New Content Coming to CarsonCosta.com
I’ve been looking for ways to create more content and build an audience. With my first novel finished, my focus has pivoted. Now I’m working towards finding a publishing home for that manuscript while I figure out what it means to be a writer in the day to day. Fiction is my craft, and novels are my primary medium. But it takes a long time to write a novel. Heck, it takes a long time to write, revise, and publish a short story. I want the maintain the energy and momentum of being creative, of writing, of publishing. So I’m taking a new approach to my content.
My goal is to post regularly, and to wring as much content out of everything I create as possible. That means cross-posting (if I read a book, I’m going to review it on Goodreads, and then copy that review to my website and my social media). That means posting content that is unplanned and unedited (writers call this ‘free-writing,’ and usually it never sees the light of day). That means giving you sneak-peaks at the chaotic notes I scribble on cocktail napkins about a character I’m developing.
I think one reason I haven’t done a lot of this in the past is because I have this idea that anything I put out has to be utterly riveting, peak entertainment, or highly polished. And these tidbits—book reviews, writing practice, and my story development process—are common enough to me that it feels self-aggrandizing to imagine they might be interesting to anyone. But nobody can perform at their peak all the time. I’m staying very busy these days, and the work that deserves the bulk of my time are the novels and short stories that I plan on formally publishing in the long run. The regular content, in order to be consistent, needs to be manageable. And this feels manageable. So I hope these tidbits are worth something to you, and you look forward to seeing my name pop up in your inbox a bit more frequently than it has in the past.
Thank you for bearing with me so far!
Free-Write
Free-writes are short scenes that come out of a short stint of writing time on a program called FlowState, which deletes everything I’ve written if I stop writing. I go into the blind, can’t stop to think while I write, and don’t edit them before they’re posted here beyond correcting any typos or punctuation. Basically: I don’t know what this is about, either!
30-Minute Free Write: Never Wield An Axe
It has always been my contention that a knight should never be permitted to carry an axe. Axes are un wieldy things, meant for heavy-handed dealing with rogues and trolls. Axes are meant to be carried by stocky, sturdy bearers like trolls or barbarians. Axes, I have always thought, were tools best left in the lumberyard.
Yet here was Sir Penchant, leading the charge into town with an axe in hand, as if he believed we would do battle against the giant of Nourcus in the Queen’s receiving room. It was a shame, really. I’d always thought Sir Penchant was the sort of knight I would quite like, if I were the sort to socialize with knights. Yet here he was, carrying that axe.
I picked my way through the crowd, watching the group make their way up to the castle. The high road was lengthy, stretching the full length of the town, the castle a looming, spindly thing pressed up against the cliffside. Those cliffs would one day wipe the kingdom clear off the map, I was sure. No one else seemed to share my concerns, and I wasn’t one to go shouting from the rooftops about every imagined catastophe. I’d never shut up, if I were. There were catastrophes around every corner, that I could see. The baker’s stall stocked too much wood out back, just beside the backsmith’s forge—a fire waiting to happen. The fisherman never cleaned out his bait buckets properly, and left the fish guts strewn across the dock—liable to lure a kraken to our shores. The princess wore dresses laced so tight she was sure to pass out from lack of air one of these days, and given she spent most of her time out on the precipice of her balcony, watching the goings on about town from the highest tower…well. I needn’t tell you what I thought of that.
Penchant nudged his horse into a trot as the trio of knights broke through the busiest part of town. I had to cut through the alley behind the bathhouse to keep up. Terribly inconsiderate, really. The least he could do was leave me time to keep pace with them.
We made our way up to the castle, where the guards nodded us through. The knights dismounted, Penchant still gripping that axe. I couldn’t imagine why he’d traded in a perfectly good sword for that wretched thing. Where had he even come across it? The inscription on it was foreign, the handle wrapped in fine blue leather, the color too rich to be from any dye known in our lands. There was a tingle in my spine, a crawling sensation along the back of my neck. Catastrophe.
