February Update
Hey friends, happy February! Maybe? The good news is, the new US administration doesn’t make me want to delete my brain every time there’s an update from the White House. The bad news, of course, is that it’s not all solved immediately, and we have to keep our foot on the gas. I’ve signed up to volunteer with vaccine distribution with a local hospital, so I’m looking forward to spending some time soon helping get immunity in arms. We’ve also managed to make an offer on a new house, have it accepted provided we list our current house, list our current house, accept an offer on it, and be almost through inspections. January was a busy month.
WIP Update
I’m working on the outline for the second draft of The Mage’s Mistake right now; planning to be done that by the end of the month so I can get back to writing in March. Some key elements have to change, including the POV and the nature of Henry Harrison’s injured arm, but I wanted to share part of the zero draft of the first scene. Enjoy:
They discharged me twice, from the army and from the Royal Hospital Chelsea, at the same time. My letter of discharge was delivered at the same time as my first war pension payment, and I stepped out into the cold November air a civilian once again. I had a small valise that contained my uniform, a tooth brush, and a single set of plain, sober clothes. No one had seen fit to send me anything else; but with no family alive in England, I had no one to send me anything at all. Standing on the steps of the RHC with the bag handle gripped tight in my left hand, I was as a leaf on the wind: free and directionless, tending inevitably downwards.
It was mid-afternoon, and the light was fading fast. Being somewhat familiar with the city because of my training some years before, I made my way toward Paddington, having a vague recollection of a boarding house there. I'm sure I could have found something closer if I'd tried or asked, but it was the first time I'd been out of the Hospital in several months. I needed the walk.
I tired more quickly than I would have liked, my boots crunching on the fallen leaves of the towering plane trees, my insufficient coat collar turned up against the wind. It was less than a mile before I gave into the weakness and caught an omnibus going the direction I remembered. I didn't have money to spare, but the alternative was to sit down on the grass in Hyde Park and not get up again.
The omnibus was crowded, but it had the advantage of being warm. I rode it as far as I could, jostled between my fellow citizens, keeping my right arm as near my center as possible. I didn't like to think about what would happen if anyone bumped against it too firmly. My shoulder ached and tingled; the surgeons and nurses had assured me that was what healing felt like.
London rumbled past the smoggy, crusty window. Someone I once knew had called the city "the great cesspool into which the loungers and idlers of the empire are irresistibly drained." A little bleak, if you ask me, but I was in that sort of mood that day. I had nothing ahead of me, and no inclination to look at what was behind me. I would make the army a distant memory, I told myself. It was the only thing to do.
I had to walk another half mile from the place the omnibus dropped me to where I remembered the boarding house standing, and was rewarded for my efforts with a familiar door, although an unfamiliar face at the door.
"Sure, we've room," she said. "Two shillings a week."
My pension was 5 shillings and sixpence a week, but it would have to do. Perhaps I would find something less expensive after I had a chance to get my bearings. I told myself a lot of lies in those first few weeks. I suppose I haven't rid myself of the habit yet.
The room on the first floor the landlady showed me to was shared with another lodger: it had two single beds on either side of a narrow window that looked out onto the street. At least it had a window. The window was open, letting in the fresh air. The other lodger was not in residence at the time, but it was clear which bed was available. At the foot of the beds was a wash stand with a chipped bowl and ewer, but an intact mirror. I was told to store my belongings under the bed. When I asked for the privy, I was shown to an outhouse in the back garden.
I slept fitfully that first night, waiting for my room-mate to return. He did, eventually, very late and full of liquor, but he didn't trouble me beyond the initial impact of his unsteady body against the bedpost. I think it gave him a nasty bruise, for he whispered a loud apology and crawled under his own blankets without acknowledging me.
In the morning he was gone again, which meant I could wash in peace and examine myself in the mirror without fear of interruption. My time in hospital had taken its toll on me: first the injury, the heat of which I could still feel on my face if I closed my eyes, and then the illness that had wracked me afterwards. When I had recovered enough from the fever, they began the surgeries. Despite the regular meals, I was thin enough that my belt was on the first hole, and my eyes looked hollow. I was pale under my desert tan, as if the fever had not fully abated even after six weeks, and the tiredness was deep in my bones. The beard I had grown was long enough now to need a trim.
I wasn't sure I trusted myself to shave with my left hand, so the first thing I did was go out in search of a barber. It felt like another extravagance, but I talked myself into affording it. And I didn't have the barber take the beard off, either. I left with what I thought was a respectable look, and found myself stroking it occasionally through the next day, the feeling of the hair under my fingers an unexpected pleasure.
My money felt as thought it were slipping through my fingers, and I still had to eat. I stayed away from the pub on the corner, at least until the sun set, and a walk around the neighborhood to reacquaint myself led me to a coffeehouse opposite the public gardens.
The smell of coffee as I opened the door was the first sensation after I left the Royal Hospital Chelsea that made me feel as if I was truly in my body. I had never been much of a coffee drinker, preferring tea as long as I could remember, even in the army, but the thick, rich scent of roasting coffee lit up my every nerve. I stood in the doorway inhaling in wonder long enough that I got shouted at by someone at a nearby table to come in or piss off. Fair enough, I was letting the cold air in with me.
I paid and found a seat at a small table, empty but for the newspapers and pamphlets that covered the surface. Someone brought me a cup of coffee, and soon it was followed by a plate of food: toast and butter, eggs, rashers of bacon, and kidney. My stomach growled ferociously, and I found myself eating with more enthusiasm than I'd felt in weeks, perhaps months. The food at the hospital was better, to be sure, but the food at the coffee house was the first meal of my new life.
The coffee cleared my head, too, and I began to leaf through the pages in front of me. There was all manner of news upon the table: shipping, industry, business, politics. I moved anything about the war aside quickly, trying to focus on the news at home. My right hand in its soft leather glove was clumsy, the fingers slow to move. It would take practice and patience, the doctors had told me, before the arm felt natural.
Work, I thought, switching to my left hand. I would need to find work. There were broadsheets among the pamphlets, and these contained the job notices.
There were plenty of options: ships' captains seeking crew; warehouse overseers promising daily wages; banks in search of sober and attentive clerks. Given the state of my health and education, the banks were my most appropriate pursuit, but the thought of sitting in a vast, cold building all day, making marks in a ledger? It would be the very antithesis of my last position, but still I couldn't imagine anything less appealing.
I had a few weeks to grow desperate, I reasoned with myself. These positions— or ones very like them— would be available when I was at the end of my dignity.
Currently Reading
As part of the writing group I’m in, I got to listen to Zoe York aka Ainsley Booth talk writing business and marketing this past week, which was a delight. Zoe has a decade-long career and a heck of a lot of experience making the writing business work for her. It was great to hear her insight and perspective on what a writing career can look like. In preparation, I took my wife’s advice and started on her “Frisky Beavers” series, and am about halfway through Prime Minister. Kinky Canadian PM and his summer intern find common ground, as it were. Fun and sexy, although to be fair not as deeply kinky as I’d expected. Maybe I’m kink-jaded?
I’m also reading the first book in the A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas, which carries the same title. This also has romantic elements, but a totally different vibe: fantasy, pseudo-historical, wherein a human woman is taken across the wall into the faerie realm as payment for killing a faerie that she encountered while hunting to feed her family. There’s a lot of faerie intrigue I don’t quite understand yet, but my library copy of the e-book expired so now I have to wait to figure it out. Whoops.
In my defense, we have a new baby, and the amount of reading I manage before I fall asleep at 8:30pm is very small.
What are you reading right now? Reply directly or come leave a comment with your recommendation!