Second part of the outline...

A seagull sees Caera is obviously with child and reports it to Morriggan. She casts runes to find it will be a male child, and confronts the Dagda, vicious argument. No longer a secret that can be kept. She's more upset about him getting a lowlife woman pregnant with than him screwing around. Keeps the child’s sex quiet.

Morriggan's child arrives and takes after Caoimhín’s dark looks. The Dagda realizes and now can throw her own infidelity in her face, which pisses her off more. She refuses to accept the girl, but the Dagda won’t let her give her away. Considers taking her to the Ui Briuins. That makes Morriggan relent and act like she cares for the child.

But then she casts runes and learns her daughter and Caera’s son will wed and bear a son, who will bear a son...and their blood will be cursed till the death of the last Ui Briuin. 

Morriggan calls her adult daughters. This prophecy cannot be allowed to occur, so they cast runes to find Caera. Their plan? To kill her and the boy. 

Caera is gathering reeds and is separated from other women when she is surrounded by a mist. 4 figures appear -- 3 of them Morrigan’s daughters...and then Morriggan drifts up and cuts Caera’s throat.

Baby’s back in the compound, safe. 

Caoimhín is en-route back with kill when hears of Caera’s murder. He is beside himself with grief. At first, he is accused but has alibi; hunting with brother and father. Witnesses tells of the mist surrounding Caera for a moment. Caoimhín’s father says, “That’s how the Tuatha de Danann came to island.” 

Caoimhín, father and men go to Tara and confront The Dagda, who is shocked. “She had my son?” Morriggan is furious that he knows. “So what if the child was a boy?” The Dagda realizes what Morriggan has done and tells her, “If you touch him, you are dead.”

She reminds him he coerced a mere woman into sex. Not exactly innocent. The Dagda acknowledges he did wrong and renounces Morriggan as his wife. He walks across Ireland to the Cliffs of Moher, as penance, then washes his sins away in the waters far below.

Morriggan snarls about the hypocrisy of men and their attitude towards women. With the help of her daughters, she forms The Dagda’s sins into 7 harpies, forbids them to ever harm a female, and sets them loose on the land to kill every male child they find (hoping to get Caera’s boy).

Slaughters occur. Caoimhín and his father build an army to fight the creatures. They manage to kill three of them, but at great cost. Even Morriggan is horrified by what she has started, but the harpies cannot be controlled by her. They're viciously upset at her cold birthing of them and snarl, “Why no man for us? Why only loneliness?” Plan to keep killing. 

Morriggan joins with The Dagda to force a compromise by helping to kill another harpy. This finally convinces the creatures to back down or they will be annihilated. They agree to live in the caves of the Cliffs, safe from men, and come out only during storms to feed on fish in the sea.

But as an inducement, every hundred years a young man of the Ui Briuin bloodline is to be offered in sacrifice to them. Morriggan finally realizes her actions have made certain the prophecy is fulfilled...and she is devastated by it.

This section of the story ends with a replay of first scene, this time from Caoimhín's POV as he offers himself up as the first sacrifice.

Rough outline

This is part of what I've got for the first outline of the beginning of Darian's Point:

Opens with three harpies flying high above, watching Caoimhín Ui Briuin and his men cross the sea in small boats. Waiting for them are Morriggan and The Dagda, the leaders of the Tuatha Dé Danann, at Darian’s Point, a peninsula on Inish Ciuin, a small island near the Cliffs of Moher. 

The men are battle-scarred and angry. They have come to offer one of their own as a sacrifice, for peace. Caoimhín declares himself to be the one. Morriggan is not pleased, and neither is the Dagda, but they have to accept.

They go through a ritual. A mist builds, blocking out everything, then the three creatures swoop in and Caoimhín is killed as he begs forgiveness from Caera. 

Five years earlier, Caoimhín and Caera talk of wedding, she’s gathering reeds. Playful and in love, everything seems perfect. He hears a horn signaling a new hunt party has formed, so rushes off. 

Shortly after, the Dagda approaches, a blond, elegant, handsome man. He sees her. Talk. He’s headed home but a storm is coming. Probably won’t make it. She takes him to their crannog.

