Preview: Immortal of the Saltless Sea

I want to use this week's blog post to discuss what’s going on and what’s coming up. Part 2 of “So, you want to be a self-published author” will come soon.

“Writer is coming….436 days.”

I like to divide my writer’s life into segments—the writer and the businessman. You can also do some other divisions, but those are primarily the two big buckets. The writer focuses on creating stories for people to enjoy. The businessman has to do everything to get that creative product to enough people to pay for the process. For this post, I’ll give you the status of my two major projects in that context. Plus some tid bits of other things.

The Immortal of the Saltless Sea

PREVIEW

Aiden did it again. After fifty years, a person would think he’d have unlearned the habit of flipping the light switch when he entered a room. Someday the lights would come back on.

“Red, time to get up,” Aiden said in a gentle voice so as not to startle his brother too much.

They woke an hour before dawn every day to get Angela ready to go. Well, Aiden did, anyway. This spring, his younger brother had woken that early less often. What had it been? Three-quarters of a century’s worth of mornings when Aiden had woken his brother up? “Red, time for school,” or “Red, Mom says we’ll be late for baseball practice.” Aiden was the early riser, the prompt one, and Red was the one they all waited on.

“Go on. I don’t feel great. Didn’t sleep well,” Red said from beneath his blankets, his voice strained with the weight of age. His first morning words brought out his chronic cough, which sounded worse today.

Aiden let his head droop. “You gotta get up and about. Activity will help.” Aiden could manage the boat without him, but the company made the work faster. Sure, Red was eighty-four, but shouldn’t his brother be more active? “Are you okay? Do you want some water?”

“I’ll be fine.” More coughing. “Got a chill. I need to sleep it off. Could you bring me some bread and maybe some of that dried fish when you get back? Appreciate it.”

Aiden sighed at the note of finality in Red’s voice.

The sun had yet to broach the eastern horizon, but the birds sang their spring songs as Aiden pushed the wheelbarrow down to the dock. It was cold enough to show his breath and cause his skin to bump up, yet warm enough to hint at a good day to come. Aiden savored the morning. He inhaled the crisp and clean spring air. It smelled of life. On the shore, the trees stood like unwavering sentries, still silhouettes a shade darker than the predawn sky.

It didn’t take long to get Angela ready and launched. The ritual differed little when he did it by himself. The final steps were all that changed. Single-handing a sailboat was an art, a ballet that Aiden performed better than most, even before the world had ended. While leaving the portside deck line attached, Aiden hoisted the mainsail but left the mainsheet loose. Only then did he free the boat from the dock. He pulled the mainsheet taut, and the sail filled with air. He sailed from the dock with one hand on the sheet and one on the tiller.

How many years had he sailed Angela? It had to be forty-five. Five years after the world had ended, he and Red had been walking along the lake near Michigan City when Red spotted the boat, a Pearson Ensign, in a yacht club boatyard, sitting on a trailer, the deck eight feet from the ground.

“Isn’t that the type of boat you used to have?” Red asked Aiden. “You know, when you used to race them up in Marquette?”

“Yeah.” Aiden ran his hand along the hull as he made his way to the stern. “Help me up.” He motioned Red around back, and Red made a step with his hands by interlocking his fingers. Whoever had owned the boat had taken great care of it. After sitting for five years, it still rested here in pristine condition.

Inside, Aiden took an inventory. The former owner had pulled the sailboat out of the water at the end of the last season and just put it here with all the sails and rigging in the cabin—the mast stepped on the foot, and the stays taut. The former skipper had put a blue canvas boom tent over the cockpit, keeping everything dry. There weren’t even birds inside, just a few spiders. Some water sat in the bilge, but not as much as he had expected.

He stuck his head out. “Everything is here. Think we can get it in the water?”

“How much you think it weighs?” Red asked.

“Say, four thousand pounds.”

Red scratched the back of his neck and bit his bottom lip like he did every time he worked on an engineering problem. “Think there’s a ramp?”

Aiden surveyed the yard, spotted what he was looking for, and hopped down.

Sure enough, there was a boat ramp, and Red, the former college mechanical engineering professor, worked out a way to get the boat from the shore to the water using a lot of rope and a dozen makeshift pulleys. Both Aiden and Red were still in the prime of their lives, and the two men put a two-ton boat in the water without using now-defunct modern machines. That wasn’t as amazing as Red’s system for pulling the boat out of the water every fall before freezing—a prehistoric derrick crane using counterweights and pulleys.

Red had often done things Aiden didn’t think possible. His application of physics in real life and confidence that it would work amazed Aiden. Without Red, there’d be no Angela—no sailing.

Aiden snapped out of his memory and concentrated on the morning’s fishing.

When he tied Angela back to the dock, the sun shone a hand’s width above those motionless tree branches laden with spring buds. Had they been still this whole time? In his cooler lay his usual catch: three plump Lake Michigan salmon, each weighing seven to ten pounds. With some vegetables, these fish could become a hearty stew, enough to feed the village for a night. They’ve had red meat almost all winter.

