Author's notes:

In last chapter's author's notes, I compared how running table-top role-playing games is similar to writing serial fiction. I said there were two points of similarity: the world, the characters, the plot all have a rough start, then come to life over time.

This is the same with many stories. We just don't see the first part, where everything starts out cardboard and comes to life in fits and false starts. Novelists sometimes have their first one binned because everything is so flat in the beginning. This turns out to be a blessing, for, when they write their next try using the same setting and characters, everything is already alive in their minds

Here's an exception to prove the existence (don't take this to your Logic teacher.) Tom Clancy's Patriot Games was published three years after his Hunt for the Red October became a hit, yet was written before it, both the events in the book, and, I'm guessing with nearly absolute certainty, the penning of the manuscript itself.

In Red October, Jack Ryan and his wife make a few mentions of events that, at the time, looked like "colour text" to build out their characters (which, for a starting novelist's first debut novel to see print, were already quite fully fleshed!)

When Patriot Games came out, the basis on which said "colour text" were based became quite clear. Even without a colophon, I was sure Patriot Games was written first. The signs were all there: the plot was cliched and uninspired; the characters were all flat; none of the usual plethora of government agencies, both public and need-to-know, were present.

My suspicion about what happened was this: He writes Patriot Games. It gets binned. I'm not sure I disagree, either. Here's an amateur author who writes something that's got all the feel of an inferior Robert Ludlum potboiler, at least plot-wise. (Then again, Ludlum also wrote The Bourne Identity, so what do I know?)

Clancy licks his wounds, tries again (lesson for us all) this time with something different[1] that became surprise success. That's in 1984. All right, he's in the club. Let's see his next one.

1986 sees his next techno-war thriller come out Red Storm Rising. It too is a success. He's made his bones, triumphed over the sophomore curse, and suddenly was a hot name. His publisher then asks the question novelists love to dread, "When can you get me your next novel?"

Patriot Games came out in 1987. You do the math.

===

Okay. I had a point in mind, but as is common with stream-of-consciousness writing, I was redirected into a rabbit-hole. I guess the point will have to wait until tomorrow. Especially with the footnote.

===

[1] Bit of apocryphal trivia for you: per a news article printed a few years after he became a success, Clancy's research for the novel was so good, he claimed to have been 'debriefed' about where he came across such accurate descriptions of the interior of the boats in question, and such. The MacGuffin of the piece, the super-secret caterpillar drive, was probably articles inspired by military technology journals.

The short form: he was too close for national security comfort, hence the debriefing. Fortunately for him, Clancy was able to point to his sources (he probably kept a file of them) all of which were available to the public.

(Those of you just joining here, start with Callan and Sian 1)



Evander was left in stunned silence as Sian waved, kissed him on the forehead and murmured a parting. For that instant, Callan looked away with all his Senses to let them have a moment alone. "Chella," he said, and an image formed in his mind of a young lady, eyes green, hair dark brown, smile generous. "Were we ever like that?" The ghost seemed to breath in, closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. Then she faded.

Sian bounded over; her voice dispersed the last of Cella's memory. "Okay, I'm good. He doesn't like it, but he doesn't have to." To punctuate her words, Evander backed up and pulled out with throttle open, spraying gravel everywhere.

Callan kept his engine quiet as he followed suit, but slowly. His sedan's interior kept out most of the sound, leaving them in near-silence, as they pulled back up the rural road. He could see Evander's taillights wink out onto the freeway.

"So, that's why he wants me. Marc, that is." She flipped up her cell phone. "He expect to pick me up in two hours, by the by."

"I think you'll have to stand him up tonight." He waved at her phone, then put his hand back on the wheel. "So you only use it as a watch. That explains why I couldn't reach you." His voice had a playful lilt over the steel beneath.

"I turned it off."

"I know." The playfulness vanished, leaving the weight of the two words full on her.

"Sorry." Her eyes settled on the phone in her lap, her voice was small and tight.

