Darker Days Than These
Wednesday, November 01, 2006Words: 3,073
Darker Days Than These is the story of Monaco Johnson, a woman who would have been a music teacher, but she was forced to train as a sumsiri, warrior clans who are used for any purpose from political assassination (the best) to guarding garbage trucks. It is not an easy job…every where she goes someone, including her closest friends, fellow sumsiri Juno and Athena, want her to help find justice, a task she is finding harder and harder to live with.
And then there is another promise, to protect a man named Ben Norton, whose actions may start, or stop, a war a thousand years in the making.
Not bad (she hopes) for a prelim blurb, eh?
The first time I met Monaco Johnson I was sick with some sort of flu. For several days I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t drink, I couldn’t watch TV because they’d show these delicious commercials of beautiful, juicy food, cold, refreshing orange juice, and I would lick my lips and be miserable.
I rolled on my side and stared at the wall, and closed my eyes and…
There she was. A scarred, slightly plain woman with dark hair, the only remarkable thing about her were her eyes. She was laying on her side on top of her bedcovers, wearing a grey tank top and underwear, and she was thinking about things she didn’t want to, and regretting everything. Maybe it was my addled desperate for something to drink mind, but I thought, she guards Coca Cola trucks. Now what kind of world would she have to live in, where people guarded soda delivery trucks?
I made notes. I wrote bits of it, and lost it. The only thing I have is an independent short story, called “Vigilance.” She is my second oldest character, second only to Andromeda Pendragon of Balancing Act. Since it’s a sort of bitter prediction of what the future will be like, sometimes I see things on the news and think, “Boy, I was right,” or, “Oh, that belongs in DDTT.” Over the past few months I’ve spent a long time in hospitals, and it occurred to me that Monaco didn’t really live in a basement of a house, but in an apartment that used to be a hospital. I ever took pictures of one really interestingly laid out rehab center my father stayed in. Sick? Maybe a little, but it reminds me of what Neil Gaiman said, that all writers live with a little notebook running, taking notes, so even when tragedy strikes, part of you is always trying to memorize the moment to use later.
When NANOMOWRIMO came up, I realized it was time to finally, truly, tell Monaco’s story. I don’t remember the things I did in the past, but I know it’s all there, or at least the good stuff. The nice thing is that it has given me a really solid understanding of Monaco and her world, so I know it will be easier for me to create this place for you.
Now, what was I thinking today? Well, this bit we are doing is really just prologue. Like Juno and Athena, I took her name from mythology. According to Encyclopedia Mythica (http://www.pantheon.org/articles/c/cardea.html) she is “The goddess of thresholds and especially door-pivots (cardo "door-pivot"). Just as Carna she is also a goddess of health. Cardea is the protectress of little children against the attacks of vampire-witches. She obtained the office from Janus in exchange for her personal favors.
Ovid says of Cardea, apparently quoting a religious formula: 'Her power is to open what is shut; to shut what is open.'” Since her “crime” was refusing to kill a little girl, I thought it fit, and I liked the idea of an assassin being named after a goddess of health, because I am perverse in my love of irony. This chapter is o accomplish many tasks: I want you to start envisioning this world that we are in, it’s culture, what it looks like. And of course, Cardea, and what The Lady wants her for are actively the main beam of the story from which all else hangs. I can’t decide if I want to go with the old idea, of Juno forcing Monaco to help her in her plan of revenge, one that results in becoming a blood bath that they all have to try to escape the consequences of, or if I will go with another story that will, ultimately, and very oddly, tie this in with my book Blue Moon.
I’m not worried. We have 29 more days to figure it out.
To read today's writing, go to: http://invisiblelight.blogspot.com/
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 8:07 PM
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