HMH Murray

@nillcord

Writer of space opera and fanfiction NYC Midnight Finalist SS 2024 Futurescapes 2022 Codexian SFWA

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HMH Murray@nillcord· 5d

Okay, maybe I am nuts but talking about infodumping the other day made me think of this example, which is better, I think. There's a balance. The trick is to keep some kind of narrative tension coming with the information.

lapel. “Not that hard, really. It helped I had Father’s factories to produce them.” “You know, the admiral visited you when you were in the blood pool—” “The what?” “The blood pool. A regenerative bio-stasis—” “I know what it is.” An inventions featured heavily in some of his worst nightmares. “Proscribed tech. They have one on the ship?” She nodded. “The Guild set up in two in Medical. That’s what regrew your skin… You know you were quite badly burned?” Her eyes flickered. “I had expected more scars.” He remembered the pain. “I’m sure Father wanted pretty corpses for our Remembrances. But blood pools are Aemercy technolody--Vadim allowed it?” “The Guild demanded it, I was told.” Her brow wrinkled. “I think they were planning to put Nate in the other one?” She said the informal version of Natoth’s name, as if daring him to correct her. “Nate can’t leave Nuala.” “What if you’re wrong?” Her hand tapped the reports. “Or what if his agents can, in numbers to do this? What if these missing transits, these Cargo planets going dark, Ilko dropping out of the entanglements… What if it’s all the beginning of a krov invasion?” He tried to keep his tone light. “Then our Nate will be quite wroth that I killed his wife. They were estranged, but even so--” “You didn’t, actually.” Her voice was cool. Her nails were bitten to the quick. He noticed that, even everything else stopped. “What?” The word fell like a stone. “You didn’t kill his wife.” She looked up at him. “Your sister isn’t dead, Davad. Not technically.” He was suddenly too aware of his senses. The echo of their hearts against the alloyed walls: hers steady, his accelerating, the feel of metal surrounding them, the void of hyperspace beyond. His voice felt parsecs away, like he was a mote in the krov, more a part of ship’s metal than flesh. “What do you mean ‘not technically?’”

HMH Murray@nillcord· 6d

Okay! I turned in my submission for Futurescapes! Yes, it features gems like "He choke down his pour." But, aside from the painful typos I don't completely hate it. It reads more coherently than I thought, even with a messy timeline structure. Phew. Okay.

HMH Murray@nillcord· 7d

I'm not sure what kind of masochism makes me examine my writing at 3am, realize how terrible the draft is, and then stew about it, but here is another example of What Goes Wrong... So this is infodump over flashback over infodump. And when you're reading it, even me who wrote it--

cut out. In some of the smaller Fringer sectors, they’ve started putting out ships full of supplies like sacrifices. And Moray19 cleaned out their prisons. Two thousand souls on one of those old Sleeper ships, cast adrift. Something came and took it. No one knows what, because the tech cut out.” “I hate being right,” Davad said. “Moray19 is in the NewTallyeon Sector?” “It’s close to Nuala isn’t it?” “Probably,” he said. “Close is a relative term in space, and Nuala moves. But there’s a jump point at Al-Murad, and that’s one system over from Moray. If the Living Fleet were acting alone, they wouldn’t pick those targets. Left to their own devices, they’re opportunists. A star contains a great deal more energy than one ship full of terrified humans. Dying stars, pulsars—the aftermath of an explosion…” She pushed forward the disc with the Crown. “Your sister used this.” He nodded. “Before you ask, I’ve never heard of another Crown. No one knows how the first one was made. It’s ancient. Fringer legends point it to the Second Exodus, but there’s no real proof.” “’The First Navvy’, some pilots call it. It’s in Bedalia.” She picked up the disc and dropped it into an unlit votive. “Did you ever try it yourself?” He shook his head. “I was a coward.” “Hardly.” Her voice was kind. “My understanding is the Crown contains a map.” He nodded. “From what Nate pieced together from the Aemery’c records, kamn sensitivity requires two copies of whatever singular mutation makes pilots.” “Everyone on Glos knows that now,” Mureen said. “Of course, most don’t admit knowing.” “Anyone with kamn can use the Crown,” Davad said. “To see a map of the galaxy. But only a pilot can link to that Fleet. It’s been posited they were a slave fleet, used to terraform by the waves of Aemercy expansion. The Crown is their controller.” Mureen nodded, pushing the disc with the arm forward. “So, to control the ships you need a pilot.” “Not an ordinary one.” “I know.” She pushed forward the star. “You need a ‘s…

HMH Murray@nillcord· 8d

But every time I write about the trolley problem, I come up with a new interpretation of what it is.

