This past week, I’ve been a writing machine. Since Thursday afternoon I have written 29,204 good keepable words (Probably closer to 35K including what I’ve cut). Now if only they were all on the same WIP! But spread across 3 that’s still about 10K each. And the average is 5,841.16 words per day. Which is not bad considering I was at work all of Friday.  And the hubs and I binge-watched four episodes of Dexter, season 2 in a row yesterday. And, I cooked, ate, and slept and bathed regularly, too. But, damn, my arms feel like they’re going to fall off.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I will now go off into the real world and catch a movie with the hubs.

The dyehouse is downwind of every other building, but its location does little to diffuse its smell. The building is squat and dark and windowless. Its roof is pierced with chimneys, like arrows sticking out of Saint Sebastian’s chest. The air around it is soaked in the moist, acrid stench of dyestuff, lye and urine. After a day’s work, I’ll carry that same stench, and everyone who walks within ten feet of me will know I have again incurred an Elder’s wrath.

The work is hard, the hours are long; the dying is no easy task. Pilgrims, still wan and weak-legged from their voyage across the ocean, must bring their garments to be dyed black before they can become citizens of God’s kingdom here on Earth. In so doing, the Elders say, they obliterate the sin of pride, and come into the kingdom humble as penitents.

In the dyehouse, we submerge the aristocrat’s bright velvets and the pauper’s faded woolens into the same steaming, stinking tub of boiling water and ammonia which we have distilled from urine and some other sources. We stew the garments longer than a tough cut of meat, until the threads are weak enough to accept the dye. The dying takes time, but we will wait. Within the wall, time is something we do not lack.

Once the garments have been soaked and softened, we submerge them in a vat of black dyestuff laced with arsenic to help the color stick. We stir this pot for hours before it is time to remove the sodden mass of black clothes. The dye makes our hands rough and gray. The arsenic makes our skin pale and our bodies weak.

There is no punishment worse than the dyehouse, save the tannery and the distillery where our chemicals are made. But that work is heavy and hard—the men labor with their coats removed and sleeves rolled back. I have been told that the sight of men working at such labors would be not purify my soul, but cast me deeper into sin. We women are weak, and must be protected from such sights. Thank goodness.

This is not to say the dying is an easy task. The color fades fast in clean water and bright sunlight, and must be renewed every year or so. The dye does not take to fabric so well here, as it does at Home. The plant we use to make our black is called Miser’s Heart. And like its namesake, Miser’s Heart thrives on cold air and sparse nourishment. It is overfed and overwhelmed by fecund soil. It withers in the warm summers of this foreign clime.

Our plants, like our people, are used to stingy seasons and stony ground. We mistrust abundance. We fear ease. We despise pleasure. Comfort is a snare the devil sets to steal our souls away.

Or so the Elders say.

I believe I would enjoy a few comforts—or, at the least, an easier chore. There is no shortage of dyestuff in this new world, and all of it is a great deal easier to refine that the stingy black of Miser’s Heart. In spring a host of flowers rise in brilliant shades of gold and red and blue, filling the fields beyond the wall like an army bent on conquest.

We could easily attire ourselves in royal blues, imperial purples, or reds as rich as spilled blood. We could be paupers clad in the colors of kings, but we are a modest people; we must work hard so that all who see us will know it. We must attire our bodies in black and never look upon our naked skin. We must hide our hair, lest, tempted by its softness and rich color, we give in to the sin of pride. We must never enjoy softness or beauty, for these are but signposts on the Primrose Path that leads unwary souls to Hell.

This is what the Elders tell me, though nine months of punishment and repetition have not yet cowed me enough to believe it. But I feel myself weakening. My body slows, my mind grows tired. I soften. One day I will soak up the Elders’ words the way softened cloth soaks up the dye. It may take time, but in God’s kingdom here on Earth, time is something we do not lack.

I can’t help it, I’m a fiddler. I nitpick. I tweak.

Editor Laurie and the ever-patient Bam can attest, every time I send in a draft, something is different. I just can’t help it. Just yesterday, I noticed in Ember chapter 8 that I described fabric as jacquard when I really meant brocade. O, the horror! I can’t believe I did that! (Sorry, Anonymous Auction Winner!). It will be fixed in the full PDF.

I can’t leave well enough alone. I change a word here, a sentence there. When a question about my main character that wakes me in the middle of the night like, “What does she do when she’s not killing people?” I have to answer it.

It’s like some kind of curse: Lo, and she shall edit nigh until the very end.

One of these days, I’m going to have to learn to let go. Maybe I can do that by obsessing on my next WIP?

WIP Title: Rohais
Word Count: 7,000/95,000
Current Favorite Words:

Alone of all my sisters, I was not named to honor queens or saints. Instead, my stepmother named me for the climbing rose on the south wall of her garden, with its sweet scent and wicked thorns.

I used to think every Californian had at least two of the following plants in their yards: roses (blooming through January, natch), citrus tree(s), palm tree(s), avocado, Bermuda grass (not necessary, but it’s unavoidable).

But, palm trees and Bermuda grass excepted, none of those plants are drought-tolerant. And we are in a drought. Which means I ought to get out and enjoy my roses before they’re gone, gone, gone.