I followed silently behind as the knights made for the throne room, my eyes never leaving that axe. When the doors swung open and the Queen’s clear, bell-like voice called out a delighted greeting, it shook me from my thoughts and, as always, my eyes were drawn to her. Her bright yellow eyes and coils of brown hair, the slope of her delicate nose. She was beautiful, as beautiful as I might have wished to be. Her smile was soft and warm and she held a hand out to Sir Penchant, welcoming him home.
“What have your travels revealed?” she quizzed, her head tilting slightly toward the axe.
“Signs of invasion, your majesty. Artefacts unlike any we’ve seen before. They must come from some distant land.” He lifted the axe. Everything slowed. Catastrophe. The crawling shivered over my skin like ants, rippling and changing me, and an image struck me: a burst of white light bursting from the axe, Penchant dropping it in surprise, amd the axe swinging itself in a broad loop before embedding itself in the queen’s chest.
My arms extended, sweeping out ahead of me as I lunged, and then up to grab the chandelier fifteen feet above. I swung over the heads of the guards, of the knights, of the various courtiers scattered about, and landed in front of the queen, peeling myself open so as the axe swung forward as it had in my vision, it lodged itself in my ribcage. I closed myself up around it, letting it settle in my chest where it would be held harmless until I could find a way to get rid of it.
“Where has it gone?” Penchant asked, peering about the room. His eyes skated over and through me, the furrow between them adorably puzzled. The guards, the courtiers, the knights all muttered and grumbled, peering about in search of the mysterious axe. I settled myself at the queen’s feet, stretching and shifting to better settle the weapon inside me. I peered up at her. She was implacable as ever, eyeing the congregation as they searched.
“I might say we should simply be relieved to be rid of it,” she said, silencing the room. “Do find out where it came from, Penchant.”
“Yes, your majesty,” he defered with a bow, exiting the room.
The queen huffed. “A knight should never carry an axe,” she murmured, the corner of her mouth tilting up in a smile.
I purred, and rested my head upon her knee.
Book Review
The Moving Finger By Agatha Christie
I'm always quite a fan of Agatha Christie's work, and this novel is no exception. What I find interesting about this book in particular is that Miss Marple doesn't make an appearance until more than halfway through the story, and then she only makes a few brief appearances before the big resolution at the end. Despite the lack of focus on one of Christie's most well-known and beloved characters, the novel holds up quite well.
The cast of characters Christie developed for this book is wonderful. Each has a blend of positive and negative qualities that make you like and dislike each of them in turn. As the novel progresses, some initially dislikable characters earn your sympathy, while some odd characters become more relatable, and some likable characters reveal distasteful sides of themselves. They feel very real, with perhaps the exception of our narrator, Jerry, who is charming, bright, and outgoing - perhaps a bit too earnestly charming, too humbly bright, too encouragingly outgoing to come across as a real person. He's certainly likable, though, and therefore a fun companion to carry us through the tale.
Occasionally I find that Christie's plots are a too subtle, and that when the villain and clues are revealed, it feels more contrived than satisfying. Not so here. I felt quite pleased with myself throughout the book, thinking I knew just where it was going, only to realize, a page before the killer was revealed, that I'd been fooled. In that moment, even before Miss Marple explained the crime, everything clicked into place. It seemed obvious, in retrospect, which I always think is the most satisfying kind of mystery. We love to be fooled, but only when it feels fair; we could have gotten it, if only we'd seen the clues for what they were.
Of course, any book that came out in the 1940s is going to be riddled with ideas and comments that we no longer find tasteful. They aren't overwhelming here, but there's plenty of characterization of the women in the book, particularly by the male characters, that made me grimace. I hate to blame an author for their times, but for the modern reader these moments detract from the story. I do find it interesting that books written by a woman still perpetuate ideas of women being weak or manipulative or hysterical. I would love to ask Christie whether she believed these traits common amongst women of her time or if she was trying to appease the gatekeepers. And if the former, is it because that's how women were, or because it's how they were taught to be?
Overall, a great, quick read for lovers of the classic mystery genre.