“It was… the trolley problem.” It felt like centuries ago that she and Davad had tried to use that stinking metaphor with me. “You Kamen-lords don’t even know what trolley is!” “I do. A trolley is a vehicle that runs on a specific route, one controlled by the track, not its own agency.” She pronounced “track” oddly, like it was a foreign term. “You were our trolley, Polla. Davad and I guided you to”—she shrugged—“to do this.”

HMH Murray@nillcord· 8d

Fanfiction parts of the story. Will they make it into book three? Idk.

HMH Murray@nillcord· 11d

#SFFChat Q4 In this section, Polla Organa first "meets" the Arkan twins. They're unconscious and she's confused.

I had no key, but the door slid open under my fingertips. Remember that documentary we saw on our second date, the one where that crazy-eyed Unity flack said Ledas Starfire wiped out the Aemercy for using crap like blood pools? Well, Earff’s “Human Unity” is no better, Sam. Da says every side’s the same. I saw two coffin-shaped tubs in that Unity medical room. Two perfect bodies propped up in those tubs, each soaking in a viscous red liquid. The man could’ve been sleeping, save for the scalded blisters all over his arms and chest. Only his freckled face was unmarked. face like an angel. The woman had no face. She was a monster with a stone boulder for a head. The screaming that had woken me was coming from a hole in the rock where she should’ve had a mouth. My eyes went to her first, Sam—not the way I’m telling it now, but between telling and truth there’s a lot unreliable. Above her mouth hole, the boulder bulged like a misshapen skull. Her torso was angled against the back of its coffin, the skin of her chest and shoulders mottled with freckles dense enough to form nebulae. She had a pilot’s kiss between her collarbones, which made my eyes skip to her flailing starboard arm—only to find a mass of sutures where her navvy should’ve been. I had sutures too, although mine were hidden by bandages. She was very fit, my pilot’s gaze registered—they both were. The man had freckles on his face, a lighter touch than on the woman’s body, scattered across his nose like a child’s. The man’s torso was muscular beneath those burns, lean and balanced

as a fleshdancer’s. His face was lovely, sculpted with the eerie symmetry of temple statuary. Memory leaves no trace of my intent, whether I stepped forward for a closer look or to set them free; but then, like a nightmare, the woman’s starboard hand reached across and grabbed mine, that hole in her stone head making a louder, wheezing scream. I tried to pull away and saw that sutured hand up close. Her speckled skin had just begun to scab over the wreck where a navvy had been. Strangely, I recall a sense of kinship—both of us missing navvies, missing half of our souls—but then she locked her fingers onto my bandaged arm, digging into the flesh, and it hurt. I jerked free and she fell back with a sickening splash—and it was then I noticed something was horribly wrong with her lower half. At the end of one curved hip, I saw a flash of red, raw bone. Her entire leg had been severed at the joint. Her remaining knee kicked, splashing my face with the tub’s warm red liquid. More slopped over the sides, and I trembled with a sick fascination as that eldritch fluid advanced toward my gold-tipped toes. I jumped back, and the red substance retreated like gravity had reversed. The woman screamed softer then, a plaintive sound, and I heard myself whimper back. The red stuff stung when I blinked my eyes, and became mist. When I put my hand to my face, my skin was dry. I looked down and my bandaged arm held no trace of her bloody handprint. Of course, I recall thinking: this is a dream.

HMH Murray@nillcord· 14d

Her most least distrusted advisor, the centaur Virmarr.

HMH Murray@nillcord· 20d

Needs some paragraph breaks.

HMH Murray@nillcord· 23d

Trying another way.

By sunset, the seas had begun to boil in the NewBern harbor, lashing against the retaining walls in a windless storm.

I thought a boiling sea seemed like the latest in a long line of red flags about this occupation, and expressed concern, only to have Castian, my six-armed, spotted Faege babysitter, pat me on the shoulders with her smallest set of hands and tell me not to worry. Being as Castian also kept saying that me killing their last stargod had made me responsibile for roughly forty thousand Fair Folk scattered across the Milk, I was having a hard time not worrying. In fact, when I think back on those first few weeks after Nate's death, what I remember most is lurching from one dread to the next.

The day of the boiling sea, I was still wondering if making my former employee, the filthy slaver Brahz, melt into a warehouse floor was the strike that had turned me into a boma fiday murderer, and not just an amnesiac one.

A cold part of me was also trying not to laugh. I was already Ledas Stinking Starfire, destroyer of suns. I was responsible for the death of millions. It scarcely mattered what I recalled.

And I certainly remembered two weeks ago, when I'd killed my husband. True, I didn't remember blowing up Alpha Centauri, but the cold voice I refused to call a conscience, had been giving play-by-plays on all the worst moments. By NewBern, I was as sick of that cold voice--you--as I was of Castian herself.

