The Ride to Otherwhere - Part 2 - Beyond the Sky

The Ride to Otherwhere - Part 2 - Beyond the Sky

This is the second installment in a four-part short story (4000 words) I wrote recently. Enjoy!

Kor watched as Xana climbed through the blue cieling and disappeared. He rapidly followed without another comment at Nikko. His face approached the smooth surface of the sky, and he reached forward with his left front leg and touched it tentatively.

Ripples spread out softly from the point where he touched, spreading across the sky like one tiny drop of rain. Kor breathed water once more, propelling himself forward and upward, until his eyes touched the sky.

He was surprised to feel the sky dragging at him as he pushed his face against it. Perhaps the pond wanted to keep him in. But for Kor, life and instinct drew him inexhorably onward and upward. He shoved hard against the surface tension, and dragged his body slowly up the stem.

Movement in the water below him distracted him from his exodus for a moment. He looked back down at two youngers looking to make a meal out of his legs. Nikko struck them from the side, and thrust them away.

Kor turned his attention back to the stem and the push. He thrust through the surface tension, and suddenly a flood of new experiences struck him. First, it was the deeper blue of another sky, lacking the silver sheen, so high above him that he couldn't comprehend it. Next, he felt the extreme dryness of everything around him. The water drained off his body as he climbed higher up the stem, moving out of reach of hungry jaws below.

Movement beside him caught his attention, and without consciously thinking about it, he reached out and snatched at it, dropping his mask and stuffing a mosquito into his ravening maw. So. there were mosquitos of a different sort up here - ones that swam through this new sky on tiny whining wings.

Kor gasped and strained for the last vestige of the oxygenated water draining off his drying body. He cried out in horror as he realized there was no water to breathe beyond the sky. How could any dragonfly live with no water?

The water exploded outward from him, it's oxygen used up. Instinctively, he gasped, drawing in raw air where he had been drawing water before. A burning sensation spread through him, dry and hot as fire, as the richer oxygen in the air dried out his internal harvesters and supplied his body with more oxygen and power than he'd ever felt before.

Energy blasted through him, enough to supply the strength necessary to crawl an additional two inches up the stem. Here, he paused, panting this new air. Simultaneously, he was struck by the feeling of intense heat coming from the sun. In this new world, there was no water to protect and dissipate the sun's blasting heat, and his water-soaked body dried quickly on the stem.

But there was water in the air here, too. He could see it spread across the surface of the water below him, though his many-faceted bulbous eyes saw it as a cloudy movement of thousands of tiny panes of light and dark.

Not far away, Kor saw Xana on a neighboring stem. "Move higher up," he called to her, his voice sounding faint in the air.

Xana didn't move. Faintly, her voice came back. "I can't. Watch out for the flying things."

Kor nodded his stiffening head. "Good eating."

Xana visibly shuddered. "Not the ones I'm talking about. They are bigger than us, as much as we are the mosquito flippers."

Kor growled. "We are the predators."

Xana shook her head. "Not anymore." That was the last thing she would say on the matter. She had become a dried-out statue, frozen in position. Even her skin seemed dried and brittle, turning brown as he watched.

The mist moved across the water in a slight breeze that rocked the stem he was on gently. The swaying motion soothed him. He heard buzzing by him, and saw movement, large flying things that hovered and swooped. They looked very similar to him, but they had long gossamer wings that buzzed and flipped them this way and that.

Higher above them, he saw the edge of large green bushes waving slowly in the hot breeze, and beyond the bushes, things with tall thin gray stems that reached far up into the sky, spreading a green canopy across the sky.

And above and among the green canopy, unimaginably huge dark shapes sailed through the air, soaring from tree to tree, and watching... hunting for prey.

The soft breeze cooled and dried the stem under him, and the skin around him. The heat and dryness enveloped him and dried out the exoskeleton that housed him like a pliable skin. His skin stiffened and cracked painfully, from the tips of his clawed feet to the facets of his eyes.