Caoimhín’s father agrees to provide the Dagda shelter for the night, even though the Tuatha Dé Danann have been rather haughty with the darker, more earthy Ui Briuins, whom they see as lowlifes. He's even given a hut of his own, to honor his high standing.

The storm blows in. Caera serves him, and he flirts with her. She’s flattered and reciprocates. 

Caoimhín returns from the hunt with just one boar. He sees Caera with the Dagda and is jealous. Father tells him to cool it, the man is a guest. Caoimhín storms off. Caera is angry with him, then she is seduced by the Dagda...but in a way that veers close to rape.

Seagull sees and goes to tell Morriggan. Furious that he’s with a lowlife woman, she casts runes to find the one Caera cares most about, and it’s Caoimhín. Morriggan finds him atop the Cliffs of Moher, looking out over the stormy ocean. She seduces him...and becomes pregnant by him.

Caera also winds up pregnant. Everyone thinks it’s Caoimhín’s, but he denies it. They are forced to marry, but he will not sleep with her. “Dream of your god-man.” 

Many months later, Caera has a boy. “Born with hair the color of moonbeams, and eyes as blue as the sky...and already open.” This is not considered good. The Ui Briuins have dark hair and brown eyes, so everyone now knows the child is not of their bloodline. Caera admits baby is the Dagda’s. That Caoimhín has never been with her.

Caoimhín refuses the child and Caera. His father takes on their responsibility, angry with Caoimhín for his unwillingness to accept human weakness. Hopes he doesn’t regret it.

Intriguing...

I worked this up as a bridge, late in the section telling of the beginning of the curse at Darian's Point. The clau Ui Briuin and the Tautha De Danann have joined forces to fight the terror of the harpies. They have killed four of the seven, but only at a cost of a great many men. Both sides are exhausted, so Morriggan, who brought the harpies to life, brokers a truce and carries peace terms to the beleaguered creatures.

Now comes the one who gave us birth
And sorrow fills her every step 

Then soon her voice, with little mirth, 

Will say, "Agree or die." We wept. 

This end was seen so long ago 

In how she joined with men despised 

Once by her, but her heart will show 

She cares not. War will be reprised 

If we contend our fault was pure 

And did but only what she wished. 

"That claim," she said, "will but ensure 

You three no longer will exist."

"You made us whole," did we reply.

"Female times seven, built with wing 

To roam the earth and own the sky. 

But in each heart let sadness sing. 

No one for us to live and breathe 

In harmony. No male to join 

With each of us. And so we grieve 

As you then forbid us to coin 

Our depth of pain and suffering. 

To loneliness should we submit 

And hide our lives. Let each day bring 

New joy to worlds we must forget."

"The fault is mine," said she. "I know 

That I have done to you great wrong. 

And punishment is now the goal 

Meant for myself. And so, ere long 

I give to you one simple right 

So long as you will hold this pact 

When storms approach in dead of night 

Then fly you will, not be attacked. 

No foe approach. You will stay free 

To dance as waves crash to the shore 

And feed upon fish in the sea. 

And thus it shall be, evermore." 

"What pleasure comes from such a choice 

As to have no full life?" we cried. 

"And let those creatures then rejoice 

At how our four sisters have died?" 

"That is not all," our mother claimed. 

"Each hundred years at harvest moon 

A young man of my line is named 

And given as your feast. He soon 

Is readied at Point Dar Rian 

To seal this promise with his life 

Once rich and full." Thus it began. 

And they pronounced the end of strife. 

But unsaid in our mother’s claim 

Was how someday this pact would end 

With the last death of he whose name 

And blood from her line did extend. 

Now soon will we join with our foes 

To give our promise to them all. 

In cliffs we live so no one knows 

Of our existence, but to call 

Forth myths and tales of years gone by 

When king and queen of great renown 

Did walk the land and own the sky, 

Where now none more shall wear the crown.

I rock...

Pat on the back time. I finished The Beast Dines Out. Uploaded the last chapter just a little while ago. It's 84,000 words. If I combine the first part of the story with this...the part that set everything up...it's just under 99,000. That's a fucking novel...with a lot of fucking in it.

