Madame Lenora’s turban was a sizzling pink, and she was fat again.
‘You’re fat again,’ said the Marquis, before seating himself at the table in her legendary tent.
‘Your head is fatter. The usual?’
‘The usual,’ he affirmed, containing a sigh. He still felt woozy from the warding glyphs placed among the pictures on the tent’s painted exterior. They couldn’t keep him out, of course. But they could let him know he wasn’t welcome. Except that he was, for the same reason a fly is welcome in a spider’s web. It just wasn’t a personal welcome.
He watched her hands while she shuffled the cards. It was awful, but he couldn’t make himself look elsewhere.
Each fat black finger was decorated with a ring. Fancy costume jewellery, enamel beasts and big semiprecious stones, as flashy as the rest of her costume, and, indeed, his own silver-sequinned jacket. Their kind weren’t given to understatement.
Nine of the rings glowed like little lightbulbs. Only one, on the fourth finger of the left hand, a marcasite panther curled around a moonstone as big as an olive, was dull. Uninhabited.
All nine of his brothers and sisters she had captured. Each capture made her stronger, each imprisoned sibling gave her another suite of powers.
He was one of the strongest of the ten, and he was the luckiest. But he would have to be very lucky to beat her now. Very, very lucky.
The spread suggested that luck was on his side. Madame Lenora’s smile was mischief itself.
‘Well, Marquis?’
He pursed his lips and tapped the head of his cane. This was unexpected. She might lie, but her cards didn’t.
On the other hand…
There was a reason why no one had gone to anyone’s aid until it was too late. Sibling rivalry was the curse of their family. It had taken him a thousand years to start missing one or two of them. As allies they would never be better than unreliable.
Yet it sat badly with him to take no action, attempt no revenge, to be a coward. But the consequence of failure… and there would be no rescue for any of them if he lost.
Madame Lenora, still full of mirth — were fat people really happier? — interrupted his thoughts.
‘How about you try your luck tonight? I’m game if you are.’
It was already over. The moment had passed, if there had even been a moment. ‘It seems I never am,’ he said, trying to be breezy.
Her pity wasn’t a pleasant meal, but he had a cast-iron digestion. He could make something of it.
He put the right amount of money down on the table and returned to his own black leather tent. Several customers were queued up outside, patiently waiting their turn to be flogged and humiliated.
He wondered if he hadn’t picked up some of their quirks of character.

(One-draft ficlet. Madame Lenora has been in my head for years, though I only got a name for her today. She has a cameo as another character in Gunpowder Tea. No matter what she looks like, she always wears these ten fancy rings. I assume they symbolise the ‘jewels’ of a well-developed and balanced nature, but I was thinking about what they could mean in a story, and I came up with this.)

Had a fruitful conversation with Stu about the story. Also drank afternoon coffee, a rarity for me these days, and stayed up in the quiet of night cutting and rearranging. I used to work at night all the time, but fell out of the habit somewhere along the line. I paid for the coffee in only sleeping 5 hours, so will try for a siesta today.

There’s a quote from Kandinsky that rings true for me:

“The artist must be blind to distinctions between ‘recognized’ or ‘unrecognized’ conventions of form, deaf to the transitory teaching and demands of his particular age. He must watch only the trend of the inner need, and hearken to its words alone. [...] All means are sacred which are called for by the inner need. All means are sinful which obscure that inner need.”

Or as a pretty fucked up but sometimes wise man said, “Thou hast no right but to do thy will.”

Which sound like pompous things to have in mind when merely writing a story — a thing which shouldn’t be so difficult! — but I don’t think I’ve been watching the trend of the inner need enough in this piece.

That said, a writer is not in the same boat as a visual artist since a writer demands much more of her audience’s time per item produced, with the exception of haiku and limericks. Still, there doesn’t seem much point in writing while ignoring the inner need (unless for good money, of course!), so that the trick is to do one’s will while keeping the audience in their seats — which may involve some deference to the demands of the age and whatever else. (Not even venturing into what deferences may be necessary to sell the work, which obviously applies to visual artists too.) But one can get so concerned about the audience — or so caught up in other people’s ideas — that one mistakes some other thing entirely for one’s will.

Decided on a thingy I had to decide on, and on how to present it, and wrote it, albeit badly. The only question is where to put it. Atm it’s all in one, but I might break it up. I’m nearly at a long action scene, which is at least drafted, after which there’s the ending. I think there’ll be some spakfiller to lay here and there throughout, but not too much. I can hope not entirely without reason that the next draft might be close to a final.

I’m worried that with so much plot (or maybe it isn’t, but it feels like a lot) going on, the characters aren’t getting time to interact naturally. They have to interact mainly through the plot, and I’m not used to stage-managing that. Frankly I find it a bit of a drag. I’m looking for quick and elegant ways to show (or tell, I don’t care — this whole business of showing not telling is but a fashion) their relationships.

I’ve cut a 3000 word scene down to 1500 words, with 1000 words of conversation. Still can’t settle on POV, but it might be easier to decide now I’ve settled on the material. Some of the talk can come later, but it can be brief.

And I made a relationship between two characters friendlier, as there wasn’t room for the conflict that had been there and it didn’t serve much purpose.