Jennifer De Salme

Make a donation

Click the PayPal button to sponsor Jennifer De Salme by making a donation to Clarion West:

Excerpt

He has the self-awareness to consider what he is made of now. Cade, weighed down by his connection to all three planes, sharp edged with Truth, says "you are like me". Tyr -- a name, but not a Name, if he even has one of the latter -- knows better and wonders why Cade would deem him worthy of the comparison. Cade sees echoes of himself in Tyr's growing personality and forgets that those shadows might be literal reflections.

Tyr's not quite like Rani either, though he still feels kinship with the little Manium. It isn't just their shared time under His command, either; it goes deeper than that, similar yet estranged. But where the memory of Rani is fire and earth, ghostly-pure in their balance, Tyr feels like ash. (He knows what those are now. He knows "heat" and "ground" and the feel of soft grey powerder against his fingertips.)

He tells Nata what he feels about himself and she tries to assure him that he's not giving himself enough credit. That it's too soon to judge the possible weight of his value. She doesn't have the senses to Feel and See, doesn't understand that his analogies aren't a form of self-belittling. Tyr doesn't know how to lie, even to himself, though he can recognize an untruth even before he learns to speak. His frank assessments are not accompanied by sorrow.

Jake is the only other person Tyr tells after Nata's attempts to comfort him make him realize that his friends won't "get" it. Jake nods and asks Tyr why: why ash, why echoes, why shadows? Tyr doesn't have the words to explain, but Jake -- brittle like Kasey, solid like Cade, edges smoothed with a depth the twins lack -- understands what he can't say. He says "Ash, however, implies that you are lifeless. Have Nata show you what 'banked coals' are and we'll discuss it next time we meet."

He does. They do. He thinks Jake sees something that he doesn't and wonders if Jake is being too kind or if it's Knowledge that Tyr is too new to understand.

Bio

Jennifer De Salme is a freelance writer and incorrigible daydreamer. Her head is often in the clouds, or in the fourth spatial dimension, with the angels she's obsessed over since childhood. Inspiration spawns from that same location and from copious amounts of coffee.

Outside the office, she is a member of the Waterville Writers Group, the Waterville Area Art Society, and is active in the local table-top gaming community via the shop where she met her fiance and his family. She has spent many an hour in libraries, having been employed by several from high school to present. Quiet time amongst the fantasy stacks is almost as good for her soul as a table in one of several local cafes.

Proud of her Franco-American ancestry, she is happy to call home the region history knew as Acadia. Jennifer lives in what passes for a bustling metropolis in central Maine with her fiance and two teenage boys, who are the cause of both great joy and many grey hairs. Three infinitely patient cats keep all four of their humans in line.

Publications

Nothing yet. My coauthor A.K. Cyrway and I are currently in the process of querying our first novel to agents.

Writing Description

As one could gather from the bio, I write primarily fantasy in all shapes and colors, from simplistic dialogues to rambling, philosophical character pieces. Science fiction influences do creep in all the time, thanks to my best friend/coauthor. I find theoretical space-time physics sneaking past my radar on a regular basis.

Writing Goals

Hard goal: 250 words a day, seven days a week, minimum, no matter how long I have to sit at the screen doing it. I may raise my minimum word count if it turns out I'm usually writing more, but my over-arching goal for this Write-a-thon is consistency and not quantity. I plan to focus on the main manuscript for Amy's and my second Pier Six book, but I'm never one to deny inspiration when it strikes.




Back to the main Write-a-thon page.