The world began to turn brown and faded, and he became very sleepy as he froze in place and began to change. And this time, he was sure, the change would be different.

The Ride to Otherwhere - Part 1 - Time to Go

This is the first installment in a four-part short story (4000 words) I wrote while considering my blogpost for the Blog Chain at ChristianWriters. Hope you enjoy it. I'll be posting one of these sections each day for the next four days.

The world was shrinking. Kor could sense it as he fought past his teeming brothers and sisters. There was little room left in the shallow backwater of the tiny ditch. There didn't seem to be anything left to eat in the brackish water - every mosquito flipper had been speared. It had been days since he had seen any. The passage through the shallows to deeper water was gone now, as the sky slowly descended under the warmth of the summer sun.

Rain was what was needed now, and a fresh batch of mosquitos, to keep his kind from eating each other in their voracious appetites. But rain had not been seen on the sky for many days. And meanwhile, the world was shrinking.

Hunger drove him on as he searched frantically for one more meal before his ascent through the sky. Instinct told him that the time of transformation was upon him, and he refused to eat his siblings, even though they seemed to be the only meat in the world.

He thrust aside a crowd of youngers, thin and wasting away. He was headed to the passage. He would go there, even if he had to pierce the sky to get there. Several tried to bite him in their hunger, but he thrashed one so severely that he broke in pieces, and his siblings turned on him in a sickening feeding frenzy.

"Wait up, Kor." It was Xana. She was the only creature in the pond he would wait for. Her time was upon her, too. She felt the need to get out. He could sense it in the tenseness of her motions as she struggled through the crowd of youngers.

He paused. He didn't have to look back. Without turning his head, he could see everywhere. "What is it?" he asked tersely. "I'm in a hurry."

"Where are you going?" she asked as she swam up.

"Nowhere, in this pond." He sighed, a current of water exuding from his spiracles.

Another younger came after him. he smashed it aside with his tail. "It's time to go." He moved on to the end of the backwater, Xana keeping up beside him.

"We will go together," said Xana. "We must search for a new pond with room for youngers."

Kor grabbed a shaft of green with all six legs, and then waved one of them behind him. "These youngers are dead," he said bitterly. "They cannot migrate to a new pond. They are breathing, but they have no chance. Soon there will be few in the pond, if the pond is still here."

"If the lord of the sky doesn't send rain, there will be no pond in ten cycles of the sun." Xana looked at the sky above them. "No ripples in the sky. No darkness at day. Nothing but heat and mist beyond the sky."

"Come with me, Xana," offered Kor. "All that is left for you here is to eat your own kind in a slow death with them."

Xana grabbed onto a neighboring stem. "Why do you think I was following you?" She climbed upwards. "It is time for both of us to pierce the sky, and you know it."

Kor hastened to keep up with her as she climbed. He saw movement behind him, and swivelled his head around so that his mouth was facing backwards. His mouth mask fell away, exposing a huge gaping maw lined with voracious teeth. "Yes!" he roared at the approaching older. "Come feed me with your flesh!"

Though he was hungry, he didn't really want to eat his brother. Nikko stopped in the water. "I wasn't coming to eat you, Kor," he said, hurt and somewhat apprehensive. "I came to say good-bye."

"Ah." Kor paused, shaking his head once, and running a limb over his huge bulbous eyes. "Well, then, good-bye. Perhaps I shall see you beyond the sky."

Nikko kept his mask closed to hide his mandibles. "One can hope we shall meet again in the beyond. But I have a message from Nitaria, who came back to the pond to lay eggs."

Kor stopped. "Eggs laid here will do no good. What was Nitaria thinking, bringing her eggs here in our already overcrowded puddle?" He closed his mask again, hiding his mandibles as well. "What message might one from beyond have for me?"

"Watch your back," said Nikko. "Climb high above the sky or the youngers will try to get you when you transform."

Kor thought about this. "Good advice," he said finally. "You can't fight when you are transforming." He looked past Nikko to the teeming crowd of youngers eyeing them both from a distance. "And now I have some advice for you."