But here's the thing...I didn't cop out at the end and make it all a dream or Dirc's fantasy as he's dying from being shot in the back by a policeman. I left it as reality, in the story, and he and Irin have built a thriving business with the US Government. They're actually contractors, providing pure iridium rocks in exchange for men to be used as sustenance for an extraterrestrial's intergalactic restaurant.

The liveliest, most obnoxious part was adding in a tip Dirc got for supplying a particularly succulent male for a certain group of aliens to feed upon. Nearly $5,000,000 in gold bars. Which he achieves a couple more times.

I mean, seriously, this story is way off the deep end...but I just let it go. And I don't mind it being available for free on GayDemon. Of course, on that site you have to read it by chapter, of which there are 32 in this part.

I guess I could make a single file of it for ebook. Considering the amount of mm sex in it, I know Ingram Spark won't go for making it a paperback, nor will D2D. They all got scrunchy on Carli's Kills, and that was heterosexual with only a few instances of actual fucking. As for KDP? Fuck that.

Still, I'm happy. I'm proud of myself for sticking with it, to the end. And for having an HEA for two men who are really vicious beasts. 

Hmmmmmmmm...this give me an idea. Maybe I'll have the harpies tell the opening of Darian's Point...

Oooohhhhh...the first chapter...told from their POV...ooooohhhhhh...

I don't care about him...

Felon47 is talking in Congress. I refuse to watch. The obscenity that inhabits the White House will lie, brag, blame others for his mistakes, and take credit for things that he had nothing to do with. I have too much respect for my blood pressure to even try to tolerate his filth. He's the first person I've ever actively wished would die, and I'm rooting for McDonald's to be the cause.

So instead, I found the ending to The Beast Dines Out and now just need to add a coda to finalize it. The total story is close to 100K in wordage. Jesus, sometimes I just can't shut up.

Next comes the beginning of Darian's Point, a three part novel set, first, in ancient Ireland, then in 1910, then in modern day. I have it outlined, structurally. Something I never do.

My preferred method of writing is to jump in and let the characters lead me through the story. But this one needs details and actions that I need to make certain wind up in it. If I'm writing along, I can't be sure I'd remember some aspects to add and once it's done, I hate going back to break the pace and/or rhythm that it's developed.

Now there's no law that says I have to be slavish to the outline. It's mainly there to give me a foundation upon which to begin building. An initial blueprint. It'll be interesting to see how much I deviate from it.

A friend of mine in London has used Artificial Intelligence to work up a couple of short stories and sent them to me for comment. He inputs an idea and follows it up with prompts...and somehow it comes together.

What came out doesn't read like his usual writing. It's much smoother and the grammar is close to perfect. It's not bad. But there's none of the quirkiness he's got, and it has a fair amount of repetition. Readable. Acceptable. But forgettable, because there is nothing raw in it. It's just plain too polished.

The purest creator in me despises AI but the realist recognizes it's here and will be from now on. Dammit.

"Why no male for us?"

That is the simple five-letter sentence that unlocked the opening of Darian's Point...when the harpies are formed by magic. When Morriggan calls them forth, she makes them female, only, and once four are dead and she is trying to negotiate a truce between them and the men killing them, she finds they are not merely monsters. They are creatures of instinct and need.

So one of them pointedly asks her, Why no male for us? Why only females? Morriggan's response will be awkward and incomplete, because she does not want to admit she had lost her self-control and made them only from anger. She didn't think about them wanting companionship.

Which is kind of horrible, because part of the deal is they will remain solitary, living in the Moher Cliffs for centuries. Hidden and alone.

I've found that harpies come in all shapes of bird-type species. Male harpies (or alans) are larger and heavier than female alans (or harpies)...but I don't know if they can have offspring. Would they be sterile? Would their young come from eggs or birth like humans? I could just make it up on my own...

I am thinking the harpies have a more female appearance when not in flight. Almost elegant. Their wings folded in would look like a cloak of flowing hair. They would be more like bats' wings, with hands and fingers halfway along them. It may be a good idea for me to try and work up a sketch of them so I can reference it.

