when I grew up.
Which probably explained why, at twenty nine years of age, I had parked at the edge of Goldport college campus and was rummaging through a dumpster.
Okay, it wasn’t exactly as dire as Mom had always said it would be. I wasn’t living on the streets. I still had all my teeth – even if there had been some doubt about that when I went flying from my bike at the age of eight, after riding down suicide hill with no hands – and I wasn’t looking for food.
Well, at least I wasn’t exactly looking for food, only for the stuff that allowed me to make a living. Because, after waffling through two years as an English major – until the words post modernism could put me to sleep like hypnotic suggestion – and a year as a teaching major – before I remembered another name for hell was school room full of kids – and a year in pre law, before I realized I just didn’t have the required forked tongue, I’d left college with a Mrs. degree.
And when that exploded in my face – worse than the quilting frame – I’d found myself as at a loss for what I wanted to do with my life as I had been at six, when my hopes of lion taming had been so cruelly dashed.
Only it no longer was a career a matter of keeping myself amused, or even of feeling I was a productive member of a society. No. My marriage with Alex – All-ex, completely ex, he couldn’t be more ex if I killed him, something I was tempted to do twice a week and four times on Sundays or whenever we had any interaction – Mahr while otherwise completely unproductive, had left me with a child.
Enoch – his father had chosen the name because he thought it sounded solid. I called him E because I hoped to save on therapy bills when he grew up — had been one when his father and I got divorced. His primary interests in life had been attempting to stuff all his fingers in his mouth at once and finding ever more interesting bugs to eat.
He was still interested in gastronomic entomology at two and a half. But he didn’t look at all like All-ex – or like me, though he had the blond hair and blue eyes I’d had till three, before both had turned pitch black – and he showed some signs of, through some amazing genetic mutation, growing up to be someone worthwhile. Which would be thwarted if I let him starve to death or even – forbid the thought – if I allowed his father full custody.
My working retail would have supported us – sort of – but I’d have had to leave E with someone. Mom and Dad weren’t an option. They worked all day in Remembered Murder, the mystery bookstore they owned and where Fluffy – whom I believed remained alive on the hopes I’d die first – was store cat. And Fluffy started twitching whenever she saw me, or E.
This left me with the one skill I’d more or less inadvertently picked up while furnishing my first home. I’d taken a course in furniture restoration and refinishing at the community college. Back then I’d done it to fit furnishing a house within the scant budget All-ex would allot to it.
On my own — after some experimentation — I found that picking up old, beat up and abused furniture, refinishing it or fixing it or giving it a total make over, and selling it – under the business name of Daring Finds — made just about enough money to keep me and E in three meals a day and a roof over our heads.
Said roof was rented and in an area of town that made my friend Ben cringe and the meals might run to pancakes a lot, but it beat the alternative. Homeless shelters struck me as a terrible place to take a kid who liked to sample bugs.
And so I was at the corner of the college, on a bright Saturday in late May, looking at a bulky green dumpster.
Come one, come all — going to the one who amuses me most with his/her description of the need for this book, the Writers’ Digest "Twenty Master Plots and how to build them."
You have a week or till someone strikes my funny bone.
I have about twenty books on plot and most of them repeat themselves. Partly because when I first got published I couldn’t find a plot with two hands, a cane and a seeing eye dog!
Okay — leans back — amuse me.
Remember sometime back I told you I’d be giving away some of the writers’ books cluttering my shelf?
The first up is Writing Dialogue by Tom Chiarella.
Tell me why you’d deserve it and amuse me. I’ll notify the winner via LJ message, and he/she can then send me address and postage.
Going once, going twice…
(I must clear the bookshelves.)