"Water's not supposed to look like that," I muttered now, standing next to my minder on the balcony. From our vantage, the horizon had been reduced to steam rising off a churning black. And that sea seemed to be thickening, not unlike one of Ma's good stews, but smelling much worse. That was probably related to the several hectotons of spaceport docking and machinery that had melted into these churning waters a few hours back.

On Earff, losing the oceans had led humankind to the first failed Exoduses, along with other questionable choices like labor…

HMH Murray@nillcord· 26d

If it seems like I em endlessly circling it is because that is true. Changed a lot. Characters. Dialogue... And yet very little.

After Doctor Kublich in Medical finally released Davad Arkan to the Ascendent’s security detail, he was escorted unchained to the battleship’s brig. There, a full sleep cycle passed uneventfully before he received the first of who would be many guests: Callie from his old Kamen Circle carrying flowers, and two near-strangers he barely remembered from the war. Behind Callie, the first was a light-haired pilot who had a pockmarked face that spoke of old bactergas exposure and a tremor to her navhand suggesting impending retirement. The second was a balding infantryman who carried an enormous jar of brownish ship-brewed “hootch.” The forcefield painted their approach down the twenty-meter corridor in flashing bluish white stripes, giving the scene a nightmarish quality only enhanced by their expectant smiles. Davad had had dreams that began this way: with smiling friends looking to him, just before their ship’s hull started buckling or its transparencies cracked. In dreams, he was always kamn-crippled and powerless to save them.

“All this for me?" He cleared his throat. Truly, you shouldn’t have.” The infantryman set the jar of alcohol down with a grunt. “We couldn’t drink it all on our own.” Callie laughed. “Actually, we’ve been celebrating for weeks… but Vadim and the doctors only just signed off on having you joining.” “Is that why we’re still in orbit? Our pilots are all too drunk to drive?” At the end of the hall, the curve of a green and brown planet encompassed most of the view. He’d been told that was the Fringer world of Feldelroy, and that their Unity ship had been here for weeks making repairs. Apparently, his sister had crippled the dreadnought in her dying moments, before Davad had shattered her skull. “Maybe.” Callie snapped him a fake salute, weaving only a little, and then raised a bouquet of flowers above her head as she bent her knees—mimicking a noble’s curtsy, perhaps. “Did you want to switch off that forcefield, Dav, or shall I?” “I promised Admiral Vadim I wouldn’t use the kamn.” It was probably rude to keep sitting on the floor when he had guests, but he didn’t move. “Perhaps you should.” “It’s criminal you’re in here.” She pushed her curls back. “Well, Vadim wanted Lee alive.” The field flickered out, and the lighting normalized to standard Unity white that wasn’t any better. It reflected off Callie’s face and made her look old, which reminded Davad that he was, too. The pilot pulled three metal shot glasses out from the cargo pocket on her thigh and laid them out in a neat line, and Davad eyed that immense jar with dread. “Toast?” The man offered. “Can’t wait.” He envied the pilot, who could use her navvy to clean the worst of the stuff from her system. The swill was made from algae scraped from the generators in Hydroponics, distilled with scavenged tubing from Medical, and flavored with cheela from the pilot’s galley. Ten years didn’t make it go down easier. The cheela was the worst part. The yellow sauce was designed for failing pilots; it contained an adequate a…

HMH Murray@nillcord· Jul 15

Been a while since I did one of these. From the WIP KROV WAR: "COACH" #Writesky #writingcommunity #writingprompts #spaceopera

“Glos wouldn’t take you at seventeen,” I shrugged. Anyone that old with no training and kamn-sensitivity would be, for lack of a better term, “culled.” Poor Beya had been on the cusp when they brought her—a fact that she never forgave. “And so she said twelve.” Solon’s voice had an echoing timbre coming from the rock. “Her mother was one of Kaygaz’s frogs. Like you.” “I was never—” But that was a lie. In the beginning, I fell for General Kaygaz’s fables of a better galaxy just as much as Nate and the rest. Perhaps even more, because unlike my husband, I’d never had true faith in anything, never a cause to believe in. My brother and I were coached by our family to be predators, not preachers, to take advantage—to take everything. Dee always seemed too soft for those lessons, but I loved them. My twin hadn’t felt soft when he killed me. Or… not killed me, as it turned out. I had a sudden curiosity about the forensic details, but I pushed that away. Nate’s upbringing was both kinder and more cruel: he grew up under the aegis of House Illcord’s benevolence and his father’s insipid, imperial dreams. It had taken Nate longer to trust Kaygaz than it took us. We, who thought ourselves jaded, were desperate for a cause. But when the extent of the man’s betrayal became clear, it took longer for my husband’s faith to shatter. Indeed, from what Myleah had said, it sounded like Nate had completed what Kaygaz began. Invading Canus? The thought chilled my blood. Thank the Stone I stopped him—

HMH Murray@nillcord· Jul 12

I paste this cringe draft to illustrate a point I've been struggling with that I think I am doing bassackwards. I keep thinking I need to make sure the reader is caught up on the the timeline. Don't be like me. Put that crap in later. Just worry about propulsion. You can always backfill.