His brother should be up. It had been a couple of hours, and Red would be making their breakfast. He shook his head as he hefted the cooler onto the cleaning station and gutted the fish.

Aiden entered the house through the garage into a quiet kitchen. “Red?” he shouted.

No answer.

He had to be up.

“Red, you up?”

Still no answer.

He quickened his steps and entered his brother’s room. “Red—”

The sun shone through the window, lighting up Red’s still face. A slight odor of urine and feces greeted Aiden. His brother’s motionless body lay in the center of his bed. No movement. One of Red’s arms crossed his chest. His jaw was slack, with a slight trace of dried saliva on his cheek. Aiden could see his brother’s cheekbones under the parchment-like skin.

As Aiden stood frozen, eighty-four years of life memories poured into his head, tears flooding his eyes. They played catch with a baseball, and later Red, the pitcher, and Aiden, the catcher, in Little League. Man, Red could throw a baseball. The Phillies had scouted him in high school.

They had both gone to Purdue, Aiden two classes ahead. Red had “borrowed” his car one night, and it had broken down across town. The knock on Aiden’s door early in the morning was still vivid. They had laughed about it later, but at that moment, in the dizzy depths of the morning, Aiden had wanted to punch his little brother.

Aiden remembered holding Red’s daughter when she was born, the family birthday parties, and the rest of the life rituals before the world had ended. And after? Red had been his best friend and companion for fifty years as they struggled to survive. The only reason for Aiden to continue lay in the bed before him.

He grasped the withered hand at Red’s shoulder and studied the contrast between his brother’s liver-spotted one and his own, strong and unaged. It had never been more painful. The veins and bones in his brother’s hand looked pronounced compared to his own.

During all those years, Aiden had never told Red he loved him—not with words, anyway. He’d known that this day would come someday, but not today. How had Aiden not known his brother was going to die?

Standing and wiping his eyes, he looked at his little brother. “Let’s get you out of there and cleaned up.” Aiden pulled his brother from the soiled bedding. His brother’s limbs were already growing stiff. Red had lost so much weight these last few years, and Aiden hefted him into his arms with ease. He carried Red out back to clean him up.

Subscribe to my website to receive the complete story in March.

The writer part of this is done. It has entered the businessman part of the process. The story is at copy edit, which I expect back by the end of the month. The cover design work has been commissioned and will likely be completed by the end of the month. After that, I need to figure out how to get an author account on Amazon, an author account on Book Funnel, and a couple of other places to get this book to people. Most will receive it for free. It should familiarize more people with my work product, introduce them to the Purple Sky Saga, and add them to my subscriber list so I can keep them up-to-date with my books.

Could you do me a favor and spread the word? I love to meet new subscribers!

The Nights of the Purple Sky, Purple Sky Saga Book 1

I’ve long been a fan of future earth fantasy. The fantasy that occurs far into the future on a version of Earth that now has magic and fantastical creatures. I wanted to give a story about where that transition happens from “No Magic” Earth to “Magic” Earth. That is what the Purple Sky Saga is. It follows some folks who have recently been given the ability to do magical things. The main character in Book 1 is an ex-NFL cornerback named Kanyin Robinson. He looks at life a bit differently than his peers and meets a young lady who is equally odd. I’ll post more about this story in future blog posts.

In the writer phase, I’d say this book is about halfway done with the second draft. I find that the second draft has turned into a major rewrite of the first draft, as little of the first draft survives. My new author habits are pushing this along. I should finish this draft by 31 March, when I’ll edit with my notes from my writing groups. That should take the rest of the year.

The businessman part is solely focused on building a market for the book. My social media posts are targeted at getting more people to subscribe. This book will be my first novel, and I’d really like to break even on it so that the rest of the series is possible. Immortal of the Saltless Sea’s primary purpose in life is to give people a free short story so that they will be excited about this book series. In my last blog post, I discuss how much money it takes to self-publish a traditionally published quality book. To do this, I aim to have 3k subscribers by the time the book is ready.

This, That, and the Other Thing

My writing goals have been helping me in my daily writing life. Since I implemented them, my productivity has almost doubled. Please continue to ask me if I’m sticking to my goals. You are my accountability partner in all of this.

I’ve drafted another short story. I like it a lot. It is currently titled All for Sister Marissa. The main character, Eduardo, joined a ‘monastery’ twenty years prior, to punish himself. Now, he has reached a point in his faith that he can touch the Radiance of Jor. Jor has a task in mind for him. I’m looking for some BETA readers of this. If you would like to help me out, email me at m.b.everett@mbeverett.com. Right now, it is a stand-alone story. Based on reception, I could see myself writing in this world.

My in-person writing group will hold a Writer’s Retreat in South Haven, Michigan, the weekend of March 7-9. I’m looking forward to a focused time of writing.

I mentioned that I’d been commissioned to write another short story for an anthology. I’ve submitted my work and received some edits and a commitment to use it still. This was before Christmas, but I’ve not heard anything in a while, so I wonder if it is dying out. We’ll see.