Read Excerpts from Patchwork Hearts

I can let you read excerpts of my NaNoWriMo book as I write it, but to prevent my first publishing rights from being lost, I can only let you read it by invitation only through a shared Google Docs document.

To be invited to share the novel document, send me a request to my e-mail address or post a comment that tells me your e-mail address (for your own safety, don’t post your e-mail in the comment itself). You’ll need a Gmail account; if you don’t have one, I’ll be glad to give you one.

Enjoy the journey! And by the way, feedback is encouraged.

Where I’m At Now

If anyone’s still reading this, I’ve pulled up the stakes and went to a more general-purpose blog for my future goings-on. If I start working on Patchwork Hearts again in the near future, maybe this blog will start up again, but for now, you can join me at A Man of Letters: A Journal of Writing and General Mischief, where I’ve started talking about my new NaNoWriMo book for 2009. Hope to see you there!

Draconi’s Secret

I’ve been playing up that something’s wrong with Draconi for a while, and in today’s excerpt, I reveal what it is. Some among you may already know, but nonetheless, a large body of readers may be surprised.

These are one of the unique qualms of this universe that I was able to touch on in this story. It occurred to me that I’ve got so many ideas to play off of this concept, I might have to write an entire series to touch on all of them; there’s certainly more here than would fit in one story, not because I’m too lazy to put them in, but because they wouldn’t fit into the setting or conflict. Draconi has thoughts about something that might allude to this story’s long-term future.

The 10,000-word day still continues to elude me, what with work, laziness, and no idea where it’s going between now and the end, but I’m well on the track to meeting 50,000 words before the month is up. The story itself, however, most likely won’t be finished. I don’t want this book to suffer the same ignored fate as my NaNo from last year, so I’ll probably participate in NaNoFiMo (National Novel Finishing Month) just so I can get the beast finished. If that’s the case, I’ll keep updating this blog right up until the end. Stay tuned!

Here Comes David! Dirk Moves In!

Another tall excerpt today as I try to update my output in these closing days, especially since I’m working late shifts today and tomorrow. I’d write more now, but I can’t sleep in because I want to get my writing done tomorrow morning.

Anyways, another big excerpt up today, almost an entire chapter. In this one, Phineas embarks on the first step of his journey: trying to find someone who knows a lot about hearts. Unfortunately, though, they’re considered to be pretty eldritch and mysterious, so no one studies them to any great extent. The best bet he has right now is to ask the church.

His search proves fruitless initially, most of the old fogey Clothiers (the names of the priests in the Seamstress Faith; it’s an archaic word for a tailor) think he’s blasphemous or vain or crazy, and dismiss him outright. The only person that agrees to help him is Clothier David Kensington, at the church Phineas encountered in Chapter 2. He’s much more interested in change than any of the other Clothiers Phineas had spoken to, so he’s more keen to help him. So far, I’m enjoying writing for him; he’s smart, he’s funny, and I like the reason I came up with for becoming a Clothier. I hope to see more of him.

After this encounter, though, I’ve set up kind of a conflicting dichotomy for Phineas: Dirk, who just moved into Phineas’ house stack in the Narrows, agrees to help him as well, since he’s learned a lot about hearts on the street. Phineas isn’t sure if to trust him, but he thinks he might be able to provide more stable information from experience than anyone else, even Clothier David. This could be interesting to play with.

Dirk’s having problems, too. He just received a really strange machine from Draconi as soon as he moved in, and he has another “internal dialogue” ( ) with Draconi. Personally, I love writing these little passages; they’re like dialogue, but with this weird edge that knows that it’s not two people talking: one of them just has the other one’s voice in his head. That lets me play around with the adverbs and pace of the conversation a little.

Following this, we’re going to find out Draconi’s big, dark secret, and why he’s such a ruthless bastard.

Also today, I thought of an ending for my book, but between what I’ve already written and this ending is a big void; I have no idea what’s going to happen, literally, after this chapter. NaNoWriMo ends in three days, and I’m stuck. Can you believe it? I’ll probably go back to Virgil and Malcolm and have them do something to move the story along. We’ll have to see when we start to approach 50,000.