“Feldelroy’s? We left a week ago. You know, they think it’s a side effect from the terraform.” Sai tapped his metal fingers. Lieutenant Rathe Sai had gotten leaner and older since the war—they all had. “Not sure you should think about suns, though. You’ll give Vadim a stroke.” “Hah.” Sai was fearless. No one else would have dared joke about supernovas. “No worry. Lee took the secret to her grave.” “Good. You know, Wade wants us both to come piss on her bloodship. It’s become quite the tradition.” Sai jerked his chin toward the ceiling. “Says he’ll sneak you out. We were going to go today, but the ship had another upset and now the bay’s swarming with Guild reps and Kamen. If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were working together.” “Hah,” Davad said faintly, for that was all he could say, really. “The Guild sent their cyborgs to question Marr and me when we first arrived back on Earth.” A year ago, after defecting from the krov planet. It had not been pleasant. Sai frowned. “They haven’t bothered you here, at least?” Davad shook his head. “Just as well. We discovered a year ago that I have a Tawk allergy during the interrogations.” Sai winced. “Ouch. Well, wish I’d known you were back a year ago. I had some leave saved…” The other man leaned back with his glass, although by then, both of them had lost their taste for drinking before mid-rota. “I wasn’t allowed to tell.” “I get it.” From Sai’s expression, he had a lot to get off his own chest, and Davad let him talk about his divorce and his kid Danny, lulled by the sound of the other man’s voice and the petty dramas of a mundane life an Arkan could never have. Sai had been under Davad’s command for the last decade of the war, fighting against the Aemercy. The man understood him—as much as any common soldier could--and what was even better, the lieutenant had never known Davad’s sister. For Sai, Lee’s murder was just victory. “--Hey, do you know a Ken’ri Mureen?” The name drew Davad back to the present. “What?” “M…

HMH Murray@nillcord· Jul 11

Another round...

Davad Arkan's first guests in the brig were three near-strangers: two yellow-haired pilots and a tall infantryman he barely remembered from the war. The trio carried bunches of flowers and a jar of ship-brewed "hootch" held aloft on the infantryman's shoulder like some kind of offering.

Davad knew the instant he saw that sloshing jar that the alcohol inside would be the familiar, terrible stuff made from algae scraped from the generators in Hydroponics, distilled with scavenged tubing from Medical, and flavored with cheela from the pilot's galley. The cheela was the worst part. Supposedly, it covered all the major vitamins and minerals, but it burned like hell going down.

He hoped they weren't expecting him to drink--oh, but the shorter blonde was already setting out glasses on the scuffed deckplates of the prison floor.

"Thanks?" he offered, rising to his feet. The flashing bars of his cell's forcefield painted his guests in blue-white stripes. He squinted to read the names stamped along their sleeves: Lieutenant Navigator Opal Bestra, Ensign Pilot Dalem Korr, and Specialist Finika Mavis. Good they were labeled, because, although they looked familiar, he couldn't recall them. No surprise. Nearly everyone he'd served closely with was gone: dead or turned traitor.

Or both, he thought mournfully, thinking of Lee.

"Well, you saved my life, Lord Arkan, on NewKalnik," Specialist Mavis looked far too worshipful, practically kneeling to put that dubious jar on the ground. "This is the least we could do."

"It was nothing, really." Davad forced a smile. "And please, just call me ''Arkan.' We're friends, aren't we? I'm no lord of anything."

"We drew lots to see who could visit you first." Bestra knelt to deposit her own flowers. "There's a line at least a hundred deep behind us. Everyone's so glad you're finally awake."

"So am I," Davad lied. A hundred visits like this? He felt dizzy already, and maybe a little sick.

They'd all gone by plain surnames in the …

HMH Murray@nillcord· Jul 11

So remember all the dozens of openings I wore that are exposition dumps? This is a new phase in their slow evolution. The very example of show not tell. I feel stupid for not starting with this, but I think I needed to exposit it for myself. To know what happened.

Davad's first guests in the brig were near-strangers, two yellow-haired pilots and a tall infantryman he barely remembered from the war. They carried bunches of flowers and a jar of ship-brewed "hootch" held aloft on the infantryman's shoulder like some kind offering.