"You are now sorry, yes. But, the important thing is: what did you learn from this?"

"To leave this thing on?"

He shook his head. "No, try again, dear. And think, this time. Think."

She sighed, "Not to hang up on you."

"Close. 'To listen to me.' That's what you must learn from this. To listen to me." He ran one hand through his hair in consternation. "You've attracted the attentions of some very dangerous people last night, Sian." He left it hang there.

After a few exits blurred by, she spoke. "Got that. Go on."

"I was just waiting for you to make another James Bond reference." His eyes glanced her way, offering a little bit of cheer.

"Okay, I deserved that. Sorry."

"Good girl. It's a sign of maturity to accept responsibility for your words and actions." His voice warmed, and he let her mull over these revelations.

She snorted softly, then stared as the downtown skyline grew larger and larger.

===

"Thank you." She looked up from her Copper River Salmon salad.

He turned back from admiring the view out his hotel room window, and her refracted image seeming floating in the indigo dusk. "Hm?"

She touched her cheek. "For healing me. Making it not hurt anymore."

"I can't claim to have healed you in totality. And I certainly know that you've aches aplenty more, just searching for words to describe them."

She focused on cutting a large piece of lettuce. From beneath her veil of hair, she said softly, "You didn't say it."

"Say what?"

"You didn't call me 'little one.'" Her knife and fork she laid down.

"Do you like when I do that?"

She nodded, looking up and letting the tresses part to show her eyes. "Yes, I do."

"Why?"

Her half-lidded eyes popped open. "What do you mean, why?"

"Just that. Why? Why do you like being called that?"

She picked up her silverware again, started attacking the salad. The rasp of the blade on the glass filled the room. Once, twice, thrice. "I don't know. I just like it. You really know how to ruin the moment, you know?"

"Wouldn't you want the unruined moment, when it finally comes, to be real? Or do you set your bar so low that the moment is enough, any source?"

"How do you know that wasn't real? Are you saying you can read my mind now?"

"No, I can't. I wouldn't want to even if that were offered me. But I do know it wasn't real, in the sense it wasn't only that you liked hearing me call you 'little one.' Not solely."

She stabbed her fork into the fillet. "All right, then what was it, then?"

He blinked and funneled some Will into his words. "Let's calm down, shall we? Flying off the handle won't either of us."

"Dammit, I'm not flying off the-- Why the hell are you smiling?"

"I know why now."

"Why what? Why what, for Christ's sake?"

"Why you sometimes don't respond when I use my Will on you."

"I thought you said you never tried."

"No, I never used it. Successfully, that is. I have no compunctions using it to calm runaway rhetoric so conversations have more light than heat. In fact, that's almost automatic for me."

"Wait, so you did or you didn't?"

"Tried and failed. Because you were angry at the time. Each time, you were angry. Each time I tried to calm you down, you just blew up bigger."

"Oh." Her face unclouded. "So, that's a good thing, right?"

"Not really, but let's not get distracted here. We were talking about me calling you 'little one,' and what it means to you. Before you get upset again, here's my take on it: you like me calling you that so it hides the memory of Marc saying it."

She exhaled her breath, mouth half-open to refute him.

"That's not a bad reason. In fact, that's why I said it so much earlier today. I say it in a few different contexts. When I first met you, to bring a smile to your lips because it was the first time someone called you that, right?" He waited for her affirming nod, then continued. "Earlier today, I wanted to neutralize the word before explaining it to you. I wanted to counterbalance the image of him calling you that, something you seem to find offensive, with the security of me doing same. Do you see that?"

She nodded.

"But, now that you know the meaning, I cannot use it without first your consent. Consent is vital to me."

"That didn't stop Marc."

"I'm not Marcarius."

She took a deep breath, released it and nodded. "That's for sure."

"So..." he eyed her.

"You said it meant I was Marc's thrall, right? Him calling me 'little one.' What's that mean?"

"In the Awakened Circles, it means 'sex slave.' Do you still want me to call you 'little one,' Sian?"