The Stakes are Raised

Well, it’s the 22nd, and I’m on excerpt… 8. That promise of daily excerpts kind of went south, didn’t it?

But this is because I’ve reached this period in my NaNoWriMo adventure where I go through this week-long stasis where I don’t write anything. It usually occurs around Week 3, when I just can’t be bothered to open the document and put down something.

Don’t worry, though; while this may seem lazy, it does make my Week 4 considerably more exciting. I work better under pressure: new ideas spring up, suddenly and without method, and I’m carried on this wave of madness to 50,000 words. Or 80,000, as the case may be. And we’ve reached that period. The title of this post has sort of a double-meaning.

In today’s excerpt, Phineas comes to understand why it’s so urgent that people should be able to take things off their heart if they need to. He comes to this conclusion when he finds Virgil, skittish and mad, at Malcolm’s house, just after his chance encounter with Jack Draconi, the most ruthless criminal for miles around. He declares exactly why he has to discover this secret, and Cindy, Malcolm and Virgil, despite their skepticism, are behind him all the way.

Meanwhile, Draconi had assessed the level of threat that Phineas might give him. Initially worried that he’s just going to be a Good Samaritan getting in his way, he thinks that his idea of finding out how to unbond folk’s hearts, unlikely and cockamamie as it may seem, is nonetheless worth looking into. Dirk is Draconi’s closest contact with Phineas, so he’s going to plant him as surveillance.

This excerpt closes on a cliffhanger about what Phineas will attempt to do to get started on this journey, and make no mistake, it won’t be an easy one. But I’m not entirely certain exactly how hard it may be…

We Meet Draconi

Tonight, Phineas and Draconi have come face-to-face during intermission at the opera house. Both Phineas and Cindy know that he’s bad news, but Phineas hasn’t learned that it was Draconi he was talking to before telling him that he thinks being able to remove things off your heart might be something people should be able to do. That’s a dangerous thing to tell someone who’s favoured by the status quo.

Meanwhile, Malcolm, who’s stayed home, has had an important encounter of his own. Virgil has wandered out of Blackstone into the south Narrows, where Malcolm lives, and has starting ranting and raving out on the streets. His mental health is obviously deteriorating, but Malcolm was able to placate Virgil’s aimless yelling because he recognized him as the guy that helped him out in the tavern some nights ago. He feels alright about showing Malcolm why he’s gone mad, and he’s quite shocked by the reason. You regular viewers already know what it is, but with any luck, it’s still surprising.

One thing about this passage is the description of a play within the novel. Initially, my description of it was considerably more explicit, but I was finding it distracting and overstuffed, so it was severely condensed. I kept the old passage in a new Scrivener folder in my binder called “Scraps”; I doubt I’ll get much more use out of that folder or that passage, but who knows? I’m meeting my daily quotas, though, so I can afford to clip out fluff at this point. I don’t need any word count bolstering at the expense of my story just yet.

Though I’m looking to exceed 50,000 words and totally finish the story before the month is over. I need to get ahead; perhaps get two or three days ahead, or even try and get to the halfway point of 25,000 before the halfway point of the month, or even 30,000! But let’s not drive our Ferraris before we have a driver’s license, eh?

I’ve also thought of a more interesting role for Dirk as the story reaches its rising action; I’m just mentioning it now for my personal posterity.

As well, none of you are commenting on my excerpts. A lot of people are praising me for the concept and insist I should find a publisher, but if the writing can’t pull off the high concept, what’s the point? I think I’m doing okay, but I’m ultimately not sure the whole idea is coming through, but it’s not the sort of idea that constantly permeates the plot; it’s more like an undercurrent that the story’s elements have to be aware of. It’s certainly not meant to be a laundry list of why I think it’s interesting, but I also don’t want it to seem like a weak aside, either. Hopefully I’ve struck a good balance.

So am I doing alright? Let me know!