He knew the second he saw that sloshing jar that the alcohol inside would be that familiar and horrible stuff made from fermented algae scraped from the generators in Hydroponics, distilled with tubing scavenged from Medical, and flavored with cheela from the pilot's galley. The cheela was the worst part. Supposedly, it covered all the major vitamins and minerals, but it burned like hell going down.

He hoped they weren't expecting him to drink that swill.

"Thanks...?" he offered, rising to his feet, squinting to read the names stamped along their sleeves. Lieutenant Navigator Opal Bestra, Second Lieutenant Bombadier Dalem Korr, and Specialist Finika Mavis. The flashing bars of his security screen painted his guests in blue-white stripes. He was glad they all had their names labeled, because, although they looked familair, he wouldn't have remembered them otherwise. Nearly everyone he'd served closely with was dead or a traitor.

Or both, he thought, thinking of Lee.

"Well, you saved my life, Lord Arkan, on NewKalnik," Specialist Mavis looked too worshipful, practically kneeling to put that dubious jar on the ground. "This is the least we can do!"

"It was nothing, really," Davad said smiling. "And please, just call me ''Arkan.' We're friends, are t we? I'm no lord of anything."

They'd all gone by plain surnames in the war. Rank wasn't important in a firefight, where a millisecond and your squad's competence were the only things keeping everyone from becoming a cloud of debris floating in open space, or spread out in chunks in some dark tunnel, a victim of Aemercy gas.

The infantryman scrambled back to his feet. "Is there a way to turn the field off? They said upstairs you were allowed to…

HMH Murray@nillcord· Jul 3

My version of an outline.

They see the Living Fleet feeding on the energy from Centauri and think it's an invasion? Very 99 luftballoons Then later..

HMH Murray@nillcord· Jul 2

Okay today was the first day I've felt human in a week. Summer colds are the worst. I have to stop worrying if this pacing is too slow and just write it and deal with that later.

“Never mind.” Even disgraced, an Arkan of Arkan wouldn’t beg. “I’ve made plans myself for tomorrow.” Lavar looked up. “Really. Do we know them?” Davad forced a chuckle. “Probably. You know how pilots are.” The two men glanced at each other. “A pilot, huh? We thought it would be Ken’ri Mureen.” James grinned. “Do you remember her? Cohort eight cycles behind ours?” “The Aemercy girl,” Davad nodded. “Right. We’ve never met—” “She’s not really Aemercy,” James said. “Her mother was one,” Lavar said. “I think it was her mother. She’s the only student Ells and Solon have been assigned since us, although I suppose technically, she’s assigned to Tiff’s Circle for this mission...” He frowned at Davad. “How can you be sleeping with her if you’ve never met?” Davad tried not to lock his jaw. “I’m not.” Oh, but Levar had never been the sharpest rock. “She’s asking a lot of questions about you,” James said then. “I suppose the Arkan mystique strikes again.” “Well, what can I say?” Davad tried to keep his voice light. “Everyone likes a prince.” “So you’re really going through with that?” James raised his brow. “You’re going to leave the Kamen and become the Old Man’s heir?” “I have no choice.” “Huh.” The blond frowned. “Seems to me you’ve got more choice than the rest of us.” James was bastard-born and unranked, like most of their Circle. So was Levar. They couldn’t understand. Davad’s own pride kept him from asking anyone else to spend the night, but as the weeks passed, the dreams got worse. Feldelroy’s green sun developed an outsized importance in his mind, until when Davad closed his eyes, it was all he could see—even after their ship completed its repairs and limped back into hyperspace, leaving Feldelroy behind. His nightmares didn’t change: that green sun, his sister’s dying face, and the dark. He’d never liked being alone, and now at nearly forty, he was becoming quite afraid of the

reminded him too much of space, of their ships’s vulnerable hull. He would never possess Lee’s power, but some forbidden lessons regarding astrophysics and fusion reactions, they had shared. “You doing okay, Arkan? Because you look like shit.” Lieutenant Rathe Sai had drawn a late visit and come alone, settling his down cross-legged across from Davad on the floor. “Vadim’s been calling us in one-by-one to ask if we think you’re going to hang yourself.” “It’s that damned sun,” Davad muttered. “Suns aren’t supposed to be green.” “Feldelroy’s? We left a week ago. You know, they think it’s a side effect from the terraform.” Sai tapped his metal fingers. Lieutenant Rathe Sai had gotten leaner and older since the war—they all had. “Not sure you should think about suns, though. You’ll give Vadim a stroke.” “Hah.” Sai was fearless. No one else would have dared joke about supernovas. “No worry. Lee took the secret to her grave.” “Good. You know, Wade wants me to come piss on her bloodship. It’s become quite the tradition.” Sai jerked his chin toward the ceiling. “We were going to go today, but the ship had another upset and now the bay’s swarming with Guild reps and Kamen. If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were working together.” “Hah,” Davad said faintly, for that was all he could say, really, about the connection between Guild and Glos. “The Guild sent their cyborgs to question Marr and me when we first arrived back on Earth.” A year ago, after defecting from the krov planet. It had not been pleasant. “But they haven’t bothered you here, at least?” Davad shook his head, remembering his reaction to their injections. “Just as well. We discovered a year ago that I have a Tawk allergy.” Sai winced. “Ouch. Well, wish I’d known you were back a year ago. I had some leave saved…” The other man leaned back with his glass, although by then, both of them had lost their taste for drinking before mid-rota. “I wasn’t allowed to tell.” “I get it.” From Sai’s expression, he had a lo…