Nikko swam in a circle. "What advice is that?"

"Grow up fast."

WHERE Do You Get these Ideas?

Where Do You Get these Ideas?

This month I'm participating in a Blog Chain with many of my fellow Christian Writers from www.ChristianWriters.com If you check the sidebar, I have a panel that will let you check out many of the other wonderful posts on this chain. The subject for the blog chain this month is 'Where do you get your ideas?'

I get this question quite a bit. The answer is pretty obvious - the ideas for my novels come from the world around me. True, the fantastic adventures I write about don't happen every day (or perhaps ANY day) but the characters, locations, interactions, and even some of the situations come from the real life I experience every day.

Just as an example, one evening last September while driving my family somewhere, we passed a house in a neighborhood nearby that had a brilliant blue door on the front. The trim wasn't blue, or the shutters, just the door. Everything else was white. The late afternoon sunlight shining on the high-gloss paint of that brilliant blue door made it seem like the door was glowing.


Not a half-block further, we passed several huge crows sitting on a lawn and muttering to one another in a gutteral tongue only they could understand. They looked like they were having a meeting.


And suddenly, the plot to my next NaNoWriMo novel was plopped into my brain. Oh, certainly, there was a lot more to it - some of the characters in the story I saw while at Six Flags several years previously. And no, it wasn't Bugs Bunny and Marvin the Martian. Or even Yosemite Sam. it was a brilliant-looking older man with a grandson and granddaughter near the fountain by the entrance. He looked a bit like an older Milo from Atlantis. Unkempt silver hair, spectacles, and intense blue eyes that twinkled as he explained something about the way the water danced in the fountain to his family.


The world around us is full of stories to tell. Mix and match what you experience and observe. Keep a notebook with you to write down ideas. Take photographs - carry a camera and take pictures of interesting things - things that give you ideas.

While mulling over what to write about in this post, I was driving to work and saw this monster stuck under my windshield wiper. The poor fellow had simply landed on the front of the van, and the wind as I accelerated swept him up under the windshield wiper.

Don't try this at home, kids, but I took this photo while driving. Yes, I keep a camera with me all the time. Once I got to work, the fellow flipped off and flew away, perfectly fine, although miles and miles from his old home. And this big guy gave me the idea for a story - a story I'll share with you in four installments this month. Hope you enjoy it!

The Discomfort Zone - Is Self-Promotion A Christian Concept?

I'm participating in a Blog Chain this month, with a topic called 'The Discomfort Zone.'

If you look in the sidebar you'll find many other posts in this blog chain. I think you'll find many challenging and informative posts about this Discomfort Zone writers enter into as they work toward publication.

For me, one of the most difficult things I'm having to do during this new chapter of my life (The pursuit of writing novels, I mean) is self-promotion.

Not that I don't like me. I think I'm pretty good! That is, until I look at Him. Now, He's a mark I'll never hit. While Ephesians 5:1 says that we are to be imitators of Christ, I am too often finding mud on my white robes. I sometimes look a whole lot like the world...

Yet, in the publishing industry, one of the most important things a new author has to learn is that they are expected to market their book, or books, and take a very active role in marketing... ahem... themselves.

This means, putting your face on book flyers, getting to know thousands of people, going to book signings, getting in front of people, blogging, gettings onto Twitter and Facebook, Shoutlife and MySpace, and so many other venues online that scream for your attention as you scream for the attention of others...

...and all the time, in the back of your mind, you wonder if this is what God meant when He wanted you to write?

Did He want us to sell ourselves to the public?

And that's the question I struggle with, the Discomfort I face. You see, just like so many of you, I really want people to like me, and I want people to think that the work I do is fantastic. That it amounts to something. That it's a 'good read', a page turner. Something that spoke to you. I could eat that up like Lasagna.

The truth of the matter is that God called all of us to point the way to Him. If I remember that, as His child, I'm a new creation and the work I do, when it's the absolute best I can do through HIS strength and HIS leading, well, it's not bad stuff.