Still much to decide...but this is my new direction.

Are harpies really evil?

I think I may have found a way into Darian's Point that brings back the initial excitement I had over the story. Which apparently means this is going to be my next writing project.

I first wrote Darian's Point as an assignment for a screenwriting class I was taking, with Edward Dmytryk, in grad school. The story he gave me was about harpies that live in the caves of the Cliffs of Moher who come out during storms to feed on fish in the sea. What I wrote wasn't very good; I didn't have a handle on the story I was trying to write or characters, so it just sat there.

I've rewritten it, several times, finally settling on it taking place in 1910, and that one copped a couple of screenwriting awards. It followed Thomas and Marion, a married couple having difficulties. He was born and raised on Inish Ciuin, a small island off the western coast of Ireland in the shadow of the Cliffs. His mother still lives there, and they're en-route to visit her.

He'd moved to America and become an architect, and Marion was part of Boston's finest society. They married very much against the wishes of her family because he was not of their class. Now they're close to breaking up, so have returned to his home to see if they can repair their relationship.

But there's a curse on his family. Three thousand years earlier, his ancestors joined forces with the Tuatha Dé Danann to stop seven harpies from wreaking death and chaos across the country. After killing four of them, both sides agreed to a pact--the harpies would live in the caves of the Cliffs and come out only during storms to feed on fish, in the sea. 

Then every hundred years, a young man from Thomas' lineage would be sacrificed to them. His father was the latest offering. It happened when Thomas was five. Now for some reason, the harpies have broken the pact and are back to their slaughter, and it looks as if Thomas must sacrifice himself to rebuild the pact.

When Marion realizes what is happening, she sets out to stop it. After all, it's the 20th Century. Harpies are mythical creatures from Greek mythology, not Irish. They can't possibly exist.

Or can they?

Well...my new insight into the story is...the harpies aren't evil. They abide by their instincts, like any creature does. They were forced to relinquish part of their true meaning by threat of annihilation. Threat of extinction. Any being would do what is needed to prevent that.

So now I can work out the beginning of the story, when it was set up. I hadn't realized it, but the harpies are as important to that part, as characters, as all the humans I had in it. Their cruelty is only like that of cats who catch mice and feed upon them. It's normal, to them.

So here we go....

Zen is not always achievable without a cat...

Cats are the most centered creatures there is, it seems. They can sit and look and think and not move for hours, and you have to wonder how they achieve that sort of peace while still being chaos monsters who also judge and make demands.

I haven't been owned by a cat since 1989, when I finally understood my life was too messy for me to be fair with an animal. It's the story of my family. My mother had three dogs, all of which got hit and killed by cars because she couldn't control them while on walks. And a sister had two dogs who fought over who was the alpha...until one killed the other.

I had a black and white feral kitten choose me as its servant, when I lived in Houston. I named him Edge, because he was edgy with everyone but me. Cleaned him. Fed him. Took care of him. Sometimes it seemed he would look at me in a way as to let me know he was happy.

But then I moved to a duplex and he hated it. He had his area and I'd removed him from it. And when I moved, again, to by the Galleria, he had enough of me and refused to let me anywhere near him. I could feed him and make sure he had water, but no more petting. His Majesty was sore displeased.

When I was moving to LA, I contacted some people who lived in the building where I'd found him and they were willing to take him in, so I tried for days to get him to come to me. But he wouldn't. And finally I had to go. And he came to watch me pack my car. And even though I offered him tuna and chicken, he just sat a hundred feet away from me, watching. Until finally I had to go.

I've refused to have an animal, since. Friends have had cats and I've loved playing with them. Ferrets. Horses. Even the office I was working in here in Buffalo had a couple of Birmans who were quite royal and tolerated me, especially when I put a heating pad in a box on my desk. But they were someone else's, and it felt better that way.

There are people in my building who have small dogs, and when see them I pet them, but that's it. If you can't be there 100% for the animal, you shouldn't have one. It's like having a child.

You have to be fair to it...and I can't be.