HMH Murray@nillcord· Jun 23

Yeah, and with training they can shape living stuff... Like turn people like this. It takes a lot of training. Stoneshaping types are strictly trained to affect what they can see directly... Mostly to stop them from doing damage. Art by @cgmythology.bsky.social

Virmarr, Nate, and Beya: team "villain"

I would not totally call them villains.

HMH Murray@nillcord· Jun 22

From today's progress. I don't know if I'd call it "meet cute." #booksky #navvyverse #spaceopera

grenades, beside a dozen others he’d lost the skill to protect. By then the battle had reduced him to nothing but the gir in his hand, and his willingness to do harm. It was during the monotone of Davad’s imprisonment, and the madness of his remorse that Mureen finally came, slipping in quietly one night during his sleep cycle, a time when he wasn’t supposed to have visitors at all. (He would find out later that she bribed his guards, relying upon the advice of her new acquaintance, a certain Feldelroyan smuggler.) “Hello,” she said, smiling. His first impression was that she was small and slight and vaguely familiar, and that her robes were a plain beige, with only the bulge of her gir in her pocket to indicate that she ranked high enough to carry one on a Fleet-controlled ship, the privilege having been rescinded to most Ken’ri after the war. “I thought Glos would send a taller assassin to kill me.” Davad stood up, because on the off chance that was true, he did not want to meet death lying down. “Perhaps all the taller ones are busy.” Her head tilted, assessing him. “You do look much improved.” “When did you see me before?” When she smiled, a dimple flashed. “I was assigned to your retrieval crew. You were unconscious for weeks. My name is Mureen.” “Hello, Mureen.” He gave her a curtsy. So I’ve been told—about the unconsciousness, I mean. No one ever told me about you,” he lied. He’d put a playful edge to his voice, but Mureen just stared. Her eyes were very large for her face, and very dark in this light. “Why would they?” she asked. A pause, then. “But we have mentors in common. Ells and Solon trained me, after they trained you.” “Oh! You’re the Aemercy girl!” Her eyes narrowed. “I’m almost thirty, in fact. Hardly a girl.” He shrugged. “My sister had a note in your file; she said not to recruit.” “Oh? And are you still recruiting for the Faege?”

HMH Murray@nillcord· Jun 18

I'm still working on this opener. That first sentence is killing me for its clunkiness. I'm sure there's an obvious solution, and I'm into the weeds re: "unsecured," "unsecure," and (probably wrong) "insecure."

The Unity Ascendant, Seventeen Standard Months ago

Even from his laughably unsecured prison cell, Davad found that being the favorite war criminal aboard the dreadnought Ascendant had some advantages. Gifts of alcohol came nearly hourly, along with every sweet and savory treat the commissary supplied. Such gifts were bestowed by old friends and new strangers, all shuffling forward with frequent apologies for his predicament. Vadim, that asshole, she’s a stickler for protocol if it were up to me I’d let you go and give you the fragging Purple promote you to Admiral, even—was a common refrain. By the end of the first day, the floor in front of his cell had so many illegally cut flowers from Hydroponics that Davad might as well have been back in one of Mother’s conservatories on Earth. By the end of the second, the safety marshal had to clear dozens of lit votives—open flame aboard a warship being rather unwise. By the fifth day, the marshal made stopping by to dispose of the lit candles—and by then, dead and possibly flammable flowers, a part of his routine. If Davad had been less broken about finding himself still alive, he would have found the entire spectacle hilarious, but in those early days, death was all he thought he deserved for killing his sister. Back then, he would have welcomed oblivion if he were ever given enough time alone to do it properly (honorably), with a piece of broken drink bulb or the sash of his robe—but he never was. Later, it occurred to Davad that Admiral Vadim—it had to be her; no other member of Alta Command had as much reason to keep him alive--knew him all too well. For with every heartfelt thanks he received for ending the war, he found another reason to keep going—at least until they’d finished the latest bottle or sang another song… and by the time Risa’s head began to nod, or Lieutenant Woodburn had started slurring his words, another group of veterans would have appeared, armed with stims and sleepnoze, and he’d have to start al…

HMH Murray@nillcord· Jun 16

Sometimes I am a geek in very subtle ways. Like inside my car. Also, I really liked SOLO, the movie.