And if I can be an imitator of Christ, if I can be more Christlike through HIS power and HIS grace, then when people look at me, while it looks like I'm busy promoting myself, instead, I'll do my best to promote... Him.

Who Are you Writing For?

My wife has a tendency to ask some hard-hitting questions. Recently, her best zinger was to ask, 'Who are you writing for?'

It boils down to this - am I writing for me, or for God? Currently, I consider that I'm writing my stories to entertain and build up my kids. But I have a habit of referring to the novels as 'my' book.

I do feel 'called' to write. Creativity is in my blood and in my genes. It oozes out the pores and cries for release. Not bragging, mind. Just a hard look on why I'm doing it. It's almost like I would have to fight to suppress it now.

I thought this question, however, deep enough to send out to those in range of my voice, and ask YOU: (mainly because I am chicken to answer this one on my own)

Who are you writing for?

New Post on NovelTeen Tomorrow!

I will be posting my first 'staff blogpost' at an exciting Teen Fiction site called NovelTeen tomorrow, June 8th.

NovelTeen is an exciting 'new' blog for Teens to find YA books that are clean. There will be book reviews, FREE Books, articles from authors and for authors, author interviews, excerpts from upcoming books, and much more.

The material I'll be posting on will be on developing a 'rhino skin' (not sure who coined that term first) when dealing with Critique and Rejection in the Literary World.

It's an honor for me to be able to post along with award winning novelists. Please take a moment to check them out!

Book Review - Buying Time

Today I'm going to take a break from my usual fodder to give you a review of a book I just finished. It's called Buying Time by author and cartoonist Roland Mann.

Here's the author's back-cover blurb:
If you had a chance to re-do part of your life, would you? Even if it meant dying earlier?

That’s the decision Tom Morgan and Larry Pace must make when they are approached by a time traveling time salesman. Complete opposites, both men are drawn to the idea for the same reason: to save someone’s life. But is that even possible? Can the past be changed? Add to that the problem that it’s very addictive, like a dangerous drug. Each trip back in time shortens life.

Here's a snippet of the plot, and my take on the book:
The lives of two men, Tom and Larry, become entangled through a tragic accident that takes Larry's wife and hospitalizes Tom's best friend, Mike.

Tom, a down-on-his-luck journalist, is in some ways responsible for the accident, and feels an overwhelming burden of guilt and an overpowering feeling of worthlessness. His fascination with Mr. Potter's hateful words spoken to George Bailey in Its a Wonderful Life, "You're worth more dead than alive", borders on mania, and is his mantra.

Larry is a devout Christian professor and newly published author, a father of two daughters who help him to struggle through the grieving process. Surrounded by Christian friends and a loving family, he is coping with his loss.

At the funeral, a stranger comes up to him and asks if he wouldn't like to spend more time with his wife. He offers to send Larry back in time and give him a chance to hold her again, and tell her goodbye. He leaves Larry with a business card and a generous helping of confusion.

This stranger is also the person Tom was headed to interview. Big Ben, as the stranger calls himself, offers to send Tom back in time as well. He warns that the time he takes in the past will be deducted from the end of his life, meaning that he will die sooner.

Tom doesn't particularly care; he is teetering on the edge of suicide anyway. Tom goes back in time, attempting to change the past to keep the dreadful accident from occurring. But his efforts, though they change the past, do not circumvent the tragedy.

Later, Larry takes Big Ben up on his offer, going back to the past in an attempt to save his wife Gracie. But changing the past is like turning a battleship with a rowboat; the tragic day plays out similarly, with only small things altered.

The book picks up pace as Tom and Larry meet, and attempt to go back in time together in a concerted effort to keep the accident from happening and save Larry's wife.

From the time the two men meet right up to the end of the book, it was a page-turner I couldn't put down.

Liberally salted with sincere Christian characters, the book is an honest look at death, the power of prayer, and God's sovereignity over our appointed times.


Disclaimer:No goods or services were exchanged for the review of this book. Seriously, I wasn't paid or anything. I just wanted to tell you what a good read it was.