What is the dirt like in the desert? Miranda and Riley are crossing the Nevada Desert. The ground here is rocky; the sand is hard and gritty. There are rocky outcroppings and cactus and sage. The place is alive with snakes, lizards, birds and rabbits.
Miranda is not a survivalist. She isn’t the type of character who knows how to catch dinner with a shoe string and a paper clip. She’s never killed anything furry. She doesn’t know how to make a fire without a match. She and Riley don’t have proper shoes or clothing. The sun burns them during the day. They freeze at night.
It all starts with the dirt. How does it feel to cross the desert and feel the ground cut your feet to ribbons? Worse, you have to keep going because you can’t survive another freezing night.
I really, really wanted to skip this part of the story. I wanted to get right into the next phase of things where the fun and games start and Miranda and Riley begin their personal war on the aliens. I wanted to skip this part because it’s hard. The details are painful and important. The details are what tear my characters apart and it is their reaction to the details that rebuild them into heroes. Miranda and Riley have important lessons to learn from the desert. They will learn to trust each other. They will learn to skin a rabbit. They will learn to survive on their own. It’s either that or die.
So I’m thinking about dirt, and grit and pain and determination. I’m thinking about the kinds of things it takes to turn a victim into a hero.
If you’re following the saga of Miranda and Riley, stay tuned. I am reworking the beginning and plan to post an update.
Posts Tagged ‘Miranda Baxter’
Desert Ground
Saturday, November 6th, 2010Stone Seeker Leaves Home
Monday, May 17th, 2010I’ve spent a good part of the last year re-writing Stone Seeker. I’ve always loved Arroon and his oddball pack of friends. I love the book, the story and as it winds up…I’ve often loved it a little too much. I hesitated to make changes to those wonderful words, because they were all so good. Then came the realization that I could do better. Editing and re-writing have been fun, disturbing, exciting and in the end, empowering. Books are like that. Just as you feel like you’ve gotten there wherever there is, you find out that there is a whole lot of there left to get to.
It took several tries to get Stone Seeker to the point where my kids and their friends would read it without wanting to put it down. Where they’d sneak flashlights into bed so they could read a few more pages. Where they’d get in trouble in class for reading at inappropriate times. I’m sorry that they got in trouble, but I’m thrilled that they liked the book enough to feel it was worth getting in trouble over.
So we’re sending Stone Seeker, and with it Arroon, Finder and Miran, out into the world to try to find a publisher. I’m trying very hard to be nonchalant about this event. I’m trying to remember to breathe because the process of matching a book with the right editor at the right publisher can be a lengthy one. Still…I find myself tempted to call my agent, Donald Mass and bug him. And I want to keep one eye on my e-mail…just in case. I am somehow resisting these temptations because neither one of these actions is going to get me anything but an irritated agent and a lot of wasted time.
Instead, I’m working on Mutant. I’ve got Miranda Baxter and her mutant friend, Riley Fortune, stumbling through the Nevada desert, trying to find water and ultimately looking for a home. I can’t help Arroon and his pals in their search for a publisher—that’s out of my hands. But I’m still in control of Miranda and Riley. Their fate is still in my hands. Books are like that.
An Unlikely Hero
Thursday, January 28th, 2010It is unlikely that it will ever be necessary for me to single handedly save the world from an evil bad guy. But I’d like to think I could if I had to. I’d like to think that like Frodo Baggins, or Harry Potter, or Percy Jackson, I’d be up to the job.
In my world there are a lot of annoying, rude and irritating people, but none of them qualify as world destroying evil bad guys. Thus, I am finding world saving opportunities somewhat rare. Oh, certainly, I can help other people save the world. I can contribute to saving the world. But I have yet to be handed a ring of power or a working wand and even if I had, I haven’t run up against a sufficiently evil individual to use it on.
Maybe this is why my very favorite kind of hero is the unlikely hero. Frodo is a hobbit, Harry is a neglected orphan, and Percy has major attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. These guys are the last to be picked to play volleyball in PE. They are viewed by the world as weak or pathetic or just damaged. That’s why I love them.
Those guys could be me.
In Mutant, my hero is a girl who is dying of cancer until she is cured…and finds the cure worse than the disease.
Arroon is an orphan who has been kicked out of a number of homes and schools.
These two can’t even keep their lives straight, never mind head out and kick some evil bad guy butt. Yet, they do kick butt.
That’s why I keep rooting for them, keep writing them, keep trying to pry the hero from beneath the surface.
Who is the most unlikely hero I’ve ever met?
Me.
And Harry Potter, Frodo Baggins, Percy Jackson, and my own Miranda Baxter and Arroon Walker.
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