HMH Murray@nillcord· Jun 11

I didn't know most of this about Davad until I wrote it today, but even if this doesn't make the final cut of my book, I need to know if. So much of what I think I'm doing now is filling in the blanks.

Prologue: Davad Flashback Being the favorite war criminal currently aboard the dreadnought Unity Ascendant had its perks. Alcohol. Every sweet and savory treat the commissary supplied. And so many cut flowers that Davad might as well have been back in Mother’s quarters at Kubla Joadim. After a few weeks, his captors forced a sleep schedule on him—they had to, just to stop the constant stream of vistors come to pay their respects. Davad had trouble sleeping anyway. He’d never liked being alone, and now at nearly forty, he found he’d developed an aversion to the dark, too. The dark reminded him too much of space, of their ships’s vulnerable hull, the weight of the planet they orbited, and the distance from its terrible sun. He could not possess his sister’s power, but some lessons, they had shared. Alone in the dark, Feldelroy’s green sun seemed to develop an outsized importance, until when he closed his eyes, it was all he could see. Never go beyond your eyes. One of the first Kamen rules, drilled into Glos’s children at age six. By age ten, they’d been trained to break that conditioning—carefully—but only under the guidance of their Elders. Those who learned that lesson poorly—or learned it too well—didn’t live to see eleven. By age sixteen, Davad was working for General Kaygaz and thinking Glos rules no longer applied. By twenty-six, he was fighting for the Unity Fleet, along with a hundred other Ken’ri, against Kaygaz. By thirty, half his cohort were dead, and the war had changed again, become a place of earth and blood where kamn was useless. The dark reminded him of that too, of endless caves of mud and wood, of poisoned darts and pit traps, of how helpless a man who helped crack a moon in half could be when you stuck him in a hole in the ground with drugs and darkness muffling his senses. It had actually been Sai who’d been the first to notice how Davad got quiet when the bells for night rang, how his hands started shaking, and how

knew him better than most. When lights dimmed for the night cycle and automatic locks sealed the prison wing, Davad still had the rows of handmade candles burning illegally in front of his open cell. The soldiers made the candles from melted food containers and wicks salvaged from munitions recycling. Sometimes, he played with the flames as a way to mark time, making the candles burn higher or guttering them to embers. Sometimes, he switched the energy shield back on, staring through its static at the shrine they’d laid out. The shielding, the cell… all of it was a formality. He’d been pardoned by the Board’s civil court already; everyone was sure he’d be pardoned by the military, too—and not just because of his family name. For he was their hero. The man who’d killed Ledas Starfire. He should have died with Lee, he thought. (Back then, he did still think she was dead.) Purely as an intellectual exercise, he considered a hundred ways to join her now, but then he’d consider those flowers. In wartime, they’d all gotten used to the monotone of days. The null black of hyperspace, the sameness of a warship’s walls, the white uniforms, chalky rations, and strictly regimented tramp of hours between fights... even the distance from carnage, at first removed to implosions in space, the distant sparks of their bombs below. Your Unity burns all pleasure from war, Kaygaz had told his Kamen apprentices sitting around a hearthfire, when their objective was winning one for him. There’s a joy in it. I want you to see. Some ghastly part of Davad—a part he hated—had even understood. The Aemercy civil wars had been full of color: conducted on planets,

HMH Murray@nillcord· May 30

... Teenaged sidekick who has no idea who she *really* is helping escape.

She was a bad liar, terrible, really, for Ken'ri. Perhaps the Elders stopped teaching the art after we'd all been so good at it. I smiled thinly as her eyes dropped to the ground. “A friend of mine told me it’s possible,” she mumbled. She brandished one end of the rope. Her shields fluttered. She wasn't as strong as we had been. Almost a relief to see that. We had been freaks, Nate, my brother, and I. Whatever chimeric concoction had been added to our womb-vats, it had set us above the rest of our cohort from the start. "Just keep those shields up," I ordered, “or we're both dead." She bit her lip. "Don’t think like that. Hold still. I need to make a harness to properly lift you." “Oh, are we going to fly?” There’d been a time when I hadn’t needed stone shoes to do so, when the iron in my blood had been enough for me to grasp, wickedly dangerous as that was, for each atom had to keep in motion lest the heart stop— I nearly laughed aloud, recalling how I had learned that. Myleah looked puzzled, not understanding the joke. I submitted to her small hands wrapping me in tensile wire and tried not to think about the Aemercy executions I'd done with similar cords. "And then what?" I asked. "Surely you don't expect us to walk across the seabed!" "Only six miles!" she said, "to--" "Harkoni, I know." I cut her off. Foolish, I kept proving knowledge of things a pilot wouldn't know. "I heard… isn't that just an abandoned settlement?" There'd been an optimistic time, about twenty-six years ago, when Kamen had tried to cleanse parts of Earth with fire, when our teenaged Circle had marched across the seabed singing as we took to the task. Harkoni had been a speck of volcanic island with the remnants of an old fishing village upon its shores, a place we’d camped for the night. Beya had kissed me by candlelight there, my first real kiss— "Can you hold your shields for six miles? Are you sure?" I asked this child. Filtering the energy barrier to extract a breathable mix was the re…

HMH Murray@nillcord· May 30

Draft pov from unhinged villainess and former god, (self-proclaimed) inhabiting a strange body escaping from a stone island set in a dead sea, accompanied by teenaged sidekick. Yes, way too many run-on sentences... But vibe with me here.

HMH Murray@nillcord· May 28

NAVVIES' FLIGHT | Kirkus Reviews share.google/rI7AMc9h3ugk... Another good review, including a checkmark!! The one thing... There's an error in the plot summary. But I don't think people read these for the summaries.

HMH Murray@nillcord· May 22

Fixed: One beauty of being a self published author is the ability to just make hotfixes as needed.

“I do recall Wade from the bar.” I rubbed my forehead. “A little. Then everything’s a blank ’til I woke up here.” “You don’t remember spending two months aboard the Ascendant?” That seemed to trouble my fellow pilot. “Wade said you seemed fine, considering your injuries.” I felt suddenly uneasy. “No. But you do. Tell me what else I said.” He shook his head. “I never saw you, but Wade told me about you. And Mureen—” “Wade told you about me and Mureen? Where’s Wade now?” “Blast, stop confusing things! Wade told me you were going to be fine, but Mureen said you relapsed after your navvy was reinstalled. You know, we took you off Ascendant in a stasis tube. Unconscious.” “Abducted me,” I corrected, even as my mind puzzled over the words “reinstalled” and “navvy.” Queasily, I stared at my arm. Second being reinstalled might explain how our wires had gotten crossed. “You abducted me in a stasis tube while I was unconscious.” “You’d already agreed—”

HMH Murray@nillcord· May 21

Just found a totally bad misedit in book one. Argh. And this is why making edits *after* your betas and copyedits is BAD. At one point, the "relapsed" sentence read: "Wade told me you were going to be fine, but Maureen said you relapsed after your navvy was reinstalled."

HMH Murray@nillcord· May 14

In the name of sometimes sharing what totally does not work, here is a cheesy dream sequence cut that will not stay. Maybe I can find a cleaner less cheesy way to do this. Just tell the dream instead of showing it. Or just refer to it. I did want to work in the reference, but maybe not here...

talent than yours for reading the wrong archive or opening the wrong oldbook.” “Will you tell us that story?” I’d meant only to lighten the mood, but the Great Man nodded. “I can, yes. I think it’s time I shared more with you about your masters..” he said. “Don’t you, Oeri?” The boy nodded. “I think it’s time for your breakfast!” He raised his voice. “Did you hear me? Hurry, up please, it’s time--” No, I thought. That’s not right. Oeri wouldn’t say that. That is a poem—sometimes my mind jumbles things. Memories that happened before Petal aren’t always clear. She only knows them from what I showed her in dreaming-- “HURRY UP.” The childish voice was strained and far too loud, shouting nearly in my ear. “IT’S TIME! TIME FOR YOUR BREAKFAST!” My eyes snapped open as Petal’s recollection of that long-ago memory (already distorted by being a recollection from my own brain copied onto her wire) dissolved. The smell of salt was gone, but the underground damp remained, now freezing, although there was little I could do about it. I found myself staring at the double-edged stitching of my quilt, and beyond it, the granite bars of my cell. The quilt was handmade, of course. The Elders fashioned all sorts of meaningless tasks to their students, although some Ken’ri even took up stitching as a hobby. I had never cared for sewing—I had never cared for any trivial distractions, foolishness, when we could be doing something far more meaningful—

HMH Murray@nillcord· May 10

So what I do is duplicate an existing one. Delete the text in it and paste or type my new text in. But then sometimes I move the files around and they somehow become subfiles of other files, or vanish to the end of my document. And sometimes I hit compile and get this:

A blank page of what should be 3k words.

HMH Murray@nillcord· May 6

Western Pennsylvania.

HMH Murray@nillcord· Apr 30

PSA: peanuts are not great for squirrels, but j bought a few bags of them before I knew that. Here is me getting rid of some. So far only Snowy here seems to know they're here.